Cognitive sociolinguistics is an emerging field of linguistics that aims to account for linguistic variation in social settings with a cognitive explanatory framework. The goal of cognitive sociolinguists is to build a mental model of society, individuals, institutions and their relations to one another. Cognitive sociolinguists also strive to combine theories and methods used in cognitive linguistics and sociolinguistics to provide a more productive framework for future research on language variation. This burgeoning field concerning social implications on cognitive linguistics has yet received universal recognition.
Development Cognitive sociolinguistics understands how social meaning is transmitted and changed, all with a mental model framework.Geeraerts, Dirk, 2003. Cultural models of linguistic standardization. In: Rene ́ Dirven, Martin Pütz and Roslyn Frank (eds.), Cognitive Models in Language and Thought, 25-68. Cognitive Linguistics research 24 This notion was first formally introduced as an independent field of research by Gitte Kristiansen and Rene Dirven. Later, Dirk Geeraerts, an advocate of cognitive sociolinguistics, identified the field of investigation in three areas: behavior, attitudes, and evolution. Behavior seeks to understand socially structured variation in actual language use, while attitude attempts to understand how variation is perceived by speakers. In response to some criticism to this emerging field, he argues that the combination of cognition and sociolinguistics is relevant and important to our understanding of language because many aspects of language, such as allophones and phonemes, convey social meaning. Furthermore, meaning is also conveyed by the categorization of social groups and social stereotyping, all of which stem from a mental model.
Relevant theories
Essentialism versus non-essentialism The following theories are respectively tied to: 1. the concerns of cognitive linguistics, a semantic perspective and usage-based nature; 2. the tradition of sociolinguistics which describes the socially interactive nature of linguistic communication. The theories serve to lay bare the two distinct linguistic fields and introduce the need for a combination of the two—a cognitive sociolinguistic perspective.
Essentialism is an Aristotelian concept that states that words have or should have a single definite or salient meaning that is unchangeable. This view states that for any specific kind of entity, there is a set of characteristics or properties all of which any entity of that kind must possess. This notion most often manifests itself in explicit what-is-questions, like "what is science?", or "what is ethical?". This view is challenged by certain cognitive sociolinguists who argue that this view only leads to further complications. For example, an individual may say "a hill is a small mountain", however, this may lead to a further discussion on what is 'small' and what is a 'mountain'. Non-essentialism argues that "there is no essence or set of common, predetermined qualities belonging to entities in the world." Karol Janicki asserts that concepts and most words are 'fuzzy' and will cause confusion, and that there is not a single definition of a word. Thus, meanings of words are context dependent. Janicki further asserts that definitions, when given, should not be read 'from the left to the right', but rather 'from the right to the left', as in 'a small mountain is called a hill,' which defines a mountain without trying to distinguish the 'essence of a hill'.
Usage-based variations
Different from the view of language being abstractly stored in human minds, usage-based variation is a result of phonological, morphosyntactic, semantic, and discourse-functional factors. The Processing Hypothesis of online speech states that when an individual is processing a statement in their minds, they will choose the participle placement that will require less processing effort. "For most variables, this means that the erg particle will precede the direct object when the direct object requires a lot of processing effort, whereas the verb particle will follow the direct object when the latter requires little processing effort." He thought up a new and complicated theory of syntactic change. In the case above, it is more natural to say the first sentence which results in the particle coming before the direct object because it is complex and requires more processing effort.Kris Heylen, Jose Tummers and Dirk Geeraerts, 2008, Methodological issues in corpus-based cognitive linguistics.
A case study: Dutch presentatives In the Dutch language, adjunct-initial presentatives do not require the particle er in the post-verbal position. For example, Op de hoek van de straat is (er) een winkel On the corner of the street is (there) a shop "At the corner of the street, there is a shop" Grondelaers interprets the function of er in adjunct-initial preventatives in the light of Langacker's reference point theory. His results from the data suggest the presence of er reflects how well the initial adjunct and the verb serve as a reference point to situate the subject referent. "With the insertion of er, the speaker signals that the hearer cannot situate the subject referent very well on the basis of the adjunct and the verb, thus preparing the hearer for a subject that will require a lot of processing."Krist Helyen, Jose Tummers, Dirk Geeraerts, 2008, Methodological issues in corpus-based cognitive linguistics
A case study in polysemy--adjective awesome
Introduction A case study was conducted to show the benefits of cognitive sociolinguistic approach in investigating lexical polysemy (Robinson 2010). The advantage of such an approach was exemplified in people's different #usage-based variations in conceptualizations of the adjective awesome.
Experiment design
In the study, 72 English speakers were interviewed. They were locally born in South Yorkshire and ranged from age 11 to 92. To get the usage-based meanings of awesome, people were asked “who or what is awesome?” and after the volunteer's answer, a second question is posed, “why is ___ awesome?” Then, the response to that question shows the volunteer's usage-based conception of awesome.
The results analyzed in a cognitive semantics fashion confirms that awesome is a clustered with overlapping senses such as “great” “impressive” and “terrible”, as shown in the graph on the right. However, such analysis is sufficient only when the community is homogenous. Additionally, it is hard to observe patterns of language change and tendencies of usage. Sociolinguistic approach is, therefore, needed for a more thorough analysis of the data. Traditional sociolinguistic parameters—age, gender, socio-economic status—are taken into consideration. Figure 2 is a graph showing the usage of awesome in the context of age. It shows polysemous flexibility: not every meaning is equally representative within a polysemous category; not every meaning is equally salient for every speaker, even within the same speech community, which is important in the context of the value of socio-cognitive research. It extends the prototypical nature of meaning to (Rosch 1975, Geeraerts 1989) . It proposes methods towards usage-based concepts rather than abstract ones because each person's experiences in the worlds shape their understandings differently.
There is a clear pattern when we map the cognitive semantic analysis (as in Figure 1) onto the sociolinguistic analysis (as in Figure 2), that the use of the adjective is related to the speakers' age. Further, in the cognitive sociolinguistic fashioned analysis of external factors, there emerges a need of building a multifactorial statistical model. It measures the effect of multiple factors on the use of the senses of awesome at the same time. (In this case, the researchers employed logistic regression analysis, considering age group, gender, education, occupation and neighborhood environment.) This process of building a model to figure out what happens—how different factors contribute—to each individual (group) is an embodiment of the cognitive sociolinguistic approach of analysis.
Results from the statistical model
Logistic regression analysis evidences the use of awesome 'great' can be modeled from the age and gender of speakers, with age having a more significant overall effect than gender; awesome 'impressive' can be modeled from age, gender and potentially their living environment; no prediction can be made regarding the overall effect of external factors on the use of the meaning 'terrible'.
Analysis of the results Age being significant in most variation, therefore, indicates the semantic change based on the apparent time construct. This is not novel to sociolinguistics, as Labov's (1963) Martha's Vineyard study was the pioneer work in this area. In the awesome study, as well, real-time evidence (from the Oxford English Dictionary Online, for example,) proves the semantic change interpreted from the case study, that “great” is becoming the core meaning of awesome, and that “terrible” is archaic since it is only active in older members. Based on the cognitive sociolinguistic approach, the overlapping of senses shows diachronic succession (e.g. awesome 'terrible' > 'impressive' > 'great', with 'impressive' as a neutral transition, as opposed to 'terrible' > 'great' ). Additionally, the overlapping readings only occur “as expected” (e.g. the archaic sense of awesome 'terrible' occurs in the adjacent younger generation of its users—age 60 and up, not to the youngest generations.) Socio-cognitive analysis also helps us identify the responsible speakers for innovation as well as speakers who resist innovation: in this case, the age group of 31-60 first started using the sense “great”, and people over 60 are resisting the innovation since some are still using the oldest sense “terrible”.
Conclusion of the study The socio-cognitive analysis, as an interdisciplinary perspective, serves to present the systematic relationship between the semantic category fluctuations and the socio-demography of a community. The observations in the case study above contribute to validate the socio-cognitive field. As shown above, it organizes a “conceptual mess” and interpret it in a variationist framework. The complex cognitive polysemy forms regular patterns once it was mapped on the socio-demography of the community. The cognitive sociolinguistic approach, therefore, brings solutions to language research at a methodological and an analytical level (Robinson 2010).
Application of cognitive sociolinguistic models
Cultural models
Rationalist versus romantic models The rationalist model of language sees language as a logical item. It states that language is strictly a means of communication, an act of social participation, and language variation as an obstacle to emancipation. The romantic model of language understands language as a means of human expression of themselves and their identities. Language variation, according to this model, is also a means to express social exclusion.Geeraerts, 2003, The Inevitability of Cognitive SociolinguisticsFrank Polzenhagen and Rene Dirven 2008
rationalist model romantic model linguistic-philosophical basis language as a medium of communication (TOOL) language as a medium of expression (SOCIAL MARKER) conception of standardization and globalization a democratic ideal: standard/global language as a neutral medium of social participation and emancipation anti-ideological criticism: standard / global language as a medium of social exclusion and a threat to local identities conception of language variation language variation / multilingualism as functional specialization Language variation / multilingualism as expressing different and layered identities identity-language link arbitrary indexical, favors cognitive linguistic side, but also arbitrary if examined diachronically