Chapter 10

1. Chapter 10 Cognitive Linguistics

2. Contents • 10.1 Introduction • 10.2 Categorization and Categories 10.2.1 The classical theory 10.2.2 Prototype theory 10.2.3 Levels of categorization • 10.3 Conceptual Metaphor and Metonymy 10.3.1 Conceptual metaphor 10.3.2 Conceptual metonymy • 10.4 Iconicity 10.4.1 Iconicity of order 10.4.2 Iconicity of distance 10.4.3 Iconicity of complexity • 10.5 Grammaticalization

3. 10.1 Introduction Describe a car ★ box-like shape, wheels, doors, windows, engine, brakes, seat… ★comfortable, fast, social status… ★personal affairs connected with cars, e.g. car accident

4. What does this example tell us? • This example tells us that the description of a car goes beyond the objective description, but provides a richer, more natural view of its meaning, and includes the use of metaphor. This approach to language is closely related to human experience of the world and the way to perceive the world. This new approach to language is called cognitive linguistics.

5. cognitive linguistics Cognitive Linguistics is the study of language based on human bodily experience of the world and the way they perceive and conceptualize the world. 认知语言学是基于人类对世界的经验以及他们感知和概念化世界的方式。

6. Background: Cognitive linguistics is a newly established approach to the study of language that emerged in the 1970s as a reaction against the dominant generative paradigm which pursues an autonomous view of language and has been increasingly active since 1980s.

7. three major hypotheses of cognitive linguistics: • 1) Language is not an autonomous; • 2) Grammar is conceptualization; • 3) Knowledge of language emerges from language use.

8. 10.2 Categorization and Categories • Categorization: • Categorization is the process of classifying our experiences into different categories based on commonalities and differences. 范畴化是基于人类经验的异同将我们的经验划分成不同的类型。 • Categorization is our ability to identify entities as members of groups.

9. The world consists of an infinite variety of objects with different substances, shapes and colors. • How do we translate this variety into manageable word meanings? • Three phenomena in the world: • 1) organisms and objects (one type of entities): e.g. people, animals, plants and all kinds of everyday artifacts such as books, chairs, cars and houses • They are clearly delimited (有界) objects.

10. 2) parts of organisms (another type of entities): • a. knees, ankles and feet of human beings and animals; • b. the trunk, branches and twigs of a tree. • The boundaries of these entities are far from clear; they are vague. • So classification seems to be forced upon us by the boundaries provided by reality.

11. 3) But there are phenomena in the world where this is not the case. Take physical properties such as length, width, height, temperature and colors. • All of them are uninterrupted scales extending between two extremes:

12. The above phenomena can be conceived as a mental process. • This mental process of classification is now commonly called categorization, and its products are categories (cognitive categories/ mental concepts). • There is nothing more basic than categorization to our thought, perception, action, and speech.

13. Every time we see something as a kindof thing (e.g. a tree), we are categorizing. • Whenever we reason about kindsof things (chairs, nations, illnesses, emotions, any kind of thing at all) we are employing categories. • Whenever we intentionally perform any kindof action (e.g. say something as mundane as writing with a pencil, hammering with a hammer, or ironing clothes), we are using categories.

14. Most categorization is automatic and unconscious. • A large proportion of our categories are not categories of things; they are categories of abstract entities. • We categorize events, actions, emotions, spatial relationships, social relationships, and abstract entities of an enormous range.

15. 10.2.1 The classical theory The classical theory of categorization can be traced back to Aristotle, and it is carried forward by structuralist and transformationalist linguists.

16. 10.2.1 The classical theory • The classical theory—the view that categories are defined by a limited set of necessary and sufficientconditions. • It was the prevalent model since the time of Aristotle. • These conditions are called ‘necessary and sufficient’ because they are individually necessary but only collectively sufficient to define a category.

17. Traditionally, the conditions were thought to be sensory or perceptual in nature. • The “conditions” in the definition are also called features. • The features are necessary in that no entity that does not possess the full set is a member of the category, and they are sufficient in that possession of all the features guarantees membership. • In short, category membership is an ‘all-or-nothing’ affair.

18. Four assumptions of the classical theory 1. A thing cannot both belong to a category and not belong to it. 2. Features are binary. 3. Categories have clear boundaries. 4. All members of a category have equal status.

19. Criticisms of the classical theory Certain things do not fall into clear categories. For instance, do ostriches and penguins belong to the BIRD theory? 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?

20. 10.2.2 The prototype theory The prototype theory started in the mid-1970s with E.Rosch’s psychological research into the internal structure of categories. The prototype theory has had a steadily growing success in linguistics since the early 1980s. It is for this linguistic tradition of prototype-theoretical research that the prototype theory has a very important status in cognitive linguistics.

21. Prototype the best example of a category The usefulness of the prototype theory ★It is useful for explaining how people deal with atypical examples of a category. ★It can explain how people deal with damaged examples. ★It can work for actions as well as objects.

22. In the BIRD category, there are many members, such as ostrich, sparrow, penguin, goose, duck, dove, robin, owl, peacock, parrot, etc. But they differ in prototypicality.

23. Good examples are prototypes or prototypical members, and bad examples are nonprototypes or nonprototypical members. • Robin and sparrow are good examples, and ostrich and penguin are bad examples, and others are neither good nor bad examples (goose, duck, dove, owl, peacock, parrot).

24. In the FURNITURE category, • Prototypical members (good examples): chair, sofa, couch, table • Nonprototypical members (bad examples): ashtray, vase, telephone

25. 10.2.3 Levels of categorization Categories arrange from level to level.There are three levels in categories: • superordinate level: higher level or more general level, e.g. furniture, animal • basic level: more specific but not too specific, e.g. chair • subordinate level: lower level or more specific, e.g. desk chair

26. Basic level 基本层次范畴 The categories at the basic level are those that are most culturally salient and are required to fulfill our cognitive needs the best. This is the level where we perceive the most differences between “objects” in the world.

27. The basic levels are not defined by the external world, but by our interactions in it. • Three factors of basic level category • 1)The basic level is where we perceive the most obviousdifferences between the organisms and objects of the world. For example, all dogs are distinguished from cats, lions, tigers, pigs, etc.

28. 2) The common overall shape is perceived holistically and can be seen as an important indicator of gestalt perception. • All category members (e.g. all members of the category DOG) have a characteristic shape. • This shape not only unites all kinds of dogs, but also distinguishes them from the members of other basic categories, such as CATS, LIONS, TIGERS, PIGS, ELEPHANT, MOUSE, etc.

29. 3) The actions or motormovement are performed when we interact with objects and organisms. It is only on this basic level that objects and organisms are marked by really characteristic actions. • Cats can be stroked, flowers can be sniffed, balls can be rolled and bounced.

30. 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.Knowledgeorganization: most attributes of category members are stored at this level.

31. Superordinate level 上位层次范畴 Superordinate categories are the most general ones. The members of a superordinate category do not have enough features in common to conjure up a common gestalt at this level. 其特征体现在以下四个方面(Croft and Cruse)： 1 上位范畴没有基本层次范畴好，尽管它的成员可以区别于邻近的范畴，但是范畴内的相似性相对比较低。 2 上位范畴比基本层次范畴的定义特征是少。 3 基本层次范畴与上位范畴之间有单一的修饰关系。 4 从语言学的角度说，上位范畴的名词大多是物质名词，而基本层次范畴的名词是可数名词。

32. Subordinate level 附属层次范畴 At this level we perceive the differences betwee the members of the basic level categories. Often the names for SUBORDINATE LEVEL categories are morphologically complex. They are typically composite forms. One such example is that of compound nouns. 其特征体现在以下三个方面（Croft and Cruse）： 1 附属范畴比基本范畴层次低，尽管它们的成员之间有很高的相似性，但于临近的范畴成员的区别性却很低。 2 它们的信息性相对比它们的中间层次上位范畴少。 3 它们是多词素性的，而最普遍的格式是修饰－中心语结构。

34. Table 1

35. 10.3 Conceptual Metaphor and metonymy • Traditionally, metaphors and metonymies have been regarded as figures of speech, i.e. as more or less ornamental devices used in rhetorical style. • However, metaphors and metonymies also play an important part in everyday language. • Philosophers and cognitive linguists have shown that they are powerful toolsfor our conceptualization of abstract categories.

36. 10.3.1 Conceptual Metaphor • 1) Novel metaphor • Novel metaphors are new metaphors which are “imaginative and creative”. • e.g. theeyeof heaven —Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare • 2) Conventional metaphor • (=conventionalized metaphors/ dead metaphors) • Such metaphors are used in everyday speech. • They have entered the conceptual system of the English language.

37. Prime examples of this are the parts of the body: • e.g.eye, leg, hand, andfoot, as in eyeoftheneedle, handontheclock, footofthebed, or a little more elaborate, womb, as in thewomboftime, aheadofcabbage,thelegof a table,thefootofthemountain,the foot of a page, thearm of a chair,the arm of a tree,the nose of an aircraft,the lips of a jug.

38. 3) Conceptual metaphor • Metaphor—According to cognitive linguistics, metaphor is defined as understanding one conceptual domain or cognitivedomain in terms of another conceptual domain. • Source domain: the conceptual domain from which we draw metaphorical expressions to understand another conceptual domain • Target domain: the conceptual domain that is understood this • Metaphors are not just a way of expressing ideas by means of language, but a way of thinking about things.

40. Conceptual metaphor CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN(A) IS CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN(B) TARGET DOMAIN SOURCE DOMAIN He is a tiger.

41. Some examples of conceptual metaphor e.g. LOVE IS A JOURNEY Look how far we’ve come. It’s been along, bumpyroad. We can’t turnback now. We’re at a crossroads. We may have to goourseparateways. We’re spinningourwheels. Our relationship is offthetrack. The marriage is ontherocks. We may have to bailout of this relationship.

42. What is striking about these examples is that they represent ordinary everyday ways of talking about relationships: • There is nothing stylized or overtly poetic about these expressions. • Moreover, for the most part, they do not make use of the linguistic formula A is B, which is typical of resemblance metaphors. • However, these expressions are clearly non-literal: a relationship cannot literally spin its wheels, nor stand at the crossroads.

43. Observe that the expressions in the above example have something in common: • In addition to describing experiences of relationships, they also rely upon expressions that relate to the conceptual domain JOURNEYS. • Indeed, our ability to describe relationships in terms of journeys appears to be highly productive.

44. From a cognitive point of view, the crucial aspects of a metaphor are not only the properties inherent in the individual categories, but their role in the structureof an entire “cognitive model”. • What is transferred, then, by a metaphor is: • a. the structure, • b. the internalrelations or the logic of a cognitive model.

45. There is a conventional link at the conceptual level between the domain of LOVE RELATIONSHIPS and the domain of JOURNEYS. • LOVE, which is the target (the domain being described), is conventionally structured in terms of JOURNEYS, which is the source (the domain in terms of which the target is described). • This association is called a conceptual metaphor.

46. What makes it a metaphor is the conventional association of one domain with another. • What makes it conceptual (rather than purely linguistic) is the idea that the motivation for the metaphor resides at the level of conceptual domains. • In other words, we not only speak in metaphorical terms, but also think in metaphorical terms.

47. From this perspective, linguistic expressions that are metaphorical in nature are simply reflections of an underlying conceptual association. • There are a number of distinct roles that populate the source and target domains. • e.g., JOURNEYS include TRAVELLERS, a MEANS OF TRANSPORT, a ROUTE followed, OBSTACLES along the route and so on. Similarly, the target domain LOVERELATIONSHIP includes LOVERS, EVENTS in the relationship and so on.

48. The metaphor works by mapping roles from the source onto the target: • LOVERS become TRAVELLERS (We’re at a crossroads), who travel by a particular MEANS OF TRANSPORT (We’re spinning our wheels), proceeding along a particular ROUTE (Our relationship went off course), impeded by obstacles (Our marriage is on the rocks).

49. As these examples demonstrate, a metaphorical link between two domains consists of a number of distinct correspondences or mappings. These mappings are illustrated in Table 10.2. • From a cognitive perspective a metaphor is a mapping of the structure of a source model onto a target model.

50. Table 2 Mappings for LOVE IS A JOURNEY