Barbara Dancygier

Barbara Dancygier

Professor of English & Cognitive Linguistics · University of British Columbia

I am a cognitive linguist, working primarily on multimodal communication, construction grammar, and conceptual approaches to figuration and viewpoint.

My current research focuses on the form and meaning of multimodal artifacts and on post-truth phenomena in contemporary media. I am also interested in figurative language, especially the contemporary use of simile, and in cognitive study of literary genres.

I am a Distinguished University Scholar at the University of British Columbia, Department of English Language and Literatures. I am also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. I live and work in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Books

  • The Language of Memes cover

    2025

    The Language of Memes: Patterns of Meaning Across Image and Text

    Cambridge University Press · with Lieven Vandelanotte

  • The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics cover

    2017

    The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics

    Cambridge University Press

  • Viewpoint and the Fabric of Meaning cover

    2016

    Viewpoint and the Fabric of Meaning

    Mouton de Gruyter · co-eds: Wei-lun Lu, Arie Verhagen

  • Language and the Creative Mind cover

    2014

    Language and the Creative Mind

    CSLI Publications · co-eds: Mike Borkent, Jennifer Hinnell

  • Figurative Language cover

    2014

    Figurative Language

    Cambridge University Press · with Eve Sweetser

  • The Language of Stories cover

    2012

    The Language of Stories: A Cognitive Approach

    Cambridge University Press

  • Viewpoint in Language cover

    2012

    Viewpoint in Language: A Multimodal Perspective

    Cambridge University Press · co-ed: Eve Sweetser

  • Textual Choices in Discourse cover

    2012

    Textual Choices in Discourse

    John Benjamins · co-eds: José Sanders, Lieven Vandelanotte

  • Mental Spaces in Grammar cover

    2005

    Mental Spaces in Grammar: Conditional Constructions

    Cambridge University Press · with Eve Sweetser

  • Conditionals and Prediction cover

    1998

    Conditionals and Prediction

    Cambridge University Press · Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 87

About

Current Position

Barbara Dancygier is Professor of English & Cognitive Linguistics at the University of British Columbia. She holds a joint appointment in the Department of English Language and Literatures and the Linguistics program.

Honours & Fellowships

Dancygier was awarded the Killam Research Prize in 2011, recognising outstanding research contributions at UBC. In 2012–13 she held a Distinguished Scholar residency at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies. In Fall 2015 she was a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University, UK, and in Fall 2016 a Senior Research Fellow at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.

Editorial & Professional Roles

She serves on the editorial boards of Language and Literature and English Text Construction, and on the board of John Benjamins' Human Cognitive Processing book series. She is a board member of the International Cognitive Linguistics Association, and edited The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

Academic Background

Dancygier earned her MA and PhD from the Institute of English Studies at the University of Warsaw, where she held faculty positions until 1992. She subsequently spent several years as a researcher at UC Berkeley as a Fulbright Scholar, before relocating to Canada in 1997. She taught at Simon Fraser University before joining UBC's English Department.

Research

Research Interests

English language cognitive linguistics cognitive study of literature multimodal communication viewpoint phenomena conceptual metaphor blending theory construction grammar narrative discourse cognitive poetics visual artifacts

Current Projects

  1. Multimodal Communication (SSHRC-funded) — An investigation into how meaning is constructed and understood in multimodal contexts, examining how verbal and visual channels interact.
  2. Viewpoint in Multimodal Contexts — Co-edited special issue for Cognitive Linguistics 28(3) with Lieven Vandelanotte, focusing on viewpoint phenomena across verbal and visual modes.
  3. Multimodal Artifacts and Viewpoint Texture — Co-edited special issue for the Journal of Pragmatics with Lieven Vandelanotte, exploring how viewpoint is textured across multimodal artifacts.

Invited Talks

2017

"Viewpoint, discourse, and multimodal artifacts." AFLiCo 7 (French Cognitive Linguistics Association), University of Liège, Belgium, May 31–June 3.

2016

"Viewpoint: figuration, narrative structure, and internet discourse." AELCO 10 (Spanish Cognitive Linguistics Association), Alcalá de Henares, October 26–28.

"How we make meaning." Memorial Lecture, Warsaw University, April.

"Thirteen ways of looking at … a character." Language, Stories, and Social Cognition Symposium, Leiden University, April.

"Representing the self: from literary discourse to multimodal artifacts." Southern Methodist University, Dallas TX, February 12.

2015

"How we make meaning." Durham University, UK, November 5.

"Viewpoint phenomena in constructions and discourse." Jahrestagung der DGfS, March 4–6.

"Viewpoint: What can we learn from linguistic and visual data?" Institute for Cognition and Brain Sciences, UC Berkeley, February 20.

"Viewpoint: Constructions and discourse." CogNetwork Group, UC Berkeley, February 23.

2014

"Multiple viewpoints in Discourse" (with Lieven Vandelanotte). Georgetown Roundtable, Georgetown University, Washington DC, March 13–16.

"Multimodal glances at multiple viewpoints" (with Lieven Vandelanotte). Georgetown Roundtable, March 13–16.

2013

"Construals of subjective experience in narrative and poetic discourse." Cognition and Poetics Conference, University of Osnabrück, Germany, April 25–27.

"Viewpoint and narrative discourse." Perspective on Narrative Symposium, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands, April 23–24.

2012

"Narrative viewpoint: blending and compression." IGEL/STD Joint Workshop, Montreal, July.

"How we make meaning." Associates' Forum, Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, December.

2011

"Speaking versus thinking: construction of minds and narrative discourse." Stylistics Across Disciplines Conference, Leiden University, Netherlands, June 16–17.

2010

"Fictional minds and linguistic constructions." Cognition and Literature Symposium, Osnabrück, Germany, October 21–24.

2008

"'O, happy dagger!': Material objects as discourse participants in dramatic and poetic discourse." Belgian Association of Anglicists in Higher Education, University of Namur, November 22.

"Meaning-making and discourse patterns: Material anchors and the Elizabethan stage." Text and Context Conference, Queens University Belfast, November 14–16.

"Fictional minds and story-telling: Blending and the evolution of literary discourse." Integrating Science and Humanities Symposium, University of British Columbia, September 26–28.

"Material objects and the stage: Meaning making and discourse patterns." Shakespeare and the Blending Mind Symposium, Haverford College, April 18–19.

2007

"Causes, consequences and alternatives: Evidence from English and Polish." Causality and Cognition Workshop, UC Berkeley, April.

"Conditional reasoning and types of alternativity." Conditional Reasoning Symposium, Tokyo University, Japan, October 6–8.

2006

"Narrative anchors and the processes of story construction." Style in Fiction Symposium, Lancaster University, UK, March.

1998

"Semantic overlap and space blending" (with Eve Sweetser). 6th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Stockholm, Sweden, July.

Courses

ENGL 330A

The Structure of Modern English: Sounds and Words

Descriptive analysis of English pronunciation and the processes responsible for the emergence of the meaning and form of words. Topics include English phonetics, word structure, lexical meaning, and grammatical categories.

ENGL 331

The Structure of Modern English: Sentences and Their Usage

Descriptive analysis of English sentences and the use of linguistic forms in actual discourse, examining sentence construction, complexity, and pragmatic adjustments for context and politeness.

ENGL 328

Metaphor, Language, and Thought

An introduction to cognitive approaches to meaning, showing how underlying cognitive concepts structure our understanding of language, literature, and art — as well as popular culture, advertising, media, and film.

Also teaches ENGL 489 (majors seminars) and ENGL 508 (graduate seminars). Current offerings are listed through the UBC English Department.

Publications

Books (10)
  1. 2025 Dancygier, B. & Lieven Vandelanotte. The Language of Memes: Patterns of Meaning Across Image and Text. Cambridge University Press.
  2. 2017 Dancygier, B. (ed.). The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge University Press.
  3. 2016 Dancygier, B., Wei-lun Lu & Arie Verhagen (eds.). Viewpoint and the Fabric of Meaning. Mouton de Gruyter.
  4. 2014 Dancygier, B., Mike Borkent & Jennifer Hinnell (eds.). Language and the Creative Mind. CSLI Publications.
  5. 2014 Dancygier, B. & Eve Sweetser. Figurative Language. Cambridge University Press.
  6. 2012 Dancygier, B. The Language of Stories: A Cognitive Approach. Cambridge University Press.
  7. 2012 Dancygier, B. & Eve Sweetser (eds.). Viewpoint in Language: A Multimodal Perspective. Cambridge University Press.
  8. 2012 Dancygier, B., José Sanders & Lieven Vandelanotte (eds.). Textual Choices in Discourse. John Benjamins.
  9. 2005 Dancygier, B. & Eve Sweetser. Mental Spaces in Grammar: Conditional Constructions. Cambridge University Press.
  10. 1998 Dancygier, B. Conditionals and Prediction. Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 87).
Guest-Edited Journal Issues (4)
  1. 2018 Dancygier, B. & Lieven Vandelanotte (eds.). "Multimodal Artefacts and the Texture of Viewpoint." Journal of Pragmatics.
  2. 2017 Dancygier, B. & Lieven Vandelanotte (eds.). "Viewpoint phenomena in multimodal communication." Cognitive Linguistics 28(3).
  3. 2010 Dancygier, B. & José Sanders (eds.). "Textual choices in discourse." English Text Construction 3.2.
  4. 2006 Dancygier, B. (ed.). "Blending theory." Language and Literature 15.1.
Refereed Articles (42)
  1. 2017 Dancygier, B. "Viewpoint phenomena in constructions and discourse." Glossa: a Journal of General Linguistics 2(1): 37.1–22.
  2. 2017 Dancygier, B. & Lieven Vandelanotte. "Internet memes as multimodal constructions." Cognitive Linguistics 28(3).
  3. 2017 Dancygier, B. "Figurativeness, conceptual metaphor and blending." In Semino & Demjen (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Metaphor and Language, 28–41.
  4. 2016 Dancygier, B. "Un-Walling the Wall: Viewpoint and Multimodality." In Garratt (ed.), The Embodied Mind in Culture, 55–70.
  5. 2016 Dancygier, B. & Lieven Vandelanotte. "Discourse viewpoint as network." In Viewpoint and the Fabric of Meaning, 13–39.
  6. 2016 Dancygier, B. "Multimodality and theatre: Material objects, bodies and language." In Blair & Cook (eds.), Theatre, Performance, and Cognition, 21–39.
  7. 2014 Dancygier, B. "Intensity and texture in imagery." In Stockwell & Whiteley (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Stylistics, 212–227.
  8. 2014 Dancygier, B. "Stylistics and blending." In Burke (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics, 297–312.
  9. 2012 Dancygier, B. "Negation, stance, and subjectivity." In Viewpoint in Language: A Multimodal Perspective, 69–96.
  10. 2012 Dancygier, B. "Multiple viewpoints, multiple paces." In Viewpoint in Language: A Multimodal Perspective, 219–231.
  11. 2011 Dancygier, B. "Modification and constructional blends in the use of proper names." Constructions and Frames 3.2: 208–235.
  12. 2011 Dancygier, B. "Language, Cognition, and Literature." In Slingerland & Collard (eds.), Creating Consilience: Integrating the Sciences and the Humanities, 409–423.
  13. 2010 Dancygier, B. "Alternativity in poetry and drama: Textual intersubjectivity and framing." English Text Construction 3.2: 165–184.
  14. 2010 Dancygier, B. "Close encounters: the author and the character in Elizabeth Costello, Slow Man, and Diary of a Bad Year." In Bradshaw & Neill (eds.), J.M. Coetzee's Austerities, 231–252.
  15. 2010 Dancygier, B. "Causes and consequences: Evidence from Polish, English and Dutch." In Sweetser & Sanders (eds.), Causality in Cognitive Linguistics, 91–118.
  16. 2009 Dancygier, B. "Genitives and proper names in constructional blends." In Evans & Pourcel (eds.), New Directions in Cognitive Linguistics, 161–184.
  17. 2009 Dancygier, B. & Lieven Vandelanotte. "Judging distances: Mental spaces, distance, and viewpoint in literary discourse." In Brône & Vandaele (eds.), Cognitive Poetics: Goals, gains and gaps, 319–370.
  18. 2008 Dancygier, B. "Personal pronouns, blending, and narrative viewpoint." In Language in the Context of Use, 167–182.
  19. 2008 Dancygier, B. "The text and the story: levels of blending in fictional narratives." In Oakley & Houggard (eds.), Mental Spaces in Discourse and Interaction, 51–78.
  20. 2007 Dancygier, B. "Narrative anchors and the processes of story construction: the case of Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin." Style 41.2: 133–152.
  21. 2007 Dancygier, B. & Radoslava Trnavac. "Conjunctions, verb forms, and epistemic stance in Polish and Serbian predictive conditionals." In Divjak & Kochańska (eds.), Cognitive Paths into the Slavic Domain, 181–220.
  22. 2006 Dancygier, B. "What can blending do for you?" (preface). Language and Literature 15.1: 5–15.
  23. 2005 Dancygier, B. "Blending and narrative viewpoint: Jonathan Raban's travels through mental spaces." Language and Literature 14.2: 99–127.
  24. 2004 Dancygier, B. "Identity and perspective: the Jekyll-and-Hyde effect in narrative discourse." In Achard & Kemmer (eds.), Language, Culture, and Mind, 363–376.
  25. 2002 Dancygier, B. "Mental space embeddings, counterfactuality, and the use of unless." English Language and Linguistics 6.2: 347–377.
  26. 2000 Dancygier, B. & Eve Sweetser. "Constructions with if, since, and because: causality, epistemic stance, and clause order." In Couper-Kuhlen & Kortmann (eds.), Cause - condition - concession - contrast, 111–142.
  27. 1999 Dancygier, B. "How Polish structures space: prepositions, direction nouns, case and metaphor." In van der Leek & Foolen (eds.), Constructions in Cognitive Linguistics, 27–45.
  28. 1997 Dancygier, B. "Reflexive markers in Polish: participants, metaphors, and constructions." In Verspoor, Lee & Sweetser (eds.), Lexical and Syntactical Constructions and the Construction of Meaning, 311–327.
  29. 1997 Dancygier, B. & Eve Sweetser. "Then in conditional constructions." Cognitive Linguistics 8.2: 109–136.
  30. 1996 Dancygier, B. & Eve Sweetser. "Conditionals, distancing, and alternative spaces." In Goldberg (ed.), Conceptual Structure, Language and Discourse, 83–98.
  31. 1993 Dancygier, B. "Interpreting conditionals: Time, knowledge, and causation." Journal of Pragmatics 19.1: 19–50.
  32. 1990 Dancygier, B. "Conditionals: sequence of clauses and sequence of events." In Fisiak (ed.), Further Insights into Contrastive Linguistics, 357–373.
  33. 1989 Dancygier, B. "Czy istnieją warunkowe akty mowy?" (Polish). Acta Philologica 19: 45–56.
  34. 1988 Dancygier, B. "Conditionals and concessives." Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics XXIV: 111–121.
  35. 1988 Dancygier, B. "A note on the so called indicative conditionals." Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics XXIV: 123–131.
  36. 1986 Dancygier, B. "Languages Compared: Contrastive Analysis." In Kaznowski (ed.), Introduction to Linguistics, 237–252.
  37. 1985 Dancygier, B. "If, unless and their Polish equivalents." Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics XX: 65–72.
  38. 1984 Dancygier, B. & Ewa Mioduszewska. "Semanto-pragmatic classification of conditionals." Studia Anglica Posnaniensia XVII: 121–133.
  39. 1983 Dancygier, B. "Adjective-Noun Interrelations in English and Polish." Polonica IX: 89–113.
  40. 1983 Dancygier, B. "Certain aspects of the exclusively predicative use of adjectives in English and Polish." Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics XVI: 54–60.
  41. 1980 Dancygier, B. "Non-typical cases of plural nouns in English and Polish." Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics XI: 75–94.
Reviews & Review Articles (7)
  1. 2013 Review of Stylistics and Shakespeare's Language: Transdisciplinary Approaches. English Text Construction 6.1: 209–212.
  2. 2011 Review of J.P. Verstraete's Rethinking the Coordinate-Subordinate Dichotomy. Language 87.1: 239–242.
  3. 2009 Review of Anna Wierzbicka's English: meaning and culture. Journal of English Linguistics 37.4: 380–384.
  4. 2009 "Looking for the Roots" (review of Robert Logan's The Extended Mind). Canadian Literature 200: 167–169.
  5. 2008 Review of Arie Verhagen's Constructions of intersubjectivity. Linguistics 46.3: 658–667.
  6. 2006 "Beyond the Words" (reviews three books). Canadian Literature 187: 142–143.
  7. 2003 "Classifying conditionals: form and function" (review article). English Language and Linguistics 7.2: 309–323.