Meaning and Construal

"meaning is often a matter of construal"

-Kiki Nikiforidou & Demetra Katis

The above quote comes from the work of linguists Kiki Nikiforidou and Demetra Katis, who are associated with Cognitive Linguistics particularly construction grammar and related approaches.

 

WHAT "CONSTRUAL" MEANS IN THIS CONTEXT

In Cognitive Linguistics, drawing heavily from Ronald Langacker's framework, construal refers to the different ways speakers can conceptualize, structure, and present the same underlying situation or content through language. Meaning is not a fixed, objective mapping from words to the world; instead, it involves active mental processes of HOW we view and package reality.

 

Key aspects of construal include:

 

ATTENTION AND SALIENCE: What we highlight or background, for example, "The vase broke" vs. "The child broke the vase".

 

PERSPECTIVE OR VIEWPOINT: From whose standpoint we describe events, for example, shifting deictic anchors like using "past + now" for empathetic narration.

 

CATEGORIZATION AND GRANULARITY: How finely or abstractly we divide up experience.

 

FIGURE/GROUND ORGANIZATION: — What stands out as the main focus.

 

The same "objective" event or concept can be construed in multiple valid ways, leading to different linguistic expressions and nuanced meanings.

 

WHY "OFTEN A MATTER OF CONSTRUAL"?

 

POLYSEMY AND FLEXIBILITY: Words and constructions don't have rigid, single meanings. Their interpretation depends on context, speaker intent, and how the hearer integrates elements, for example, via conceptual blending or frame semantics. Nikiforidou and Katis have explored this in areas like relative clauses in Greek, where syntactic structure underdetermines meaning, and interpretation relies on pragmatic and conceptual integration.

 

NO TRUE SYNONYMY: Different phrasings (even near-synonyms) reflect different construals. For example, describing the same action as "wiping the table" versus "cleaning the table" commits the speaker to slightly different conceptualizations.

 

DISCOURSE AND GRAMMAR: In their research on dialogic constructions, viewpoint blends, and genre, they show how meaning emerges from the interplay of form, context, prosody, and cognitive mechanisms. Grammar itself guides or constrains construal.

 

This view contrasts with more formalist traditions that treat meaning as more compositional and determinate based on syntax alone. Instead, Nikiforidou and Katis emphasize the indeterminacy and creativity in meaning construction, supported by both adult language use and language acquisition data.

 

BROADER IMPLICATIONS

The quote captures a core tenet of cognitive linguistics: language is a tool for meaning construction, not just transmission. Speakers choose, often unconsciously, specific construals to convey nuance, perspective, emotion, or rhetorical effect. Hearers must reconstruct that construal. This explains linguistic creativity, cross-linguistic differences, literary effects like free indirect style, and challenges in NLP/AI for handling implied meanings.

 

In short, meaning isn't "out there" waiting to be decoded—it's actively construed (built and interpreted) by minds in context. This idea underscores the richness and subjectivity inherent in human communication.

#Construal #Meaning #Linguistics #CognitiveLinguistics #KikiNikiforidou #DemetraKatis