Construal in expression : An intersubjective approach to Cognitive Grammar

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation is a metatheoretical survey into the central semantic concepts of Cognitive Grammar (CG), a semantics-driven theoretical grammar developed by Ronald W. Langacker. CG approaches language as a semiotic system inherently structured by certain cognition-general capacities, and it defends a usage-based conception of language, therefore denying the strict dichotomy between language and other realms of conceptualization and human experience. For CG, linguistic meaning is thus defined relative to our general cognitive and bodily disposition, as well as to the contents of experience the former structure. The cognitive and experiential aspects of meaning are described relative to so-called dimensions of construal. In this study, I will provide a systematic critical account of the theoretical explanation Cognitive Grammar provides for the dimensions of construal. The point of departure will be in social ontology of linguistic meaning developed and defended by Esa Itkonen, who has accordingly criticized Cognitive Grammar for inconsistent psychologism. According to Itkonen, linguistic meaning is an object of common knowledge and cannot be reduced into an individual s conceptualization; the dimensions of construal capture experiential meaning that is part of language as a social semiotic resource. This entails that linguistic semantics assume as its object of description non-objective, perspectival meanings that are commonly known. It will be argued that the usage-based nature of CG provides a way to release this tension between objective and non-objective aspects of meaning by explaining how perspectivity of semantics results from the acquisition and adjustment of meanings in actual discourse. This, however, necessitates an ontological revision of Cognitive Grammar and rehabilitation of the sociality of a linguistic meaning, which is the topic of this study. In addition to the work by Itkonen, prominent socially oriented cognitive linguists, such as Jordan Zlatev, have emphasized the necessary intersubjective basis of experiential meaning. Within the Fennistic studies, on the other hand, the intersubjective approach to CG and Cognitive Linguistics in general has taken the form of combining cognitive linguistic methodologies with Conversation Analysis. This study combines elements from both of these approaches in order to provide a comprehensive assessment of the notion of construal in CG. In so being, the main task of this study is to critically evaluate the cognition-based explanation for the dimensions of construal, provide a socially grounded alternative, and apply the alternative into analysis of construal in (written discourse). The thesis demonstrates that the dimensions of construal are not dependent on the aspects of cognitive theory on the basis of which they are argued for. Instead, the notion of construal is shown to be inherently intersubjective and context-sensitive. Construal captures aspects of semantic organization that are correlates of intersubjective alignment between conceptualizing subjects in a given discursive context.

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