Usage-based models of language: Difference between revisions

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{{Linguistics}}

The '''Usage-based linguistics''' is a [[linguistics]] approach within a broader [[Functional linguistics|functional]]/[[Cognitive linguistics|cognitive]] framework, that emerged since the late 1980s, and that assumes a profound relation between linguistic structure and usage.<ref name="Mengden2014">{{Cite book |doi = 10.1075/sfsl.69.01men|chapter = Introduction. The role of change in usage-based conceptions of language|title = Usage-Based Approaches to Language Change|series = Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics|year = 2014|last1 = von Mengden|first1 = Ferdinand|last2 = Coussé|first2 = Evie|volume = 69|pages = 1–20|isbn = 978-90-272-1579-6}}</ref> It challenges the dominant focus, in 20th century linguistics (and in particular con [[Formal linguistics|formalism]]-[[generativism]]), on considering language as an isolated system removed from its use in human interaction and human cognition.<ref name="Mengden2014"/> Rather, usage-based models posit that linguistic information is expressed via context-sensitive mental processing and mental representations, which have the cognitive ability to succinctly account for the complexity of actual language use at all levels ([[phonetics]] and [[phonology]], morphology and [[syntax]], [[pragmatics]] and [[semantics]]). Broadly speaking, a usage-based model of language accounts for [[language acquisition]] and processing, synchronic and diachronic patterns, and both low-level and high-level structure in language, by looking at actual language use. The term ''usage-based'' was coined by [[Ronald Langacker]] in 1987.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Serafima Gettys, Patricia Bayona, Rocío Rodríguez|title=From a Usage-Based Model to Usage-Based Instruction: Testing the theory|url=http://ijehd.cgrd.org/images/vol4no2/6.pdf|journal=International Journal of Education and Human Developments|volume=4|pages=50}}</ref> Usage-based models of language have become a significant new trend in linguistics since the early 2000s.<ref name="Mengden2014" />

Together with related approaches, including [[construction grammar]], emergent grammar, and language as a [[complex adaptive system]], usage-based linguistics belongs to the wider framework of [[evolutionary linguistics]]. It studies the life-span of linguistic units (e.g. words, suffixes), arguing that they can survive language change through frequent usage or by participating in usage-based generalizations if their syntactic, semantic of pragmatic features overlap other similar constructions.<ref name="Christiansen&Chater_2008">{{cite journal | last1=Christiansen | first1=Morten H. | last2=Chater | first2=Nick | date=2008 | title=Language as shaped by the brain | journal=Behavioral and Brain Sciences | volume= | issue=31 | pages=489–558 | doi=10.1017/S0140525X08004998 | url=https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/168484/1/download10.pdf | access-date=2020-12-22 }}</ref> There is disagreement whether such approaches are different from [[memetics]] or essentially the same.<ref name="Blackmore_2008">{{cite journal | last=Blackmore | first=Susan | date=2008 | title=Memes shape brains shape memes | journal=Behavioral and Brain Sciences | volume= | issue=31 | pages=513 | doi=10.1017/S0140525X08005037 | url=https://www.academia.edu/3444108/Memes_shape_brains_shape_memes | access-date=2020-12-22 }}</ref>

== Disciplinary roots ==