认知语言学入门读书报告

Reading Report on An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics

An

Introduction

to

Cognitive

Linguistics,

written

by

Ungerer

and

Schmid

is

an

explanatory book for those who start to access to cognitive linguistics.

In this book,

the authors rate cognitive linguistics as a tool for the study of linguistics. From their

standpoint,

cognitive

linguistics

mainly

adopts

three

methods

as

its

representation,

namely

experiential

view,

prominence

view,

and

attentional

view.

As

for

the

experiential view, it means that language use is not identical with the description of

the objective world, in the meantime, body experience should be embedded. Then the

prominence view, it deems that the arrangement of information in sentence structure

is determined by its prominence degree, which, needless to say, is linked to subject

s’

willingness.

Finally,

the

attentional

view,

it

indicates

that

what

we

express

in

a

situation is the part that attracts our attention most.

The whole book can roughly be divided into five parts. The first part embraces from

unit

one

to

unit

three.

Unit

four

is

the

second

part

,

and

unit

five

is

the

third

part,

respectively

represented

by

the

above

three

views.

Unit

six

is

the

fourth

part

about

blending

and

relevance.

Unit

seven

is

the

fifth

part

about

other

issues

in

cognitive

linguistics. Now, I will make a brief introduction on each part as follows:

Chapter one is prototypes and category. It includes three parts. The first part is

early

empirical

research

into

lexical

categories,

which

begin

with

the

category

of

color conducted by Rosch. Based on empirical research, Rosch comes to a conclusion

that focal colors are perceptually more salient than non-focal colors, focal colors are

more

accurately

remembered

in

short-term

memory

and

more

easily

retained

in

long- term

memory,

and

the

names

of

focal

colors

are

more

rapidly

produced

in

color-naming

tasks

and

are

acquired

earlier

by

children.

Inspired

by

this

research,

Rosch

expands

his

research

into

squares,

birds,

cups,

and

events

domains,

which

come to

a similar

conclusion.

Based on these researches, he proposes the notion of

prototype, which is the main topic of the second part of unit one. Prototype, from the

intuitive view, is the good example of a certain category, while more often than not, it

is defined as a member has the most attributes in a category. Prototype plays a crucial

role in categorization, it acts as a cognitive reference point, which is indicative of its

function of forming the internal structure of a category. Also, there is no denying that

family

resemblance

is

significant

in

the

formation

of

category.

When

speaking

of

category, a clear distinction should be made between cognitive category and classic

category.

In

contrast

with

classic

category

theory,

cognitive

category

theory

claims

that, first, there exists a prototype in a category, and each member occupies different

status in the category. Second, unlike classic category theory, which takes a common

feature as the necessary and sufficient condition, the cognitive category theory adopts

family

resemblance

as

its

criteria.

Third,

cognitive

category

theory

thinks

that

the

boundary between categories is fuzzy, which means that a member can belong to two

categories in some condition, for example, tomato belong to both vegetable and fruit.

With

regard

to

the

third

part,

it

is

about

context-dependence

and

cultural

models

which

is

an

expanse

of

the

notion

of

prototype.

As

is

known

to

all,

our

life

is

inseparable from the world, and people from different regions or countries must have

their

own

cultural

and

social

knowledge.

So

the

prototype

is

not

fixed,

and

it

may

change when a particular context is introduced, and it is testified by some examples

presented by the author.

Chapter

two is

about

levels

of categorization.

Cognitive categories

are

connected

with each other in a kind of hierarchical relationship if we want to have a successful

and

sufficient

recognition

of

the

world,

and

it

is

consistent

with

the

cognitive

economy

rule.

The

principle

underlying

this

hierarchical

structure

is

the

notion

of

class

inclusion,

typically

type-of

relationship,

which

necessarily

refers

to

three

concepts: superordinate category, basic level category, and subordinate category. And

it

is

deserved

to

mention

the

other

kind

of

hierarchy,

namely

part-whole

hierarchy,

which is based on a relationship of continuity and connectivity between entities in the

really world, and it can be arguably traced back to out own basic bodily experiences,

the links may range from genuine connections between parts and wholes to a loose

association of elements. Loosely speaking, the superordinate category and subordinate

category

are

called

parasitic

category,

because

their

identification

are

relied

on

the

basic level category, or rather the prototype. However, it does not necessarily means

that

they

are

valueless

in

the

process

of

world

cognition.

As

a

matter

of

fact,

subordinate

category

can

highlight

the

specific

attributes

who

intend

to,

and

apart

from highlighting function, the superordinate category also has a collecting function,

that is to say it has the potential to collect more attributes of relevant category. As for

basic level category, it has considerable bearing on prototype. And their relationship

are

that

prototype

categories

are

most

fully

developed

on

the

basic

level

and

basic

level

categories

only

function

as

they

do

because

they

are

structured

as

prototype

categories. They can be interpreted in detail as follows:(1) the basic level provides the

largest amount of relevant and digestible information about objects and organisms of

the

world,

or,

to

put

it

more

technically,

it

offers

the

largest

bundles

of

correlated

attributes. (2)the basic level is where the overlap of shapes is so great that it permits

reliable

gestalt

perception,

which

is

particularly

easy

for

prototypical

examples.

(3)

prototypes maximize the distinctiveness of basic level categories because they attract

not

only

the

largest

number

of

attributes

shared

inside

the

category

，

but

also

the

largest

number

of

attributes

not

shared

with

members

of

other

categories.(4)

prototypes

maximize

holistic

perception

because

their

gestalts

integrate

all

functionally important

parts.

In the last part of this

unit, the author proposes

a new

word-formation

of

compounds

analysis

in

terms

of

cognitive

categorization,

which

deems

compounds

as

type-of

compounds

and

part-whole

compounds

based

on

attributes analysis.

From this kind of analysis, the compound can emerge some new

attributes that belong neither of the two elements in a compound, thus making us have

a better understanding of the compound. Compared with the traditional modifier-head

analysis, the new approach has several advantages as follows:(1) the traditional view

which posits

a basic head item

and a strictly specifying modifier element is

far too

rigid.

with

many

compounds,

like

apple

juice,

the

modifier

category

supplies

more

than just the specifying attributes, these additional attributes may not all be objective

properties,

but

are

often

associative

and

experiential.

(2)

the

basic

item

is

not

necessarily

expressed

by

the

second

element

of

a

compound.

Depending

on

the

salience of the categories involved, the cognitive category corresponding to the first