2 认知语言学 English

Conclusion


Categories do not represent arbitrary divisions of the phenomena of the world, but should be seen as based on the cognitive capacities of the human mind. Cognitive categories of colours, shapes, but also of organisms and concrete objects are anchored in conceptually salint protypes, which play a crucial part in the information of categories.
Attentional view


This view is based on the assumption that what we actually express reflects which parts of an event attract our attention. For example The car crashed into tree. Analysing the sentence in terms of attention allocation, the attentional view explains why one stage of the event is expressed in the sentence and why other stages are not.
Our car has broken down
Traditional Explanation— Grammatical structure
Modern Explanation— Establish a body of Logical rules for generating the grammatical sentences
Week 1and 2

1) Introduction
2) Prototypes and Categories

Introduction


Defining cognitive linguistics Three main approaches of cognitive linguistics References

Vague entity and vagueness

The terms ‘vague entity’ and ‘vagueness’’ refer to one type of transition zone, which arises from the observation that some concrete entities do not have clear-cut boundaries in reality ( knee and other body parts; fog, snow and similar weather phenomena and landscape forms like valley or mountain.
Cognitive Explanation— Represented by three main approaches
Three main approaches of cognitive linguistics

Experiential view Prominence view Attention view
Definition of cognitive linguistics



Cognitive Linguistics is the most rapidly expanding school in modern Linguistics. It aims to create a scientific approach to the study of language, incorporating the tools of philosophy, neuroscience and computer science. Cognitive approaches to language were initially based on our experience of the world and the way we perceive and conceptualize it (philosophical thinking about the mind). Be distinguished from a ‘logical’ view of language.
Prominence view


The prominence view provides one explanation of how the information in a clause is selected and arranged. For Example The car crashed into the tree. The tree was hit by the car.
Good examples, bad examples and category boundaries

Vague entity and vagueness (含糊性,模糊性) Fuzziness and fuzzy category (模糊范畴) Labov’s experiments and conclusion



The experiential view of words provides a much richer and more natural description of their meanings. Cognitive linguists believe that our shared experience of the world is also stored in our everyday language and can thus be gleaned from the way we express our ideas. The transfer of our experience of well-known objects and events is even more important where abstract categories like emotions is involved. For example, Dad exploded.


Prototypes and Categories



Introduction: Language and Categorization(范 畴化) Focal colours(焦点色) The psychological background of focal colours Prototypical shapes(形状) Prototypical organism and object Good examples, bad examples and category References

Do exercise2,4 on page 20
Prototypical Organisms and Objects
Labov’s experiment


Informants in Labov’s experiments were shown line drawings of cups and other vessels. The drawings were presented one by one and the informants were asked to name them. The result of the experiment shows that consistency is 100 percent for prototype but decreases towards the marginal members.
Fuzziness and fuzzy category



wenku.baidu.com
Fuzziness refers to the category boundaries of entities ( chair etc.) and these categories are the product of cognitive classification. It is not the boundaries of entities that are vague , but the boundaries of these cognitive categories (here: chairs and non-chairs). In fact, there are some cases where vagueness and fuzziness coincide. (mountain) All types of concrete entities and natural phenomena like colours are conceptually organized in terms of prototype categories, whose doundaries do not seem to be clear-cut, but fuzzy.
the boundaries of cognitve categories are fuzzy, i.e. neighbouring categories are not separated by rigid boundaries, but merged into each other. Between prototypes and boundaries, cognitve categories contain members which can be rated on a typicality scale ranging from good to bad examples. Note: cognitive categories are equivalent with the meanings of these words; while words which are polysemous (多义词) might denote several categories. (Chair-主席,椅子)
References


辛斌. 认知语言学理论的发展、应用及跨学科研究——第 四届全国认知语言学研讨会综述 [J].外语研究, 2006(6) 廖巧云. 认知语言学研究的新概括--《认知语言学》述介 [J], 现代外语 2005(2) 熊学亮. 认知语言学简述 [J]. 外语研究,2001(3) 张辉. 认知语言学研究现状 [J]. 外语研究,2001(3)
Experiential view


Its main claim is that instead of postulating logical rules and objective definitions on the basis of theoretical considerations and introspection, a more practical and empirical path should be pursued. For example, Ask language users to describe what is going on in their minds when they produce and understand words and sentences. (a car)