Modelling thought and constructing meaning.

Cognitive Linguistics (CL) is a robust linguistic paradigm which analyses language in relation to other cognitive domains and faculties such as bodily and mental experiences, image schemas, perception, attention, memory, viewing frames, categorisation, abstract thought, emotion, reasoning, inferencing, etc. This volume opens with René Dirven’s overview of five major strands in CL, which broadly correspond to the five sections into which this collection of 15 papers is divided. Addressing a number of issues (such as, among others, metaphor and metonymy, constructions, blending, embodiment, semantic maps, and point of view), the contributions in this volume show that CL has become a “burgeoning linguistic paradigm” (R. Dirven), and exemplify what it may contribute to paradigms that are conceptually compatible with it (as e.g. functional and typological linguistics).

Contributions by René Dirven, Jan Nuyts, Annalisa Baicchi, Cristiano Broccias, Andrea Sansò, Antonio Barcelona, Rossella Pannain, Paul Sambre, Annamaria Caimi, Diane Ponterotto, Francisco J. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez and Olga I. Díez Velasco, Michele Prandi, Elzbieta Tabakowska, Cristina Cacciari, Paola Corradini, Roberto Padovani, Paola Palladino.

Annalisa Baicchi is Tenured Assistant Professor in English Linguistics at the University of Pavia.

Cristiano Broccias is Tenured Assistant Professor in English Linguistics at the University of Genoa.

Andrea Sansò is Assistant Professor in General Linguistics at the University of Pavia.