Short summary of Cognitive Linguistics

This is actually not a bad question and one to which a fairly definitive and informative answer is possible. This would be useful for many other branches.

Key points of Cognitive Linguistics (this is in contrast to Chomskyan linguistics which is sometimes also referred to as 'cognitive' but with a small 'c'):

• Language is part of our general cognitive ability rather than a separate module
• Cognition is rich and embodied rather than algorithmic manipulation of abstract symbols
• Language is an inventory of constructions which are pairings of form and meaning
• Constructions span both the areas traditionally described as grammar and lexicon. In the most radical formulation the only relationship is part/whole and the only operation is unification. Under this conception the words and rules view of language disappears.
• There is no sharp distinction between semantics and pragmatics (meanings are rich and encyclopedic)
• Semantics is best defined through models (frames) which include propositional meaning as well as scripts, schemas, images, etc.
• Figurative language (metaphor, metonymy) is not parasitic but one of the central structuring principles
• Categories are subject to prototype effects and do not follow the rules of Aristotelian logic
• The key syntactic and semantic operation is one of integration (blending)

Any introduction to Cognitive Linguistics (I'd recommend Croft and Cruse) will give you plenty of details about each of these points.

I'm sure I skipped something important and perhaps did not formulate everything quite as representatively as possible. Corrections and additions welcome.