The second of the guiding principles of cognitive semantics. Asserts that language refers to concepts in the mind of the speaker rather than, directly, to entities which inhere in an objectively real external world. In other words, semantic structure (the meanings conventionally associated with words and other linguistic units) can be equated with conceptual structure (that is, concepts).

This 'representational' view is directly at odds with the 'denotational' perspective of what cognitive semanticists sometimes refer to as objectivist semantics.