The book presents Cognitive Linguistics as a framework for the study of cultural variation in world Englishes and within languages in general by offering a corpus-based analysis of the linguistic realization of the cultural model of community in African English. It also reflects on the role of English in intercultural communication and positions Cognitive Linguistics within a wider hermeneutic tradition.
Now established as an effective tool in the instructional process, multimedia has penetrated educational systems at almost every level of study. In their quest to maximize educational outcomes and identify best practices, multimedia researchers are now expanding their examinations to extend towards the cognitive functionality of multimedia.
The 1987 landmark publications by G. Lakoff and M. Johnson made image schema one of the cornerstone concepts of the emerging experientialist paradigm of Cognitive Linguistics, a framework founded upon the rejection of the mind-body dichotomy and stressing the fundamentally embodied nature of meaning, imagination and reason - hence language. Conceived of as the pre-linguistic, dynamic and highly schematic gestalts arising directly from motor movement, object manipulation, and perceptual interaction, image schemas served to anchor abstract reasoning and imagination to sensori-motor patterns in the conceptual theory of metaphor.
The papers in this volume reflect current trends in international research in pragmatics over recent years. The unique feature of the book is that the authors coming from ten different countries represent all aspects of pragmatics and address issues that have emerged as the result of recent research in pragmatics proper and neighboring fields such as cognitive psychology, philosophy, and communication. Recent theoretical work on the semantics/pragmatics interface, empirical work within cognitive and developmental psychology, intercultural communication and bilingual pragmatics have directed attention to issues that warrant reexamination and revision of some of the central tenets and claims of the field of pragmatics.