Cognitive Linguistics and dialectology

An attempt to apply the cognitive approach in the lexicology of regional dialects

Abstract

This paper attempts to show how the results of cognitive linguistics can be successfully used in dialectology. The empirical data were collected from the region of the three borders (those of Ukraine, Romania, and Hungary), namely, the northeastern Hungarian dialect region. The main aim was to identify the phenomenon behind lexical heterogeneity, and to explain it with findings of cognitive linguistics. The paper investigates the names of three kinds of traditional Hungarian pasta whose standard names and their meanings are uniquely modified and become variable in the language use of the speakers of the northeastern dialect region. The three kinds of pasta have different regional name variants which display detail and motivation of various degrees from a cognitive semantic point of view. It is claimed that the documented divergence likely originates in the possible differences of the cognitive process, and in the geographical, geopolitical, language policy and sociocultural situation of the speech community as regards the process of conceptualisation. The more general objective of this paper is to show how the integration of the disciplines of cognitive linguistics, sociolinguistics and dialectology may offer new avenues for dialect research in the future.