Book Review

New Directions in Cognitive Linguistics(two volumes)Edited by Vyvyan Evans and Stéphanie Pourcel This edited two volume set is in preparation, and under contract to John Benjamins (to appear in the Human Cognitive Processing series)

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This two volume set forms a coherent collection of original papers relating to new directions in Cognitive Linguistics. Cognitive Linguistics is now, 25 years after the publication of one its seminal texts, Metaphors We Live By, a mature theoretical and empirical enterprise, with, by now, a voluminous associated literature. Indeed, it is arguably the most rapidly expanding ‘school’ in modern linguistics, and one of the most exciting areas of research within the interdisciplinary project known as cognitive science. As such, Cognitive Linguistics is increasingly attracting a broad readership both within linguistics as well as from neighbouring disciplines including other cognitive and social sciences, and from disciplines within the humanities.
Nevertheless, one of the difficulties attendant upon the proliferation of published research in Cognitive Linguistics has been the recycling of much of the early theoretical apparatus in the often very detailed descriptive analyses that have followed since. A further perceived weakness of Cognitive Linguistics, particularly as articulated most frequently by psychologists and other cognitive scientists, has been the lack of a rigorous methodological ‘toolkit’, and the absence, until relatively recently, of an appropriately broad empirical base.
These two edited volumes constitute a venue in which genuinely new directions in Cognitive Linguistics are presented. In particular, the volumes survey new approaches to established phenomena in Cognitive Linguistics, including approaches to figurative language, lexicalisation patterns, cross-linguistic variation, grammar, and the relationship between language, conceptual structure and experience. In addition, the volumes also showcase a representative selection of both new methodological and empirical approaches now increasingly being deployed in Cognitive Linguistics. A further important aspect of the volumes is that leading experts explore new areas of research within Cognitive Linguistics, e.g., cognitive sociolinguistics. In addition the volumes showcase recent trends in the application of Cognitive Linguistics, including ‘critical’ cognitive linguistics, cognitive stylistics, applied cognitive linguistics and cognitive discourse analysis.