Word Order Iconicity: A Cognitive Linguistic Perspective

Word order, as a grammatical form or means, can be studied in various ways. Traditional approaches put more emphasis on the classification of different orders and the pursuit of intra-linguistic factors for marked and unmarked word orders. In other words, early research into word order tended to make a sharp distinction between syntactic word order, semantic word order, and pragmatic word order, and paid inadequate attention to cognitive factors involved in word order when explanation was considered.Emerged in the eighties of the 20th century, cognitive linguistics is an approach to language formed in the objection against the mainstream generative approach (Langacker, 1987). As this approach holds that language is both a product and tool of human beings' general cognitive activities, language structure and functions should reflect these activities in turn. By conceiving language as an integral facet of cognition, cognitive linguistics declines to consider grammar an independent and autonomous system separated from human's cognition, psychology, everyday-life experiences, etc. Therefore, cognitive linguistics is defined as an approach to language that is based on our experience of the world and the way we perceive and conceptualize it (Ungerer & Schimid, 2001), which implies that this theory or approach has dual aims: on the one hand, since language is themost important activity of human's cognition and the most convenient 'window' through which human's general cognitive activities are observed, the study of language will help discover the mysteries of human beings' general cognitive activities; on the other hand, since human's general cognitive abilities determine language capacity to a great extent, the study of the cognitive system will be beneficial to the study of the linguistic system.The present thesis aims to study word order iconicity from a cognitive linguistic perspective. It consists of five chapters.Chapter One is an introduction including three sections. Firstly, it deals with the significance of the thesis. Feasibilities and objectives of this study are then listed. And lastly, this chapter outlines the general structure of the thesis.Chapter Two reviews previous treatments of word order, and concentrates on the two important interpretive approaches to language, i.e. the formal approach and the cognitive linguistic approach. As is well known, the structuralism adheres to the principle that la.:-...age can be analyzed internally, and meanings come from the internal structure of language via paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations. Formalists also conduct the investigation within the domain of language itself, especially within the domain of syntax; word orders are regarded as by-products generated by various rules in the transformational process from deep structure to surface structure. Obviously, this approach cannot provide a plausible explanation for word order, no wonder John Haiman (1985b: 1) puts it: "formalism is not explanation". Both theories lay their emphasis on the internal approach, neglecting the analysis of meaning through the external world and cognitive process. Thus both theories think that language is arbitrary, hi contrast, cognitive linguistics sticks to the principle of embodied philosophy, which holds that language is formed on the basis of our bodily experience and cognitive process, so language will eventually be closely related to the external world, and iconic with experiential structure and conceptual frame. Therefore, different from the formal approach, cognitive linguistics can provide a feasible explanation for word order as possible as it claims that language capacity should be regarded as a part of cognitive abilities. Directed by this approach, word order is interpreted by human's cognition to some extent. Iconicity study, including word order iconicity, is an unavoidable part hi the framework of cognitive linguistics.