Unit11 Coginitive Linguistics

The approach that language and language use are based on our bodily experience and the way we conceptualize it is called cognitive Linguistics. CL is not a single theory. It is a collection of approaches to the study of language which include

Cognitive Linguistics

• Introduction
  • The approach that language and language use are based on our bodily experience and the way we conceptualize it is called cognitive Linguistics. CL is not a single theory. It is a collection of approaches to the study of language which includes a number of specific concerns and theories.
• Categorization and Categories
  • Definition
    • Category: The special term for this phenomenon is called category.
    • Categorization: The mental process of classification is called categorization.
  • Principles used when people do categorizing
    • The Classical Theory 经典范畴理论
      • Four assumptions
        • 1. Categories are defined by a limited set of necessary and sufficient conditions, which are regarded as features. A thing cannot both be and not be, it cannot both have a feature and not have it, it cannot both belong to a category and not belong to it.
        • 2. A feature is either in the definition of acategory, or it is not; an entity either has this feature, or it does not. Features are binary.
        • 3. In general, categories have clear boundaries.
        • 4. All members of a category have equal status.
    • The Prototype Theory 原型范畴理论
      • Prototype: The best examples of a categori are called prototypes.
      • According to the prototypr theory, people decide whether an entity belongs to a category by comparing that entity with a prototype: If the entity is similar to the prototype, it is included in the category; If it is sufficiently differently, it is placed in another category, in which it resembles the prototype for that category more closely.
      • Members of a category therefore differ in their prototypicality, or degree to which they are prototypical. For example, sprrow and robin are very typical birds, and are high in prototypicality.
  • Levels of Categorization
    • Superordinate levels: higher levels or more general levels e.g. FRUIT
    • Basic-level categories: more specific, but not too specific e.g. apple
      • Difference between the terms prototype and basic-level category: A prototype is a best example of a category, whether the category level is superordinate, basic-level, or subordinate.
      • Basic-level categories are basic in three respects: 1. Perception: overall perceived shape; single mental image; fast identification; 2. Communication: shortest, most commonly used and contextually neutral words, first learned by children and first to enter the lexicon; 3. Knowledge organization: most attributes of category members are stored at this level.
    • Subordinate levels: lower levels or more specific categories e.g. Fuji apple
• Conceptual Metaphor and Metonymy
  • Conceptual Metaphor 概念隐喻
    • Definition
      • Metaphor is a figure of speech in which one thing is compared to another by saying that one is the other. According to cognitive linguistics, metaphor is defines as understanding one conceptual domian or cognitive domain in terms of another conceptual domain. In cognitive linguistics metaphor is called conceptual metaphor, because it is a property of concepts. A conceptual metaphor consists of two conceptual domains, in which one domain is understood in terms of another.
        • source domain
          • The conceptual domain form which we draw metaphorical expressions to understand another conceptual domian is called source domain.
        • target domian
          • The conceptual domian that is understood this way is called target domain.
        • e.g. He is a tiger. source domain: tiger target domain: he
    • Types
      • ontological metaphors
        • It means that human experiences with physical objects provide the basis for ways of viewing events, activities, emotions, ideas, etc. as entities and substances.
          • e.g. Inflation makes me sick. (INFLATION IS AN ENTITY)
      • structural metaphors
        • It allows us to go beyond orientation and referring and gives us the possibility to structure one concept according to another. This means that structural metaphors are grounded in our experience. Structural metaphors imply how one concept is metaphorically structured in terms of another.
          • e.g. Your claims are indefensible. (ARGUMENT IS WAR)
      • orientational metaphors
        • It gives a concept a spatial orientation. They are characterized not so much by structuring one concept in terms of another, but by a co-occurrence in out experience. Orientational metaphors are based on human physical and cultural experience.
          • e.g. In some cultures, the future is in front of us, whereas in others it is in back of us. I'm feeling up.
  • Conceptual Metonymy 概念转喻
    • Definition
      • According to the classical definition, metonymy is a figure of speech in which one word is substituted for another on the basis of some material, casual, or conceptual relation.
        • e.g. Have you ever read Shakespeare? producer for product
      • the cognitive linguistic definition of metonymy: Metonymy is a cognitive process in which one cognitive category, the source, provides mental access to another cognitive category, the target, within the same cognitive domain, or idealized cognitive model (ICM).
• Iconicity
  • Definition
    • Rearecent studies in cognitive linguistics claim that linguistic elements are lined up orderly in syntax. The sequence of grammatical elements is governed by the principles of iconicity in language. The intuition behind the iconicity is quite simple: The structure of language reflects in some way the structure of experience, that is, the structure of the world, including the perspective imposed on the world by the speaker.
  • Iconicity of Order
    • Iconicity of order refers to the similarity between temporal events and the linear arrangement of elements in a linguistic construction. Or the linear order of syntactic elements mirrors the order of actions or events described. It reflects the consistency of language with human cognition and the objective world.
  • Iconicity of Distance
    • Iconicity of distance accounts for the fact that things which belong together conceptually tend to be put together linguistically, and things that do not belong together are put at a distance. That is, elements which have a close relationship must be placed close together. Conceptual distance corresponds to linguistic (i.e. structural) distance, not merely physical distance.
  • Iconicity of Complexity
    • The phenomenon that linguistic complexity reflects conceptual complexity is usually called iconicity of complexity/quantity. It accounts for our tendency to associate more form with more meaning and, conversely, less form with less meaning.
• Grammaticalization
  • Definition: The process whereby an independent word is shifted to the status of a grammatical element is called grammaticalization. e.g. word "full" has become an affix "-ful"
  • Characteristics
    • Grammaticalization brings about typical changes in meanings and the distribution of forms. e.g. "a(n)", both an infinite article and the lexical form as "one"; the lexical and the grammatical forms coexist
    • Another characteristic of grammaticalized forms is that the constrains on their grammatical uses tend to reflect their lexical histories. e.g. will
    • Another typical outcome of grammaticalization is the development of the different historical levels of nearly equivalent forms. As new ways of expressing functions appear, the older ones are often not discarded, but remain as alternatives. e.g. older technique of past-tense: involvement of a vowel change (drive/drove) new technique of past-tense: suffixation (cook/cooked) The two techniques are all in use today.
• Construal and Construal Operations 识解 识解运作
  • Construal is the ability to conceive and portray the same situation in alternative ways through specificity, different mental scanning, directionality, vantage point, figure-ground segregation, etc.
  • Construal operations are conceptualizing processes used in language process by human beings. That is, conceptual operations are the underlying psychological processes and resources employed in the interpretation of linguistic expressions.
    • Three Types
      • Attention/Salience: It has to do with our direction of attention towards something that is salient to us.
      • Judgement/Contrast: The consrtual operations of judgment/comparison have to do with judging something by comparing it to something else.
        • Figure-Ground 图形/背景 1. The figure is a moving or conceptually movable pbject whose site, path, or orientation is conceived as a variable the particular valuse of which is the salient issue. 2. The ground is a reference object (itself having a stationary setting within a reference frame) with respect to which the figure's site, path, or orientation receves characterizaion.
          • According to the principle of Pragnanz (of figure/ground segregation), the figure should be: 1. holistic 具有完形特征的物体（不可分割的整体） 2. smaller 小的物体 3. moving 容易移动或运动的物体
      • Perspective/Situatedness: This is another construal operation in cognitive linguistics that is regarded to be perspective, in which we view a scene in terms of our situatedness.
        • Perspective generally depends on two things: 1. It depends on where we are situated in relation to the scene we're viewing; 2. It depends on how the scene is arranged in relation to our situatedness.
    • Deixis
      • Definition
        • Deixis involves linguistic forms that point at something from the speech situation. In cognitive term, deixis is the use of elements of subject's situatedness to dedesignate something in the scene.
          • e.g. Look at that(construes distance) / this(construes proximity)
      • Types
        • 1. Person deixis construes the relations between the participants in the speech situation;
        • 2. Social deixis construes social relationships between participants in the discourse;
        • 3. Textual/discursive deixis construes the relation to previous mention in discourse.
• Image Schemas
  • Definition
    • An image schema, proposed by Make Johnson, is a "skeletal" mental representation of a recurrent pattern of embodied (especially spatial or kinesthetic) experience. These image schemas are proposed as a more primitive level of cognitive structure underlying metaphor and which provide a link between bodily experience and higher cognitve domains. They emerge from our embodied interactions with the world.
  • Containment Schema
    • Structural elements: interior, boundary, exterior
    • A containment shcema has certain experientially-based characteristics: it has a kind of natural logic, including for example the "rules" below: 1. Containers are a kind of disjunction: elements are either inside or outside the container; 2. Containment is typically transitive: if the container is placed in another container the entity is within both. as Johnson says: "If I am in bed, and my bed is in my room, then I am in my room." The scheme is also associated with a group of implications. · Attention* Though we have represented this schema in a static image, it is important to remember that these schemas are in essence neither static nor restricred to images. They may be dynamic.
  • Path Schema
    • This schema has a number of associated implications
      • 1. Since the starting point (A) and the end point (B) are connected by a series of contiguous locations, getting from A to B implies passing through the intermediate points.
      • 2. Paths tend to be associated with directional movement along them, say from A to B.
      • 3. There is an association with time. Since a person traversing a path takes time to do so, points on the path are readily associated with temporal sequence. Thus an implication is that the further along the path an entity is, the more time has elapsed.