Mark Turner
Conceptual Blending as a Central Process of Grammar, Language, and Communication
The first principle of cognitive linguistics is to look for the origins of linguistic powers in robust mental operations not specific to language. For millennia, language science has assumed that human beings possess mental operations for unifying, combining, and merging patterns to create expressions, and that, conversely, human beings can analyze expressions they encounter to recognize patterns that were combined to produce them. I review some of the research concerned with these linguistic powers. An assumption of, or stipulation of, any such linguistic power needs to be converted into a non-language-specific explanation if the theory is to count as cognitive. I propose that the non-language-specific mental operation that accounts for these linguistic powers is blending, otherwise known as conceptual integration. I provide a topical review of blending in specific communicative form-meaning pairs, otherwise called “constructions.” Blending is involved in the creation of constructions and in the combining of constructions to create expressions.
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Abralin ao Vivo - Linguists Online is an initiative of Abralin - Associação Brasileira de Linguística in cooperation with CIPL – Comité International Permanent des Linguistes, ALFAL – Asociación de Lingüística y Filología de América Latina, SAEL – Sociedad Argentina de Estudios Lingüísticos and LSA – Linguistic Society of America.
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Abralin ao Vivo - Linguists Online é um projeto da Abralin - Associação Brasileira de Linguística, com a colaboração do CIPL – Comité International Permanent des Linguistes, da ALFAL – Asociación de Lingüística y Filología de América Latina, da SAEL – Sociedad Argentina de Estudios Lingüísticos e da LSA – Linguistic Society of America.
Para mais informações sobre o projeto, acesse a página abral.in/aovivo.
Por favor, considere a possibilidade de doar para o fundo da Abralin para a preservação de línguas indígenas: http://abral.in/doe.