Cognitive sociolinguistics, language systems and the fall of empires

TY - CHAP

T1 - Cognitive sociolinguistics, language systems and the fall of empires

AU - Harder, Peter

N1 - Applications of Cognitive Linguistics ISSN: 1861-4078 Volume: 31

PY - 2015/10/16

Y1 - 2015/10/16

N2 - Variationist linguistics highlights the role of the social dimension and of processes of identity construction for understanding the choice of linguistic expressions in actual communication, while backgrounding the concept of an overall language "system". This is a natural consequence of the associations of the concept of the "system" with the abstract, quasi-mathematical monolith of the structuralist paradigm. However, after a generation of research predicated on emergence and variation, a sanitized version of a macro-level system may serve to profile the significance of the overall framework within which variation occurs, also in a perspective where the "system" is no longer the centrepiece. The paper explores this perspective both in relation to language as an object of description in itself and to language as an aspect of the wider social framework. In relation to language, the main point is that operating with the concept of a language system understood as a fact about the community, analogous to the education system, makes it possible to see variation as part of the system rather than antithetical to it: it encompasses the expressive options that are available in a given community, including variational choices. In relation to language as part of the wider sociocultural order, variation acquires significance as an integral p art o f o verall s ocial c hange. A s a n e xample, t he p aper d iscusses t he changing role of the concept of Britishness as part of the processes that brought about the demise of the British Empire.

AB - Variationist linguistics highlights the role of the social dimension and of processes of identity construction for understanding the choice of linguistic expressions in actual communication, while backgrounding the concept of an overall language "system". This is a natural consequence of the associations of the concept of the "system" with the abstract, quasi-mathematical monolith of the structuralist paradigm. However, after a generation of research predicated on emergence and variation, a sanitized version of a macro-level system may serve to profile the significance of the overall framework within which variation occurs, also in a perspective where the "system" is no longer the centrepiece. The paper explores this perspective both in relation to language as an object of description in itself and to language as an aspect of the wider social framework. In relation to language, the main point is that operating with the concept of a language system understood as a fact about the community, analogous to the education system, makes it possible to see variation as part of the system rather than antithetical to it: it encompasses the expressive options that are available in a given community, including variational choices. In relation to language as part of the wider sociocultural order, variation acquires significance as an integral p art o f o verall s ocial c hange. A s a n e xample, t he p aper d iscusses t he changing role of the concept of Britishness as part of the processes that brought about the demise of the British Empire.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - cognitive sociolinguistics, national identity, Britishness, onomasiologicxal salience

KW - Cognitive sociolinguistics

KW - language systems

M3 - Book chapter

SN - 978-3-11-044134-5

SP - 237

EP - 251

BT - Change of paradigms - new paradoxes

A2 - Daems, Jocelyne

A2 - Zenner, Eline

A2 - Heylen, Kris

A2 - Speelman, Dirk

A2 - Cuyckens, Hubert

PB - Mouton de Gruyter

CY - Berlin

ER -