Cognitive LinguisticsKey Points1. Basic concepts cognitive linguistics cateory categorization prototype prototype theoryMetaphor metonymy iconicity grammaticalization2. The classical theory of categorization3. The prototype theory of categorization4. Conceptual metaphor and metonymy5. Major types of iconicity in language6. Grammaticalization10.2 Categorization and categoriesHave you seen a tree? I bet that strictly speaking you haven’t, for you have seen a willow, a p each tree, or any particular tree, but you haven’t seen an abstract tree. The same is true with the word dog. Have you seen a dog? You haven’t, not in the abstract sense of the word. You have seen a white dog, a yellow dog, your own dog or your neighbour’s dog, but you haven’t seen an abstract dog. A dog (or a tree for that matter) stands for all the characteristics of the species it refers to. The special term for this phenomenon is called category. And the mental process of classification is called categorization, which is one of the important capabilities of the human mind.Categorization occurs everywhere around us, without it a lot of information would be in disorder. In fact, people are quite able to divide the world into categories, and they can learn to distinguish between different categories such as CAR and BUS. For example, as a student, you may be classified as a FRESHMAN, SOPHOMORE, JUNIOR, or SENIOR; you may also be classified by your major. As to the colour system, we have colour categories, such as RED, WHITE, BLACK, YELLOW, and BLUE. Movies in America have already been categorized as G (General Audiences: used to mean that a film is suitable for anyone to watch), PG (parental guidance: used to describe a film containing scenes, subjects, or language considered unsuitable for children unless they have a parent with them), R (restricted: used to mean that the people under the age of 17 cannot go to a particular film unless they go with an adult), or X (used to mean that a film is not suitable for people under the age of 18). The list of categorization examples is practically endless.But what principles do people use when they do categorizing. Generally speaking, there are two major theories which deal with this problem. One is the classical theory, and the other is the prototype theory.10.2.1 The classical theoryThe classical theory of categorization can be traced back to Aristotle, and it is carried forward by structuralist and transformationalist linguists.According to this theory, in the BIRD category, for example, if a creature has two wings, two legs, a beak, feathers and lays eggs (these are the necessary conditions), then it is a bird; on the other hand, if a creature has all these features, this is also sufficient for classifying it as a bird. This seems to tell us that categories are defined by a limited set of necessary and sufficient conditions (these conditions are regarded as features). In other words, 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. This is the first assumption of the classical theory.In the definition of a category, one of two values, either [+] or [–], can be used. For example, the BIRD category has the feature [+two legs], but [–four legs]. This means that a feature is either in the definition of a category, or it is not; an entity either has this feature, or it does not. That is, features are binary. This is the second assumption.Once a category has been established, it has divided the universe into two sets of entities. In this case, some entities are the members of the category, while the others are not. There are no borderline cases. For instance, after the BIRD category is formed, some creatures such as the sparrow, the robin, and the swallow are the members of BIRD, but others such as lions, tigers, and bears are not, because the latter are the members of the BEAST category. The view can be demonstrated in the following figure:This shows that the two categories BIRD and BEAST have clear boundaries. In general, categories have clear boundaries. This is the third assumption.The fourth assumption is that all members of a category have equal status. This means that a member that has all the features of a category is a full member of the category; a member that does not have all the features is not a member. There is no such case in which one member is better than others in the same category. Therefore, according to this view, we cannot say that the sparrow is a better member than the ostrich in the BIRD category.The classical theory has dominated for a long time, but it has also suffered from criticisms. Such a view of categorization is bound to run into difficulties when it is used to describe categories which have good and bad members and fuzzy boundaries. Things in the world are much too complex for a theory as neat as the classical theory. Certain things do not fall into clear-cut categories. For instance, do ostriches and penguins belong to the BIRD catego ry? Even if they do, aren’t they less of birds than robins are? Then what about ducks and peacocks? Are they more of birds than penguins? (See Figure 1 in the next section)10.2.2 Prototype theoryIn the fruit category there are a great number of examples such as orange, apple, banana, peach, apricot, plum, tangelo, and papaya. If you are asked which are the best examples, you would possibly answer that orange and apple are the best ones. The best examples of a category are called prototypes.Some scholars think that natural categories are organized according to prototypes. According to prototype 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. However, if it is sufficiently different, 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, a robin and a sparrow are very prototypical birds, while ostriches and penguins are very low in prototypicality. In fact, ostriches and penguins can be called nonprototypes because they are far away the prototype of a birdFigure 1: The BIRD categoryPrototype theory started in the mid-1970s with E. Rosch’s psycholinguistic research into the internal structure of categories. From its psycholinguistic origin, prototype theory has moved mainly in two directions. On the one hand, information-processing psychology takes Rosch’s findings and proposals, and tries to devise formal models for human conceptual memory and its operation. On the other hand, prototype theory has a steadily growing success in linguistics since the early 1980s. It is this linguistic tradition of prototype-theoretical research that prototype theory has a very important status in cognitive linguistics.Prototype theory is useful for explaining how people deal with untypical examples of a category. This is how unbirdy birds such as penguins and pelicans can still be regarded as birds. They are sufficiently like the prototype, even though they do not share all its characteristics. But it has a further advantage: it can explain how people deal with damaged examples. Previously linguists had found it difficult to explain why people could still categorize a one-winged robin who couldn’t fly as a bird, or a three-legged lion as a lion. Now we just assume that these get matched against the prototype in the same way as an untypical category member. A one-winged robin who can’t fly can still be a bird, even though it’s not such a typical one. In addition, prototype theory can work for actions as well as objects. For example, people can judge that murder is a better example of killing than execute or suicide, and that stare is a better example of looking than peer or squint.10.2.3Levels of categorizationAn object can belong to many different, related categories. For example, the wooden object upon which you are sitting can be called by several different names: furniture, chair, or desk chair. So we can see that categories arrange from level to level. Some category levels are called superordinate levels, which mean higher levels or more general levels. Furniture and animal areexamples of superordinate category levels. Basic-level categories are more specific, but not too specific. Chair is an example of basic-level categories. Finally, there are subordinate levels, which means lower level or more specific categories. Desk chair is an example of subordinate categories. However, basic level categories have a special status. Notice that there are differences 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. It has been found that children learn basic level words first, for the simple reason that they are not too general nor too specific and they are most useful. Basic level categories are basic in three respects.(a)Perception: Overall perceived shape; single mental image; fast identification.(b)Communication: Shortest, most commonly used and contextually neutral words, first learned by children and firstto enter the lexicon.(c)Knowledge organization: Most attributes of category members are stored at this level.It is not hard to see that basic level categories take primacy over categories at other levels. This is mostly because it is at this level that we perceive the evident differences between objects and organisms of the world. Most of the time, we understand superordinate categories in aid of the features of basic level categories. For instance, the comprehension of furniture comes from the collective properties of typical members like chairs, tables, desks, and beds in the basic level. Similarly, by the time a child can understand animal, he must have learnt cat, dog, lion, tiger, cow, and many others.10.3Conceptual metaphor and metonymy10.3.1Conceptual metaphorTraditionally, metaphor is a figure of speech in which one thing is compared to another by saying that one is the other, as in “He is a tiger”. It is a property of words, and is used for some artistic and rhetoric purpose. However, this view has been challenged recently by cognitive linguists. In the cognitive linguistic view, metaphor is a property of concepts, and it is a powerful cognitive tool for our conceptualization of abstract categories. It is pervasive in our language.According to cognitive linguistics, metaphor is defined as understanding one conceptual domain or cognitive domain in terms of another conceptual domain. The conceptual domain from which we draw metaphorical expressions to understand another conceptual domain is called source domain(“tiger” in the above example), while the conceptual domain that is understood this way is called target domain(“He” in the above example). Thus, metaphor can be diagrammed as follows:Thus, in cognitive linguistics metaphor is called conceptual metaphor because it is a property of concepts. From this diagram we can see that a conceptual metaphor consists of two conceptual domains, in which one domain is understood in terms of another. Some examples of conceptual metaphor are in the following:(5) LOVE IS A JOURNEYLook how far we’ve come.We’ll just have to go our separate ways.We can’t turn back now.Our marriage is on the rocks.We’ve gotten off the track.This relationship is foundering.(6)IDEAS ARE FOODThere are too many facts here for me to digest them all.I just can’t swallow that claim.That’s food for thought.He devoured the book.(7)AN ARGUMENT IS WARYour claims are indefensible.They attacked every weak point in our argument.I’ve never won an argument with him.You disagree? Okay, shoot!If you use that strategy, he’ll wipe you out.He shot down all of my arguments.10.3.2Conceptual metonymyAccording to the classical definition, metonymy is a figure of speech in which one word is substituted for another on the basis of some material, causal, or conceptual relation. Some typical substitutions include author for work, place for a characteristic product of that place, object for possessor, abstract features for concrete entities, etc. Some examples are:(8)Have you ever read Shakespeare?(9)Wary wants Burgundy (red or white wine from the Burgundy area of France).(10)T he crown objects to the proposal.(11)I want my love to be with me all the time.However, the rhetorical treatment of metonymy faces an interesting paradox. On the one hand, it captures a lot of phenomena which continue to be productive and wide-spread in a variety of languages; in addition, these seem to be produced and understood naturally and spontaneously. On the other hand, it regards metonymy as a figure of speech, that is, a departure from the linguistic norm, serving ornamental and literary purposes and demanding suitable training for its successful use and comprehension.When we turned to a cognitive view of figurative language, we only paid attention to the role of metaphor but not that of metonymy, in the construction of abstract categories. However, metonymy does play a very important part in the structures of emotion categories. For example, we have a general metonymic principle: THE BODIL Y SYMPTOMS OF AN EMOTION STAND FOR THE EMOTION. According to this principle, we can find that there are indeed bodily symptoms which seem to be helpful for a description of the conceptual structure of emotions because they are peculiar to one particular emotion: drop in temperature for FEAR (e.g. “I was chilled to the bone.”), erect posture for PRIDE (e.g. “He swelled with pride.”), drooping posture for SADNESS (e.g. “My heart sank.”), and jumping up and down for JOY (e.g. “He was jumping for joy.”). Obviously these physiological phenomena help us in conceptualizing these emotions.Metonymy differs from metaphor in a cognitive theory, but they also work together. As a matter of fact, the main claims made by cognitive linguists in the description of metaphor also apply to metonymy: (i) both are regarded as being conceptual in nature; (ii) both can be conventionalized (i.e. automatic, unconscious, effortless and generally established as a model of thinking); (iii) both are means of extending the resources of a language; and (iv) both can be explained as mapping processes. The main difference between them is that metaphor involves a mapping across different conceptual or cognitive domains while metonymy is a mapping within one conceptual domain. In metonymy, one category within a domain is taken as standing for another category in the same domain. The main function of a metonymic expression is to activate one cognitive category by referring to another category within the same domain (see examples (8)-(11)), and by doing that, to highlight the first category or the subdomain to which it belongs. Consider the following three examples of part-whole relations (Croft, 1993: 350):(12)W e need a couple of strong bodies for our team.(13)T here are a lot of good heads in the university.(14)W e need some new faces around here.Obviously, in the three sentences above a reference to human beings is being made. What is interesting here about them is that in each case one particular relevant aspect of a human being is highlighted. In the sports context of the first example, the domain PHYSICAL STRENGTH related to the category BODY is highlighted, and in the university context the domainINTELLIGENCE is related to HEAD. The category FACE is particularly appropriate in the context of new people, because this is what we usually perceive first when we meet strangers.So, given the observations above, we can offer 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).This understanding of metonymy can be represented as the following figure:Generally speaking, the most commonly used conceptual metonymies are as follows:(15)T HE PRODUCER FOR THE PRODUCT (THE AUTHER FOR THE WORK)She loves Picasso.Does he have any Hemingway in his collection?I’m reading Mark Twain.(16)T HE PLACE FOR THE EVENTAmerica doesn’t want another Pearl Harbor.Watergate changed American politics.(17)T HE PLACE FOR THE INSTITUTIONWashington is negotiating with Beijing.Wall Street is in a panic.Hollywood is putting out terrible movies.(18)T HE CONTROLLER FOR THE CONTROLLEDNixon bombed Hanoi.Ozawa gave a terrible concert last night.(19)A N OBJECT USED FOR THE USERThe sax has the flu today.We need a better glove at the third base.Thus, we can say that one kind of entity, such as the one referred to by the word Hemingway, the AUTHER or PRODUCER, “stands for” another kind of entity, such as the one referred to by the expression one of Hemingway’s work s, the WORK or PRODUCT. In the same way, we get the PLACE for the EVENT, the PLACE for the INSTITUTION, the CONTROLLER for the CONTROLLED, etc. Metonymies, then, similar to metaphors, are conceptual in nature, and the conceptual metonymies are revealed by metonymic linguistic expressions. There are many other conceptual metonymies besides the ones above; for example, we have PART FOR WHOLE (as in, “We need some good heads on the project”); WHOLE FOR THE PART (as in, “America is a powerful country”); INSTRUMENT FOR ACTION (as in, “She shampooed her hair); EFFECT FOR CAUSE (as in, “It’s a slow road”); DESTINATION FOR MOTION (as in, “He porched the newspaper”.。
