Cognitive Linguistics Flashcards
What is a metonomy?
Using one entitiy to refer to another that is related to it.
What are Categories shaped by according to prototype theory?
Categories are shaped by the linguistic system, cultural context and personal experience.
What are characteristics of the categories according to prototype theory?
Categories with fuzzy boundaries
– not ‘all-or-nothing’ affair
– fuzzy boundaries of categories
– degree of centrality of membership
– more or less representative
– family resemblance
What is the Hierarchical Srtucture of categories and tthe Hierarchy of 3 classses of categories?
- Super-ordinate classes
- Basic classes
- Sub-ordinate classes
How is meaning derived according to cognitive linguistics?
Meaning is derived from concepts and percepts!
- Meaning of a particular linguisttic symbol is linked to a particular mental representation (this representation is referred to as tthe concept)
- These concepts are based on percepts
What is a percept based on?
- A range of perceptional information (shape, size, smell etc.).
- Through conceptualization speakers have an integrated mental representation of the sign.
What are the functions of language according to cognitive linguistics?
Language has symbolic and interactive functions: It encodes & transmit ideas
What does a symbol consist of?
Symbols consist of conventionally associated form-meaning pairings.
a) The linguistic form: e.g. morphemes, words etc.
b) Meaning: conventional semantic or ideational content associated with the form.
Explain the Levels of representation
According to cognitive linguistics, what are the issues of truth-condittional semantics?
- Truth-conditional semantics eliminates cognitive organization
from the linguistic system - Words do not represent neatly packaged bundles of meaning (the dictionary view), but serve as ‚points of access‘ to vast repositories of knowledge relating to a particular concept or conceptual domain
From which different disciplines are cognitive sciences cross-fertilized?
- Psychology
- Linguistics
- Philosophy
- Computer Science
- Neuroscience
What is cognition?
The perception, thought processes and language
What is cognitive psychology?
It considers all processes pertaining to perception, memory, learning, knowledge, language and application of knowledge.
What are some basic tenets of the embodiment/”embodied mind” assumption?
- Mind & body are not separate: Human language cannot be investigated and understood independently of the human body and the experiences with the environment.
- Our experience with objects, space, time, gravity,motion, etc., influence how we perceive and understand the world and how we describe the world with language.
- How reality is perceived and ‘construed’ for communication depends on the nature or the human body.
Why is embodied cognition physically grounded?
- The view (and thus meaning) is always subjecttive
- Language does not reflect reality directly; language structures and language use reflect how we perceive and understand reality based on our body and conceptual system.
- Mental representations are grounded in internalized patterns
of multisensory experience with the physical, spatial and social world. - Physical movement and action routines are integrated into understanding of cognition and language.
Why is physical experience meaningful?
The meaning (sense) of concepts often has a sensorial basis.
The physical experience is basis for embodied image schemata.
What are the two subsystems in the cognitive representation of language?
- Grammatical subsystem: (function words [closed-class items])
- Lexical subsystem: (content words [open-class items])
What are the properties of tthe lexical and grammatical subsystems?
What is polysemy?
When one form carries several meanings
According to de Saussure, what is semiology and what does it investigate?
- A science which studies the role of signs as part of social life.
- Semiology investigates the nature of signs and the laws governing them.
According to de Saussure, what is language?
It is tthe most important of all the systems of signs
Explain the Saussurean Model of the liniguistic sign
What are image schemas?
They are abstract conceptual representations that derive from the observation of the environment and our physical experience
What is structural meaning?
The representation of structural properties of referents (persons, objects) via different schematic systems
What is the central question asked by Lakoff&Johnson?
Where does the complexity of our conceptual representations and associations come from?
What is Lakoff&Johnson’s assumption as to where our conceptional representations and associations come from?
The origin is the tight correlation between the kinds of concepts that humans can form and the architecture & functions of the human body.
What are the characteristics of image schemas?
- Image schemas are not rich images with detailed information, but are abstract patterns based on recurrent experiences.
- They are schematic structures that get instantiated linguistically or non- linguistically in single instances of sign use and are thus constantly added to in different ways.
What is the CONTAINER image schema?
CONTAINER as schema that can stand for different kinds of subgroups of containers and states:
- concrete entities
- mental states
- emotional states
Thus mental / emotional / other states are understood metaphorically based on the CONTAINER schema.
Which definition of image schemas was kept?
Image schemas as “recurring, dynamic patterns of our perceptual interactions and motor programs that give coherence and structure to our
experience.”
What are image schemas based on?
They are based on habits of perception, movement through space and object manipulation.
How are image schemas created?
Image schemas are not innate structures or principles, but are built up (embodied) in early childhood.
Name the different sensory-perceptual systems.
What types of image schemas are there?
What are the two perspectives on the same event and discourse?
- Own perspective (discourse production)
* What do you see and sense when you describe these daily routine?–In terms of you bodily motion, manual actions etc.–What influences your daily experience? What can make it different, special/memorable? - Others’ discourse (discourse comprehension)
* When you listen to others describing their way to class, what do you see, imagine, sense?
* How do you make meaning and what do you remember especially vividly and well?
Which different type of foci exist as parts of the source-path-goal schema?
- Source
- Goal
- Source-Goal
- Path-Goal
- Source-Path-Goal
According to Mark Johnson, What do image schemas do?
They lie at the heart of meaning, and they underlie language, abstract reasoning, and all forms of symbolic interaction.
What was the resuming quotation for the second session?
Image schemas are the sort of structures that demarcate the basic contours of our experience as embodied creatures. […] Their philosophical significance, in other words, lies in the way they bind together body and mind, inner and
outer, and thought and feeling. They are an essential part of the embodied meaning and provide the basis for much of our abstract inference.“
What is the purpose of metaphor?
“The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one thing in terms of another.”
Explain the conceptual metaphor concept
Metaphorical linguistic expressions are derived from underlying more general conceptual metaphors.
What does the concept of multiple mappings describe?
Several source domains may be mapped onto the same target domain each reflecting or creating different understandings.
In which sense are metaphors Highlighting & Hiding?
Metapohrical mappings are partial: They highlight certain shared aspects and hide other aspects of the target domain.
According to the theory discussed in the lecture, what is a metaphor?
A metaphor is a cross-domain mapping.
Explain the target metaphor model
Which example conceptual metaphors were given in the lecture?
- Love is a journey
- More is up; Good is up
- People are machines
- Machines are people
- Theories are buildings
Explain the two different mapping principles for metaphor and metonomy
What is a Synechodoche?
A part-for-whole relationship based on contiguity (pars pro toto and totum pro tarte).
What are the principles of reference and association for metaphor?
A=B (Target is given equal characteristics to source e.g. Theories are buildings)
What are the different principles of reference and association for metonymy?
A for B (Source stand for target e.g. Face for person)
What is a metonymy?
Metonymy involves relating two entities within the same experiential domain. ( “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,…”).
Which example for metonymic principles were given in the lecture?
- Producer for product.
- Place for event.
- Place for institution.
- Part for whole.
- Whole for part.
- Effect for cause.
What examples were given for metonymy-producing relationships?
- A category for a member of the category (e.g. The pill for birth controll pill)
- A member of a category for the category (e.g. Aspirin for any pain-relieving tablet).
What examples were given for Vehicles (Source) as metonymy?
- Controller for controlled.
- Producer for product.
- Bodily over actional.
- Bodily for emotional.
- Bodily over perceptual.
- Visible over invisible.
In which sense do metaphors and metonymies shape our entire thought structure?
“Metaphorical thought, in itself, is neither good nor bad; it is simply commonplace and inescapable. Abstractions and enormously complex situations are routinely understood via metaphor.”
Conceptual framing is mostly unconscious and we might be unaware of our metaphorical thought.
Awareness of our metaphorical thought structure is necessary to change frames: Otherwise facts are ignored if they do not fit.
What are the examples given in the example critical metaphor analysis of “treating illness is fighting a war”.
Target domains: Illness, Treatment, Medicine
Source domain: War
- The disease is an enemy
- The body is a battleground
- Infection is an attack by the disease
- Medicine is a weapon
- Medical procedures are attacks by the patient
- The immune system is a defense
- Winning the war is being cured of the disease
- Being defeated is dying
Do an example metaphor analysis (Define Target and source domain and give example of use).
In which sense can metaphor analysis help in psychotherapy?
- “The language of people experiencing depression—whether in clinical or research contexts—may be analyzed for metaphors as a source of insight into the condition, and metaphors may also be utilized by psychotherapists to engage with the condition.”
- “Metaphors are used repeatedly, creatively, and spontaneously so that both client and therapist are continually pointing to processes that cannot be fully explained using language. Metaphors are like signs pointing the way to a mountain. They direct us toward the experience itself.”
What is the purpose of frames?
They are framing a scene or an event. They are literal instantiations of an embodied picture frame.
Which definition of Frame was kept in the lecture?
- “A schematization of experience (a knowledge structure), which is represented at the conceptual level and held in long-term memory”.
- They are “mental structures of knowledge, experience and practice.”
- They are constitutive of discourse production & comprehension
- They are also at the basis of gestural expression and comprehension.
What is a scene?
The motivating context (The scene) is some body of understandings, some pattern of practices, or some history of social institutions, against which we find intelligible the creation of a particular category (Frame) in the history of the language community.
Frames are comprised of scenes.
What is the scenes relevance for online meaning construction during discourse production and comprehension?
“In most natural conversations, the participants have, already ‘activated’, a
number of shared, presupposed, scenes that we can speak of as being in their consciousness as they speak.”
What are Frames?
- Frames comprise conventional knowledge plus personal/cultural experience.
- They guide understanding of situations and create expectations
- They are a context for metonymic reference.
In which sense are Frames context for metonymic references?
Frame elements are related within a pragmatic context, allowing for metonymic shortcuts.
With a Frame one element may evoke a related element via metonomy (e.g. “The green sweater wants to see the menu again”
What are scripts?
- We have scripts for event types (e.g. a restaurant visit).
- These events focus on action sequences.
How is Framing construal to our perception?
Through language use or other symbolic interaction the Framing of a situation can alternate (e.g. problem vs. challenge)
What is the difference between Frames & scripts and Framing?
- Frames & scripts are knowledge structures/knowledge storages.
- Framing describes “how a message is worded to encourage particualr interpretations and inferences.”
- Framing happens when speaking/writing and Frames and scripts are activated by perceiving (listening, reading etc.).
“All of our knowledgemakes use of frames, and every word is defined through the frames it neurallyactivates. All thinking and talking involves ‘framing’”
How does Lakoff argue that language can shape thought?
Language is at once a surface phenomenon and a source of power. It is a means of expressing, communicating, accessing, and even shaping thought.
According to Lakoff, how does language achieve the shaping of our thought?
Through repetition: “If we hear the same language over and over, we will think more and more in terms of the frames and metaphors activated by that language.”
What does Framing involve?
In general: “How a message is worded”
- Metaphors and metonymies
- Generally lexical choices
- Grammatical choices
Think of an example of a Frame/Framing (e.g. Climate crisis becoming climate change)
How is framing applied in politics?
Politicians are aware, that words trigger mental images/representations and associations within and between frames, but many voters are not.
In the FrameNet what is a core?
“Frame elements that are essential to the meaning of a frame are called core FEs: expressions of time, place and manner are generally not core FEs.”
In the FrameNet what is an element?
A frame-specific defined semantic role that is the basic unit of a frame.
In the FrameNet, what are frame semantics?
A descriptive framework for characterizing lexical meaning in terms of semantic frames.
According to the lecture, what are the core aspects of Frames & Framing we need to know?
Explain the Organon Model of Language by Karl Bühler
What are the three functions of the Organon Model of Language by Karl Bühler and what is their focus?
- Expressive function (Ausdrucksfunktion) focus on the sender.
- Representational function (Darstellungsfunktion) focus on objects and states of affaires.
- Appealing function (Appellfunktion) focus on the recipient
What is the expressive function of the lingustic sign in Bühlers Organon Model?
The linguistic sign expresses the inner state of the speaker.
What is the appellative function of the lingustic sign in Bühlers Organon Model?
The linguistic sign asks the addressee to perform a certain action.
What is the representational function of the linguistic sign in Bühlers Organon Model?
The linguistic sign represents, or refers to, an object, a person, or some state of affair.
Explain Jakobsons Model
What are the six speech functions of Jakobsons Model?
What can we learn from Jakobsons Model?
- There are different speech functions.
- The foregrounded speech function will be made visible via the form of used language.
- Language has different function and the same utterance might serve multiple ones.
- The primary function of an utterance often depends on the context.
- Communication is a complex multifuntional phenomenon, there are several levels of meaning and depending on what the addressee thinks the purpose of the communication is, the utterance might be interpreted completely different.
What is the referential function according to Jakobson?
- “… a set … towards the referant, an orientation towards the context …, the so called REFERENTIAL (cognitive) function.”
- Focus on the propositional content of an utterance.
- Prototypical example: simple declarative utterances.
- It resembles Bühler’s Darstellungsfunktion (Referential function).
What is the emotive function in Jakobsons Model?
- “The so-called EMOTIVE or ‘expressive’ function, focused on the addresser, aims a direct expression of the speaker’s attitude toward what he is speaking about.”
- It resembles Bühler’s Ausdrucksfunktion (expressive function).
What is the conative function in Jakobsons Model?
- “Orientation toward the addressee, the CONATIVE function, finds its purest grammatical expression in the vocative and imperative […].”
- E.g. Questioning, begging, requesting etc.
- It resembles Bühler’s Appellfunktion (appellative function).
What is the Phatic function in Jakobsons Model?
“[…] messages primarily serving to establish, to prolong, or to
discontinue communication, to check whether the channel works
[…], to attract the attention of the interlocutor or to confirm his
continued attention […].”
What is the metalingual function in Jakobsons Model?
- “[…] to check up whether [speakers] use the same code, speech is focused on the code: it performs a METALINGUAL (i.e.
glossing) function.” - “Language about language”.
What is the Poetic function in Jakobsons Model?
“The set towards the message as such, focus on the message for its own sake is the poetic function.” (Playing with language)
What is Iconicity in language?
It is a means to propell the poetic language: Similarity of the form features of a message and what it communicates. (e.g. Onomatopoeia)
How is Iconicity revealed on a phonological level?
- Onomatopoeia
- Deep tones and grave vowels are perceived as downpulling and dark.
- High tonality and light vowels are perceives as light and bright.
How is Iconicity revealed on a morphological level?
- Comparative & superlative (more linguistic form reflects more stronger noise)
- Plural markers (more linguistic form reflects higher quantity and longer duration).
- Conjugation of verb forms
How is Iconicity revealed on a syntactical level?
In the mapping and sequencing of events (If the order of sequences is resembled in the utterance it is iconic).
What were the take-home points about functions of language/messages?
- Language – and messages in other semiotic systems of communication – can fulfill diverse functions.
- In linguistic utterances and texts typically several functions are
simultaneously at work, with one of the functions being dominant. The dominant function thus determines the main meaning and function of a given utterance or any other kind of (multimodal) message. - Language shows iconic (i.e., non-arbitrary) features at all levels of
structure and description (e.g., phonology, morphology, syntax). - Iconic expressions and structures often underpin poetic creations,
language games, and humorous uses of language.
What are the core aspects of Frames and Framing we need to know?
What are the differences between tense and aspect?
What is Aspect?
- Aspect expresses event structure: It signals essential characteristics of the event described with language.
- Aspect involves the speaker’s or writer’s perception of an event
- It “describes whether the event is viewedas ‘completed’ or ‘ongoing’. The traditional term for a ‘completed’ event is perfect aspect and traditional terms for an ‘ongoing’ event include the terms imperfector progressive aspect.”
What does Aspect hightlight?
- Internal structure of an event.
- The unfolding of an event.
- The perspective taken on the event.
Which two tenses exist in English and what is their marking?
- Present
- Past (Marked through participle)
What are the types of situation aspect are there?
- Stative: Event remains constant through time without internal change or action.
- Dynamic: Internal change or action.
- Punctual: Over almost as soon as it has begun.
- Durative: Extends over time
- Telic: Inherent endpoint or goal as part of its meaning
- Atelic: stative (involves process only or result only).
Explain how processes are split up among aspect according to Evans and Green.
What is the pycholinguist approach to the applications of aspect?
- What role does aspect play for the interpretation of events in everyday language processing, shaping inferences about type and amount of action and thought and communication in natural
discourse? - How ASPECTUAL FRAMING
* influences the understanding of event descriptions in everyday
language,
* can bias the way situations are conceptualised and communicated,
* and constrains the interpretation of situations by providing information
about duration, continuity and completion. (E.g. Conceptualisation of action)
What role does the imperfective (progressive) aspect play for the interpretation of events?
- It can increase the prominence of an action.
- It encourages the internal perspective.
- It conceptualises more action.
- It enables greater attention to the unfolding details of action.
What role does the perfective aspect play for the interpretation of events?
- It gives an external viewpoint.
- It focuses on the end state of result of the situation.
What were the results of the “Smashing new results” study?
“Individuals who were asked to describe what was happening (imperfective framing) generated
more motion verbs and reckless driving phrases, but fewer non-motion verbs than did individuals who were asked to describe what happened (perfective framing).”
How were the results of the “Smashing new results” study interpreted?
- Aspect biases the way people formulate thoughts and generate utterances about dangerous or emotionally charged events they have witnessed first-hand.
- Imperfective framing leads people to pay more attention to action details. It activates rich perceptual simulation, an
embodied, perceptually-grounded mechanism that drives everyday
reasoning. - Imperfective aspect led to the encoding of more actions per situation than did perfective framing by taking an internal perspective and simulating the details.
What is the implication of the “Smashing new results” study’s results?
Aspect plays a vital role in shaping how we think and talk about everyday events.
What are the basic functions of Aspect?
What were the results of Anderson’s study?
Different grammatical forms influence the mental processing of event descriptions:
1. The simple past focuses attention on the end of the path and location of completed action.
2. The past progressive focuses attention on the middle of the ongoing action. This results in longer movement duration.
What is Emergent Grammar’s main assumption?
Emergent Grammar holds that there are no a-priori categories.
