UNIT 5

COGNITIVE EXPLORATION OF LANGUAGE

1 INTRODUCTION (can be in the exam only as

theory)

Language helps us categorize our experiences of the world. Therefore, words are all the
experiences we have of our world that have somehow been categorized linguistically.
These are probably the experiences that have more prominence in a given cultural
community.

It can be expected that for each conceptual category we have just one linguistic category
(or word) and conversely, that each word stands for one conceptual category or one
meaning. But this is not the way that language works. On average, a word form has
three to four senses. A word with different, related senses is a polysemous word (from
Greek poly ‘many’ and sema ‘sign, meaning’).

A slightly adapted example of the item fruit from the DCE.

As the example shows, a dictionary starts from a word form and lists the various senses
and therefore follows a semasiological approach. Semasiology (‘sign’) is thus an
approach to the lexicon which describes the polysemy of a word form and the
relationship between these various senses.

Sometimes the same form may in reality stand for two entirely different words, as in
Pole, used for inhabitants of Poland and for the North and South Pole. This is called
homonymy, which means that two different words have the same form .

But we can also follow the opposite approach. This second approach is the
onomasiological approach (‘name’). In onomasiology we start from a concept such as
“fruit/fruits” and see which other words or expressions we can use as synonyms to
denote the same or similar concepts . This is what a thesaurus does. A thesaurus is “a
book in which words are put into groups with other words that are related in meaning ”
(DCE).

Example of thesaurus of the word “fruit.

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An onomasiological approach in a thesaurus goes from a concept or meaning to the
various synonyms which can be used to denote that concept. Onomasiology thus deals:

1) with the fact that different words may express similar meanings like rich and
wealthy, called synonymy. Total synonymy doesn’t exist because there are barely any
monosemic words.

2) with the fact that words have opposite meanings like rich versus poor, called
antonymy;

3) and with the fact that the meanings of groups of words are related, like richness,
affluence, wealth, poverty, called a lexical field.

SUMMARY

Thus, given the nature of the lexicon, we can use a semasiological approach,
concentrating on the many different senses of words, or an onomasiological approach,
concentrating on what is common or different between the various words in capturing
the essence of our experiences.

2 FROM WORDS TO MEANINGS: SEMASIOLOGY

If you want to communicate a concept, you can make it clear in three different semiotic
ways:

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  pointing to it [indexical sign]
 drawing a picture that resembles the thing [iconic sign]
 saying the word to which it is associated [symbolic sign].

The word itself is of course not the thing itself, but only a symbol for the thing. A
symbolic sign is a given form which symbolizes or stands for a concept (or a meaning)
and this concept is related to a whole category of entities in the conceptual and
experiential world.

The relationship between these three

elements a) form, b) concept or meaning,
and c) referent or entity in the conceptual
and experiential world can be presented in
a triangle:

➔ There is a direct, though conventional link between A (form) and B (concept,

meaning) and between B (concept) and C (referent, i.e., entity in conceptual and
experienced world).

➔ But there is only an indirect link between A (form) and C (referent or entity in
world), indicated by the interrupted line AC.

This semiotic triangle is a further elaboration of the views of the Swiss linguist
Ferdinand de Saussure, who introduced two essential terms: The word form is the
signifiant (that which signifies), and the meaning of the word is the signifié (that which
is signified).

Example. As the dictionary entry of the word fruit shows, this word has more than one
meaning.

A referent can be defined in a simplified way as an entity or part of an entity evoked by

words. Each word sense evokes a member of a different conceptual category. In the fruit
example, the category members happen to be material objects, but in the case of verbs,
they could be actions and in the case of adjectives, they could be properties.

There is no precondition that the “things” in the category need exist in the real world.
The category “fruit” contains all real and imaginary apples and oranges that fruit could

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possibly be applied to, in the same way in which goblin will have a set of members
associated with it, regardless of whether goblins are real or not.

2.1. SALIENCE: PROTOTYPICAL WORD SENSES AND

REFERENTS

We have studied how categories, (e.g. the category “chair” ), have prototypical
or central members and more marginal or peripheral members . This principle
does not only apply to the members of a category, but also to the various senses
of a word form. There are three interrelated ways that help us determine which
sense of a word is the most central. In order to establish the salience of a sense,
we can:

1) look at what particular sense comes to mind first

2) make a statistical count as to which use is the most frequent

3) or look at which sense is the more basic in its capacity to clarify the other
senses.

Example. I like fruit.

In other words, the most salient, basic senses are the centre of semantic
cohesion in the category: They hold the category together by making the other
senses accessible to our understanding.

Thus , centrality effects or prototypicality effects mean that some elements in a

category are far more conspicuous or salient, or more frequently used than
others. Such prototypicality effects occur not only at the level of senses but
also at the level of referents.

Example. Fruit.

2.2. LINKS BETWEEN WORD SENSES: RADIAL

NETWORKS

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 The fact that some word senses are more salient and others more peripheral is
not the only effect under consideration here. Word senses are also linked to one
another in a systematic way through several cognitive processes so that they
show an internally structured set of links.

Example. School.

a. ‘learning institution or building’ → Is there a school nearby?

b. ‘lessons’ → School begins at 9 a.m.

c. ‘pupils and/or staff of teachers’ → The school is going to the British Museum
tomorrow. We must hand in the geography project to the school in May.

d. ‘university faculty’ → At 18 she went to law school.

e. ‘holiday course’ → Where is the summer school on linguistics to be held?

f. ‘group of artists with similar style’ → Van Gogh belongs to the Impressionist
school.

g. ‘views shared by a group of people’ → There are two schools of thought on

drinking red wine with fish.

h. ‘a group of big fish swimming together’ → A school of whales followed the

boat.

So, these eight senses appear to form a cluster that is structured in the shape of a
radial network, i.e. a centre with radii going in various directions.

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 What are now the processes that constitute the links within this radial network?
There are four different processes that allow us to focus on one or more
components in this general category:

1. Metonymy

(from Greek meta ‘change’ and onoma ‘name’) in which the basic meaning of a
word can be used for a part or the part for the whole.

In metonymy the semantic link between two or more senses of a word is based
on a relationship of contiguity, i.e., between the whole of something and a part
of it. More generally, contiguity is the state of being in some sort of contact
such as that between a part and a whole, a container and the contents, a place
and its inhabitants, etc.

*Metonymic association if it they are close. In the previous example a, b, c are

metonymic extensions.

2. Metaphor

(from Greek metapherein ‘carry over’) is based on perceived similarity. But the
similarity is completely in the eyes of the beholder: If he wants to see the
similarity, it is there. But the link is never objectively given as in the case of
metonymy, where the relation of contiguity always involves some objective link
between the various senses of a word. In metaphor one of the basic senses of a
form, the source domain is used to grasp or explain a sense in a different
domain, called the target domain.

When they maintain some meaning but they are not close. In the previous
example f, g, h are metaphorical extensions.

3. Specialization

The word’s original meaning is always narrowed down to a smaller set of

special referents. There is a reduction of the prototypical meaning. Each
language abounds with cases of specialization.

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 4. Generalization

The opposite of specialization. Example.

In summary, the different senses of a polysemous (not all the cases are
polysemy, some are homonymy ) word form a cluster of senses which are
interrelated through different links: metonymy, metaphor, specialization and
generalization. The various senses of a word are, thus, systematically linked to
one another by means of different paths. Together, the relations between these
senses form a radial set, starting from a central (set of) sense(s) and developing
into the different directions.

2.3. FUZZINESS IN CONCEPTUAL CATEGORIES AND

WORD SENSES

So far, we have talked about the senses of a word as if they are clearly separate
from each other. But we have also studied that meanings reflect conceptual
categories . Categories may have clear centres, but their boundaries may not be
clear -cut, and categories may overlap . This phenomenon is called fuzziness.

Since senses symbolize conceptual categories, it is no surprise that they cannot

be defined in such a way that they include all the referents that should be
included and exclude those that do not belong to the category.

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 Example. Fruit.

A condition is necessary in the sense of naming characteristics that are common

(for example to all triangles, and it is sufficient in the sense that it distinguishes
a category). But things are different with most natural categories:

If we try to give the necessary conditions or characteristics for fruit,

characteristics such as sweet, soft, and having seeds may come to mind as good
candidates. But these are not always necessary. There are of course a number of
characteristics that are necessary. All fruits “grow above the ground on plants or
trees” rather than in the ground. Taken together, however, these obligatory
features are not sufficient since they do not exclude almonds and other nuts.

We must conclude, then, that the central sense of fruit cannot be defined in a
classical sense, satisfying both necessary and sufficient conditions and covering
all the eventualities of what speakers understand by fruit.

However, this does not mean that our conceptualization of fruit, our mental
picture of fruit, what we call to mind when we think of fruit, is necessarily fuzzy
or ill -defined . It could very well be that the image that spontaneously comes to
mind when we think of fruit is very clear -cut.

3 FROM CONCEPTS TO WORDS: ONOMASIOLOGY

Whereas semasiological analysis starts with a word and tries to discover the various
senses it may have, onomasiological analysis starts from a given concept and
investigates the words that are used to name that particular concept.

What is the purpose of onomasiological analysis?

- First of all, it can help us find out where (new) lexical items come from and which
mechanisms are used to introduce different words for the same concept into the
vocabulary of a language.

- The main purpose of onomasiological analysis is to discover patterns in a group of

conceptually related words, called a lexical field.

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A lexical field is a collection of words that all name things in the same conceptual
domain. For example, breakfast, lunch and brunch are related and belong to the same
lexical field because they all name things in the domain of “meals”.

A conceptual domain can be defined as any coherent area of conceptualization, such as

meals, space, smell, colour, articles of dress, the human body, the rules of football, etc.
The conceptual relations that occur between words in a lexical field are very analogous
to those between the senses of a word identified in the section on semasiology: salience
effects, links and fuzziness.

3.1. SALIENCE IN CONCEPTUAL DOMAINS: BASIC LEVEL

TERMS

Just as there are salience effects in semasiology, which tell us which one of all
the senses of a word or which one of the referents is thought of first and used
most often, there are salience effects in onomasiology.

Example.

a. Animal, canine, dog (hierarchical order)

b. Labrador, Alsatian, German shepherd (same level of hierarchy)

According to anthropologist Brent Berlin, popular classifications of biological

domains usually conform to a general organizational principle. Such
classifications consist of at least three levels, which go from very broad or
generic to very narrow or specific.

Thus, in conceptual domains with several levels, the most general category is
at the highest level, and the most specific one is at the lowest level. A basic
level term is a word which, amongst several other possibilities, is used most

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 readily to refer to a given phenomenon. There are many indications that basic
level terms are more salient than others. From a linguistic point of view, basic
level terms are usually short and morphologically simple. From a conceptual
point of view, the basic level constitutes the level where salience effects are
most outspoken. At the basic level category, individual members have the most
in common with each other, and have the least in common with members of a
related basic level category. On the other hand, members of categories at the
generic level such as garment have only one rather general characteristic in
common.

This basic level model is useful in that it predicts to a certain extent which level
is the most salient in a folk classification. However, it cannot predict which
term among the terms at the same level is preferred and used most often. If
there are several equally descriptive terms at one level, what criteria are applied
in the choice of one term over another?

We can explain this fact with the notion of entrenchment. This concept was
first introduced by Langacker to explain how new expressions may be formed
and then remain deeply rooted in the language. A word group may develop into
a regular expression, until it is so firmly entrenched in the lexicon that it has
become a regular, well-established word in the linguistic system.

A similar process may apply to the choice of one particular member of a

category rather than the other. For example, the name miniskirt is highly
entrenched since it is used much more often than the name wrap-over skirt or
another more general or more specific name.

3.2. LINKS IN CONCEPTUAL DOMAINS: TAXON0OMIES

Metonymy, metaphor, specialization and generalization processes may also

be applied in onomasiology. Onomasiology deals with the relations among the
names we give to categories. These categories, in turn, are not just there in
isolation, but they belong together according to a given conceptual domain.

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 Within a conceptual domain, we not only find a distinction between a generic
level, a basic level and a specific level, but these levels may also form a
hierarchical taxonomy.

In a hierarchical taxonomy the higher level is the superordinate level, which is

a hypernym and subsumes all the concepts below it. Thus , the previous table
combines two things : a folk classification and a hierarchical taxonomy.

A hierarchical taxonomy is also a special instance of a lexical field in that the

lexical items are now hierarchically ordered. Thus, in all cases of a lexical field
we can always distinguish between three hierarchical levels:

- Going up in the taxonomy is generalization

- Going down in the taxonomy is specialization.

- In a number of cases there may be a lexical gap (i.e., there is no basic level
term available where we might expect one.)

Other links between conceptual domains are made by means of metaphor and
metonymy. We often use a whole conceptual domain to structure our
understanding of some other domain.

Example. Mountain.

George Lakoff, who recognized this thought process, calls this use of metaphor a
conceptual metaphor. Our understanding of abstract, conceptual domains such
as reasoning and emotions is particularly affected by many conceptual
metaphors.

Example. Argument is war or heat of a fluid in a container.

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 Just as a conceptual metaphor restructures a conceptual domain (like
mountains) in terms of another conceptual domain (such as the human body ), a
conceptual metonymy names one aspect or element in a conceptual domain
while referring to some other element which is in a contiguity relation with it.
The following instances are typical of conceptual metonymy:

- Person for his name: I’m not in the telephone book.

- Possessor for possessed: My tyre is flat.

- Author for book: This year we read Shakespeare.

- Place for people: My village votes Labour.

- Producer for product: My new Macintosh is superb.

- Container for contained: This is an excellent dish.

In each of these instances, the thing itself could be named. By the use of the
metonymical alternative, the speaker emphasizes the more salient rather than
the specific factors in the things named.

3.3. FUZZINESS IN CONCEPTUAL DOMAINS:

PROBLEMATIC TAXONOMIES

When we look at the basic level model, we feel that if we puzzle enough we will
discover a clear, mosaic-like organization of the lexicon where each item has a
clear place in a given taxonomy. However, there are several reasons to question
this apparent neatness:

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 1) As Table 8 shows, there are problems of overlap in actual language data

2) Another problem is that it is not always possible to decide exactly at which

level one should place a lexical item in the hierarchy. Example.

The fact that we cannot determine exactly at which level an item should be put
relates to semasiological salience effects. As we saw earlier, those category
members that are preferred and occur the most are the most salient.

Also, different languages may even tend to classify the items differently.

Also, contrary to what the basic level model might suggest, the lexicon cannot
be represented as one single taxonomical tree with ever more detailed
branchings of nodes. Instead, it is characterized by multiple, overlapping
hierarchies.

4 CONCLUSION

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Up to now we have looked at semasiological and onomasiological matters from a
theoretical point of view. To round off this chapter on lexicology, let us concentrate on
meaning and naming with a more practical purpose, and ask ourselves the question
“which factors determine our choice of a lexical item” or, in other words, “why does a
speaker in a particular situation choose a particular name for a particular meaning”. The
basic principles of this “pragmatic” form of onomasiology are the following: The
selection of a name for a referent is simultaneously determined by both semasiological
and onomasiological salience. As we argued earlier, semasiological salience is
determined by the degree to which a sense or a referent is considered prototypical for
the category, and onomasiological salience is determined by the degree to which the
name for a category is entrenched.

Semasiological salience implies that something is more readily named by a lexical

item if it is a good example of the category represented by that item.
Onomasiological salience may now be formulated as follows: A referent is preferably
named by a lexical item “a” instead of “b” when “a” represents a more highly
entrenched lexical category than “b”.

In short, the choice for a lexical item as a name for a particular referent is determined
both by semasiological and onomasiological salience. This recognition points the way
towards a fully integrated conception of lexicology, in which both semasiological and
onomasiological approaches are systematically combined.

5 SUMMARY

We can see two almost opposite phenomena when studying words and their meanings .

 On the one hand, words are polysemous or have a number of different related
senses.
 On the other hand, we use many different words , sometimes synonyms, but
sometimes generic or specific words, to refer to the same thing, which is the
referent. Such words are collected in a thesaurus.
 Next to relations of polysemy and synonymy, there is also antonymy and
homonymy.

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  The two basic approaches to the study of words and their senses or meanings are
known as semasiology, and onomasiology, respectively.

Although they are fundamentally different approaches to the study of the senses of
words and the names of things, they are also highly comparable in that we find similar
phenomena with respect to prototypicality or centrality effects, links between senses
or words, and fuzziness . Amongst the various senses of words, some are always more
central or prototypical and other senses range over a continuum from less central to
peripheral.

➔ The sense with the greatest saliency is the one that comes to mind first
when we think of the meanings of a word. All the senses of a word are linked to
each other in a radial network and based on cognitive processes such as
metonymy, metaphor, generalization and specialization.

 In metonymy the link between two senses of a word is based on contiguity

 In metaphor the link is based on similarity between two elements or situations
belonging to different domains , i.e. a source domain, e.g. the human body, and
the target domain, e.g. the lay -out of a mountain.

The borders between senses within a radial network and especially between the
peripheral senses of two networks such as fruit and vegetable are extremely fuzzy or
unclear so that classical definitions of word meanings are bound to fail, except in highly
specialized or “technical” definitions, in dictionaries.

Amongst the various words that we can use to name the same thing, we always find a
prototypical name in the form of a basic level term such as tree, trousers, car, apple,
fish, etc. Instead of a basic level term such as trousers or skirt we can also use
superordinate terms such as garment or subordinate terms such as jeans or miniskirt,
but such non -basic terms differ in that they are less “entrenched” in the speaker’s mind.

➔ Entrenchment means that a form is deeply rooted in the language.

If no word is available for a basic level category, we have a lexical gap. Words are
linked together in lexical fields, which describe the important distinctions made in a
given conceptual domain in a speech community .

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  When a whole domain is mapped on to another domain, we have a conceptual
metaphor.
 When part of a domain is taken for the whole domain or vice versa, we have a
conceptual metonymy.

Finally, it must be admitted that the hierarchical taxonomies in lexical items do not
neatly add up to one great taxonomy of branching distinctions, but that fuzziness is
never absent.

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 CATEGORIES IN THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE

1 INTRODUCTION

Human thought and its expression in language are intimately interrelated. This chapter
seeks to show how cognitive processes mediate between the world of concepts and their
linguistic crystallisation in the lexicon and grammar of a language.

Three types of cognitive processes will be dealt with in this chapter: the formation of
categories, the conceptual grouping of categories, and the extension of conceptual
and linguistic categories by means of metonymy and metaphor.

What is lexical elaboration?

EXAM
QUESTION
A concept that is lexically elaborate in a culture. A process in which we have
one conceptual category and many linguistic items evoking distinctions.
!!

2 CATEGORIES AND THEIR INTERNAL STRUCTURE

2.1. CATEGORIES

We can only make sense of the world of our experiences and communicate our
thoughts by means of what philosophers and linguists call categories.

A category is the conceptualisation of a collection of similar experiences that

are meaningful and relevant to us (i.e.: categories are formed for things that
“matter” in a community). Categories are conceptual in nature, and many, but
by no means all, of our conceptual categories are also laid down in language as
linguistic categories.

Example. Driving to college.

Categories which we have formed on the basis of our own individual

experiences such as ‘prone to traffic jams’ are “private” conceptual categories.

Example. People who do not drive may never have experienced traffic jams and
therefore not formed this category.

If I want to communicate my thoughts to other people, I need linguistic signs

symbolising these thoughts or conceptual categories. Most linguistic categories

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 are shared by the members of a speech community: they are “public” categories.
The most commonly found linguistic categories are lexical items, i.e. words.

Example. If I want to warn my friend that road junction 65 is ‘prone to traffic

jams’, there is no simple word available in English to express this idea.
However, English provides linguistic categories for parts of the idea: the
compound word traffic jam, the adjective prone, and the preposition to.

Any category is part of an overall system of categories . Language is sometimes

seen as an ecological system in which linguistic categories occupy an
“ecological niche” like living beings in nature. The special meaning of a
linguistic category is defined relative to its neighbouring categories and the
system at large, and the introduction of a new category affects other categories.

Example. Posted items.

The grammar of a language is also an ecological system whose constructions

occupy ecological niches. For example, English has developed a progressive
aspect. As a result, the ecological niche of the simple, or non -progressive, form
is defined relative to the progressive aspect.

.Example.

a. Howard is playing football in the yard. [event in progress]

b. Howard plays football. [habit]

The process of establishing categories within an ecological system is known as

categorisation . Categorisation means drawing “conceptual boundaries” and
giving structure to an unstructured world around us. The structure which our
linguistic categories provide is, however, deceptive: linguistic categories only
cover a very small fraction of our conceptual distinctions. Moreover, linguistic
expressions are typically associated with more than one concept and hence tend
to be vague or, to use the technical term, “fuzzy”.

In short, language can hardly be said to reflect reality. Different cultures often
categorise the world differently and lay this down in their linguistic categories.

Example. Fog.

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 Just like lexical categories, grammatical categories are based on meaningful
experiences of the world.

Example. Gold digger.

Here it is important to note that categories do not describe objective reality

but that they are based on a community’s experience and conception of
reality.

➔ Our conception of reality makes us “see” the many different traffic situations
at a road junction as being sufficiently similar in nature so that we may
categorise them together.

➔ The case of nuggets and gold dust, on the other hand, demonstrates that our
conception of reality also makes us “see” similar entities as different and,
consequently, makes us categorise them differently.

To put it simply, we can only see reality in relation to us as part of it .

2.2. INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF CATEGORIES:

PROTOTYPE AND PERIPHERY

A category such as ‘car’ is composed of various similar members.

➔ Probably, for most people, a saloon car is the best type of car, and an estate
car is a better type of car than a jeep. Thus, a saloon car would be considered a
prototypical member, or prototype, of the car category, while other types of
cars such as a jeep would be considered to be less prototypical members of this
category .

➔ In English, a van and a lorry would be seen as peripheral members of the

category ‘car’, or even not cars at all, because they are used to transport not
people but goods. A motor cycle would be outside the category ‘car’ altogether
because it only has two wheels

In the same way that lexical categories have prototypical and peripheral
members , grammatical categories display different degrees of membership.

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 This holds true for any grammatical category such as ‘noun’, ‘verb’, ‘transitive
verb’, ‘passive’, etc.

For example, transitive verbs are usually characterised as taking a direct object,
while intransitive verbs do not. But this is only part of the story. Within these
two grammatical categories, some types of verbs are obviously better members
of their category than others. This can be shown in their syntactic behaviour

 sentences with prototypical transitive verbs can be freely passivised as in (a)

 sentences with less prototypical transitive verbs can only marginally form a
passive (b)
 sentences with peripheral transitive verbs do not allow the passive at all (c )

ACTIVE PASSIVE
a. Sally bought the book. a’. The book was bought by Sally.
b. Sally liked the book. b’. ? The book was liked by Sally.
c. Sally had the book. c’. The book was had by Sally.

➔ At this point we may, however, already note the impact of prototype structure
in grammar. An action verb like buy is obviously a better member of the
category of transitive verbs than an emotion verb such as like; and like in its turn
is a better transitive verb than a possession verb like have.

3 CONCEPTUAL GROUPINGS OF CATEGORIES

Categories form part of larger groupings of categories. In particular, categories are

included in a hierarchy, or taxonomy, of categories (e.g. ‘car’ is a member of the
category ‘means of transport’); may be a part of another category, i.e. may be included
in a partonomy (e.g. ‘wheels’ are parts of the category ‘car’); form part of a coherent
area of conceptualisation, especially frames and domains (e.g. the ‘car’ frame and the
domain of ‘combustion’).

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 3.1. TAXONOMIES

Categories are included in hierarchies of categories. They are normally included

as members of a higher category and in their turn subsume members of a lower
category. Such conceptual hierarchies are known as taxonomies.

Example. Car, train, bike and plane are member of the higher category ‘means of
transport’ and has as its members the categories ‘sports car’, ‘jeep’, ‘saloon’,
‘estate car’, etc.

The members of a higher category are prototypically structured. Thus, ‘car’

or ‘train’ is a better member of the category ‘means of transport’ than ‘bicycle’
or ‘plane’.

We might arrange all these categories in a three-level hierarchy in which the

lower categories are members, or kinds, of a higher category. Thus a ‘sports car’
is a kind of ‘car’, and a ‘car’ is a kind of ‘means of transport’. We express such
kind of-relations by simply saying is a: A train is a means of transport.

Note that a taxonomy is purely conceptual in nature: there is no such

hierarchical order of categories in reality. Taxonomic hierarchies also apply to
words and are known as hyponymies. The superordinate word is described as a
hyperonym, the subordinate word as a hyponym.

The types of category that come to our mind most readily in our daily interaction
with the world belong to the middle, or basic level. Categories at the basic level
such as ‘car’, ‘train’ and ‘plane’ are conceptually much more salient than either
their superordinate category ‘means of transport’ or any of their subordinate
categories.

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 As a result, terms which denote basic -level categories, i.e. basic -level terms,
have special properties: they are simple in form, are used frequently, are
learned early by young children, and evoke rich images.

3.2. PARTONOMIES

Taxonomic hierarchies have to be distinguished from part -whole hierarchies, in

which categories are interrelated by part of-relations. Part -whole hierarchies are
known as partonomies , or meronymies. All of these main parts consist of
further parts.

Partonomies refer to whole entities and parts of them in the real world as we
conceive of them. Each part is unique in that it has its own place and function
within the total structure .

3.3. FRAMES AND DOMAINS

A) FRAMES

The parts of a thing are not just loosely put next to each other as Table 1.5.
might suggest, but they are conceptually integrated within a structured whole.

Example. In thinking of a car, we activate knowledge of the functional uses of

these parts; but we also think of cars within their taxonomy of means of
transport, we see prototypical and peripheral cars, and we also visualise scenes
involving cars such as ‘driving’, ‘parking’, ‘accidents’, etc.

22
 This coherent “package of knowledge” that surrounds a category and is activated
when we use or hear a word is known as a conceptual frame. For example, a
‘marriage’ frame, a ‘party’ frame, a ‘university’ frame, etc. All the situations
described so far involve frames.

Our knowledge of frames enables us to understand the coherent “nature” of

things in which each part has its place and function within its global structure.
For example, when the car won’t start, our knowledge of the ‘car’ frame makes
us look for problems in the battery or petrol supply.

Our shared knowledge of frames also governs communication. For instance, in

the following sentences, we immediately “know” that a particular main part or
parts of a car are meant, although only the car as a whole is named.

Example. Can you wash the car? (Whole) [body of the car] (Part)

Such parts of a whole are known as an entity’s active zone . Speaking of a

whole thing but meaning its active zone is a very common phenomenon. What
these examples are meant to show is that recognising an active zone is a major
cognitive achievement by the hearer. More generally, this phenomenon reveals
an important aspect of language in use: we always understand acts of
communication with respect to our knowledge of frames.

B) DOMAINS

Categories relate not only to taxonomies, partonomies and frames, but also to
conceptual domains. A conceptual domain is the general field to which a
category or frame belongs in a given situation.

Example. A knife belongs to the domain of ‘eating’ when used for cutting bread
on the breakfast table, but to the domain of ‘fighting’ when used as a weapon.

Whereas frames are specific knowledge structures surrounding categories,

conceptual domains are very general areas of conceptualisation. Some typical
domains are those of ‘space’, ‘time’, ‘emotion’, etc. Conceptual domains
crosscut with frames and thus allow us to link frames to one another.

Example. Car / House.

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 The possible links of categories and frames by means of domains are myriad.
For example, the ‘traffic’ domain links cars to other transport systems and
allows us to compare different means of transport with respect to comfort,
efficiency or costs of travelling.

4 EXTENSION OF CATEGORIES BY MEANS OF METONYMY AND

METAPHOR

Our human ability to evoke frames and domains allows us to extend our inventory of
conceptual and linguistic categories substantially. We are constantly being confronted
with innovations and changes in the world, which we need to categorise conceptually
and which we often express as linguistic categories.

One way of dealing with these new experiences is to create new, especially compound
words— something we do all the time. However, the sheer number of new words that
would have to be coined would soon exceed the capacity of our memory and render
communication impossible. A more elegant and efficient solution to deal with new
experiences and innovations is to make use of our existing linguistic categories and
extend their meanings, i.e., the conceptual categories associated with them.

There are various means of extending the senses of a linguistic category; here we will
only concentrate on the two most powerful conceptual shifts that lead to meaning
extension: metonymy and metaphor.

4.1. CONCEPTUAL SHIFTS

Extensions of the sense of a word are not just a matter of language, but a matter
of cognition.

Example. Brain.

The cognitive process that relates literal meanings to extended meanings is

known as mapping. Mapping is the projection of one set of conceptual entities
onto another set of conceptual entities.

a. The company is hiring new brains.

b. The microprocessor is the brain of a computer.

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 In cognitive linguistics, the two conceptual domains linked in a metaphorical
mapping are known as source domain and target domain.

Example. In the brains metaphor, the ‘human being’ serves as the source domain
and ‘electronics’ as the target domain .

Figure 1.4 illustrates the two types of conceptual shift: a metonymic shift,
which operates within the same frame or domain, and a metaphorical shift,
which operates across two different domains. Metonymy is therefore often said
to involve contiguity, while metaphor is said to involve similarity .

4.1.1. CONCEPTUAL METONOMY

We described metonymy as a conceptual shift, and we can now see what its
conceptual impact is. We mentally trace a path from a conceptually salient
conceptual entity , such as ‘crown’, to another conceptual entity, ‘monarch’.
The notion of salient or salience is understood here in the sense of
‘conspicuously standing out conceptually’. Technically, we will refer to the
salient entity in this conceptual shift as a reference point.

Example. The Crown never rejects a bill approved by Parliament.

Metonymy thus involves speaking about a salient reference point which

allows us to access another conceptual entity, the target. In processing the
part for whole metonymy in the previous sentence, we thus mentally access
a whole (‘monarch’) via a salient part (‘crown’).

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 We also find the reverse situation of a whole for part metonymy, in which
a whole serves as a reference point for accessing one of its parts.

Example. Our school won the cup.

Both the part for whole metonymy and whole for part metonymy are
conceptual in nature because they have a very general application, i.e. many
more instances of these metonymies can be found in language, and even
outside language. Other examples of conceptual metonymies:

In all these cases, the metonymic expression highlights a facet of a frame

that, for some reason or other, serves as the salient reference point:

➔ In (7a), a thing possessed, namely the car, serves as the reference point
for accessing its owner, the driver, whom we do not know.

➔ In (7b), we need a doctor but do not know who will pick up the phone:
the receptionist, a nurse or a doctor.

➔ In (7c), the kettle is visible while the water boiling in it is not.

➔ Similarly, in (7d), a person’s ear is tangible but the person’s hearing

ability is not.

The cases of metonymy looked at so far have had to do with extensions of

lexical categories . We will see later on that metonymy also operates in the
grammar of a language . The following examples illustrate a few such
instances of grammatical metonymy:

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 ➔ In (8a), the count noun octopus, which commonly refers to the
invertebrate that inhabits the oceans, is used as a mass noun and describes
the food substance acquired from an octopus.

➔ In (8b), the verb win, which normally describes a punctual event, is used
to describe a preceding action , such as playing in the lottery, which may
lead to winning two weeks’ vacation as a result

4.1.2. CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR

Many people , including literary critics, often assume that metaphor is a

rhetorical device used by poets to achieve an aesthetic effect. While this
may be true for highly imaginative metaphors, it is not true for the kinds of
metaphor we commonly use. These metaphors are less striking and often
described as “dead” because we are no longer aware of them as metaphors.

Example of a dead metaphor. Amanda was overcome by grief.

Metaphor thus provides a means of understanding abstract domains such as

emotions by relating them to better -known domains and experiences in the
physical world. Here are some more conceptual metaphors and their
manifestations in language:

A particularly widespread and productive set of metaphors are

“orientational metaphors”. These metaphors have as their source domain
spatial relations such as up – down or front–back. Such basic spatial
structures are known as image schemas.

Image schemas make particularly good source domains because they have
developed from our earliest bodily and spatial experiences and hence are
immediately meaningful to us. For example, we constantly experience up

27
 and down movements in the physical world: the force of gravity makes
things like rain come down, while heat makes things like smoke go up.
Hence, we have developed a deeply entrenched up–down image schema.

In exploring the world around us we grasp objects and develop a contact

schema. The fact that we interact in the world with the front of our bodies
has given rise to the front–back schema. Some objects have a hollow space
which may be filled with other objects or substances, such as a bowl filled
with milk. This experience gives rise to a container schema, which is
characterised by a boundary setting an interior apart from an exterior.

The motion schema has developed from our perception of objects moving
past our eyes and the experience of our own motor activities when we move
around.

All these embodied image schemas provide rich sources for conceptual
metaphor:

The above image schemas serve as source domains for our understanding of
various abstract domains:

➔ the more is up schema in (a) describes more in quantity,

➔ the contact schema in sentence (b), said on the phone, is used here to
describe an action,

➔ the front- back schema in (c) serves to describe future time,

➔ the container schema in (d) describes a state,

➔ the motion schema in (e) describes a change of state,

28
 ➔ and the force schema in (f) makes us see a relation of cause and effect in
terms of a human being deliberately setting an object in motion.

📒✏ EXERCISES

1. What do the following examples reveal about conceptual and linguistic

categories and language as an ecological system?

a. A reader puts a question to the Dr. Wordsmith column in The Independent. “Someties
when we yawn it makes a very loud noise and sometimes it is totally silent. Does the
English language have a pair of words that usefully distinguishes between the two? Dr.
Wordsmith writes: “If it ever did, it does not now.” → We have more conceptual
categories than linguistic ones.

b. A boy tells his girl-friend: “I didn’t want to be in love. I only wanted to be in like” →
Because the term in love exists, that creates the possibility of saying things like in like.
There is a slot that can be filled with a less intense term.

2. What do the linguistic categories reveal about the categorisation.

a. Would you like your coffee black or white? → When we talk about categorization
we have a prototype. This is contextual antonymy. These are polar opposites.

b. Technically, crayfish, jellyfish, starfish and shellfish are not fish → Comparison
between expert categorization vs. folk categorization.

3. Which part of the house is meant as the active zone in the following examples?

a. I’m having the house painted → The external wall of the house. Paint gives us the
clue for the active zone.

b. Have you locked the house? → The door lock. Lock gives us the active zone.

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c. He entered the house → The door. Entered gives us the active zone.

d. I’m cleaning the house → The inside of the house (floor, furniture, etc.). Cleaning
gives us the active zone.

e. They are having an open house today → The building.

4. Identify the conceptual metonymies in the following italicised expressions.

a. He drank the whole bottle → CONTAINER FOR CONTENTS

b. Arthur married money → POSSESSION FOR OWNER

c. Einstein was one of the most creative minds of the last century → MIND FOR

INTELLIGENT PERSON

d. There are too many mouths to feed → MOUTHS FOR PEOPLE

e. Own land in the great American West → RESULT FOR ACTION

f. Brussels has been negotiating with Boeing for months → CITY FOR THE INSTITUTION

g. My wife has been towed away → PERSON FOR OBJECT

h. Where are you parked? → OWNER FOR POSSESSION

5. Identify the conceptual metaphors.

a. Do you see my point? → SEEING AS UNDERSTANDING.

b. Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem. → BELIEVE ARE

POSSESSIONS.

c. Budget you time carefully → TIME IS MONEY.

d. Sports car sales are soaring → MORE IS UP.

e. It’s going to rain → CHANGE IS MOTION.

f. I’ve just turned 30 → CHANGE IS MOTION.

g. I’ll get in touch with you → CONNECTION IS CONTACT.

h. These tiring exercises sent me to sleep → CAUSES ARE FORCES.

i. He is boiling with anger → STATES ARE CONTAINERS.

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j. This is central to the issue → IMPORTANCE IS CENTRE.

k. Cognitive linguistics is linguistics with a human face → HUMAN FACE IS THE

ADJECTIVE OF BEING HUMAN

6. From the large number of senses and contexts for the word “head” DCE
mentions over sixty. We over a small selection here. Using Table 4 in this chapter
as an example, explain what the processes of meaning extensions are for “head”
and point out which of these meanings are metaphors and which are metonymies.

a. the top part of the body which has your eyes, mouth, brain, etc. (Prototypical
meaning)

b. the mind: My head was full of strange thoughts. (metonymic extension)

c. understanding: This book goes over my head. (metonymic extension)

d. the leader or person in charge of a group: We asked the head for permission.
(metaphorical extension)

e. the top or front of something: Write your name at the head of each page. (metaphor
extension)

f. calm: Keep one’s head cool. (metaphorical extension)

g. (for) each person: We paid ten pounds a head for the meal. (metonymic extension)

7. The following are some of the different senses of skirt(s) as adapted from the
DCE dictionary item quoted below in (a–d) and extended by further contexts (e–i):

a. A piece of outer clothing worn by women and girls which hangs down from the waist

b. The part of a dress or coat that hangs down from the waist (metonymy,
generalization)

c. The flaps on a saddle that protect a rider’s legs (metonymy, specialization)

d. A circular flap as around the base of a hovercraft (metaphor)

e. A bit of skirt: an offensive expression meaning ‘an attractive woman’ (metonymy)

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f. Skirts of a forest, hill or village etc.: the outside edge of a forest etc. (metaphor)

g. A new road skirting the suburb (metonymy)

h. They skirted round the bus. (metonymy)

i. He was skirting the issue (= avoid). (metaphor)

i. What is likely to be the prototypical meaning and point out which process of
meaning extension (generalization, metaphor, metonymy, specialization) you find
in each of the other cases. Give reasons for your answers.

The prototypical meaning is the one in (a). (b) and (c) are metonymical extensions since
they are very closely related to the prototypical use of skirt. The rest are metaphors
because of their distance with the original meaning.

ii. How are the meanings in (f, g, h, i) related to the prototypical meaning? What is
the difference between (f) versus (g, h, i)?

They are all metaphorical extensions, however, g, h, and i are not related at all to the
prototypical use of skirt, while (f) could have a relationship with the prototypical use.

iii. Which of these meanings would lend themselves for a classical definition?
Which of them would not? Give reasons for your answers.

The meanings that involve metaphorical or idiomatic usages of the word "skirt" (d-i)
would not lend themselves to a classical definition, as they deviate from the literal usage
of the term. Definitions that pertain to specific physical objects or parts, such as clothing
or saddle flaps, are more suitable for classical definitions.

iv. Draw up a radial network for the senses of skirt.

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8. Draw up a radial network for the different senses of paper.

PROTOTYPICAL: This paper is really bad quality.

a. The policeman asked me for my papers. (metonymy, generalization)

b. I don’t have my driving papers on me. (metonymy, generalization)

c. I want it on paper. (metonymy)

d. The examination consisted of two 3-hour papers. (metonymy, specialization)

f. Don’t disturb me I’m writing my paper / delivering a paper. (metonomy,

specification)

g. They are papering the house this afternoon. (metaphorical, specialization)

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9. Radial network of eye.

a. a specialized light-sensitive sensory structure of animals that in nearly all

vertebrates, most arthropods, and some mollusks is the image-forming organ of
sight. → PROTOTYPICAL

b. all the visible structures within and surrounding the orbit and including eyelids,
eyelashes, and eyebrows. → Metonymy, generalization

c.
1) the faculty of seeing with eyes → Metonymy
2) the faculty of intellectual or aesthetic perception or appreciation →
Metaphor
3) skill or ability dependent upon eyesight → Metaphor

d. LOOK, GLANCE (cast an eager eye) → Metonymy

e.
1) an attentive look (kept an eye on his valuables) → Metonymy
2) ATTENTION, NOTICE (caught his eye) → Metaphor
3) close observation : SCRUTINY (works under the eye of her boss) →
metonomy

f. POINT OF VIEW, JUDGMENT (beauty is in the eye of the beholder) →

Metaphor

2. something having an appearance suggestive of an eye: such as

a. the hole through the head of a needle → Metaphor

b. a usually circular marking (as on a peacock's tail) → Metaphor
c. LOOP → Metaphor
d. an undeveloped bud (as on a potato) → Metaphor
e. an area like a hole in the center of a tropical cyclone marked by only light winds
or complete calm with no precipitation → Metaphor

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 f. the center of a flower especially when differently colored or marked →
Metaphor
g.
1) a triangular piece of beef cut from between the top and bottom of a round →
metaphor
2) the chief muscle of a chop → metaphor
3) a compact mass of muscular tissue usually embedded in fat in a rib or loin
cut of meat → metaphor
h. a device (such as a photoelectric cell) that functions in a manner analogous to
human vision → metaphor

3. something central : CENTER (the eye of the problem) → metaphor

4. the direction from which the wind is blowing → metaphor

Red radial

Dimensiones

35
Metafora y metonimia (blending)

Símbolos

Referencia

3 preguntas teoria

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LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND MEANING: CROSS-CULTURAL SEMANTICS

1 INTRODUCTION: LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY AND UNIVERSALISM

A key question is whether language influences thought or thought influences language.

Both positions have been advocated. The first is known as linguistic relativity. The rival
position is known as universalism. It assumes that human thought is significantly
similar across all cultures and that since language is a reflection of human thought, all
languages are significantly similar as far as their conceptual categories are concerned. In
its extreme version, this position asserts that linguistic conceptualization is essentially
the same in all languages.

1.1. LINGUISTICS AND CULTURAL RELATIVITY

In 1690 the English philosopher John Locke observed that in any language there
is a “great store of words … which have not any that answer them in another
[language]”. Such language-specific words, he said, represent certain “complex
ideas” which have grown out of “the customs and manner of life” of the people.

This same insight recurred throughout the German Romantic tradition,

especially in the writings of Johann Gottfried Herder and Wilhelm von
Humboldt, who regarded language as a prisma or grid spread over things in the
world so that each language reflects a different worldview (Weltsicht).

It was eventually taken to America in the person of Franz Boas. In America

Boas and his students encountered languages and cultures which differed
enormously from those of Europe. So great were differences in the area of
vocabulary alone that, as Edward Sapir observed: “Distinctions which seem
inevitable to us may be utterly ignored in languages which reflect an entirely
different type of culture, while these in turn insist on distinctions which are all
but unintelligible to us.” Similar observations were made in the thirties by
Russian researchers such as Luria and Vygotsky (1992), who found that
indigenous Sami (Lapp) societies in the north of Norway had huge vocabularies,
but often lacked a more abstract general category or hypernym (ex: 20 words for
ice, 11 for cold, 41 for snow).

37
 The grammatical systems of the languages of the New World also came as a
shock to European sensibilities. There were languages lacking familiar
categories like countable and uncountable, adjective and verb (only an affix),
tense and case, but prolifically endowed with “exotic” distinctions, such as
whether an event or action was reiterated in space or in time; whether it took
place to the north, south, east or west; whether the speaker knew of it from
personal observation, from deduction, or from hearsay; or whether a thing was
visible or not. The conclusion is that the different grammatical categories of
different languages invite, or even compel, their speakers to see the world in
distinctive ways. This view is referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Benjamin Lee Whorf, who coined the term linguistic relativity, explained it as
follows:

We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe

significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an
agreement to organize it in this way—an implicit and unstated
agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is
codified in the patterns of our language.

Admittedly, Whorf may have exaggerated the degree to which the agreement
that holds throughout a speech community is absolutely obligatory. We can
always find a way around the canonical terms of agreement by using paraphrases
and circumlocutions of one kind or another. But this can only be done at a cost
— by using longer, more complex, more cumbersome expressions than those
offered to us by the ordinary habitual patterns of our native language.

We can only try to avoid linguistic conventions of which we are conscious.

However, the grip of people’s native language on their perceptual and thinking
habits is usually so strong that they are no more aware of such linguistic
conventions.

Example. Choi and Bowerman.

In other research, John Lucy has found significant differences in the way in
which adult speakers of English and Yucatec Maya process information about
concrete objects. English speakers show greater attention to number than
Yucatec speakers and tend to classify by shape, while Yucatec speakers tend to

38
 classify by material composition. These differences correspond to what could be
predicted on the basis of linguistic differences (English has number marking,
Yucatec has classifiers).

1.2. SEMANTIC PRIMES AS A KEY TO CROSS-CULTURAL

COMPARISONS

The traditional view of human thought is that of universalism, i.e. that all
people all over the world basically think in the same way. But since languages
are so different, how could linguistic concepts in various languages be the same?

Many thinkers through the centuries have believed that a set of universal
concepts exists. Philosophers like Pascal, Descartes, Arnauld, and Leibniz
called them “simple ideas”. Modern linguists generally refer to them as semantic
primes or semantic primitives . By means of empirical research, especially by
comparison of equivalent words in a large number of languages, so far about 60
semantic primes can be thought of as universal concepts or as the basic “atoms”
of meaning, in terms of which the thousands upon thousands of complex
meanings are composed .

However, there are a few complications which should be mentioned. Firstly, a

single semantic prime can sometimes be expressed by different words in
different contexts, called allolexes (in analogy to allophones). Secondly, in some
languages the equivalents of semantic primes may be affixes or fixed phrases

39
 rather than individual words. Thirdly, words usually have more than one
meaning, which can confuse the situation.

We can now present an approach for cross-linguistic and cross-cultural

semantics.

We saw that one way of describing the sense of a word is to paraphrase it by

forming a string of other words which is supposed to say the same thing.
Paraphrasing works effectively only if simpler words are used in the paraphrase.
Unfortunately, dictionary definitions often violate this principle, thus falling into
the trap of obscurity.

Example. Remind.

Obscure definitions do not serve to make a meaning clear and explicit. They
merely replace the job of understanding one unknown term by the job of having
to understand another . Hand in hand with obscurity goes circularity. This
describes a situation in which word A is defined in terms of word B, then word
B is defined in terms of word A.

Example. Fate.

Sometimes it takes several steps before the circle closes : For example, A is
defined via B, B via C, then C via A. Obviously, we get nowhere by “defining”
words in a circular fashion .

When we attempt to describe the meanings of words from a language different

from our own, there is a third problem. Most words do not have precise
equivalents across languages. Such meaning variation across languages brings
with it the danger of ethnocentrism (culture bias) in semantics. If we use
concepts which are English-specific in describing another language, then our
description will inevitably be a distorted one because we will impose our own
conceptual categories onto the other language.

Example. Ruka.

How can these problems be overcome? To avoid obscurity and circularity we

have to phrase any description of a word’s meaning in simpler terms than the
word being described. A description of a word meaning which follows this

40
 principle is called a reductive paraphrase, because it breaks down or reduces
the complex meaning into a combination of simpler meanings. The most
complete reductive paraphrase is achieved when we have phrased the entire
concept in terms of universal semantic primes.

Phrasing our definitions in terms of semantic primes offers a way of avoiding

obscurity and circularity. But what about the third problem, that of
ethnocentrism? In fact, there is good reason to think that ethnocentrism can be
minimized by relying on semantic primes, because the evidence suggests that the
primes are not the “private property” of English but are found in every human
language. The semantic primes are the vocabulary of a kind of “minilanguage”
which is an excellent tool for semantic and conceptual analysis.

2. CULTURE-SPECIFIC WORDS

The fact that the universal core of semantic primes appears to be so small highlights the
great conceptual differences between languages. The vast majority of words in any
language have complex and rather language-specific meanings, and this can often be
seen as reflecting and embodying the distinctive historical and cultural experiences of
the speech community. In this case, we speak of culture-specific words.

Apart from differing in their inventories of culture-specific words, languages often

differ in the number of words they have for speaking about a particular domain of
meaning. When a language has a relatively high number of words for a single domain
this is known as lexical elaboration. Lexical elaboration can often be seen as reflecting
cultural facts.

Example. It is understandable that many Asian languages have several words for rice.
On the other hand, European languages have a very large stock of expressions to do
with measuring and reckoning time.

Sometimes it is possible to nominate certain highly salient and deeply culture-laden

words in a language as the cultural key words of that culture. Such words are usually
very frequent, at least in their own domains. Often, they stand at the center of a large
cluster of fixed phrases, and occur frequently in proverbs, sayings, popular songs, book
titles, and so on.

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To illustrate how words in different languages can differ semantically in subtle but
culture-related ways we will examine some emotion terms in various European
languages. In general, the meanings of emotion terms can be described by linking a
feeling (good, bad, or neutral) with a prototypical scenario involving action schemas
(do), or experiencing schemas (think, want). These scenarios are presented in
explications. Explications are descriptions composed in semantic primes; they can be
transposed between languages without altering the meaning. Unlike technical
formulations, they can also be understood by ordinary people.

Example. Happy and joyful.

3. CULTURE-SPECIFIC GRAMMAR

In any language there will be aspects of grammar which are strongly linked with
culture. Proponents of linguistic relativity such as Sapir and Whorf concentrated on
pervasive grammatical patterns such as whether or not a language insists on marking the
distinction between singular and plural referents, or the relative time reference (tense) of
an event, or the source of one’s evidence for making a statement, etc. A language
continually forces its speakers to attend to such distinctions (or others like them),
inescapably imposing a particular subjective experience of the world and ourselves.

Ex. Time in English and Hopi.

We will now illustrate an aspect of culture-specific grammar from Italian. Although the
constructions under analysis are not so all-pervasive and fundamental as those
envisaged by Whorf, they are still very frequent and dominant in the Italian way of life
and are certainly an important aspect of the Italian experience of things. Our focus will
be on two grammatical constructions which serve an expressive function fully
congruent with the general expressiveness of Italian culture: syntactic reduplication
and absolute superlative.

Syntactic reduplication refers to the repetition, without any intervening pause, of

adjectives, adverbs, and even nouns. It is a distinct grammatical construction of Italian.
These Italian expressions are usually described as indicating “intensity”. Syntactic

42
reduplication in Italian expresses, firstly, an insistence that the word in question is well-
chosen. There is, however, a second component also, an emotive one.

A second characteristically Italian grammatical device is the absolute superlative,

formed from adjectives with-issimo (in the appropriate gender/number variant). These
are restricted to qualities, and more specifically to qualities which can be “graded” and
compared. There is also a certain similarity with syntactic reduplication— some Italian
grammars even describe the two constructions as equivalents. But unlike syntactic
reduplication, the absolute superlative is not meant to convey accuracy. On the contrary,
it normally involves an obvious exaggeration. The function of this exaggeration shares
something with syntactic reduplication: express the speaker’s emotional attitude. All in
all, the absolute superlative enables speakers of Italian to perform a kind of “expressive
overstatement”.

Constructions like syntactic reduplication and the absolute superlative are surely linked
with what has been called the “theatrical quality” of Italian life (Barzini). This
animation and this love of loudness and display go a long way to explaining the
relevance of expressive grammatical devices like syntactic reduplication and the
absolute superlative in Italian culture.

4. CULTURAL SCRIPTS

In different societies people not only speak different languages, but they also use them
in different ways, following different cultural norms. Cultural norms of
communication are usually described using vague and impressionistic labels such as
“directness”, “formality”, and “politeness”.

Though useful up to a point, such labels are really quite vague, and are used with
different meanings by different authors. They can also lead to ethnocentrism because
they are usually not translatable into the language of the people whose culture is being
described. These problems can be largely overcome if we use semantic primes to
formulate our descriptions of cultural norms of communication. When cultural norms
are described in this way, they are referred to as cultural scripts. In this section we will
focus on cultural scripts for saying “what you want”.

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Of course, it belongs to the genre of “folk comments”, and do not represent precise
generalizations. But “folk comments” provide evidence of the perceptions of people
living in multi-ethnic societies, and of the problems involved in cross-cultural
communication. They cannot be ignored but must be interpreted within a coherent and
independently justified framework, such as that provided by cultural scripts written in
semantic primes. The method enables us to state hypotheses about cultural norms
without resorting to technical or language specific terms, and in a way which is clear
and accessible.

Finally, it should be noted that cultural scripts can be used for describing variation and
change, as well as continuity in cultural norms, for cultures are, of course,
heterogeneous, and changeable. However, to study diversity and change we also need a
rigorous and illuminating analytical framework.

5. CONCLUSION

In a well-known passage, Whorf explained his view of the relation of language to

thinking as follows: the background linguistic system (in other words, the grammar) of
each language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather is
itself the shaper of ideas, the program and the guide for the individual’s mental activity,
for his analysis of impressions.

Whorf’s views on linguistic relativity have often been misunderstood. He did not claim
that all thinking is dependent on language. He believed there are various mental
processes which are independent of language and which therefore escape the “shaping”
influence of language. But as far as “linguistic thinking” is concerned, Whorf insisted
that the patterns of our native language inevitably impose patterns of habitual thinking.

The culture-specific words and grammatical constructions of a language are

conceptual tools which reflect a society’s past experience of doing and thinking about
things in certain ways. As a society changes, these tools may be gradually modified and
discarded. The outlook of a society is never wholly “determined” by its stock of
conceptual tools, but it is influenced by them. The outlook of an individual is never
fully “determined” by his native language because there are always alternative ways of

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expressing oneself, but one’s conceptual perspective on life is clearly influenced by his
or her native language.

Much the same can be said about communicative style. An individual’s communicative
style is not rigidly determined by the cultural scripts which he or she internalizes while
growing up in that culture. There is always room for individual and social variation, and
for innovation. But the communicative style of both society and individual cannot
escape the influence of the “cultural rules” of communication.

In the end, the existence of a common stock of semantic primes in all the world’s
languages means that all human cognition rests on the same conceptual bedrock.
Theoretically, any culture-specific concept can be made accessible to cultural outsiders
by being decomposed into a translatable configuration of universal semantic primes, and
indeed, this technique can be an important practical aide to cross-cultural
communication. Even so, since every language function as an integrated whole (of
enormous complexity), there will never be a better way to understand the inner
workings of a culture than to learn, to speak, and to live life through the language of its
people.

📒✏ EXERCISES

2. Translate the examples of Table 1 (repeated below) into your mother tongue or a
language different from English. If you compare your translations with the English
expressions, try to tell whether your language classifies locational relationships
according to the English pattern, according to the Korean pattern, or according to
a distinctive pattern of its own. If your language tends to follow the English
pattern, is the classification exactly the same as in English, or are there also things
that remind you of the Korean way of classifying things? If your language system
is more like Korean, do you find things that go in the English direction?

a. a piece in a puzzle, a picture in a wallet, a hand in a glove

(Encajar) una pieza en el puzle (containment), (meter) una foto en la cartera

(containment), (meter) la mano en el globo.

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b. toys in a bag or a box

(Meter) los juguetes en la caja

c. a cap on a pen, a lid on a jar, a glove on a hand, a magnet on a surface, a tape on a

surface

(Ponerle) el tapón al bolígrafo, (ponerle) la tapa a la jarra, (poner) el guante sobre la

mano, (poner) el imán en la nevera, (poner/pegar) fiso a una superficie.

d. a hat on a head, a glove on the hand, a shoe on the foot

(Ponerse) el gorro en la cabeza, (ponerse) un guante en la mano, (ponerse) un zapato en

el pie.

In Spanish, we find the direction in the verb.

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 FRAMES AND CONSTRUCTIONS

1 INTRODUCTION

The notion of frame was introduced into linguistics by Charles Fillmore in the middle
of the 1970s based on his by now classic example, the so-called ‘commercial event’
frame. To approach this frame, consider the aspects of a situation which would be
described by using the English verb buy.

First, consider the following sentence which exemplifies a syntactic pattern in which
buy may occur: David bought an old shirt from John for ten pounds.

Examples of changing the perspective within a same frame:

▪ John sold an old shirt to David for ten pounds .

▪ John charged David ten pounds for an old shirt .

▪ David paid ten pounds to John for an old shirt .

In short, we see that the [BUY] frame is not just a useful tool for the syntactic
description of the verb buy, but it can also be applied to the verbs sell, charge and pay.
In terms of the frame notion, the difference between the four verbs is simply a change of
perspective within the same frame.

➔ The four diagrams show that the two

verbs buy and pay describe the commercial
event from the BUYER’s perspective,
while sell and charge perspectivize the
situation from the SELLER’s point of
view.

➔ In addition to the choice of subjects and

objects, Figure 5.2 includes the
prepositions that are used in the adverbials.
This is a first sign that the frame approach
goes beyond the figure and ground
approach in that it pays more attention to
the less prominent parts of sentences like
adverbials .

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2 THE FRAME NOTION: DIFFERENT CONCEPTIONS AND RELATED
CONCEPTS

When Fillmore first used the notion of frame , he defined it (1975: 124) as any system
of linguistic choices – the easiest cases being collections of words, but also including
choices of grammatical rules or linguistic categories – that can get associated with
prototypical instances of scenes. This means that at that time, a frame was regarded as a
collection of linguistic options which were associated with so -called ‘scenes’. Starting
out from this linguistic position, the conception of the frame notion has shifted towards
a cognitive interpretation.

In 1985 he says that frames are ‘specific unified frameworks of knowledge, or coherent
schematizations of experience ’ , in 1992 he views frames as ‘cognitive structures [ … ]
knowledge of which is presupposed for the concepts encoded by the words’. What this
collection of definitions and explanations shows is that while frames were originally
conceived as linguistic constructs , they have by now received a cognitive
reinterpretation.

Such a cognitive interpretation is even more convincing for the notion of perspective.
Thus, instead of advocating an independent ‘syntactic perspective’ , one may argue that
every sentence evokes a certain cognitive perspective on a situation by the choice of the
verb and the particular syntactic pattern (that is: SVO, SVOA, etc.) that it governs .

Accepting that perspective is a cognitive rather than a syntactic notion , one may ask
what lies behind it. The basis for perspective is mainly provided by the cognitive ability
of directing one’s attention . Among other things, the perspective from which we view a
situation depends on what attracts our attention.

➔ Thus, we use the verb buy in order to describe a commercial event when we
want to direct the hearer’s attention to the BUYER and the GOODS, and the
verb sell when the focus of our attention is on the SELLER and the GOODS.

At first sight, we might be struck by the parallels between the figure and ground
approach and the frame and attention approach. Langacker’s idea of the profiling of

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participants in an interactive network as syntactic figure and ground is indeed very
similar to the notion of perspectivizing two elements of a frame as subject and object.
However, the two approaches are far from identical.

a) First, researchers working in the frame paradigm are much more interested in
problems related to the meaning of the verbs that belong to a frame. Thus the frame
notion has already been used for detailed semantic analyses of a number of verbs, and
this has developed into the project of a frame -based dictionary.

b) Second, the frame approach presents a unified view of syntactic patterns , while
Langacker tackles the problem on various levels of cognitive processing.

c) Third, and perhaps most important, on each level of his analysis Langacker is almost
exclusively interested in the two prominent entities: in the syntactic figure (or subject)
and the syntactic ground (or object). Here, the frame notion has a wider scope, because
indirect objects and adverbials are also addressed.

The wider scope of the frame approach also shows up in the fact that the
[COMMERCIAL EVENT] frame even captures cognitive categories whose prominence
is so low that they are not expressed on the linguistic surface at all.

As it has emerged, frames can be conceived as a way of describing the cognitive

context which provides the background for and is associated with cognitive categories.
There is thus an obvious similarity with the ‘cognitive models.’ The difference is that in
our conception cognitive models are of a more general nature than frames, so that
frames are just one of a variety of cognitive models which also include the ‘scenarios’,
domains and interactive networks and the ‘scripts’. Using this terminology, a frame is
to be seen as a type of cognitive model which represents the knowledge and beliefs
pertaining to specific and frequently recurring situations.

3 FROM FRAMES TO SCRIPTS: FLYING ON A PLANE

Linguistics is not the only discipline where the frame notion has been applied with quite
impressive results. A second important field of research has been artificial intelligence
(i.e.: the discipline that researches the potential of computers to copy human behaviour.)
Here, the frame notion has been used in a more general, though also more technical,
way than in linguistics.

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In this use of the term, the relevance of frames extends over the boundaries of single
sentences to much larger linguistic and cognitive units (for example, sequences of
complex sentences, texts).

Example. Sue caught a plane from London to Madrid. After she had found her seat she
checked whether the life vest was beneath it, but she could not find it. So she asked the
flight attendant to find one for her .

What should attract attention here are the two occurrences of the definite article the .

Given these rules, one may ask why the life vest and the flight attendant are both
accompanied by a definite article , although they are neither mentioned previously in the
text nor specified later.

Why, then, do the two uses of the definite article sound completely natural , although
they cannot be explained with the rules of grammar alone? The reason is that in order to
understand the definite references we need to make inferences that are based on our
world knowledge, and this is where the computer has a hard time of it.

All this knowledge is activated when a plane is mentioned in the first sentence of the
text and it is this knowledge which allows us to make the right inferences without effort.
As an attempt to equip computers with the necessary world knowledge , the notion of
frame was introduced into artificial intelligence.

The idea is that in our plane example , the cognitive category PLANE would activate a
whole bundle of other categories which belong to the same [FLYING ON A PLANE]
frame , for example PILOT, FLIGHT ATTENDANT, LIFE VEST, SAFETY BELT,
FIRST CLASS, ECONOMY CLASS, SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS and so on.

In addition to this rather general frame , there are many so -called subframes which
capture the knowledge of still more specific situations of a flight , e.g. [EATING],
[WATCHING THE MOVIE] and [GOING TO THE TOILET ]. In view of the
complexity of many everyday situations, Minsky suggested that our knowledge should
be represented in complex ‘frame - systems’ .

Obviously cognitive categories play a major role within frames. Loosely speaking,
categories act both as anchors and as triggers for frames, because it is in the format of
categories and their interrelations that frames are designed and it is by the same
categories that they are activated.

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A further function of categories is to provide so -called ‘default assignments’ (i.e. :
values for slots in the frame that apply under ‘normal’ conditions) by supplying context
- dependent prototypes.

To keep matters simple the [FLYING ON A PLANE] frame has so far been presented
as if it were a motley collection of categories. But this is of course a somewhat
superficial way of looking at it.

On more detailed inspection it turns out that a flight exhibits a very predictable temporal
structure in which one stage is often a prerequisite for the next stage. Viewing the flight
from such a sequential perspective, we go beyond simple frames and move into the so -
called scripts, (i.e. : knowledge structures that are particularly designed for frequently
recurring event sequences. ).

4 THE RESTAURANT SCRIPT

To demonstrate what a more finely grained script would look like let us have a look at
the [RESTAURANT] script .

On a general level the [RESTAURANT] script can be divided into four scenes , namely
entering, ordering, eating and exiting. In order for the first, the entering , scene to occur,
a number of conditions must be fulfilled.

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Starting out from these props and roles, we then assume that the entering scene can take
place: the customer enters the restaurant, looks for a table, decides where to sit, walks to
the table and sits down on a chair.

How is the ordering scene integrated into the script? When the scene begins, three states
of affairs are possible: 1) there may be a menu on the table, 2) the waiter may bring the
menu or 3) the customer may ask the waiter to bring the menu.

Once the customer has the menu in hand, the next step is the choice of food, which is
communicated to the waiter, who walks into the kitchen and informs the cook of the
order. After that, again two paths are possible:

A) the cook may prepare the food and in so doing create the precondition for the eating
scene.

B) Alternatively, the cook may signal the waiter that the desired food is not available.
When this happens, there are again two alternative continuations of the script:

a) Either the customer makes another choice of food.

b) or the customer decides to leave the restaurant

The eating and the exiting scene can also be represented in the script format in a similar
way.

Although it is true that we are all familiar with the information stored in scripts, such a
view misses the point; it disregards the fact that when we produce or listen to language,
we unconsciously fill in an incredible amount of information taken from frames and
scripts. And what is more, without supplying this information we would certainly not
be able to understand even the simplest pieces of discourse. To show that this is true,
consider the two stories.

Although the two stories roughly give the same amount of information , the first is
perfectly understandable, while the second does not seem to make sense. The reason for
this discrepancy is that the first story fits our internalized script of a meal in a restaurant,
and therefore we have no difficulty in filling in the missing parts, (e.g.: that John
presumably looks at the menu before he orders and that he eats his meal before he pays
and leaves . )

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Indeed , the script may be so powerful that when we form a mental representation of the
story , we do not even notice that the important eating scene is not expressed
linguistically.

The potential of scripts, and incidentally also frames, to ensure that the right inferences
are made is especially important in face -to -face conversation. Here speakers often rely
very much on the hearer’s knowledge of a script when they leave out details or whole
stages in their description of an event.

In contrast to the first story, the second does not correspond to the script expectations
called up by the initial sentence. When they are processed, the three sentences merely
describe a collection of situations which do not combine to build a coherent whole. This
means that unless links are provided by a script, the events cannot be brought into a
meaningful causal chain .

Altogether this section has discussed a number of conceptions and applications of the
notions of frame and script.

 Frames were presented as structured patterns of knowledge related to recurring

situations, which are reflected linguistically in the lexical relations between
verbs and in the syntax of clauses. (for simple sentences)

 To account for knowledge structures that represent larger sequences of events

connected by causal chains, the notion of script was introduced. (for texts)

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