Julia V. Kharuzina

Olga V. Chibisova

Komsomolsk-on-Amur State Technical University, Russia

Cognitive Linguistics: History of Formation

The most important achievement of modern linguistics is that it has moved from the study of language in isolation from its speakers to the description of the language in terms of its participation in the cognitive activity of man. It defines language as a tool of cognition, as a means of using knowledge and an application of social and historical experience, and as a way of expressing the action of consciousness.

Cognitive linguistics is based on the achievements of such sciences as cognitive science, cognitive psychology and linguistic semantics. In turn, cognitive science was formed in the process of creating artificial intelligence, when it was necessary to find out how people perceive the world around them, how they structure and store information, how they extracts the required data from memory. The goal of most research in this area was to construct computer models of natural language understanding. As a result, the experts in computer engineering and computer science, who worked at the time in the frame of the semiotic paradigm of symbolic processing, were able, to some extent, to meet the needs of linguists in correlating language material and the thought processes data. It is from them where cognitive linguistics borrowed models of human ability to acquire different kinds of knowledge and to represent them in a language that is the primary means of fixing, storing, transforming and transferring information.

Cognitive psychology studies the cognitive processes of the human psyche. According to the glossary of psychologic terms of the American Psychological Association, the study in this psychology field is related to the study of higher mental processes: attention, memory, perception, thinking, use of language and decision-making. For these purposes, it is possible to use the computer structures which allow simulating human mental activity in terms of information processing.

It was found [1] that data processing occurs in stages, consistently transforming stimuli of the outside world. The limited information processing capacity of the system causes the person to develop the most effective strategies for working with it. For cognitive linguistics of special value is the psychological concept of cognitive and conceptual models, as they are required to accounting the peculiarities of perceptual processes in language learning. The area of cognitive linguistics’ interest includes the study of the linguistic aspects of psychological hypotheses and their linguistic proving. For example, the ideas of Gestalt psychology had an undeniable impact on cognitive linguistics, but only after the results obtained by Gestalt psychology were interpreted by J. Lakoff and M. Johnson.

Linguistic semantics is the third, but no less significant source of cognitive linguistics. I.M. Kobozeva [2] distinguishes two conceptions of semantics - narrow and wide. The first studies the meaning of language units and linguistic expressions build by them; the second adds the study of meaning of linguistic expressions, acquired by them in real use conditions. The scientist herself adheres to the postulate that in the field of semantics needs including all the information implied by the speaker and due to be restored by the listener.

Cognitive linguistics continues to develop the provisions of linguistic semantics, extending the categories of language semantics to more general concepts. At the same time, linguistic semantics in explaining linguistic facts almost never investigates extralinguistic reasons for their occurrence, while the cognitive linguistics give them priority. Thus, L. Talma introduced into scientific use a number of conceptual categories which cover multiple grammatical phenomena. He formulated the fundamental principle of the force interaction, always present at the conceptualization of conceptual fields and influencing their linguistic expression. Using this principle one can explain the structuring of conceptual domains that describe the physical movement, social interaction, people's intentions and even the interaction between the components of the human psyche.

To the above sciences there should be added a few more, which also played a certain role in the development of cognitive linguistics. They are linguistic typology and ethnolinguistics which allow differentiating the universal and the specific to the structure of language. The first deals with the establishment of the general laws inherent in languages that are not related to each other by the same origin or influence. The phenomenon revealed in such a group of languages is considered to be a typological pattern applicable to any language. The second considers the relationship and interdependence of language and national mentality, language and spiritual culture, language and folklore, taking into account the specific characteristics of the ethnic group [3].

Special reference should be made about neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics. Neurolinguistics is connected with the study of the internal brain processes justifying human speech activity. Its areas of interest include the study of speech incentive recognition mechanisms, the processes of oral and writing speech production, mastering and use of foreign and native languages [4]. Cognitive neurolinguistics fconcentrates on identifying the specifics of speech functions participation in the mental processes of accumulation, storage, processing and use of knowledge. The focus of psycholinguistics is the individual in the communication, that is, human speech activity in the psychological and linguistic aspects. Psycholinguistics is engaged in the modeling and researching the processes of speech planning; mechanisms for connecting knowledge and language use; forms of linguistic knowledge underlying human use of language. Both areas of expertise involve analysis of the problems of language personality, language awareness, world view, mental processes at different levels of understanding.

Culturology let cognitive linguistics determine the effect of culture on the appearance and operation of concepts. Cultural linguistics, which arose at the intersection of cultural studies and linguistics, studies the relationship of language and culture as an integral structure "language - man - consciousness - culture". The cultural concept is a multidimensional mental formation connected with the verbal means of expression. The results of cultural linguistics’ studies allow creating dictionaries of concepts as the core concepts of culture [5]. Cognitive linguistics extensively uses the data of comparative historical linguistics on the etymology of words, which allow establishing the kinship of languages and discovering the facts of their long history by comparing their phonetics and grammar. Currently, much attention is paid to the study of languages recognized as isolated by origin; to the creation of the theory and practice of the texts reconstruction on the principles of language and culture interconnection.

At this stage of its development, cognitive linguistics deals with the nature of linguistic knowledge, methods of its mastering and ways of its using. It studied the knowledge presented in language signs, and the mechanism of its extraction; conditions that contribute to the emergence and evolution of signs; laws that organize their functioning; correlation of signs and cultural realities reflected in them. One of the main problems is to develop a cognitive theory of language that will take into account the interaction of the fundamental aspects of knowledge linguistic operating (representative, semiotic and interpretive), which is the result of a complete implementation of the basic functions of language (cognitive, communicative and interpretive).

Литература:

1. Болбаков Р. Г. Анализ когнитивности в науке и образовании // Перспективы науки и образования. 2014. № 4 (10). С.15-19.

2. Кобозева И.М. Лингвистическая семантика: Учебник. Изд. 5-е, испр. и доп. - Москва, Книжный дом «ЛИБРОКОМ». 2012. 352 с.

3. Чибисова О.В., Каминская И.В. Концепт «Время» в русской и китайской лингвокультурах // Вестник Рязанского государственного университета им. С.А. Есенина. 2012. № 35. С. 93-103.

4. Савостьянов А.Н., Когнитивные исследования и нейролингвистика: современное состояние и перспективы дальнейших исследований // Вестник Томского государственного университета, 2013. № 368. С. 133–140.

5. Товбаз А.А., Чибисова О.В. Концепт «Удача» в русских и китайских песнях // Успехи современного естествознания. 2012. № 5. С. 35.