Variety and functional diversity of modern discourse in cognitive perspective

Abstract

The article offers a concise summary of problems dealing with the multidisciplinary paradigm of modern cognitive linguistics research discussed at VI Firsova Readings “Modern Languages and Cultures: Varieties, Functions, Ideologies in a Cognitive Perspective” (19-21 October, 2023, RUDN University, Moscow). It highlights the most relevant issues which include linguistic means of conceptualization and categorization, critical and positive discourse analysis, environmental thinking, pragmatics of gestures, multimodality, cognitive perspectives of intercultural communication and translation studies, discourse markers taxonomy, IT and cognitive studies, transdisciplinary methods in the study of language and cognition, among others. We aim to illuminate the advantages of the cognitive paradigm and trace new directions in its development. The articles included in this Issue and authored by the conference participants illustrate a broad range of cognitive studies drawn on different methods and conducted on diverse datasets. They clearly demonstrate that the cognitive perspective enables scholars not only to present and describe the phenomena under study but also to offer explanations to the findings and trace correlation between language, cognition and communication. This article also discusses the prospects for further research in the area.