Sociocultural Commitment of Cognitive Linguistics via dimensions of context

he paper explores basic properties of language that can be explained by appealing to its main functions, namely, cognitive, communicative, and interpretive. Although the irst two functions have always been recognized, it is only recently that the third one has been outlined (see Boldyrev, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014). Boldyrev claims that linguistic interpretation reveals static and dynamic processes of cognition shaping overall collective and individual knowledge of language speakers. Viewed from this perspective, linguistic interpretation involves selection, classiication, and evaluation within contexts of knowledge that language speakers acquire as members of societies and cultures. hese contexts are dependent on metaconcepts –Roles, Stereotypes, Values, Norms, Space, Time, Language Performance – that regulate language use. his paper examines static vs. dynamic, collective vs. individual and the metaconceptual dimensions of contexts of knowledge to suggest that they underlie the Sociocultural Commitment of Cognitive Linguistics.


Introduction
he interdisciplinary approach to Cognitive Linguistics has been characterized as the Cognitive Commitment (Lakof, 1990) and the Generalization Commitment (Evans, 2012).hey represent an assumption on language that accords with what is known about the mind and brain from various disciplines, thus, outlining basic peculiarities of Cognitive Linguistics nowadays: a usage-based view of language; interrelation of cognitive abilities, such as memory, perception, categorization, abstraction and the ability to speak languages; a view on meaning that encompasses both dictionary and encyclopaedic information.However, a fundamental theoretical framework on language cannot be fully integrated without the social perspective as a commitment providing an account of language, language use, and discourse construction that are entirely dependent on the speaker(s) and their knowledge of the world that, in turn, is deeply grounded in cultural and social patterns of behavior acquired by man as a member of a group.his Commitment we claim to be Sociocultural for it is based on the assumption that linguistic abilities and language use being deeply rooted in our general cognitive abilities are socio-and culture-speciic and represent our knowledge-dependent interpretation of the world we live in as members of micro-(society) and macro-(culture) groups.In this article, Sociocultural Commitment of Cognitive Linguistics is revealed through Context Dimensions that fully demonstrate how meaning is created by speakers of diferent cultural backgrounds within their contexts of knowledge that predetermine their language use and discourse construction.
he rationale of this work is reinforced by the fact that human cognition is inherently sociocultural and, as Dabrowska and Divjak argue in their 2015 study, "fully integrating the cognitive and social perspective is probably the greatest challenge facing cognitive linguistics today" (Dabrowska & Divjak, 2015, p. 6).In this article, we present the results of the research project that has been carried out in the framework of Tambov School for Cognitive Linguistics (Russia) that focuses on elaborating a universal theory -the heory of Linguistic Anthropocentricity -that reveals the anthropocentric nature of language on a holistic framework of cognitive paradigm.Following its basic assumption, linguistic activity involves interpretation as well as conceptualization and categorization and is performed in contexts of knowledge that process and store experience human beings gain during their lives (see, for example, Boldyrev, 2012).

Aim and research objectives
he aim of the present work is to illustrate the Sociocultural Commitment of Cognitive Linguistics from the viewpoint of contextual dimensions (dimensions of contexts) as inherent characteristics of conceptualization and categorization.he aim is emphasized by the following objectives: • to exemplify static vs. dynamic dimension of contexts of knowledge; • to exemplify collective vs. individual dimension of contexts of knowledge; • to exemplify metaconceptual dimension of contexts in the process of language use.

Method of study
To implement the research the cognitive-discursive interpretant method of analysis was used (see Boldyrev and Dubrovskaya, 2015).It is rested mainly on the methodologies that are standard in the ield of linguistics and cognitive linguistics, in particular.hey are empirical, focusing on the meanings and structures of linguistic forms, and are not limited to: the analysis of interaction of thought, language, and body; the examination of linguistic interpretation via corpusbased discourse analysis; the experimental techniques of psycholinguistics; the simulation of human linguistic activity in the ield of artiicial intelligence.
As a research tool, cognitive-discursive interpretant (CDI) is a technique that has served as the basis for interpreting the world and construing it in discourse.It has the critical task of exposing the mechanisms that underlie interpretation in discourse.Cognitivediscursive interpretant as a process of interpretation and discourse construction involves selection, classiication, and evaluation that refer to particular concepts within particular contexts of sociocultural knowledge (Boldyrev, 2012).While selection provides proiling, classiication triggers the assignment of the proiled meaning to groups within a system of categorization, and evaluation implies assessment within a set of norms, values, and other standards that a participant acquired as a member of a particular socioculture.As a cognitive structure, cognitive-discursive interpretant narrows interpretation in terms of a particular choice (selection), classiication, and evaluation within a particular framework of sociocultural experience and knowledge (see Boldyrev and Dubrovskaya, 2015). he method for cognitive-discursive interpretant analysis underpins the analysis of the corresponding context of knowledge that language speakers activate during the process of language use.

Reference review
Basically, the topic of context has been widely researched over the last few decades.It has been covered in a variety of ields, linguistics included.he theory of context in the framework of linguistics has been given special prominence by Boldyrev (2012, 2014), van Dijk (2009), Dilley (1999), Kolshanskiy (1995), and others.he researchers aim to show that interpretation and language use as well as discourse construction are dependent upon context that is viewed as "the act of bringing together parts of language into meaningful utterances"; "conditions under which meaning is attributed to a stretch of language"; or still "the environing and surrounding conditions of a speciied object" (Dilley, 1999, pp. 4-5).From these perspectives, the notion of context is oten claimed to be "vague and ambiguous" (van Dijk, 2009, p. 7) and grounded in the categories of social situations as analyzed in the 1970s-1980s as follows: • Setting (Scene) that includes place, time, and physical characteristics of the situation; • Social factors, such as social roles, skills and motivations of participants; • Social norms and activities that participants observe and perform; • Cognitive and psychological parameters that encompass goals, knowledge, attitudes and other similar capabilities of participants (van Dijk, 2009, pp. 38-39).he development of these assumptions has involved research in four main areas: anthropology (e.g., Hall, 1976), sociology and sociolinguistics (e.g., Malinowski, 1989), linguistics (e.g., Halliday, 2003), and cognitive linguistics (e.g., Demyankov, 2005;Kubryakova, 2004).In the framework of anthropology, context is viewed as surrounding circumstances that inluence the outcome of communication (Hall, 1976); sociology studies a link between social factors and the way human beings speak (Malinowski, 1989); the term "context of situation" was elaborated by M.A.K. Halliday who argued that the selection of linguistic form for an utterance is partially determined by features of extra-linguistic context (Halliday, 2003).
However, it is the cognitive perspective to context that has dramatically inluenced the social and linguistic approaches re-deining the nature of context.Within the framework of cognitive linguistics, contexts are viewed as mental models (van Dijk, 2009), domains (Langacker, 1987(Langacker, , 2000)), and recently as knowledge structures -conceptual-and-thematic domains, such as HUMAN BEINGS, ARTEFACTS, NATURE, WILDLIFE, SPACE, TIME that relect overall knowledge of the activities each individual is involved in as their everyday experience (Boldyrev, 2011).
We believe that societies as well as cultures set patterns for behavior and human beings make networks of meanings that regulate their lives.It means that Sociocultural Commitment is a commitment to providing a characterization of language that represents sociocultural knowledge of language speakers.We postulate a number of assumptions that underlie the Sociocultural Commitment.First, sociocultural knowledge that humans acquire during the process of socialization as representatives of societies and cultures forms a variety of contexts: contexts of professional knowledge, contexts of knowledge about politics, economics, history, etc.Second, contexts of knowledge being deeply rooted in short-term memory and longterm memory represent static and dynamic processes of conceptualization and categorization and are claimed to be collective and individual.Contexts of collective knowledge feature "dictionary" knowledge that is shared by a particular language group.Contexts of individual knowledge feature "encyclopaedic" information that is not necessarily shared by a language group.hey relect personal modiication of the overall knowledge that is acquired by each representative of a sociocultural group and is expressed via language when speakers construct meanings to communicate their ideas.hird, language use as well as discourse construction depend upon metaconcepts -universal knowledge structures all human beings possess irrespective of their nationality, ethnicity, language group, or any other group division.We claim that there are the following metaconcepts that structure verbalized cognition: Roles, Stereotypes, Values, Norms, Space, Time, Language Performance.he metaconcepts ("meta" from Greek, with the meanings "along with", "among", "beyond", i.e. "beyond" concepts) are acquired by each individual throughout their life among groups of people: human beings occupy several roles and get to know how to play them (e.g., that of a child, parent, student, and laborer); human beings assign qualities to groups of people and to themselves creating stereotypes; human beings follow (or ignore) guidelines for action which they consider right or wrong that result in values; they set patterns of behavior acceptable or proper for their community as a system of norms; they structure their experience throughout space and time; they acquire and master language to adapt themselves to the environment in order to satisfy their needs.

Results of study
Static vs. dynamic dimension of context.Within the conceptual-and-thematic domains Human Beings, Artefacts, Nature, Wildlife, Space, Time that store contexts of knowledge, human beings conceptualize and interpret the world.Statically, the conceptualand-thematic domains represent overall knowledge that participants acquire as representatives of diferent sociocultural backgrounds in terms of behavior (verbal and non-verbal) typical of some groups.For example, within the HUMAN BEINGS domain there may be a subcategory (subdomain) relecting men-women relationship as it is seen in the following sample ( 1 here is a huge amount of knowledge that is socioculturally salient and is stored in memory due to the fact that the participants socialize in diferent backgrounds: Anna in Great Britain and Prime Minister in Siam. Dynamically, contexts as knowledge structures activate participants' meanings as the result of the interpretive process of selection, classiication, and evaluation that constitutes the cognitive-discursive interpretant that, in turn, relects the dynamic dimension of contexts as knowledge structures.Consider, for example, selection as a choice of conversational topic "Drunkenness" in ( 2): (2) LIZA.<..> Besides, he' d poured so much down his throat that he knew the good of it <…>.Drank!My word!Something chronic <..>.But then he did not keep it up regular [Cheerfully].On the burst, as you might say, from time to time.And always more agreeable when he had a drop in.When he was out of work, my mother used to give him fourpence and tell him to go out and not come back until he' d drunk himself cheerful and loving-like.here's lots of women has to make their husbands drunk to make them it to live with <…>.If a man has a bit of a conscience, it always takes him when he's sober; and then it makes him low-spirited.A drop of booze just takes that of and makes him happy (Shaw, 1994, p. 98).
Depending on her experience as a child, Liza activates the context of sociocultural knowledge within the conceptual-and-thematic domain BAD HABIT that represents the static dimension of context and a particular meaning "my father was always drunk", which is dynamic.he CDI is represented by the following lexical concepts [POUR MUCH], [DRUNK] that give access to sociocultural knowledge that reveals Liza's background and experience.
In the next sample (3), the participants select diferent conceptual-and-thematic domains and that leads to a case of misunderstanding: (3) Man: Does your dog bite?Woman: No. (he man reaches down to the pet dog. he dog bites the man's hand).
GETTING MONEY rather than that of PERFORMING PROFESSIONAL DUTIES, no matter how unpleasant they can be; (16) "Doctor, my hair keeps falling out.What can you give me to keep it in?"."Will a shoebox do?" (Findlater, 2007, p. 231).
he patient in ( 16) expects the context of professional knowledge from the doctor; the doctor, however, activates the collective knowledge represented by the word keep ("to continue to be in a particular place or condition" (Gadsby, 1998, p. 717)) within the conceptual-and thematic domain CONTAINER; (17) "Doctor, what should I do if my temperature goes up by more than a point?" "Sell!Sell!" (Findlater, 2007, p. 231).
Discourse in this example ( 17) is constructed within the conceptual-and-thematic domain SYMPTOMS OF ILLNESS on the one hand, and that of MARKET, on the other.By activating diferent conceptual-and-thematic domains, the speakers represent their sociocultural knowledge they acquire throughout life.
he interplay of conventionally assumed knowledge and individual knowledge is instantiated by universal structures -metaconcepts that are described next.
he metaconceptual dimension of contexts.he metaconcepts Roles, Stereotypes, Values, Norms, Space, Time, Language Performance serve as 'ilters' through which the static dimension of contexts of knowledge becomes dynamic; collective -transforms into individual.he metaconcepts are claimed to be mental structures that relect overall knowledge human beings posses, process, and acquire.Irrespective of the country in which human beings live, the territory they occupy, languages they speak, or space and time boundaries, they learn values and norms, adopt stereotypes, agree or disagree about them, and construct discourse proiling the type of context they believe or feel relevant to the communicative situation.In speech, the metaconcepts are instantiated by the CDI of selection, classiication and evaluation that activate contexts of sociocultural knowledge of language speakers.Consider the metaconcept ROLES in the next sample (18): (18) In the atermath of T. J. Oshie's "heroic" shootout performance for the United States against the Russians this morning in Sochi, I put together this quick montage of Oshie's brilliance in the shootout (https://vk.com/video-40518256_168287676?list=4 8cdbe97d3f825f7d0).
he ROLE of the speaker is that of a spectator who constructs discourse within the conceptual-andthematic domain THEATRE by activating 'patriotic' meaning of the discourse via selection, classiication and evaluation of particular semantic values that are represented by the lexical concepts [HEROIC], [PERFORMANCE], [BRILLIANCE]: heroic -"showing the qualities of a hero; extremely courageous (Gadsby, 1998, p. 622); performance -"the action or an act of performing a character in play, a piece of music, tricks (Gadsby, 1998, p. 1000); brilliance -"great skill or intelligence" (Gadsby, 1998, p. 336).
In the next sample (19), the ROLE of the language speaker is that of a correspondent who activates the context of professional knowledge about Mass Media Speech Etiquette: ): (Prime Minister): Have you any friends in Bangkok / Sir? // (Anna): No / I know no one here // (Prime Minister): Sir is married?// (Anna): Can you / please / explain to me why you call me sir? // (Prime Minister): Women do not stand in the presence of His Excellency // ("Anna and the King", a drama ilm).

(
19) T.J. Oshie scored four times in the shootout and got the winner in the eight round, leading the United States past Russia 302 Saturday in the thrilling revival of an Olympic hockey rivalry (Costa, 2014).In (19) the context of professional knowledge is represented by the lexical concepts [SCORE], [WIN], [LEAD], [RIVALRY] within the conceptual-andthematic domain COMPETITIVE GAMES. he CDI includes: i) selection of the lexical concepts [SCORE],[WIN], [LEAD] providing access to the context of knowledge related to 'the facts that are relevant for the reader'; ii) categorizing the event in terms of a very exciting sporting event by virtue of the lexical concept [THRILLING]; iii) referring to a feeling of deep emotion (evaluation).
and-thematic domains as cognitive models encoded by language.Dynamically, they proile meanings participants make as the result of the interpretive process of selection, classiication and evaluation that constitute the cognitive-discursive interpretant.Collective vs. individual dimension presents encyclopaedic and sociocultural knowledge of language speakers.he metaconceptual structure of contexts encompasses ROLES, LANGUAGE PERFORMANCE as metaconcepts that establish language use and discourse construction.he Sociocultural Commitment of Cognitive Linguistics will stimulate future work in the ield of Intercultural Communication.