Banca de DEFESA: JULIANA RODRIGUES DE LIMA

Uma banca de DEFESA de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : JULIANA RODRIGUES DE LIMA
DATE: 22/01/2026
TIME: 15:00
LOCAL: https://meet.google.com/mzi-bgqb-iur
TITLE:

FUSION BETWEEN HUMAN AND MACHINE: AN INVESTIGATION OF AI CONCEPTS IN ACADEMIC DISCOURSE FROM A COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS PERSPECTIVE

KEY WORDS:

Cognitive Linguistics; Domain; Conceptual Metaphor; Conceptual Integration; Artificial Intelligence.

PAGES: 128
BIG AREA: Lingüística, Letras e Artes
AREA: Lingüística
SUBÁREA: Teoria e Análise Lingüística
SUMMARY:

Although Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been extensively studied from technical and applied perspectives, there remains a limited understanding of how scientific discourse constructs and organizes the meanings attributed to AI. This theoretical–epistemological gap hinders a deeper comprehension of the cognitive schemas that underpin knowledge production in AI, particularly in the context of contemporary generative models, and may thus lead to misconceptions about their actual functioning. Accordingly, the present study aims to characterize the concepts that constitute the domain of Artificial Intelligence (AI) based on the theoretical assumptions of Cognitive Linguistics, with a focus on how these concepts are cognitively modeled in the academic discourse of the field. Such characterization makes it possible to reveal the symbolic and linguistic mechanisms that structure the understanding of AI in academic discourse, thereby addressing the identified theoretical–epistemological gap. To investigate this gap, a qualitative descriptive study was conducted, focusing on the characterization of AI concepts from a Cognitive Linguistics perspective. The research corpus consisted of nine scientific articles selected from the Web of Science database, published between 2020 and 2024, which address generative AI models. The analysis focused on verbal cues present in the texts, employing specialized reading techniques and textual analysis tools, such as Voyant Tools, to identify linguistic and cognitive patterns in the representation of AI. The variables investigated included conceptual domains (Lakoff, 1997; Fauconnier, 1984, 1987), from which metaphors (Lakoff, Johnson, 1980) and conceptual integrations (Fauconnier, Turner, 2002) were identified as underlying the concepts found, taking linguistic data as the point of departure for the emergence of these cognitive mappings. The analysis revealed the predominance of the conceptual domain MACHINE in specialists’ discourse, with recurrent terms such as machine, model, system, data, and network, associated with the technical functioning of AI. Selective projections from the HUMAN domain were also identified, evidenced by terms such as learn, train, understand, performance, and decision, which suggest conceptual approximations to human cognition. Three main metaphors were mapped—MIND AS MACHINE, AI AS HUMAN BEING, and AI AS JUDGE—as well as incomplete conceptual integrations that combine technical and human domains without full fusion between them. Based on Cognitive Linguistics, the study characterizes that specialists in the field model AI concepts through selective metaphors and conceptual integrations, partially and systematically projecting human attributes onto technical systems. These findings address the research question by demonstrating that meaning construction about AI in academic discourse is marked by hybrid schemas and conceptual tensions between the MACHINE and HUMAN domains. It is worth noting that this tension also shapes our understanding of AI (Reddy, 1979), potentially leading to the overestimation of these systems in light of the lack of transparency in the discourse.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Presidente - 1675404 - PAULO HENRIQUE DUQUE
Externo à Instituição - EDUARDO ALVES DA SILVA - UNILAB
Externo à Instituição - VANILTON PEREIRA DA SILVA - IFRN