The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct the understanding of the concept of democracy (Demokratie) in German by means of a cognitive definition developed and operationalized on the grounds of the ...analyses of the “Lublin School of Ethnolinguistics”. This type of definition is aimed at recreating the “cognitive structure” of the concept by giving all its linguistically and culturally relevant, stabilized and fixed features. Three types of sources were used as the material basis: dictionary, survey and text (including corpus), which were treated “separatively”. The synthetic cognitive definition of the Demokratie concept included features that could be focused around the following facets: hyperonyms, opposites, collections, social attributes, political attributes, ethical attributes, economic attributes.
The paper presents interdisciplinary research using the framework of cognitive linguistics based metaphor theory and nationalism studies of political science. Frames of movement are placed under ...scrutiny during the discourse analysis of the 2016 and 2021 election manifestos of the Scottish National Party and social media posts. In relation to metaphors of movement, images describing the future of an independent Scotland are also detected. The authors attempt to analyse and interpret findings both from the perspective of cognitive linguistics and ethno-symbolism. Apart from the texts of the manifestos, the timeframe of the research involved social media posts two months preceding and two months following the elections in both cases. Methodology was issue-driven and computer assisted but supervised: key words linked to movement were extracted from the manifestos and clustered. Their occurrence and frequency in the social media posts was checked. In the qualitative analysis phase, messages of the manifestos and of the posts were contrasted in order to answer our research question what kind of persuasive political discourse was used when options for the citizens were outlined.
Cognitive performance declines with age following different trajectories. The cognitive trade-off, however, between age and cognitive reserve is still not clear. In addition, bilingualism has been ...thought to play a role in delaying cognitive decline by affecting cognitive control outside the scope of language. However, the effect has been unreliably reproduced and without exploring sufficiently the differences between cognitive functions that govern language control. In the current study 112 adults varying in age, level of bilingualism and cognitive reserve, completed a modified version of the Simon task, which engaged the mechanisms of interference suppression and shifting. Using ex-Gaussian analysis, the Simon effect was replicated in the normal component and the shifting effect was found in the exponential. Additional linear mixed-effects model analysis showed a significant “negative” effect of bilingualism on inhibition and a “positive” effect of cognitive reserve on shifting, both independent of age. Age affected similarly the speed of engagement of both executive functions irrespectively of language or cognitive background. Implications of a bilingual disadvantage and a beneficial effect of cognitive reserve during ageing are discussed.
The paper explores English animal zero plurals using data culled from the BNC and argues that the rarely discussed pattern is motivated by a cognitive factor. Specifically, it is argued that the use ...of the zero plural mirrors the inability to individuate referents in their natural habitat, i.e. the inability to distinguish between particular individuals. In nouns designating aquatic creatures the inability is rooted in the fact that human eyesight is able to penetrate the water surface only to a very limited extent, which makes animals that live underwater and do not surface practically invisible (e.g. They caught lots of herring vs. They observed a pod of whales). In the case of land animals and birds the inability is due to the fact that some animals live in large groups, which thwarts distinguishing particular specimens (e.g. They watched a herd of wildebeest / a covey of quail vs. They spooked a couple of grizzly bears). It is further shown that the zero plural pattern is the most widespread in generic contexts (e.g. There are about 2,700 species of snake), which accords well with the explanation argued for in the paper as species are mental constructs that can be readily talked about but are invisible to the naked eye.
The article aims to reconstruct the conceptualization of KÆRLIGHED (LOVE) in Old Danish (1100–1515). In the first part of the study, the structure of the concept in Old Danish is analyzed, and ...parallels are drawn to the modern-day concept of KÆRLIGHED, the most significant differences being registered in the subcategories of PATRIOTISM and ROMANTIC LOVE, as well as in connection with the sense ‘love to do’. In the following parts of the study, the most important aspects and conceptual metaphors of Old Danish KÆRLIGHED are revealed, demonstrating a great influence of Christian values. Lastly, the nouns ælskhugh and kærlikhet are analyzed, and the difference between them is described as a different profiling of the various aspects of KÆRLIGHED, such as JOY and PLEASURE.
This study aims to illustrate how visual and auditory perception are conceptualized in Swedish and what differences there are between them. Previous studies often discuss perception in relation to ...the oppositely directed motions between the perceiver and the object perceived. In the Perceiver-as-Source type, perception occurs when our eyes/gaze reach the object perceived. In the Perceived-as-Source type, perception takes place when sense stimuli reach the perceiver.
The data show two differences between visual and auditory perception. First, we find more metaphorical expressions for visual perception than for auditory perception. Second, we also find that, while visual perception has a stronger connection to the Perceiver-as-Source type, auditory perception is more strongly connected to the Perceived-as-Source type. These two differences are explained by the function of the perceptual organs.
The influence of human experience on observations about different physical and non-physical entities has been ignored and even denied for a long time within the framework of Western philosophy, which ...has been occupied with the question of language, among other things. Mark Johnson and George Lakoff’s cognitive approach to language, which developed in the 1980s, has shown that ways in which people interact with their environment have a strong effect on the ways of understanding concepts. Such understandings, if not entirely then in a fair degree, are realized by metaphors that there- fore cease to be primary and only defined as a stylistic device. Taking into account that gender and/or its contextual background are often overlooked in many analyses of conceptual metaphors, this paper endeavours to exami- ne the abstractness of the concepts woman and man through the research in The Corpus of Contemporary Serbian. If the human understanding of abstract concepts comes, at least partially, through metaphors, and woman and man as a subcategory of the concept human are abstract, then man and woman must also be represented through one of the possible forms of the metaphor – metaphorical linguistic expressions. At the same time, the so- cial context in which we are talking and thinking about women and men is marked by contemporary patriarchy and heteronormativity, and this is by no means negligible in its closer definition. Woman and man do not exist, or it is unimportant if they exist beyond human construction and imaginative conceptualization. The fact that something is a construct does not mean that it is without real and dangerous consequences.
