Cognition/
Cognitive Linguistics

Ledia Kazazi, University of Elbasan "Aleksandër Xhuvani", Albania
lediakazazi@gmail.com

Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, University of Applied Sciences in Konin, Poland
barbara.lewandowska-tomaszczyk@konin.edu.pl

According to Von Eckardt, cognition refers to conscious mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. Cognitive processes use existing knowledge and discover new knowledge. Cognitive linguistics is a school of linguistics and cognitive science which emerged from the early 1980s onwards; and Cognitive Linguistcs places central importance on the role of meaning, conceptual processes and embodied experience in the study of language and the mind and the way in which they intersect. Cognitive linguistics is an enterprise or an approach to the study of language and the mind rather than a single articulated theoretical framework. It is informed by two overarching principles or commitments: the generalisation commitment and the cognitive commitment.

The two best developed sub-branches of cognitive linguistics are cognitive semantics and cognitive approaches to grammar. While cognitive linguistics began to emerge in the 1980s as a broadly grounded intellectual movement, it traces its roots to work that was taking place in the 1970s, particularly in the United States, which was reacting to formal linguistics. Early pioneers in the 1970s who were instrumental in formulating this new approach include Gilles Fauconnier, Charles Fillmore, George Lakoff, Ronald Langacker, and Leonard Talmy.

Keywords: cognition, cognitive commitment, formal linguistics, generalisation commitment, mind

Related Entries: Belief, Cognitive Dissonance, Semantics

References:
Croft, W., & Cruse, D. A. (2004). Cognitive linguistics. Cambridge University Press.
Evans, V., & Green, M. (2006). Cognitive linguistics: An introduction. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates/Edinburgh University Press.
Lee, D. (2001). Cognitive linguistics: An introduction. Oxford University Press.
Oxford University Press. (n.d.). Cognition. In Lexico. Retrieved in 2025 from https://www.lexico.com/definition/cognition
Von Eckardt, B. (1996). What is cognitive science? In What is cognitive science? (pp. 45–72). MIT Press.