ELIAKIM FERREIRA OLIVEIRA

This is an investigation in which the research programs of generative grammar and cognitive linguistics are compared. The research program presupposes the articulation of the theoretical background and forms of investigation of these models of linguistic science. The theoretical background and forms of research are addressed by schemes for evaluating scientific practice which include the notion of style in science and the notion of scientific research strategy. Given this object of research and based on this conceptual framework, the problem I am addressing can be formulated as follows: what styles of reasoning predominate in cognitive grammar and cognitive linguistics and how can certain research strategies correspond to them? How does the answer to these questions allow us to understand the metatheoretical conflict that has been established between these two programs? My initial conclusions can be summarized as follows. Both generative grammar and cognitive linguistics are oriented towards hypothetical modeling, but they differ in the type of restriction and selection strategy: decontextualizing in the case of generative; contextualizing in the case of cognitive linguistics.