Comandos LVM

The traditional view of categorisation is termed the ‘classical theory’ of categorisation, and this classical model has been built upon since the time of Aristotle. The model has a

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sufficient conditions for each member of a category. Taking an example such as

BACHELOR to explain these conditions: BACHELOR involves a set of conditions: ‘a male’, ‘an adult’, and ‘being unmarried’. Each of these conditions is necessary, yet none of the conditions can be separated from the whole set; meaning that if the conditions only cover ‘an adult’ and ‘unmarried’, the meaning of the lexical item can be equal to SPINSTER (Evans & Green, 2006). From the dictionary perspective, the central meaning of BACHELOR derives its definition from the above three conditions. However, the encyclopaedic knowledge around the item BACHELOR is missing, which suggests that the dictionary view fails to consider pragmatic factors in the lexical item. When it comes to the acquisition of particles and phrasal verbs, the weakness of the dictionary view will also cause failure in the second language acquisition. Some observations and survey of textbooks used for teaching and learning English particles during my prior teaching experience in Taiwan reveal that it is common to see English particles and phrasal verbs introduced in textbooks, using a list of dictionary definitions arranged in alphabetical order. Students are encouraged to adopt only rote memorisation to learn the semantic complexity of particles and phrasal verbs, due to the lack of a more facilitating teaching and learning method. Evans & Green (2006) similarly argue that the dictionary view is problematic. They suggest that the traditional view of categorisation fails to consider carefully the conceptual fuzziness, the boundaries of a category, and the central membership of a category. However, these limitations inspired cognitive psychologist Eleanor Rosh and her colleagues to develop the prototype theory, while conducting a series of experiments and collecting more empirical data to examine how categories are formed in the human mind.

Rosch’s prototype theory (1975, 1977, 1978; Rosch et al, 1976) acts as an intermediary between the classical theory of categorisation and Lakoff’s (1987) cognitive model of categorisation, because her experimental research justifies some viewpoints in the classical theory of categorisation and exerts influence on Lakoff’s theory of categorisation. The details of Lakoff’s ICMs is discussed below. Prototype theory has two dimensions: one is vertical dimension, named the principle of cognitive economy; the other is horizontal dimension, termed the principle of perceived world structure. Cognitive linguistics represents a principle to cluster similar objects, stimulus, or experience in order to save time and energy for understanding the world. In Rosch’s experimental study, she found that there is a hierarchical system in human mental categorisation, comprising three levels from top to bottom: (1) superordinate level, (2) basic level and (3) subordinate level. For example, in her basic-level category research of 1976, FURNITURE is classified as a superordinate level; CHAIR is at the basic level; KITCHEN CHAIR is placed at the subordinate level. The most important finding in her study relates to the attributes of the basic level which exhibits the most fundamental information level in human categorisation,

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representing a feature of perceptual salience. For instance, when requesting a visual image of CHAIR, subjects immediately press the ‘match’ key in a picture verification task. This suggests that objects in the basic-level category will be recognised more quickly than those from the superordinate or subordinate categories. There is also some evidence supporting this premise that has emerged from children’s language acquisition. Basic- level terms in children’s language present some features: they usually involve single-word units, and they are used more frequently than the other two categories. These features can thereby facilitate research on first language acquisition, as they can be seen in numerous L1 books for young children, as well as to facilitate L2 teaching and learning. When it comes to frequent usage of basic-level terms, a question of ‘universality’ arises from the basic-level category. Rosch et al (1976) argue that environmental factors: cross- linguistic aspects, cross-cultural variations and even specialist knowledge within a single speech community, limit people in their categorisation.

The second dimension of prototype theory involves the horizontal dimension concerning the principle of perceived world structure. Rosch (1976) designed a series of linguistic experiments without visual images to obtain data from ‘goodness-of-example rating’, aiming to examine the prototypical theory in terms of finding the best example from the same category. The category BIRD is a well-known example of this rating. The findings show that at the category of BIRD, ROBIN is a central member of the category; OSTRICH belongs to the peripheral members; BAT is rated at the extreme edge of the category. Although ‘birds’ are classified into different members at the category of BIRD they still share some of the same attributes, in terms of a degree of family resemblance. It has been assumed that the connections of family resemblance reveal a distinct perspective of categorisation from the traditional view, namely a set of necessary and sufficient conditions in a definitional structure.

Rosch’s prototype theory establishes a framework of knowledge representation in the human mind. However, her empirical findings only reveal the superficial structure of human categorisation, because her data was collected simply from the subjects’ decisions about categorisation. The recent development of Rosch’s study is that Taylor (2003) introduces Rosch’s theory and extend her findings to identify more linguistic issues that were first addressed by Lakoff’s (1987) ICMs. However, Taylor (2017) further argues that constructing meanings is a complicated process. Various factors, such as syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and discourse values all need to be taken into consideration.

Some scholars (Lakoff, 1987; Laurence & Margolis, 1999) suggest that the prototype theory would have been more convincing if the complex system of human categorisation had been investigated in more detail. Given these points, Lakoff has developed Idealised

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Cognitive Models (ICMs) with more sophisticated functions to elaborate the sophisticated system of human categorisation. Essentially, the choice of the term ‘Idealised Cognitive Models’ exhibits the claims of the theory. In other words, ‘idealised’ stands for abstract concepts that can be applied to a wide range of domains; ‘cognitive’ means that concepts exist in the human mind, and ‘models’ demonstrate that categorisations are mental representations. Lakoff’s ICMs, underpinned by Gestalt psychology, are developed into experiential linguistics; however his concepts are not exactly the same as Gestalt psychologists’ claims, when he sets out his arguments in the book Women, Fire and

Dangerous Things (1987). It is assumed that the theory of ICMs is used as a cognitive tool

to acquire the background knowledge for semantic analysis. In terms of background knowledge, the theory of ICMs is partly associated with Fillmore’s frames. They both encompass the intricate system of human knowledge, yet Lakoff argues that ICMs would provide copious details covering a wider range of abstract experiences than Fillmore’s specific examples in a given EVENT.

In order to elaborate the richness of ICMs, Lakoff proposes the sources of the typicality effects and the structure of ICMs to support his own argument. There are three types of typicality effects: (1) mismatches of ICMs, (2) cluster models of ICMs, and (3) metonymic ICMs. With regard to the typicality effects, Lakoff takes POPE as a poor example of BACHELOR to show the mismatch of ICMs. In order to grasp the concept, POPE will be built upon the category of CATHOLIC CHURCH rather than the category of BACHELOR, because POPE is a non-central or not prototypical member in the category of BACHELOR, in terms of being ‘an unmarried male’. In other words, the typicality effect of POPE relies on CATHOLIC CHURCH, rather than BACHELOR. The mismatch of ICMs leads to L2 learners’ confusion in meaning construction.

The second source of typicality effect arises from the example of MOTHER. Lakoff argues that most dictionaries adopt the BIRTH MODEL as a primary definition of MOTHER, however, he found two exceptions in defining MOTHER respectively, as NURTURANCE MODEL found in Funk and Wagnall’s Standard Dictionary and as GENEALOGICAL MODEL found in American College Dictionary. The typicality effect of cluster models implies that L2 learners should be more aware of the inadequacies in dictionary definitions of a given word, and this corresponds to cognitive linguists’ rejection of the dictionary view, in terms of a set of necessary and sufficient conditions.

Metonymic ICMs is the third typicality effect that Lakoff proposes. Metonymic ICMs give rise to several typicality effects: social stereotypes, typical examples, ideals, paragons, generator and salient examples. Metonymy means that one entity, as an exemplar, stands for the whole category (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff & Turner, 1989). Kӧvecses &

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Radden further provide an in depth account of metonymy based on Lakoff & Johnson’s metonymic ICMs, as they view metonymy as follows:

‘Metonymy is a cognitive process in which one conceptual entity, the vehicle, provides mental access to another conceptual entity, the target, within the same domain, or ICM.’ (Kӧvecses & Radden, 1998: 39)

Unlike Kӧvecses & Radden’s theory of metonymy, some cognitive linguists (Barcelona, 2003c; Taylor, 2003) argue that the conceptual mechanism of metonymy is more basic than the conceptual system of metaphor, as Barcelona (2003c: 31) suggests that ‘every metaphorical mapping presupposes a prior metonymic mapping.’ He views that metonymy has a more experiential correlation than metaphor in terms of conceptualisation. The example can be referred to his explanation of loud colour. Barcelona (2003c) argues that understanding the metaphor: loud colour cannot be mapped from the source domain of SOUND. Instead, it has to be based on a SUBDOMAIN (DEVIANT SOUND) which he names, because there is a strong experiential correlation between loud sound and drawing attention. For this reason, loud colour has to be understood in terms of metaphorical conceptualising deviant colour as attracting attention. Other literature that compare and contrast conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy can be referred to Dirven & Pӧrings (2002). They provide in depth discussion regarding the interaction between metaphor and metonymy that is also argued by Croft (1993), Grady & Johnson (2000).

In order to give a full account of ICMs Lakoff presents a fourth type of typicality effect, a composite prototype, which combines the cluster model of MOTHER with a metonymic model of HOUSE-WIFE-MOTHER. In a composite prototype, the prototype is located in the centre and other subcategories are extended from the centre; therefore, it creates a radial network for a category. In the fourth source of typicality effects, Lakoff combines cluster models of MOTHER with the metonymic model of HOUSE-WIFE MOTHER to form a radiating lattice structure for the category of MOTHER, as radial categories. The prototypical model of MOTHER is placed in the centre, together with subcategories of MOTHER around the centre, and the model presents a radiating layout to show the relationships among category members. This can be seen in Figure 2.1.

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Figure 2.1 Radial categories for ‘MOTHER’ (adapted from Evans & Green 2006: 276)

The important finding of Lakoff’s radial categories shows that subcategories are extensions from the central member, and that they are motivated from culture. In other words, subcategories do not result from the prototypical or the central models of the category; alternatively, they emerge from human cultural experiences.

In order to conduct a fine-grained research, Lakoff (1987) collaborated with Brugman (1981; Brugman & Lakoff, 1988) to make a case study of the preposition ‘over’. This case study presents a complex structure together with a large number of distinct subcategories of word meanings that are stored in a mental lexicon. However, Lakoff and Brugman’s case study fails to take the contextual factor into account (Cruse, 1986, 2000, 2002; Croft & Cruse, 2004). Although Lakoff’s theory of radial categories has a number of limitations, it has continued to exert a great effect on subsequent studies of prepositions. From a cognitive semantic perspective (Lakoff, 1987; Taylor, 2002), the structure of radial categories entails that the concrete and prototypical (best example) meaning lies in the centre of a given category; the abstract and metaphorical meaning being presented outwardly. Based on corpus data, some studies (Deignan, 2005; Littlemore & MacArthur, 2007) of metaphorical meanings in relation to radial categories support this argument, that metaphorical meanings are likely to be classified as peripheral member of a category. The connections presented in radial categories have some implications for L2 teaching and learning. For example, language teachers can raise an L2 learner’s awareness of the exceptions to rules while acquiring the metaphorical or metonymic meanings of English particles, often considered as a challenging task. Dirven & Verspoor (2004:35) develop a radial network of the senses of school, and then divide them into four separate types of extended meanings of school: METONYMY, SPECIALISATION, GENERALISATION and METAPHOR, as shown in Figure 2.2.

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Figure 2.2 A radial network of meaning extension of school (adapted from Dirven & Verspoor 2004:35)

Theoretically, radial categories have been extensively applied to language pedagogy (Dirven & Verspoor, 2004; Holme, 2004, 2009; Littlemore, 2009); however, there is still a shortage of empirical data to show how effective radial categories can be in making a contribution to foreign language teaching and learning, and even less experimental evidence to illustrate how radial categories can facilitate teaching and learning English particles and phrasal verbs. In Chapter 3, the radial network of meaning extension concerning its implications for the design of worksheets employed in this study will be discussed further.