A somewhat more egocentric sister: A cognitive grammar account of Norwegian her and German hier as deictic space builders

Abstract

This article draws on data from a parallel corpus (the Oslo Multilingual Corpus) to explore differences in how the cognate Norwegian and German adverbs her/hier ‘here’ (seemingly highly similar in meaning) are used as deictic space builders in discourse. The aim of the presented study is to propose some more general cognitive mechanisms that may underlie such differences, in the languages that are closely related. The linguistic material is considered within the framework of cognitive grammar and is linked to recent knowledge on bilingual cognition as represented in translation. By carefully examining both the sources and translations of these adverbs in the corpus of translations, we identify different patterns of construal in the languages compared. The main difference found in setting up the deictic space pertains to the construction of the coordinate system preferred in Norwegian and German — a more egocentric one in the former, and one more subjective and focused on the object of conceptualization in the latter. Thus, close scrutiny of how the two cognates behave in translation helps us to confirm that differences in imagery in two languages may be based on different preferred vantage points, resulting in some clear conceptualization patterns on a lower level, and that imagery is subject to choice of particular cultures. Additionally, it is demonstrated that Norwegian seems less space-oriented than German, which to a greater extent prefers detailed spatial indication within discourse, and that the German hier may be less proximal than the proximal her.