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Article In: International Journal of Language and Culture: Online-First Articles

ABC for cultural linguistics

Achievements, battles, and challenges

ORCiD logo with link | Maria Curie-Skłodowska University
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Abstract
The article surveys the achievements of cultural linguistics over the last three decades. Cultural linguistics is understood here both in the sense of Farzad Sharifian’s specific model (Cultural Linguistics) and as a general approach to language and culture. In the 1990s, cultural linguistics made a commitment to incorporate insights from cognitive linguistics into cultural considerations of language. The article asks to what extent this commitment has been adhered to. What achievements can be listed, what failures, and what challenges for the future? Specific issues discussed include: language and worldview; language, culture, and mind; cultural cognition; cultural conceptualizations; universalism vs. linguacultural variation; and the challenges that cultural linguistics has to confront today, especially the problem of ‘glocalization’ of English. It is claimed that by meeting those challenges, cultural linguistics at large and Cultural Linguistics specifically stand a chance of becoming an important voice in academia and in contemporary socio-cultural discussion.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Where do we stand?
  • 3.What have we achieved?
    • 3.1Language and worldview
    • 3.2Language, culture, and mind
    • 3.3Cultural cognition
    • 3.4Cultural conceptualizations in CL
    • 3.5Commonality vs. variation
  • 4.Contemporary challenges to cultural linguistics/Cultural Linguistics
    • 4.1Climate catastrophe and ecology
    • 4.2Socio-political issues
    • 4.3Artificial intelligence
    • 4.4Intercultural communication and glocalization of English
    • 4.5(Non-)uniqueness of human language?
    • 4.6From linguaculture to lingua-nature-culture?
  • 5.Final word
  • Notes
  • Author queries
  • References
References (93)
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