COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS AND THE LINGUISTIC SIGN

Abstract

This paper attempts to illustrate the linguistic sign within the enterprise of cognitive linguistics. However, the cognitive linguistics approach is compared with the Saussurean model of linguistic sign. What stems from this is the view that the cognitive linguistics approach has widened the context of linguistic sign in a way inherent to its focus of study. As language is a cognitive process it is regarded in relation to other cognitive processes/domains such as mental experiences, image-schemas, perception, attention, memory, categorization, abstract thought, emotion, reasoning, inferencing etc. Conceptualization plays a major role in the perception of the linguistic sign within cognitive linguistics.