This book, intended primarily for researchers and advanced students, expands greatly on previous work by the authors exploring the topography of the multidimensional “functional-cognitive space” within which functional, cognitive and/or constructionist approaches to language can be located. The analysis covers a broad range of 16 such approaches, with some additional references to Chomskyan minimalism, and is based on 58 questionnaire items, each rated by 29 experts on particular models for their importance in the model concerned. These ratings are analysed statistically to reveal overall patterns of (dis)similarity across models. The questionnaire ratings and experts’ comments are then used, together with the authors’ close reading of the literature, in detailed discussion leading to a final dichotomous rating for each feature in each model, the results again being analysed statistically. The final chapter presents the overall conclusions and suggests how existing collaborations between approaches could be strengthened, and new ones created, in future research.
Quotes
“The authors are to be congratulated and thanked for their up-to-date, thoroughly researched and enthusiastic account of the achievements of functional, cognitive and constructionist linguistics. This book will be massively helpful to everyone working in these areas, from confused students to time-pressured professors.”
— J. Lachlan Mackenzie, VU University Amsterdam
“This book is a major achievement in linguistic theory. It dissects a whole array of functional, cognitive and/or constructionist approaches to language, and by exhaustively searching for the similarities and differences among them, it places each account, with mastery, along what the authors aptly refer to as the “functional-cognitive space.” This work thus explores areas where the different accounts on language converge or diverge and highlights those areas where some of the accounts could definitely benefit from considering the solutions provided in others. I see Exploring Functional-Cognitive Space as much more than an encyclopedia-like venture. If correctly used, it will be an unprecedented tool for further development of linguistic theory in the 21st century.”
— Francisco J. Ruiz-de-Mendoza, University of La Rioja
“In this book Chris Butler and Francisco Gonzálvez-García provide exactly the sort of up-to-date coverage of key issues, concepts, and ideas that curious linguists need to bridge the gap between their own knowledge and the often rather vast primary literature on diverse functional, cognitive, and constructional approaches. This book is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in how the various alternative approaches to Chomskyan generative linguistics operate, what they have in common, and how they differ from each other. The authors guide the reader through the most relevant concepts and present a thought-provoking comparison of the different approaches. This book should be on the bookshelf of any linguist interested in comparison of linguistic models, concepts, and ideas.”
— Hans Boas, The University of Texas at Austin