Introduction

The objective of this book is to understand and explain language from a cognitive point of view, which means attending to the linguistic and the social as realities analyzed from the perspective of human cognition. And precisely because the social is an inalienable part of the linguistic, considerable doubt was raised when deciding on the title of this volume. As it turns out, there could have been an alternative title, which might still merit its own volume: Sociocognitive Linguistics. Since, when all is said and done, we seek to study language, it would not be in the least bit strange that the noun “linguistics” would be at the core of this volume’s title. And, for its part, the adjacent adjective would indicate the centrality of the cognitive, always in relation to the social dimensions of language. The reason, in the end, we finally opted for the formula “Cognitive Sociolinguistics,” was, rather, to highlight that we consider language in relation to its social environment to be of central importance, realizing that not everyone agrees that linguistic theory and practice are eminently social. In my opinion, this book is more “linguistics”— being a quest for general knowledge about language-than it is “sociolinguistics” —a quest for knowledge limited to the social use of language-although, as William Labov indicated in 1972, it is probably unnecessary to further discuss what linguistics is or is not at this point.