Dylan Glynn on the theme of data-driven methodology in Cognitive Linguistics and its usefulness for the treatment of polysemy

In this post, I would like to bring attention to the work of Dylan Glynn whose on-going research is concerned with bridging the empirical and the cognitive. Here is how Glynn describes his own work:

The focus of my work is the development of methodology within the theoretical framework of Cognitive Linguistics. This school of thought imposes the minimal theoretical assumptions upon its model of language. It is for this reason that it is best placed to properly capture the complexity of language in a holistic manner. In methodological terms, I am most interested in finding ways to capture the multidimensional nature of language structure, from prosody and morphology through to semantics and culture. Specifically, I concentrate on the semantics of Grammatical Constructions, the polysemy and synonymy of lexis, iconicity in morphology, and the interaction of grammar, pragmatics, and metaphor-metonymy.(https://perswww.kuleuven.be/~u0049977/ling.html) [accessed 15/06/09]

As part of a talk given at the 10th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference in July 2007 at the University of Cracow, entitled Usage-Based Cognitive Semantics: A Quantitative Approach, Glynn makes a case for the quantitative treatment of lexical and constructional semantics and claims that "[c]orpus data respects the complexity of language and, if treated in sufficiently large quantities, enables generalisations about language structure that other methods cannot" (abst.). Further, "usage-based quantitative methodology (...) facilitates attempts to reveal the interaction between the different parameters of language simultaneously" (abst.) [my emphasis]

During his opening talk of the theme session Empirical Evidence. Converging approaches to constructional meaning to the Third International Conference of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association on September 25th-27th 2008, Glynn points out the fast growing interest in empirical cognitive research, particularly in the field of Cognitive Semantics:

Cognitive Linguistics has recently witnessed a new and healthy concern for empirical methodology. Using such methods, important in-roads have been made in the study of near-synonymy, syntactic alternation, syntactic variation and lexical licensing.

Further,

Empirical methods, and methodology generally, are one of the most important concerns for any descriptive science and the recent blossoming of research in this respect in Cognitive Linguistics can be seen as a maturing of the field. A range of recent anthologies on the issue, including Gries & Stefanowitsch (2006), Stefanowitsch & Gries (2006), Gonzales-Marquez & al. (2007), Andor & Pelyvas (forth.), Newman & Rice (forth.), and Glynn & Fischer (in preparation), can be seen as testimony to the importance attached to this issue. Despite the advances in this regard, how the different methods and the results they produce inform each other remains largely ill-understood. Although this question of how elicited, experimental and found data relate has been addressed in the work of Schonefeld (1999,2001), Gries & al. (2005, in press), Goldberg (2006), Arppe & Jarvikivi (in press), Gilquin (in press), Divjak (forth.), and Wiechmann (subm.), it warrants further investigation.

The fast development of data-driven investigation methods within the field of Cognitive Linguistics is further pointed out by Glynn in his opening talk to the theme session Empirical Approaches to Polysemy and Synonymy, at the Cognitive and Functional Perspectives on Dynamic Tendencies in Languages event, on May 29th-June 1 2008. In that particular address, Glynn presents empirical cognitive approaches as a way to address existing issues in the cognitive treatment of polysemy:

Within the cognitive tradition, both the study of polysemy and synonymy have rich traditions. Brugman (1983) and Vandeloise (1984) began the study of sense variation in spatial prepositions that evolved into the radial network model applied to a wide range of linguistic forms, especially grammatical cases and spatial prepositions (Janda 1993, Cuyckens 1995). (...) Despite the success of this research, studies such as Sandra & Rice (1995) and Tyler and Evans (2001) identified serious shortcomings. In light of this, empirical cognitive approaches to semantic structure do not question the validity of the radial network model, but seek to develop methods for testing proposed semantic variation and relation. (abs.) [my emphasis]

In relation to my project (which includes a Cognitive Linguistics treatment of polysemous may,can and pouvoir via an investigation of corpus data), it is with much excitement that I begin to explore the work if Dylan Glynn.

Below is a selected bibliography of Glynn's work and that will be of interest for my research (unfortunately, several references are still in press or in preparation!):

• Glynn, D. In press (6pp). Multifactorial Polysemy. Form and meaning variation in the complex web of usage. R. Caballero (ed.). Lexicología y lexicografía. Proceedings of the XXVI AESLA Conference. Almería: University of Almería Press.

• Glynn, D. 2008. Polysemy, Syntax, and Variation. A usage-based method for Cognitive Semantics. V. Evans & S. Pourcel (eds). New Directions in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

• Glynn, D. 2006. Conceptual Metonymy - A study in cognitive models, reference-points, and domain boundaries. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 42: 85-102.

• Glynn, D. 2006. Cognitive Semantics and Lexical Variation. Why we need a quantitative approach to conceptual structure. O. Prokhorova (ed.). Edinstvo sistemnogo i functionalnogo andliza yazykov (Systemic and Functional Analysis of Language). 53-60. Belgorod: Belgorod University Press.

In preparation:

• Glynn, D., Multidimensional Polysemy. A case study in usage-based cognitive semantics. Will be submitted to Cognitive Linguistics.

• Glynn, D., Geeraerts, D., & Speelman, D. Testing the hypothesis. Confirmatory statistical techniques for multifactorial data in Cognitive Semantics. D. Glynn & K. Fischer (ed.). Usage-Based Cognitive Semantics. Corpus-Driven methods for the study of meaning. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

• Glynn, D. & Fischer, K. (eds). Usage-Based Cognitive Semantics. Corpus-Driven methods for the study of meaning. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

• Glynn, D. Mapping Meaning. Toward a usage-based methodology in Cognitive Semantics. Will be submitted to Mouton de Gruyter.