A Frame Semantics Approach to Management
373only through the way of understanding them in relation to some linguistic
system. Expressions are linguistic units whose form and status depend on
the conventional units that are employed by the speaker and listener in
comprehending them.
In making any attempts to consider knowledge of language as a system
of communication, it is apparent that we must apply different kinds of
signs in order not only to name and express multiple relationships among
aspects of the outside world, but also to communicate within a particular
community. It is also suggested that “language is a social product, i.e. it is
common to all members of the community (called community language),
otherwise, it would be impossible to communicate” (PolaĔski 2003: 269).
In tackling the issue from the perspective of cognitive science, it needs to
be stressed that it focuses on the strict relation of the phenomenon of
language with cognitive processes and the mental activities of man, and
also with cultural and social experiences (Grzegorczykowa 2001: 25). On
the basis of the evidence available, it seems fair to suggest that meaning is
a kind of representation of the world in the mind of the speaker, which is
constructed on the basis of some typical features, namely idealized
cognitive models, which are conceptual structures thanks to which
speakers can characterise the meaning of a word.
Among the issues that seem to call for attention in the following
analysis is the semantic structure of vocabulary as a subsystem of
language. At this point, it is worth quoting Grzegorczykowa (2007: 133)
who postulates that due to included content, lexemes create systems of
interrelated and mutually affecting elements. According to Grzegorczykowa
(2007: 133), vocabulary provides access to a system of concepts covering
the entire world known to us, constituting the basis for expressing views
and claims about it in specific statements, and also being the basis of
stored elementary knowledge in human memory depicting the world. It
should be highlighted that such concepts enter into mutual relations of
closeness, opposition, superiority and inferiority, which, in turn, in
linguistic terminology translate into synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy,
hyperonymy and others. Because of such relations, concepts of more
detailed nature enter into broader semantic structures, which are internally
hierarchical: so-called semantic fields, that is, a group of words related to a
common element.
It should be noted that the semantic structure of vocabulary is a
reflection of not only some kind of categorisation of the world, but also
subjectification of the interpretation of external phenomena. Evans and
Green (2006: 164) suggest that the basic assumptions of Cognitive
Semantics concern the following issues: