Cover not available
Article published In:
Review of Cognitive Linguistics
Vol. 22:1 (2024) ► pp.100–123

Culture in a radically usage-based model of language change, with special reference to constructional attrition

ORCID logo | The University of Hong Kong
This article offers theoretical and programmatic reflection on how the impact of culture on language change should be accounted for from a radically usage-based diachronic construction grammatical perspective, with a focus on how cultural change can cause constructions to disappear from a language. It approaches this question through an assessment of how culture is incorporated in Schmid’s (2020) Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization model of ‘the dynamics of the linguistic system’. Against the backdrop of various proposals on the effect of ‘democratization’ in Anglo-Saxon culture on subtractive historical developments in the modal domain of English, and based on a study of interpersonal variation in the intrapersonal longitudinal development of a declining modal construction, the paper argues that the influence of culture on language change is mediated by entrenchment and that culture has a more extensive impact on entrenchment than the EC-model currently allows for.
Keywords: diachronic construction grammar, usage-based model, Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization model, individual differences, constructional attrition
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Constructional attrition and culture in the EC-model
    • 2.1A summary of the EC-model
    • 2.2Constructional attrition in the EC-model
    • 2.3Culture in the EC-model
  • 3.Democratization and the attrition of modal constructions
    • 3.1Attrition in the English modal domain
    • 3.2Democratization as an (independent) cultural factor
  • 4.In favour of a bigger role for culture in the entrenchment component of the EC-model
    • 4.1Individual differences in the decline of the Deontic nci construction
    • 4.2Culture as a force on entrenchment
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 May 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00152.noe
References (43)
References
Barðdal, J., Smirnova, E., Sommerer, L., & Gildea, S. (Eds.). (2015). Diachronic construction grammar. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colleman, T., & Noël, D. (2012). The Dutch evidential NCI: A case of constructional attrition. Journal of Historical Pragmatics, 13 (1), 1–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de Tocqueville, A. (1953[1835–40]). Democracy in America [De La Démocratie en Amérique]. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Disney, S. (2016). Another visit to be supposed to from a diachronic constructionist perspective. English studies, 97 (8), 892–916. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Enfield, N. J. (2002). Ethnosyntax: Introduction. In N. J. Enfield (Ed.), Ethnosyntax: Explorations in grammar and culture (pp. 3–30). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, V. (2012). Cognitive Linguistics. WIREs Cognitive Science, 3 (2), 129–141. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Garrard, J., Tolz, V., & White, R. (2000). Introduction. In J. Garrard, V. Tolz & R. White (Eds.), European democratization since 1800 (pp. 1–5). Houndmills: Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harrison, R. (1993). Democracy. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hilpert, M. (2020). The great temptation: What diachronic corpora do and do not reveal about social change. In P. Rautionaho, A. Nurmi & J. Klemola (Eds.), Corpora and the changing society: Studies in the evolution of English (pp. 3–28). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2021). Ten lectures on Diachronic Construction Grammar. Leiden: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kulick, D. (1992a). Language shift as cultural reproduction. In T. Dutton (Ed.), Culture change, language change (pp. 7–26). Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
(1992b). Language shift and cultural reproduction: Socialization, self, and syncretism in a Papua New Guinean village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Langacker, R. W. (1994). Culture, cognition, and grammar. In M. Pütz (Ed.), Language contact and language conflict (pp. 25–53). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leech, G. N. (2003). Modality on the move: The English modal auxiliaries 1961–1992. In R. Facchinetti, M. Krug & F. R. Palmer (Eds.), Modality in contemporary English (pp. 223–240). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leech, G. (2013). Where have all the modals gone? An essay on the declining frequency of core modal auxiliaries in recent standard English. In J. I. Marín-Arrese, M. Carretero Lapeyre, J. Arús Hita & J. van der Auwera (Eds.), English modality: Core, periphery and evidentiality (pp. 95–115). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leech, G., Hundt, M., Mair, C., & Smith, N. (2009). Change in contemporary English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mair, C. (2006). Twentieth-century English: History, variation and standardization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Myhill, J. (1995). Change and continuity in the functions of the American English modals. Linguistics, 33 (2), 157–211. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1996). The development of the strong obligation system in American English. American Speech, 71 (4), 339–388. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Noël, D. (2008). The nominative and infinitive in Late Modern English: A diachronic constructionist approach. Journal of English Linguistics, 36 (4), 314–340. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2011). The modal be bound to constructions and the dynamic English constructicon. Paper presented in the workshop on ‘Diachronic Construction Grammar’ at the 44th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE 2011), Logroño, Spain, 8–11 September 2011.
(2016). For a radically usage-based diachronic construction grammar. Belgian Journal of Linguistics, 30 1, 39–53. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2017). The development of non-deontic be bound to in a radically usage-based diachronic construction grammar perspective. Lingua, 199 1, 72–93. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Noël, Dirk. (2023). Towards a radically usage-based account of constructional attrition: Integrating subtractive language developments in the Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization model. In C. Gentens, L. Ghesquière, W. B. McGregor & A. Van linden (Eds.), Reconnecting form and meaning: In honour of Kristin Davidse (pp. 123–144). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Noël, D. & Colleman, T. (2021). Diachronic construction grammar. In X. Wen & J. R. Taylor (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of cognitive linguistics (pp. 662–675). London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Noël, D., & van der Auwera, J. (2008). Revisiting be supposed to from a diachronic constructionist perspective. English Studies, 90 (5), 599–623. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peeters, B. (2015). Language and cultural values: Adventures in applied ethnolinguistics. International Journal of Language and Culture, 2 (2), 133–141. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2016). applied ethnolinguistics is cultural linguistics, but is it cultural linguistics? International Journal of Language and Culture, 3 (2), 137–160. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Perkins, M. R. (1983). Modal expressions in English. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Schmid, H.-J. (2020). The dynamics of the linguistic system: Usage, conventionalization, and entrenchment. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Simpson, J. (2002). From common ground to syntactic construction: Associated path in Warlpiri. In N. J. Enfield (Ed.), Ethnosyntax: Explorations in grammar and culture (pp. 287–203). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sinha, C. (2021). Culture in language and cognition. In X. Wen & J. R. Taylor (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 387–407). London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stearns, P., & Stearns, C. Zisowitz. (1986). Anger: The struggle for emotional control in America’s history. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Traugott, E. Closs. (2022). Ten lectures on a diachronic constructionalist approach to discourse structuring markers. Leiden: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traugott, E. Closs, & Trousdale, G. (2013). Constructionalization and constructional changes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wierzbicka, A. (2002). English causative constructions in an ethnosyntactic perspective: Focusing on let . In N. J. Enfield (Ed.), Ethnosyntax: Explorations in grammar and culture (pp. 162–203). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(2003[1991]). Cross-cultural pragmatics: The semantics of human interaction. Second edition. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2006). English: Meaning and culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Jia, Furui
2024. A Study of the Impact of Internet Technology on Minority Languages and Cultures. Applied Mathematics and Nonlinear Sciences 9:1 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 september 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.