Sociology, Cognition, and Linguistics: Towards a Theory of Sociognistics

This book explores how social and political life are decisively shaped by unconscious linguistic operations and practical bodily experiences, rather than exclusively by rationality and consciously crafted arguments.

It demonstrates that frequently, the description of social players as rational beings fails to explain crucial dimensions of contemporary societies. Instead, this book develops a new theory that bases sociological explanation on cognition, including human abilities such as perception, memory, creativity, and intuition. It does so by examining various cases pertaining to the governance and ownership of biomedical technologies such as neuroimaging software, 3D bioprinting, and COVID-19 vaccines. This innovative theoretical approach, which promotes a dialogue between sociology and cognitive linguistics, is subsequently aimed at explaining new processes marking contemporary society, which may include the revival of fascist ideologies, the diffusion of scientific denialism, and the consistent inability to tackle problems such as global warming.

The book thus presents a conceptually and theoretically rigorous account of how and why it is key to grasp the cognitive basis of societies, revealing how they are decisively grounded on bodily experiences and linguistic operations such as metaphors, metonymies, semantic frames, and myths. It will therefore appeal to a wide range of scholars and researchers with interests in sociolinguistics, cognitive sociology, semiotics, biomedical technologies, political economy, social theory, applied linguistics, bioethics, and the sociology of science and technology.