Cognitive Sociolinguistics

A union of Cognitive Linguistics and Sociolinguistics was bound to happen. Both proclaim a usage-based approach to language and aim to analyse actual language use in objective ways. Whereas Sociolinguistics is by nature on the outlook for language in its variety, Cognitive Linguistics can no longer afford to ignore social variation in language as it manifests itself in the usage data. Nor can it fail to adopt an empirical methodology that reflects variation as it actually occurs, beyond the limited knowledge of the individual observer. Conversely, while Cognitive Linguistics can only benefit from a heightened sensitivity to social aspects, the rich, bottom-up theoretical framework it has developed is likely to contribute to a much better understanding of the meaning of variationist phenomena.