CULTURAL AND CIVILIZATIONAL PARAMETERS OF LINGUISTIC VARIATION: A COGNITIVE APPROACH

CULTURAL AND CIVILIZATIONAL PARAMETERS OF LINGUISTIC VARIATION: A COGNITIVE APPROACH

Author:  Demyankov V.Z.

Affiliation:  Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Abstract: 

The terms ‘civilization’ and ‘culture’ denote different ideas in the West-European humanities since the 18th century. Civilization is considered as something uniformly characterizing the human mentality as a whole, whereas human cultures are supposed to vary. Universal traits of languages are analogous to civilizational restrictions on linguistic cognition, whereas idiosyncratic features of the attested human languages may be looked at as culturally-determined features. Thus, the ideas of ‘eternity’ and ‘usualness’ are different from a civilizational point of view. But the empirical analysis of large text corpora shows that in Russian, the borderline between the ‘eternal’ and the ‘usual’ seems to be less strict than in English, German, and French.

Keywords:  civilization vs. culture, linguistic variation

References: 

Демьянков В.З. Понятие и концепт в художественной литературе и в научном языке // Вопросы филологии. 2001. № 1. С. 35-47.
Демьянков В.З. Интерпретативный подход к логическим противоречиям: обычное всегда в русском и западноевропейских языках // Когнитивные исследования языка. Вып. XV. Механизмы языковой когниции: cборник научных трудов / отв. ред. вып. В.З. Демьянков. М.: Ин-т языкознания РАН; Тамбов: Издательский дом ТГУ им. Г.Р. Державина, 2013. С. 22-32.
Baker M.C. Noun incorporation and the nature of linguistic representation // The role of theory in language description / Ed. by W.A. Foley. Berlin; N.Y.: Mouton de Gruyter, 1993. P. 13-44.
Bisang W. Grammaticalization and language contact, constructions and positions // The limits of grammaticalization / Ed. by A.G. Ramat, P.J. Hopper. – Amsterdam; Philadelphia: Benjamins, 1998. P. 13-58.
Fried M. Introduction: From instances of change to explanations of change // Variation and Change: Pragmatic perspectives / Ed. by M. Fried, J.-O. Östman, J. Verschueren. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2010. P. 1-16.
Hawkins J.A. Cross-linguistic Variation and Efficiency. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Ho-Abdullah I. Variety and Variability: A Corpus-based Cognitive Lexical-Semantics Analysis of Prepositional Usage in British, New Zealand and Malaysian English. Bern etc.: Lang, 2010.
Kaunisto M. Variation and change in the lexicon: A corpus-based analysis of adjectives in English ending in -ic and -ical. Amsterdam; N.Y.: Rodopi, 2007.
Krug M., Schlüter J., Rosenbach A. Introduction: Investigating language variation and change // Research Methods in Language Variation and Change / Ed. by M.G. Krug, J. Schlüter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. P. 1-13.
Levshina N., Geeraerts D., Speelman D. Towards a 3D-Grammar: Interaction of linguistic and extralinguistic factors in the use of Dutch causative constructions // Journal of Pragmatics. 2013. Vol. 52. P. 34-48.
Nettle D. Linguistic diversity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Nichols J. Linguistic diversity in space and time. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1992.
Niepokuj M. Variation and reconstruction: Introduction // Variation and Reconstruction / Ed. by Th.D. Cravens. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2006. P. 1-15.
Reppen R., Fitzmaurice S.M., Biber D. Introduction // Using Corpora to Explore Linguistic Variation / Ed. by R. Reppen S.M. Fitzmaurice, D. Biber. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: Benjamins, 2002. P. 7-11.
Sahlins M. D. How “natives” think: About Captain Cook, for example. Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Sasso R., Villani A. Le vocabulaire de Gilles Deleuze. Paris: Centre de Recherches de l’Histoire des Idées, 2003.
Steele J., Jordan P., Cochrane E. Evolutionary approaches to cultural and linguistic diversity // Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 2011. Vol. 365. № 1559. Cultural and linguistic diversity: Evolutionary approach. P. 3781-3785.

Pages:  28-38