Cognitive Linguistics has grown in popularity in biblical studies. There’s much to praise about that. Biblical interpretation requires attention first and foremost to grammar. Basil of Caesarea writes, ούδεμίαν άδιερεύνητον. . . χρήναι καταλιμπάνειν φωνήν, τῶν ὅσαι περὶ Θεοῦ (“not one utterance of all that concerns God should be left unexamined”). It would be a mistake for biblical scholars to ignore the scientific study of language. Their discipline requires it. But there are a number of issues with the use of linguistics in biblical studies (see here).

Consider Relevance Theory. I have come across multiple claims recently in biblical studies that Relevance Theory is part of Cognitive Linguistics, e.g. this book uses “insights from the cognitive linguistics approach of relevance theory.” Another scholar describes their research interests as “cognitive linguistics, especially relevance theory.” One scholar even criticized other scholars for “inaccurate and imprecise” presentations of Relevance Theory, while claiming in this same publication Relevance Theory is “prominent within cognitive linguistics.”

The problem here is that not only is Relevance Theory not part of Cognitive Linguistics, the two approaches “have a radically different understanding of the nature of concepts” and “are based on radically opposite ways of understanding what constitutes not only meaning but even language more generally” (Leclercq, Linguistic Knowledge and Language Use, 17, 94). As Billy Clark writes, Relevance Theory “is based on a broadly Chomskyan approach to language and on Fodorian assumptions about modularity” (Relevance Theory, 95). In other words, despite a few shared commitments, one has to splice the two theories to create a bridge between them because they contradict each other at a fundamental level.

The confusion probably comes from the fact that Relevance Theory is grounded in cognitive science. But only in a very limited sense can Relevance Theory be called a cognitive linguistic theory (small c). Now, I am on record defending a toolkit approach to linguistic analysis. As Ioanna Sitaridou writes “there is no ideological conflict in combining findings from different traditions since this seems to be the optimal way of reaching a holistic understanding.” In my experience around professional linguists, no one cares about your theory. They care about your analysis. Data drives discussion, and if you find the truth in another research tradition, celebrate it. One can use both Relevance Theory and Cognitive Linguistics in their analysis, and probably should.

But here lies an important point: Cognitive linguists didn’t begin their training in linguistics by only reading books about Cognitive Linguistics. In their first two years of college, they probably took multiple courses in syntactic, phonological, and semantic theory, linguistic field methods, and historical or comparative linguistics, among other classes. And that was just the first two years of the first degree. The situation is not dissimilar to poets writing ‘free verse’ poetry without understanding the rules they are breaking –– rules that someone like T.S. Eliot had mastered before he broke them in the Four Quartets. It is clear when someone imitates a rule breaker without having the same rich knowledge of the rules.

So where to go from here? Back to foundations: read broadly across topics and research traditions, don’t ignore the Level 10 Boss Philologists, try to get peer review from professional linguists. If possible, attend (or present) at their conferences. This is something historically those working in Bible Translation have done well, but it has not carried over into biblical scholarship more broadly. We can change that.

Notes

Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 1.4.

Benoît Leclercq, Linguistic Knowledge and Language Use: Bridging Construction Grammar and Relevance Theory. Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Billy Clark, Relevance Theory. Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Ioanna Sitaridou, “On the Redundancy of a Theory of Language Contact: Cue-Based Reconstruction in a Socio-Linguistically Informed Manner.” In Studying Language Change in the 21st Century, edited by Nikolaos Lavidas and Kiki Nikiforidou, 16:15–52. Brill’s Studies in Historical Linguistics. Brill, 2022.