Acta Linguistica Hungarica
Volume/Issue:
Volume 52: Issue 2-3
The adaptive nature of ``meaning as understanding''
Author:
Gábor Győri University of Pécs, Deptartment of English Linguistics Ifjúság útja 6., H-7624 Pécs, Hungary

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Pages:
199–220
Online Publication Date:
26 Sep 2007
Publication Date:
01 Jun 2005
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1556/aling.52.2005.2-3.4
Keywords:
cognition; semantic change; evolution; adaptation; semantic extension
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In the paper I discuss semantic change as a cognitive adaptation process which flexibly adjusts the culturally shared conceptual category system of a language to changing conditions in the environment. I back up this view with the claim that the evolutionary function of cognition is to provide the organism with functional "knowledge" of its environment for the sake of adaptive orientation in a flexible way relative to the stability of environmental conditions. Hence, the cognitive function of language is to promote social cognition in order to facilitate the sharing of knowledge that proves functional and adaptive in the given physical, social and cultural environment of a group of individuals. In this light the cognitive function of the mental machinery of conceptualization and imagery-as the basis of meaning as understanding---is the adaptive construal of phenomena. Semantic leaps in the form of metaphor, metonymy and other kinds of meaning extension create new adaptive perspectives on the environment. When the circumstances triggering such novel usage persist, these perspectives will become conventionalized in the process of semantic change, leading to new established forms of functional and adaptive imagery.

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Acta Linguistica Hungarica
Print ISSN:
1216-8076
Online ISSN:
1588-2624

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Editor(s)-in-Chief: Katalin É. Kiss,
Ferenc Kiefer

Editor: Éva Dékány

Technical Editor: Zoltán G. Kiss

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Acta Linguistica Hungarica
Language English
Size  
Year of
Foundation		 1951
Publication
Programme		 changed title
Volumes
per Year		  
Issues
per Year		  
Founder Magyar Tudományos Akadémia  
Founder's
Address		 H-1051 Budapest, Hungary, Széchenyi István tér 9.
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
Publisher's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
Responsible
Publisher		 Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN 1216-8076 (Print)
ISSN 1588-2624 (Online)

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