Meaning is embodied - but it is also social. If Cognitive Linguistics is to be a complete theory of language in use, it must cover the whole spectrum from grounded cognition to discourse struggles and bullshit. This book tries to show how. Cognitive Linguistics knocked down the wall between language and the experiential content of the human mind. Frame semantics, embodiment, conceptual construal, figure-ground organization, metaphorical mapping, and mental spaces are among the results of this breakthrough, which at the same time provided cognitive science as a whole with an essential human dimension. A new phase began when Cognitive Linguistics started to see itself as part of the wider movement of 'usage-based' linguistics. Bringing about an alliance between mind and discourse, it complemented the conceptual dimension that had been dominant until then with a 'use' dimension - thereby living up to the explicit 'experiential' commitment of Cognitive Linguistics. This outward expansion is continuing: The focus on 'meaning construction', which began with the theory of blending, highlights emergent, online effects rather than underlying mappings. Cognitive Linguistics is integrating the evolutionary perspective, which links up individual and population-based features of language. The empirical obligations incurred by this expansion have led to greatly increased attention to corpus and experimental methods, especially in relation to sociolinguistic and language acquisition research. The book describes this development and goes on to discuss the foundational challenge that it creates for Cognitive Linguistics as it begins to cover issues that are also central to types of discourse analysis focusing on social processes of determination. The book argues for a synthesis based on a renewed Cognitive Linguistics, which can accommodate everything from bodily grounding to deconstructible floating signifiers in an integrated complete picture, which also covers the roles of arbitrariness and structure.

Speculations on social and political problems must from the nature of the case have a psycho logical basis, conscious or unconscious. Whether we are concerned with a description or analysis of the actual behaviour of human beings in the various spheres of activity, or with the problem of ideals or principles which man ought to follow, a knowledge of human potentialities, of the nature of his innate and acquired equipment, of the motive forces of life and conduct is evidently of the greatest importance. And we do in fact find that writers on Politics, Economics, Ethics and the like proceed on certain assumptions as to what recalled the “laws of human nature” Thus to take but a few instances, the political theory of Hobbes rests on the assumption that man is moved to action by fundamentally egoistic impulses and that the basis of obedience is fear, while such writers as Sir Henry Maine find that basis in habit and others again in rational consent. The Utilitarian School in politics and ethics was based on certain psychological assumptions, though they were not all consciously realized by the members of that school in an equal degree, viz. that human action is guided entirely by a conscious pursuit of ends, that the sole motive of action is the attainment of pleasure and the avoidance of pain and that happiness is identical, with a sum of pleasures. These or similar psychological assumptions also underlay the economics of the laissez-faire school Again in popular thinking on social matters nothing is more common Than a reference to what are supposed to be the laws of human nature. Human nature being what it is, it is often maintained, wars are inevitable Others argue that while human nature remains the same, Socialism is utterly impracticable and open competition the only method of securing initiative and energy in industry. One of the most common dogmas in this connexion is the immutability of human nature, which is invariably urged against any new proposals. One would imagine that we were in fact possessed of a science of human character and conduct which would enable us to speak with any certainty of what is and what is not attainable by human endeavour, whereas the truth is that such a science is yet in its infancy and has hardly gone beyond the stage of rough empirical generalization Despite the obvious importance of a knowledge of the psychological factors operating in political and social affairs, the conscious application of psycho logical principles to social theory or rather the attempt to build up a social psychology is a recent growth. The movement may be said to begin in the latter half of the nineteenth century and is exceedingly complex. No attempt can be made here to disentangle the various elements that contributed to the creation of an atmosphere favourable to the psychological point of view; but the following phases may be distinguished....FROM THE BOOKS.

This is an excellent introduction to the subject, wide-ranging, authoritative and accessible. The presentation of key concepts in the understanding of contemporary childhood, followed by a series of thematic explorations, makes for an effective combination of breadth and depth. I would recommend it to students in particular." - Nigel Thomas, Professor Emeritus of Childhood and Youth, UCLAN

The book presents an alternative society which would emerge sometime in the distant future. It first attempts a theory of how societies come into existence. The Future Society then goes on to explain how through higher values of love, compassion and enlightenment there are infinite possibilities for the society to rise to higher and higher existential planes, and at the same time, how degradations in values can degenerate the societies to abysmal levels. The Future Society is conceptualized as a love and meditation based society which has transcended all parochialisms and risen to amazingly high levels of peace, prosperity and enlightenment. Its ways of living, doing and thinking are so dramatically different than those of ours that it will drive anyone into amazement and delightful wonderment!

List of fellows in v. 1-5, 7-16, 20-30, 32-33, 35-41, 45; continued since 1908 in the Proceedings, v. 28-