Some reflections on Sharifian’s approach to cultural linguistics

Abstract

The relation between language, culture and cognition has attracted the attention of many scholars from various fields of study. Cultural Linguistics, as a multidisciplinary area of research that investigates the interrelationship between language and cultural conceptualizations, has managed to attract researchers from around the world. Drawing on different methodological approaches, researchers have employed its analytical and theoretical framework in a wide range of languages to look into the relationship between cultural cognition and language. In this article, after a brief introduction of Cultural Linguistics and its theoretical and analytical framework, some thoughts about several current issues in Cultural Linguistics are shared, including the lack of clarity of some terms, the relation between values and cultural conceptualizations, the interconnected nature of theoretical and analytical tools, the universality and variation of conceptualizations, some methodological issues in research, and globalization, politics and reconceptualization. This article hopes to encourage constructive discussions on these issues in Cultural Linguistics.