Alexander Kravchenko is a Russian Cognitive Linguist

Cognitive linguistics

In linguistics, cognitive linguistics refers to the branch of linguistics that interprets language in terms of the concepts, sometimes universal, sometimes specific to a particular tongue, which underlie its forms...

  and Professor at Baikal National University of Economics and Law (BNUEL), where he heads the Department of Foreign Languages. He is one of the founding researchers of the Distributed Language Group

Distributed language

Distributed language represents an externalist perspective on human cognition. Instead of tracing communication to individual knowledge of a symbolic system, language-activity is taken to sustain the human world...

.

Biography

Alexander Kravchenko received his Ph.D. in English Linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 from St-Petersburg State University

Saint Petersburg State University

Saint Petersburg State University is a Russian federal state-owned higher education institution based in Saint Petersburg and one of the oldest and largest universities in Russia....

 in 1987 and his Ph.D. Habilitat from the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Russian Academy of Sciences

The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....

 in 1995 with the thesis Principles of a Theory of Indexicality.

Prior to taking his position at BNUEL in 2000, he spent 22 years teaching TEFL and Linguistics courses at a linguistics university, where he also headed the Cognitive Linguistics Lab from 1995 to 2000.
His research interests include biology of cognition, biocognitive philosophy of language, (bio)semiotics

Biosemiotics

Biosemiotics is a growing field that studies the production, action and interpretation of signs in the biological realm...

, cognitive grammar

Cognitive grammar

Cognitive grammar is a cognitive approach to language developed by Ronald Langacker, which considers the basic units of language to be symbols or conventional pairings of a semantic structure with a phonological label. Grammar consists of constraints on how these units can be combined to generate...

, applied cognitive linguistics (TEFL).

Publications

Kravchenko published several monographs and edited volumes and over 80 articles in Russian and English.

Books

• 1996. Jazyk i vosprijatije: Kognitivnyje aspekty jazykovoj kategorizatsii. Irkutsk University Press. (Language and Perception: Cognitive aspects of linguistic categorization). 2ne edition in 2004.
• 2003. Sign, Meaning, Knowledge: An essay in the cognitive philosophy of language. Peter Lang.
• 2006 (Editor). Studia linguistica cognitiva. Vol. 1. Jazyk i poznanije: Metodologicheskie problemy i perspectivy. Moscow: Gnosis.
• 2008. Biology of Cognition and Linguistic Analysis: From non-realist linguistics to a realistic language science. Peter lang.
• 2008. Kognitivnyj gorizont jazykoznanija.Irkutsk: Izdatelstvo BGUEP. (The Cognitive Horizon of Linguistics. BNUEL Press)
• 2009 (Editor). Studia linguistica cognitiva. Vol. 2. Nauka o jazyke v izmeniajushcheisia paradigm znanija. Irkutsk: Izdatelstvo BGUEP (Language sciuence in the changing knowledge paradigm. BNUEL Press)

Articles

• 2001. Russian verbs of spatial orientation STAND, SIT, LIE. In E. Nemeth (Ed.), Cognition in Language Use: Selected Papers from the 7th International Pragmatics Conference, Vol. 1. Antwerp: International Pragmatics Association, 216-225.
• 2002. The cognitive roots of gender in Russian. Glossos, 3.
• 2002. A cognitive account of tense and aspect: resurrecting "dead" metaphors. Anglophonia. French Journal of English Studies 12. 199-212.
• 2003. The ontology of signs as linguistic and non-linguistic entities: a cognitive perspective. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 1. John Benjamins, 179-191.
• 2004. A new cognitive framework for Russian aspect. F. Karlsson (ed.). Proceedings of the 20th Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics, Helsinki, January 7-9. University of Helsinki, Department of General Linguistics, Publications No. 36.
• 2005. Complex sentence as a structure for representing knowledge. In K. Turewicz (ed.). Cognitive linguistics—a user friendly approach. University of Szczecin Publishing House, 49-63.
• 2006. Cognitive linguistics, biology of cognition, and biosemiotics: bridging the gaps. Language Sciences 28(1), 51-75.
• 2007. “Everything said is said by an observer": the cognitive distinction between the infinitive/participle clausal arguments. In J.-R. Lapaire, G. Desagulier, J.-B. Guignard (eds.), From Gram to Mind : Grammar as cognition. PUB- Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, France, 267-284.
• 2007. Essential properties of language, or why language is not a code. Language Sciences 29(5). 650-671.
• 2007. Whence the autonomy? A reply to Harnad and Dror. Pragmatics & Cognition 15(3), 587-597.
• 2009. Reassessing the project of linguistics. In J. Zlatev, M. Andrén, M. J. Falck, and C. Lundmark (Eds.), Studies in Language and Cognition. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 27-42.
• 2009. Speech, writing, and cognition: the rise of communicative dysfunction. In W. Oleksy and P. Stalmaszczyk (eds.), Cognitive Approaches to Language and Linguistic Data. Studies in honor of Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk. Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang.
• 2009. The experiential basis of speech and writing as different cognitive domains. Pragmatics & Cognition 17(3), 527-548.
• 2009. Language and mind: A bio-cognitive view. In H. Götzsche (ed.), Memory, Mind and Language. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 103-124.
• 2010. Native speakers, mother tongues, and other objects of wonder. Language Sciences, 2010 (to appear)