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Lexicography and cognitive linguistics
Zoltn Kvecses and Szilvia Csbi
Etvs Lornd University
The lexicon of a language is not an unstructured list of words. In this paper,we exemplify some of the basic conceptual structures that cognitive linguists work with and we discuss their potential applications to lexicographic work. Specically, we focus on the possible advantages of using cognitive linguisticsas a theoretical background in the structuring of entries, meanings, and idioms in dictionaries. In connection with these organizational issues, we discuss the knowledge-based organization of the mental lexicon (known as conceptual frames), and a type of organization of the mental lexicon that seems to be much more characteristic of Hungarian than of English: organization according to certain root morphemes. We also deal with the conceptualization of an element within a topic area through another element within the same topic area (known as conceptual metonymy), the conceptualization of a topic area in terms of another topic area (known as conceptual metaphor); and the internal organization of the various senses of a word-concept (known as polysemy). We devote a section to idioms and their role as well as possible arrangement in the dictionary. Such thematic structures have, on the whole, remained outside the focus of everyday lexicographic practice. Here, we hope to demonstrate their importance and usefulness.
Keywords: dictionaries, frames, roots, metonymy, metaphor
1. Introduction
In this paper, we argue for employing cognitive linguistics as a possible theoretical basis in lexicography, dictionary making. The challenge for cognitive linguistics is whether it can say anything important about what the arrangement of entries, meanings, and idioms should be like in a dictionary if our aim is to provide an arrangement that reects a presumed conceptual structuring, that is, a structuring that is more or less iconic with what we could possibly nd in the conceptual system.
Revista Espaola de Lingstica Aplicada 27:1 (2014), 118139. doi 10.1075/resla.27.1.05kov issn 02132028 / e-issn 22546774 John Benjamins Publishing Company
Lexicography and cognitive linguistics 119
As Rundell (2012, pp. 6465) illustrates, the issue of whether linguists should be consulted by lexicographers in the process of dictionary making is a rather controversial one, with some extreme arguments against seeking linguists advice about how language works. As Rundell (2012, p. 66) notes, [l]exicography involves an endless series...