Cross-Cultural study in Noun Constructions. Corpus-driven Cognitive Linguistics

Abstract: The close relationship between culture and language has been captivating humans since ancient times and various schools of thought have offered different approaches. Cognitive Linguistics holds the view that language is a socially constructed phenomenon. Members of a given speech community experience the world in more or less similar way as they speak one language. By means of commonly shared views and ways of speaking comprehension becomes possible. That in turn serves to strengthen cultural ties and develop a sense of identity. By looking at the ways speakers of English communicate this essay will capture their realities, truths and shared assumptions in connection with the conceptualization of alienation. Using a quantitative corpus driven method it aims to operationalize that broad concept by examination of the alien related noun constructions derived from the authentic samples of language.