Chapter 10

Cognitive Linguistics

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

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

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.

cognitive linguistics Cognitive Linguistics is the study of langu

age 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。

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.

three major hypotheses of cognitive linguistics:

1) Language is not an autonomous; 2) Grammar is conceptualization; 3) Knowledge of language emerges

from language use.

10.2 Categorization and Categories Categorization: Categorization is the process of classifying our experienc

es 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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

Every time we see something as a kind of thing (e.g. a tree), we are categorizing.

Whenever we reason about kinds of things (chairs, nations, illnesses, emotions, any kind of thing at all) we are employing categories.

Whenever we intentionally perform any kind of action (e.g. say something as mundane as writing with a pencil, hammering with a hammer, or ironing clothes), we are using categories.

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.

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.

10.2.1 The classical theory The classical theory—the view that

categories are defined by a limited set of necessary and sufficient conditions.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Prototype the best example of a categoryThe 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.

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.

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).

In the FURNITURE category, Prototypical members (good examples):

chair, sofa, couch, table Nonprototypical members (bad exampl

es): ashtray, vase, telephone

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

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.

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 obvious differences between the organisms and objects of the world. For example, all dogs are distinguished from cats, lions, tigers, pigs, etc.

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.

3) The actions or motor movement 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.

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.

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。

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。

Superordinate level Basic level Subordinate level

FURNITURE

CHAIR

KITCHEN CHAIR

LIVING-ROOM CHAIR

TABLE

KITCHEN TABLE

DINING-ROOM TABLE

LAMPFLOOR LAMP

DESK LAMP

Table 1

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 tools for our conceptualization of abstract categories.

10.3.1 Conceptual Metaphor 1) Novel metaphor Novel metaphors are new metaphors which are

“imaginative and creative”. e.g. the eye of 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.

Prime examples of this are the parts of the body:

e.g. eye, leg, hand, and foot, as in eye of the needle, hand on the clock, foot of the bed, or a little more elaborate, womb, as in the womb of time, a head of cabbage, the leg of a table, the foot of the mountain, the foot of a page, the arm of a chair, the arm of a tree, the nose of an aircraft, the lips of a jug.

3) Conceptual metaphor Metaphor—According to cognitive linguistics,

metaphor is defined as understanding one conceptual domain or cognitive domain 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.

Conceptual metaphor

CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN(A) IS CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN(B)

TARGET DOMAIN SOURCE DOMAIN

He is a tiger.

Some examples of conceptual metaphor e.g. LOVE IS A JOURNEY Look how far we’ve come. It’s been a long, bumpy road. We can’t turn back now. We’re at a crossroads. We may have to go our separate ways. We’re spinning our wheels. Our relationship is off the track. The marriage is on the rocks. We may have to bail out of this relationship.

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.

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.

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 structure of an entire “cognitive model”.

What is transferred, then, by a metaphor is:

a. the structure, b. the internal relations or the logic of

a cognitive model.

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.

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.

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 LOVE RELATIONSHIP includes LOVERS, EVENTS in the relationship and so on.

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).

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.

Table 2 Mappings for LOVE IS A JOURNEYSource: JOURNEY Mappings Target: LOVE

TRAVELLERS → LOVERS

VEHICLE → LOVE RELATIONSHIP

JOURNEY → EVENTS IN THE RELATIONSHIP

DISTANCE COVERED → PROGRESS MADE

OBSTACLES ENCOUNTERED →

DIFFICULTIES EXPERIENCED

DECISIONS ABOUT DIRECTION →

CHOICES ABOUT WHAT TO DO

DESTINATION OF THE JOURNEY →

GOALS OF THE RELATIONSHIP

10.3.2 Conceptual metonymy

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, 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.

Conceptual metonymy Metonymy—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

Conceptual metonymy

Cognitive category A Cognitive category B

Target category Source category

Within one cognitive domain

Conceptual metonymy Generally speaking, the most commonly

used conceptual metonymies are as follows:

1)  THE PART FOR THE WHOLE (1)    We don’t hire longhairs. (2)    Get your butt over here!

2)  PRODUCER FOR PRODUCT (3)    He’s got a Picasso in his den. (4)    He bought a Ford. (5)    I hate to read Heidegger. 3)  OBJECT USED FOR USER (6)   The buses are on strike. (7)   The sax has the flu today.

4) CONTROLLER FOR CONTROLLED (8)   Nixon bombed Hanoi. (9)   Napoleon lost at Waterloo.5) INSTITUTION FOR PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE (10) You’ll never get the university to

agree to that. (11) I don’t approve of the government’s

action.

6)  THE PLACE FOR THE INSTITUTION (12)  The White House isn’t saying

anything. (13)   Hollywood isn’t what it used to be. (14)   Wall Street is in a panic.

7)  THE PLACE FOR THE EVENT (15) Pearl Harbor still has an effect on

our foreign policy. (16) Watergate changed our politics.

In the cognitive view of figurative language, the role of metaphor is paid attention to 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.

The similarities between metonymy and metaphor

1.both are regarded as being conceptual in nature

2.both can be conventionalized

3.both are means of extending the resources of a language

4.both can be explained as mapping processes The difference between metonymy and metaphor

metaphor involves a mapping across different conceptual or cognitive domains while metonymy is a mapping within one conceptual domain.

10.4 Iconicity Iconicity—a feature of language which

means that 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

In short, it refers to the way in which grammatical organization mirrors experience.

Iconicity

e.g., the tendency for some languages to present old information before new information in an utterance represents iconicity between language and experience, because new experiences happen later than old ones.

10.4.1 Iconicity of order Iconicity of order—the similarity between

temporal events and the linear arrangement of elements in a linguistic construction.

(1) a. He opened the bottle and poured himself a glass of wine.

b.* He poured himself a glass of wine and opened the bottle.

( 2) a. He jumped onto his horse and rode out into the sunset.

b.* He rode out into the sunset and jumped onto his horse.

(3) a. Tom ran out of money, and had to find another job.

b. * Tom had to find another job, and ran out of money.

If b in examples 1-3 means anything at all it means something quite different. In both English and Chinese, iconicity of order works, but in many cases, it works in different ways.

(4) a. 他笑着走进来对我说了声谢谢。 b. 他走进来笑着对我说了声谢谢。 c. 他走进来对我笑着说了声谢谢。

If we translate the three sentences into English, iconicity of order does not work:

a. He came in smiling and said thanks to me.

b. He came in and smiled, then said thanks to me.

c. He came in and said thanks to me with a smile.

10.4.2 Iconicity of distance Iconicity of distance—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.

(5)a. I killed the chicken.

b. I caused the chicken to die.

When several adjectives modify a noun, the iconicity of complexity is “subjective adj. + objective adj.”

For example: (6) the beautiful big old red wooden

house “beautiful” is put in the first position

because it is more subjective, and “wooden” is put in the last position because it is more objective.

Iconicity of distance can also give a satisfactory explanation to the sequence of multi-adjectives before a noun.

(7) a. the famous delicious Italian pepperoni pizza

b.* the Italian delicious famous pepperoni pizza

c.* the famous pepperoni delicious Italian pizza

d.* the pepperoni delicious famous Italian pizza

10.4.3 Iconicity of complexity Iconicity of complexity (quantitative

iconicity)—the phenomenon that linguistic complexity reflects conceptual complexity.

A difference in syntactic form always spells a difference in meaning.

Consider the following examples: (8)a. This guy is getting on my nerves. b. This aggressively impertinent

egghead is getting on my nerves. Obviously, there is a marked difference

in the length of the subject noun phrase between the two sentences.

This difference corresponds to the amount of information provided for the description of the person referred to.

However, this view brings with it a serious problem: no matter how much information is supplied, the person in the real world that is referred to stays the same.

In other words, the view that iconic quantity establishes a relation between linguistic expressions and the person (or object) in the real world cannot be upheld in such a simple form.

All cases of reduplication in the language of the world are instances where more form stands for more of content. For example:

(9) Isn’t that fair and square? (10) Her son was wise and clever, but h

er daughter was silly and foolish. (11) 寻寻觅觅，冷冷清清，凄凄惨惨戚戚。

( 李清照 )

Iconicity of complexity accounts for our tendency to associate more form with more meaning and, conversely, less form with less meaning. This idea has long been an important aspect of markedness theory. Marked forms and structures are typically more complex than unmarked ones.

10.5 Grammaticalization

Grammaticalization

the process whereby an independent word is shifted to the status of a grammatical element e.g. full -ful

Grammaticalization is not only a syntactic change, but also a global change influencing the morphology, phonology and semantics.

(12) a. Susan’s going to London next month.

b. She’s going to London to work at our office.

c. She’s going to work at our office.

d. You’re going to like her.

e. You’re gonna like her.

f. You gonna like her.(non-standard)

(13) a. I have read a lot since we last met. (time)

b. Since Susan left him, John has been very miserable. (time, implying reason)

c. Since you are not coming with me, I’ll have to do alone. (reason)

Since in (a) only indicates time, and in (b) implies that what happened first (Susan left him) is the reason for what happened next (John has been very miserable). In (c), the implied meaning (reason) has developed into the meaning of reason.

(14) a. I say that: he comes. b. I say that he comes. The pronoun that in (a) has been gra

mmaticalized as a conjunction that in (b).

(15) a. 他们两个长得好像。 (adv. + v) b. 刚走的那个人好像我哥哥。 c. 他好像有个哥哥在东北。 (adv.)

Grammaticalization brings about typical changes in meanings and the distribution of forms.

Another characteristic of grammaticalized forms is that the constraints on their grammatical uses tend to reflect their lexical histories.

Another typical outcome of grammaticalization is the development of different historical levels of nearly equivalent forms.

Conclusion

The language we use to express the world is based on our cognitive conceptual structures and the worldly experience from which they come from. Cognitive linguistics provides many new angles for our insight into language. Its significant position in linguistics is evident. It seems to give us hope that some unsolved problems in language studies may be solved in cognitive linguistics.

Exercises: I. In a category there are many members, but they differ in prototypicality. Good examples of the category are called prototypes and bad examples nonprototypes. The following are some of the members in the BIRD category:

ostrich sparrow penguin goose duck dove robin owl peacock parrot

Put them into the following three groups:

Group I (Prototypical):________ Group II (Neither prototypical nor nonpr

ototypical): _________ Group III (Nonprototypical): ____

II. According to cognitive linguistics, there is conceptual metaphor in language. Put the following English sentences into three different groups of conceptual metaphor: I’ve never won an argument with him. This relationship is foundering. He shot down all of my arguments. That’s food for thought. Our marriage is on the rocks. He devoured the book. We’ll just have to go our separate ways. Your claims are indefensible. If you use that strategy, he’ll wipe you out. I just can’t swallow that claim.

(Note: You needn’t copy the sentences. Just write their numbers.)

Group I (AN ARGUMENT IS WAR):______

Group II (IDEAS ARE FOOD):______ Group III (LOVE IS A JOURNEY):______

Thank you!