A cognitive approach to quantitative sociolinguistic variation 307er 1987: 59); for Langacker, entrenchment is the result of frequency of
successful use^14. As Langacker explains, the occurrence of any type of cog-
nitive activity leaves behind a trace in cognition and the more that this type
of activity recurs, the more entrenched the trace will become in cognition.
Cognitive Grammar assumes (based on evidence from cognitive psycholo-
gy) that all aspects of cognition are organized in the same way – as a cogni-
tive network. In this model of the mind, nodes are linked in a pair-wise
relationship by arcs. Nodes can correspond to any kind of linguistic struc-
ture (semantic, phonological or symbolic) and the arcs which link these
nodes are categorization relationships. In any given usage event, a speakers
and hearers will activate the particular nodes (at both the phonological and
semantic pole) that correspond with the meaning that they are trying to
convey or comprehend. As a particular node in the cognitive network is
activated, it becomes more entrenched, which leads to the probability that it
will be reselected.
In research on frequency effects in language change, the direct relation-
ship between entrenchment and lexical frequency has led to the generaliza-
tion that high frequency words and phrases are more entrenched in cogni-
tion (or have stronger lexical strength) and are therefore more easily
accessed and are less likely to undergo analogical change. By contrast, low-
frequency items are less well entrenched and so they are often difficult to
access and more susceptible to analogical change (Bybee 2001: 28-9).
It is therefore clear that by adopting certain key theoretical assumptions
of the usage-based approach, the frequency effect patterns we see in lan-
guage begin to be explicable. Without adopting, at the very least, some
recognition of the existence of a correlation between lexical frequency and
cognitive entrenchment, it is very difficult to move beyond simply a de-
scriptive account of frequency effects in language.
4.2. The relationship between linguistic variation and social meaning
Another potential area of crossover between the disciplines of sociolinguis-
tics and Cognitive Linguistics lies in understanding the relationship be-
tween social and linguistic categories in the cognitive network (see also
Kristiansen 2006: 108). This is exactly the task that is occupying many
sociolinguists at the moment – they are becoming increasingly interested in
the relationship between linguistic variation and social meaning at a very
local level and asking the question “how do variables mean?” (Eckert 2002: