Does Cognitive Linguistics live up to its name
Does Cognitive Linguistics live up to its name?
Bert Peeters
There can be no doubt that structural linguistics, which flourished half a century ago on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, lived up to its name: it was structural because it considered languages to be self-contained entities that had either to be shaped into a rigorous structure, or actually possessed a structure which was real and merely waiting to be discovered. There can be no doubt either that transformational grammar, which in its heydays pushed structuralism into quasi-total oblivion, lived up to its name: it was transformational because it posited several successive strata or structures in sentence generation which were linked by means of transformations of all sorts. On the contemporary scene, there can be no doubt that functional linguistics lives up to its name: it attaches a great deal of importance to the way in which languages function and to the functions of language. The question that will be raised in the next few pages is the following: does Cognitive Linguistics, as we know it today, live up to its name?
