Editor: Günter Radden, University of Hamburg
Editor: Klaus-Uwe Panther, University of Hamburg
Hardback: ISBN: 3110182459 Pages: ix, 395 pages Price: Europe EURO 118.00
Abstract:
How much of language is motivated? Recently, cognitive and functional
linguists have proposed new solutions to this intriguing question. The
thirteen articles collected in this volume cover various aspects of
motivation in grammar and in the lexicon.
The phenomena discussed in the contributions can be grouped into four types
of motivation, which, along with other types, are explicated in the
introductory chapter: ecological motivation, i.e. motivation of a
linguistic unit due to its place, or "ecological niche," within a system;
genetic motivation, i.e. motivation of present-day linguistic behavior or
structure due to historical factors; experiential motivation, i.e.
motivation that is based on embodied experience; and cognitive motivation,
i.e. motivation that is based on human knowledge and cognitive operations
such as metonymy and metaphor. The languages studied in some detail include
Afrikaans, Croatian, Dutch, English, French, German, Hausa, and Hungarian.
This volume makes a strong case for the pervasiveness of motivation in
natural language. It will be of interest to teachers, researchers and
students of linguistics, especially of functional and cognitive linguistics.
Günter Radden and Klaus-Uwe Panther are Professors of English Linguistics
at the University of Hamburg, Germany.
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