Methodology, here I come

Okay, the time has come. The time is now. I just got a book in the mail yesterday that should help me with the methodology section of my dissertation. A few weeks ago, I sat down to write that section, and I realized that I had no clue what my methodology was. You know? I had this intuitive idea of what I should be doing, but there was really no clear process there.

So I did a little digging, stumbled across the Cognitive Linguistics listserv (Cogling, as in "Dear Coglings..." How clever is that... Love it!), and found a description of this book. So I ordered it straight away. The book is called Cognitive Linguistics: Foundations, Scope and Methodology and was recommended in the Cogling archives. It has articles by Langacker, Fauconnier, and some other heavy hitters.

I do need to remember, though, that once I get into actually writing my dissertation, I will need to adapt, explain, change the terminology that I use. Thanks for reminding me of this fact, Will. As a whole, I would say that Rhet/comp-type people are not familiar with the discourse of cognitive linguistics, even though these ideas are becoming pretty mainstream and most are familiar with cognitive linguistic authors like George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, etc. After Will responded to a post on another blog, I realized that I would need to tap into some discourses that Rhet/comp-types are more familiar with, if my ideas are going to be accepted. That could be why I've been having trouble getting some conference papers accepted recently: a complete and utter misreading of my audience. I was also reminded of this fact during my proposal discussion. But somehow I found a way to ignore it.

So instead of talking about cognitive frameworks, I should perhaps be talking about "epistemologies." Or at least, if I want to talk about cognitive frameworks, I'll need to make the links between these two systems of thought a little clearer.