Merging insights from cognitive linguistic theories of language and learning theories originating within psychology, Divjak and Milin present a new paradigm that has computational modelling at its core. They showcase the power of this interdisciplinary approach for linguistic theory, methodology and description. Through a series of detailed case studies that model usage of the English article system, the Polish aspectual system, English tense/aspect contrasts and the Serbian case system they show how computational models anchored in learning can provide a simple and comprehensive account of how intricate phenomena that have long defied a unified treatment could be learned from exposure to usage alone. As such, their models form the basis for a first rigorous test of a core assumption of usage-based linguistics: that of the emergence of structure from use.

In Ten Lectures on Cognitive Linguistics and the Unification of Spoken and Signed Languages Sherman Wilcox suggests that rather than abstracting away from the material substance of language, linguists can discover the deep connections between signed and spoken languages by taking an embodied view. This embodied solution reveals the patterns and principles that unite languages across modalities. Using a multidisciplinary approach, Wilcox explores such issues as the how to apply cognitive grammar to the study of signed languages, the pervasive conceptual iconicity present throughout the lexicon and grammar of signed languages, the relation of language and gesture, the grammaticization of signs, the significance of motion for understanding language as a dynamic system, and the integration of cognitive neuroscience and cognitive linguistics.

Ten Lectures on Cognitive Linguistics as an Empirical Science details the relationship between form and meaning in language, especially at the systematic level of morphology. The role of metaphor and metonymy in elaborating meaning are investigated, as well as the structuring of semantics in terms of prototypes and radial categories. Implications for cultural studies and pedagogical applications are explored. The bulk of examples and data are drawn from the Slavic languages.

In her Beijing lectures, Melissa Bowerman presents a lucid introduction and account of her research on a range of topics: how children acquire the semantics of spatial terms, how they construct categories and acquire the semantics of nouns, and how they master the semantics of verbs in early language acquisition. Bowerman also covers the learning of argument structure and expressions of end-state, with special attention to the adult speech that guides children, and hence also the role of typology in acquisition; how cross-linguistic variation affects, for example, how speakers represent ‘cutting’ and ‘breaking’ in different languages, and the relation of the Whorfian Hypothesis to cross-linguistic variations in the semantics of languages. Bowerman’s over-riding concern throughout is with how children come to master the first language being spoken to them by their parents and caregivers.

In this interdisciplinary collection of lectures, Chris Sinha presents an overview of topics ranging from language in children’s play, through cultural conceptualizations of time, to philosophical and linguistic relativism. The intertwining of the evolutionary and individual time scales of human development is a key theme unifying the lectures, as is the fundamentally cultural nature of language and cognition. Familiar topics in cognitive linguistics, such as spatial semantics and conceptual blending, are addressed from these cultural, comparative and developmental perspectives. Chris Sinha also discusses the psychological roots of key concepts in cognitive linguistics, and sets out a biocultural approach to language evolution.

In this book, Christopher Hart provides a comprehensive description of an applied form of Cognitive Linguistics in Cognitive Critical Discourse Analysis (Cognitive CDA). Cognitive CDA applies frameworks in cognitive linguistics in analyses of political texts and talk to highlight the ideological qualities and legitimating functions of conceptualisations associated with dominant discourse practices. Across the ten lectures, various frameworks in cognitive linguistics are applied, including cognitive grammar, conceptual semantics, conceptual metaphor theory and discourse space theory. Texts and talk from a variety of contexts and genres are analysed. In the final two lectures, Cognitive CDA is extended to multimodal data in the form of images and gestures.

A series of 10 lectures on various aspects of Cognitive Linguistics as these relate to matters of language teaching and learning. Topics addressed include the role of categorization, the nature of rules, the encyclopaedic scope of semantics, spatial expressions, metaphor and metonymy, nouns and nominals, tense and aspect, and the theoretical status of the phoneme.

Ten Lectures on Cognitive Linguistics presents ten lectures, in both audio and transcribed text, given by George Lakoff in Beijing in April 2004. Lakoff gives an account of the background of cognitive linguistics, and basic mechanisms of thought, grammar, neural theory of language, metaphor, implications for Philosophy, and political linguistics. He does so in a manner that is accessible for anyone, including undergraduate level students and a general audience. With the massive experience of being a linguist for over 50 years, and being one of the founding fathers of the field, George Lakoff is one of the best possible experts to introduce Cognitive Linguistics to anyone. The lectures for this book were given at The China International Forum on Cognitive Linguistics in April 2004.

Conceiving of language and cognition as biological phenomena, these lectures provide and illustrate a coherent, integrated theoretical framework for studying essentially any aspect of language systems, language use, language change, and language evolution.

These lectures discuss cognitive modelling in language-based meaning construction. It puts forward a unified analytical framework for several linguistic phenomena, including different types of constructions, traditional implicature and speech acts, and figures of speech like metaphor, metonymy, hyperbole, and irony.