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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
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