Cognitive Linguistics and interactional discourse: time to enter into dialogue

Abstract

Usage-based theories hold that the sole resource for language users’ linguistic systems is language use (Barlow & Kemmer, 2000; Langacker, 1988; Tomasello, 1999, 2003). Researchers working in the usage-based paradigm, which is often equated with cognitive-functional linguistics (e.g., Ibbotson, 2013, Tomasello, 2003), seem to widely agree that the primary setting for language use is interaction, with spontaneous face-to-face interaction playing a primordial role (e.g., Bybee, 2010; Clark, 1996; Geeraerts & Cuyckens, 2007; Langacker, 2008; Oakley & Hougaard, 2008; Zlatev, 2014). It should, then, follow that usage-based models of language are not only compatible with evidence from communication research but also that they are intrinsically grounded in authentic, multi-party language use in all its diversity and complexities. This should be a logical consequence, as a usage-based understanding of language processing and human sense-making cannot be separated from the study of interaction. However, the overwhelming majority of the literature in Cognitive Linguistics (CL) does not deal with the analysis of dialogic data or with issues of interactional conceptualization. It is our firm belief that this is at odds with the interactional foundation of the usage-based hypothesis. Furthermore, we are convinced that an ‘interactional turn’ is not only essential to the credibility and further development of Cognitive Linguistics as a theory of language and cognition as such. Rather, CL-inspired perspectives on interactional language use may provide insights that other, non-cognitive approaches to discourse and interaction are bound to overlook. To that aim, this special issue brings together four contributions that involve the analysis of interactional discourse phenomena by drawing on tools and methods from the broad field of Cognitive Linguistics.

Delineating extravagance

“…Another open question concerns the relation between extravagance and other, partly overlapping concepts such as expressivity and evaluativity (see footnote 1 above), all of which relate to pragmatic and interpersonal dimensions of linguistic constructions. Given the "interactional turn" in many areas of usage-based linguistics, including Cognitive Linguistics and Construction Grammar (see Zima & Brône 2015), these often neglected dimensions have recently come to the centre of attention in constructionist approaches. While previous work has convincingly shown that they can contribute to explanatory accounts of language variation and change, there is still some conceptual and terminological groundwork to be done, and we hope that the present paper can serve as a first stepping stone towards that goal.…”

Resonance and engagement through (dis-)agreement: Evidence of persistent constructional priming from Mandarin naturalistic interaction

“…This 'dialogic turn combines insights from usage-based linguistics, conversation analysis and interactional pragmatics, and it has been formalised in the so-called dialogic syntax paradigm (cf. ; see also Zima & Brône 2015;Tantucci et al 2018). The aim of dialogic syntax is to cast new light on both the formal and the pragmatic encoding of meaning as an adaptive mechanism unfolding through dialogic engagement, viz.…”

A cognitive-functional approach to utterance pairs: A critical review of dialogic construction grammar

“…For this book, there is a beginning with the introduction to the dialogic turn in cognitive linguistic studies, discussed in chapter 1. As a term originating from "interactional turn" intending to yield dynamic perspectives in examining discourse and interactional language, 'dialogic turn' unveils the view that intersubjectivity in interpersonal interaction among humans ought to be probed in the construction of paired utterances (Zima and Brône, 2015;Zeng, 2018).…”