Cover not available
Part of
Multimodal Communication from a Construction Grammar Perspective
Edited by Kiki Nikiforidou and Mirjam Fried
[Constructional Approaches to Language 38] 2025
► pp. 26–37

Construction grammar, multimodal communication, and design features of language

Preliminaries to a consistent research program

| Leiden University Centre for Linguistics
The issue of the constructional status of a patterns of multimodal communication involves the necessity to determine the position of the pattern on several distinct dimensions. Does it use the auditory or the visual channel, or both? To what degree is it entrenched, conventional, or both? Does it exploit depictive or descriptive techniques of communication, or both? An answer to one of these questions does not determine the answers in the other dimensions; they correlate only partly. As a result, there can be no single combination of values on the dimensions such that it determines the constructional status of the pattern (yes or no). But while the correlations are only partial, particular values on some dimensions are differentially ‘attracted’ to certain values on another one (e.g. speech seems to be more attracted to conventionality than vision). In this paper, I demonstrate these points and explore some conceptual and causal differences and connections between these dimensions, for the purpose of enhancing conceptual clarity and distinguishing terminological from truly empirical issues.
Keywords:
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Differences between dimensions of constructions
    • 2.1Channels, description, and depiction
    • 2.2Entrenchment and conventionality
    • 2.3Interim summary
  • 3.Connections between dimensions of constructions
  • 4.Final remarks
  • Notes
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
References (18)
References
Clark, H. H. (2016). Depicting as a method of communication. Psychological Review, 123, 324–347. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dąbrowska, E. (2015). Individual differences in grammatical knowledge. In E. Dąbrowska, & D. Divjak (Eds.), Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 650–668). Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Enfield, N. J. (2015). A “Composite Utterances” approach to meaning. In C. Müller, A. J. Cienki, E. Fricke, S. H. Ladewig, D. McNeill, & S. Teßendorf (Eds.), Body — language — communication: An international handbook on multimodality in human interaction (689–707). Berlin/New York: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Hockett, Ch. F. (1960). The origin of speech. Scientific American, 203, 88–111. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holler, J., & Levinson, S. C. (2019). Multimodal language processing in human communication. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23, 639–652. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (2002). Foundations of language: Brain, meaning, grammar, evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keller, R. (1998). A theory of linguistic signs. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Langacker, R. W. (2008). Cognitive Grammar. A basic introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D. (1969). Convention. A philosophical study. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schilperoord, J., & Cohn, N. (2022). Before: Unimodal linguistics, After: Multimodal linguistics. A parallel architecture account of a multimodal construction. Cognitive Semantics, 8, 109–140. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schmid, H.-J. (2020). The dynamics of the linguistic system. Usage, conventionalization, and entrenchment. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schoonjans, S. (2017). Multimodal Construction Grammar issues are Construction Grammar issues. Linguistics Vanguard, 3 (s1). [ DOI logo].Google Scholar
Sweetser, E. (2009). What does it mean to compare language and gesture? Modalities and contrasts. In J. Guo, E. Lieven, N. Budwig, S. Ervin-Tripp, K. Nakamura, & S. Ozcaliskan (Eds.), Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language. Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin (pp. 357–366). New York/London: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Verhagen, A. (2021). Ten lectures on cognitive evolutionary linguistics. Leiden/Boston: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2023). The origins of perspective taking lie in iconic language use: Unifying theories of signs, conversation, and narrative perspective. Frontiers in Communication, 8, 623–662. [ DOI logo].Google Scholar
(2024). Evolution in linguistics — Conceptual innovation, metonymy, and miscommunication. Cognitive Semantics, 10, 33–54.Google Scholar
Zima, E., & Bergs, A. (2017). Multimodality and construction grammar. Linguistics Vanguard, 3(s1). [ DOI logo].Google Scholar
Zuidema, W. (2013). Language in nature: On the evolutionary roots of a cultural phenomenon. In Ph. M. Binder, & K. Smith (Eds.). The language phenomenon. Human communication from milliseconds to millennia (pp. 163–189). Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer Verlag. DOI logoGoogle Scholar