Cover not available
Part of
Language, Culture and Identity – Signs of Life
Edited by Vera da Silva Sinha, Ana Moreno-Núñez and Zhen Tian
[Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts 13] 2020
► pp. 75–110

Chapter 5
The representation-cohesion-stance hypothesis

| University of Helsinki

This chapter argues that if we conceive of linguistic signs as inherently social signs, we should be able to capture social meaning at the grammatical level of the linguistic sign itself, not only in its use. It proposes that a way to do so is through analysing the linguistic sign as consisting of three semiotic modes, a symbolic, an iconic and an indexical mode. Using a descriptive grammatical approach, it illustrates these modes on the basis of a discourse structuring marker in the Australian Aboriginal language Ungarinyin and describes a linguistic methodology that applies separate analytical tools to each of the linguistic semiotic modes in order to capture interactions between these modes. This approach is referred to as the representation-cohesion-stance hypothesis. It is argued that only by accounting for non-symbolic meaning in a similar way that linguistics has traditionally accounted for symbolic meaning, we can develop a rounded view of socio-culturally conventionalised meaning.

Keywords: semiotic, cohesion, stance, sociality and grammar, Ungarinyin (Worrorran), Peirce
Article outline
  • Introduction
    • The limits of grammar
  • A descriptive challenge: The Ungarinyin definite subject marker
    • Conventional meaning of the Ungarinyin definite subject
    • Definite subject clustering in discourse
  • Grammar as a social instructive tool and a semiotic hybrid
    • Grammar is multimodal, in a Peircian sense
    • Grammatical signs as instruction
    • The linguistic sign as instructive modes
  • Representation, cohesion, stance
    • The definition of the definite subject reformulated in semiotic terms
    • Cohesion
    • Definite subject markers with a dominant indexical mode: cohesion-stance transgression
  • Discussion
    • Representation, cohesion and stance and the analytical paradox of cognitive-functional grammar
    • The hypothesis
  • Conclusion: Grammatical analysis and the linguistic sign in flux
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 April 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/clscc.13.05spr
References
Ariel, Mira
1988 “Referring and accessibility.” Journal Linguisitics 24: 65–87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail
1993 Toward a Philosophy of the Act. (M. Holquist and V. Liapunov, eds.). Austin: University of Texas.Google Scholar
Bühler, Karl
1934 Sprachtheorie. Die Dahrstellungsfunktion der Sprache. Jena: Fischer.Google Scholar
Callaghan, Tara, Moll, Henrike, Rakoczy, Hannes, Warneken, Felix, Liszkowski, Ulf, Behne, Tanya and Tomasello, Michael
2011 Early Social Cognition in Three Cultural Contexts. Boston/Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace L.
1974 “Language and consciousness.” Language 50 (1): 111–133. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1994 Discourse, consciousness, and time: the flow and displacement of conscious experience in speaking and writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam
2005 “Three Factors in Language Design.” LinguisticInquiry 36 (1): 1–22.Google Scholar
Coate, Howard H. J., and Oates, Lynette Frances
1970 A Grammar of Ngarinjin, Western Australia. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Croft, William
2001 Radical Construction Grammar: syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dancygier, Barbara
2016 “Concluding remarks: Why viewpoint matters.” In Viewpoint and the Fabric of Meaning: Form and Use of Viewpoint Tools across Languages and Modalities, Barbara Dancygier, Wei-lun Lu, and Arie Verhagen (eds.), 281–288. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dor, Daniel
2015 The Instruction of Imagination: Language as a Social Communication Technology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016 “From experience to imagination: Language and its evolution as a social communication technology.” Journal Neurolinguistics.Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W.
1987 “The Discourse Basis of Ergativity.” Language 63 (4): 805–855. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 “The stance triangle.” In Stancetaking in Discourse. Robert Englebretson (ed), 139–182. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ferrara, Lindsay, and Hodge, Gabrielle
2018 “Language as Description, Indication, and Depiction.” Frontiers Psychology 9. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fox, Barbara
1987 “Anaphora in popular written English narratives.” In Coherence and grounding in discourse, Russell S. Tomlin (ed), 157–174. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 Principles shaping grammatical practices: an exploration. Discourse Studies 9 (3): 299–318.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fried, Mirjam and Östman, Jan-Ola
2004 “Construction Grammar: A thumbnail sketch.” In Construction Grammar in a Cross-Language Perspective. Mirjam Fried and Jan-Ola Östman (eds.), 11–86. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gijn, Rik van
2016 “Switch reference: An overview.” In Switch Reference 2.0. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, Adele E.
1995 Constructions: a Construction Grammar approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
2006 Constructions at Work: The Nature of Generalization in Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2009 “The nature of generalization in language.” CognitiveLinguistics 20 (1): 93–127.Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K.
1985 An introduction to functional grammar. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K. and Hasan, Ruqaia
1976 Cohesion in English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Hengeveld, Kees and Mackenzie, J. Lachlan
2008 Functional Discourse Grammar: A typologically-based theory of language structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Himmelmann, Nikolaus P.
1998 “Documentary and descriptive linguistics.” Journal Linguistics 36: 161–195.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Thomas and Trousdale, Graeme
(eds.) 2013 The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jakobson, Roman
1980 The framework of language. Michigan: Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies.Google Scholar
Kaminski, Juliane, Call, Josep and Tomasello, Michael
2008 “Chimpanzees know what others know, but not what they believe.” Cognition 109: 224–234. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kibrik, Andrej A.
1999 “Reference and working memory cognitive inferences from discourse observations.” In Discourse Studies in Cognitive Linguistics. Karen Van Hoek, Andrej A. Kibrik and Leo Noordman (eds.), 29–52. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 Reference in Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W.
2009 “Cognitive (Construction) Grammar.” CognitiveLinguistics 20 (1): 167–176.Google Scholar
McGregor, William B.
2002 Verb classification in Australian languages. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 “Optionality in grammar and language use.” Linguistics 51 (6): 1147–1204. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McGregor, William B. and Rumsey, Alan
2009 Worrorran Revisited. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Mercier, Hugo and Sperber, Dan
2011 “Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory.” Behavioral brain sciences 34: 57–111. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017 The Enigma of Reason. Harvard: Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Merrell, Floyd
2001 “Charles Sanders Peirce’s Concept of the Sign.” In The Routledge Companion to Semiotics and Linguistics, Paul Cobley (ed), 28–39. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Moll, Henrike, Carpenter, Malinda and Tomasello, Michael
2014 “Two- and 3-Year-Olds Know What Others Have and Have Not Heard.” Journal Cognition Development, 15 (1): 12–21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nichols, Joanna
1986 Head-marking and dependent-marking languages. Language 62: 524–541. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roberts, John R.
1987 Amele. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Rosch, Eleanor
1975 “Cognitive representations of semantic categories.” Journal Experimental Psychology: General 104: 192–233. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rosenbaum, R. Shayna, Stuss, Donald T., Levine, Brian, and Tulving, Endel
2007 “Theory of mind is independent of episodic memory.” Science 318: 1257. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rumsey, Alan
1982 An Intra-Sentence Grammar of Ungarinjin, North-Western Australia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Selting, Margret and Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth
(eds.) 2001 Studies in Interactional Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Michael
1976 “Hierarchy of features and ergativity.” In Grammatical Categories in Australian Languages. Robert M. W. Dixon (ed), 112–171. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Spronck, Stef.
2020 Grammar and levels of addressivity: Exploring Ungarinyin engagement. Open Linguistics. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Spronck, Stef
2015 Reported speech in Ungarinyin: grammar and social cognition in a language of the Kimberley region, Western Australia. The Australian National University. Available at [URL]
Stirling, Lesley
1993 Switch-reference and discourse representation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, Michael
2003 Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Harvard: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
2014a A Natural History of Human Thinking. Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014b “The ultra-social animal.” European Journal Social Psychology 44: 187–194. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs
2010 “(Inter)subjectivity and (inter)subjectification: A reassessment.” In Subjectification, Intersubjectification and Grammaticalization, Kristine Davidse, Lieven Vandelanotte and Hubert Cuyckens (eds.), 29–71. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Valin, Jr. Robert D. and LaPolla, Randi J.
1997 Syntax: structure, meaning and function. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Claire Bowern
2023. The Oxford Guide to Australian Languages, DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.