Idealized Cognitive Models Research Articles

A Study of the Generation of English Jokes From Cognitive Metonymy

English jokes improve human relations and enliven the communicative atmosphere in daily communication. How to generate English jokes has long been of interest to numerous researchers, such as philosophers, psychologists and linguists. In the linguistic field, the scholars at home and abroad have been discussing English jokes from angles of rhetoric, phonetics, semantics, pragmatics and cognitive linguistics. Few researchers study the generation of English jokes from cognitive linguistics. Therefore, this study implements a qualitative cognitive linguistic exploration into English jokes and proposes that the change of metonymy generates English jokes through the change of ICM (Idealized Cognitive Model). Then a framework of the generation of English jokes is proposed and applied to account for the generation of English jokes. As described in the proposed framework, in metonymy one, Conceptual entity one in ICM one provides mental access to conceptual entity two in ICM one. However, conceptual entity one in ICM one provides mental access to conceptual entity three in ICM two. Accordingly, metonymy one is changed to metonymy two. The contiguity between conceptual entity one and conceptual entity two is the same as the contiguity between the conceptual entity one and conceptual entity three. Due to the change of ICM, metonymy is changed and incongruity comes out. Therefore, it can be inferred that English jokes are generated by the change of metonymy from cognitive linguistics.

A Cognitive Linguistic Approach to Generics

As a special sentence type, generic sentences contribute a lot to the understanding of natural languages and have been a concern of semanticists, pragmatists and philosophers. In view of inefficiency of existing theoretical framework on generics, this paper addresses generics in the framework of cognitive linguistics. A type is a fictive entity, not an actual individual. It represents an abstraction from actuality which captures the commonality inherent across a set of actual instances. Conceptualization of generics is dynamic in nature. Generics’ syntax features and exceptions are both the natural result of cognitive processing, and truth conditions should be judged in terms of certain ICMs rather than the correspondence between linguistic expressions and reality of the physical world. It is concluded that fictivity, dynamicity and ICM (Idealized Cognitive Model) are three cognitive motivations, which are the answers to the puzzles of generics’ tolerating exceptions.

К ВОПРОСУ О СТРУКТУРЕ ИДЕАЛИЗИРОВАННЫХ КОГНИТИВНЫХ МОДЕЛЕЙ В АКТАХ ПЕРЕНОСА

Пушкарев Евгений Александрович, кандидат филологических наук, доцент департамента иностранных языков Санкт-Петербургской школы социальных и гуманитарных наук, Национальный исследовательский университет «Высшая школа экономики» (Санкт-Петербург), auldington@gmail.com. Evgenii A. Pushkarev, Candidate Degree in Philology, Associate Professor, Foreign Language Department, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of National Research University – Higher School of Economics (Saint Petersburg), auldington@gmail.com

Anaphora Resolution in Stream-of-Consciousness Discourse: A Metonymic Account

The present study is devoted to elaborating a metonymic model and principles of anaphora resolution in stream-of-consciousness (SOC) discourse based on metonymic inferential processing to anaphora resolution constrained by the principle of optimal relevance, and then the explanatory power of the model and principles is testified by anaphora occurring in stream-of-consciousness discourse. The research reveals that (1) Idealized Cognitive Model (ICM) functions as the cognitive basis of anaphora resolution; (2) cognitive and pragmatic constraints on anaphora resolution interact, and the division of labor between them can be measured against both conceptual distance between antecedent and anaphor and degrees of optimal relevance; (3) the derived framework may be applicable to other discourse types. In short, anaphora resolution in stream-of-consciousness discourse is actually a cognio-pragmatic inferencing process, in which the hearer/reader achieves optimal relevance based on the conceptual distance between antecedent and anaphor in idealized cognitive models.

METAPHORS AND METONYMIES FOR ANGER IN THE OLD TESTAMENT: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH

This article emphasises the need of a cognitive linguistic approach to the study of the emotion of anger in the Old Testament. Most of the works to date have reduced the concept of wrath to a just principle of retribution. The detailed Classical Hebrew language of anger, however, reveals important aspects of the ancient Israelite conceptualisation of this emotion that cannot be fitted into such an abbreviated view. The ideal cognitive model of anger as construed by the ancient Israelites, was motivated by cultural, environmental and experiential factors, such as bodily changes associated with the emotion, aspects of the nonverbal communication of anger, the ancient Israelite theory of humours and Palestinian fauna and meteorology.

Loch Piny Owacho

In this paper, I construct a linguistic framework for understanding contrasting conceptions of political contest. That framework is illustrated by applying it to the particular case of Luo of Kenya in the wider context of the country’s conflictual ethno-politics.The article, which rests on a conception of political contest as a structure of competition in which individuals and ethnic communities compete for political supremacy (over others, or at the expense of others), analyses selected instances of recent texts from online blogs, music and recorded public meetings. The article shows that, just like many other language communities, Luo key concepts and understandings emanate from its social and cultural institutions. Also, as those activities serve as source domains for other areas of social existence, including politics, the article argues that the conceptual metaphors deriving from frames such as POLITICAL CONTEST IS HUNTING/WAR/ WRESTLING/A FOOTBALL MATCH or POLITICAL CONTEST IS WOOING A WIFE are still common among the Luo today, even though some issues like hunting and war are no longer matters of everyday life. As the article argues, understanding the Luo Idealized Cognitive Models (ICMs) of political contest may be very useful in peace and conflict studies.

Addressing non-acquaintances in Tunisian Arabic: A cognitive-pragmatic account

The literature on terms of address (TofA) abounds in both sociolinguistics and pragmatics. Mostly, sociolinguistics explains them with rank and age (Trudgill, Sociolinguistics: An introduction to language and society, Penguin Books, 1983; Wardhaugh, An introduction to sociolinguistics, Basil Blackwell, 1986; Fasold, The sociolinguistics of language, Blackwell Publishers, 1990; Holmes, Introduction to sociolinguistics, Longman, 1992; Romaine, Language in society: An introduction to sociolinguistics, Oxford University Press, 1994) and pragmatics with politeness (Brown and Levinson, Politeness: Some universals in language use, Cambridge University Press, 1987). Furthermore, TofA are mostly studied as occurring between acquaintances that know about the social rank and age of each other to produce the address that is most coherent with the context of situation. The present study focuses on TofA used in addressing non-acquaintances, i.e., people who have never met one another before. Evidence from Tunisian Arabic (TA) shows that TofA as used with non-acquaintances are not motivated by rank and politeness as much as by the addresser's drive to create familiarity and minimize distance with the addressee. Such a pragmatic minimization of distance is not noticed when TofA are used with acquaintances. Speakers of TA inject kinship-related terms in their address to non-acquaintances in view of creating rapprochement between the speaker as a deictic center and the addressee in the periphery. Such a rapprochement is made possible through the manipulation by the speaker of the FAR-NEAR schema (Johnson, The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason, The University of Chicago Press, 1987) related to the CENTER-PERIPHERY image schema. The paper intends to show this taming of addressees by studying TofA in TA through Lakoff's (Categories: An essay in cognitive linguistics, Hanshin Publishing Company, 1982, Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind, The University of Chicago Press, 1987) theory of categorization known as Idealized Cognitive Models (ICMs).

Pesher: A Cognitive Model of the Genre

AbstractEarlier models of the genre of the pesharim have tended either to subsume pesher into the genre of midrash, on the one hand, or to doubt its coherence as a genre due to a perceived lack of common features shared among all the member texts, on the other. Cognitive genre theory offers a way forward by challenging previous conceptions of the way genre categories are formed. Rather than fixed sets of texts belonging equally to a genre, cognitive theory proposes that genres are radial categories extending outward from a “prototypical” center toward a fuzzy boundary, with texts participating in the genre to varying degrees. A cognitive model of the pesher genre provides a flexible enough construction of the genre to account for the variation among the constituent texts, yet still firmly distinguishes the genre from other forms of Early Jewish literature through the concept of the idealized cognitive model (ICM) of reality that animates the genre.

Darwin's Metaphors Revisited: Conceptual Metaphors, Conceptual Blends, and Idealized Cognitive Models in the Theory of Evolution

Darwin's book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (henceforth The Origin) abounds with metaphors. In fact, the very theory of natural selection is couched in a system of metaphors that exhibit striking consistency and coherence. I argue that the phenomenon for which Darwin tries to detect the basic mechanisms, that is, biological evolution, involves vast, indeterminate, and ambiguous observations that are difficult to subject to the empirical methods. This fact motivates Darwin's extensive use of metaphors to organize his observations, structure the vague concepts, and ultimately render his observations meaningful and intelligible. I demonstrate that Darwin's metaphors, as far as they are elements of Idealized Cognitive Models, prove valuable in achieving this goal. First, I identify the conceptual metaphors underlying the main metaphorical expressions and show how these conceptual metaphors give rise to entailments and inferences central to Darwin's theory. The conceptual metaphors I identify are “NATURE IS A MOTHER,” “NATURE IS A BREEDER,” “LIFE IS WAR,” “LIFE IS A RACE,” and “EVOLUTION IS PROGRESS.” I also comment briefly on the conceptual blending involved in these metaphorical mappings. I then turn to characterizing the idealized cognitive models (ICMs) that function as the pre-conceptual ground in virtue of which Darwin's metaphors are meaningful, coherent, and helpful to scientific thinking. These ICMs are the ICM of STRUGGLE and the image-schema of SOURCE-PATH-GOAL.

A cognitive linguistic approach to the emotion of anger in the Old Testament

This article reviews several approaches to the study of anger in the Old Testament. It focuses on the use of methodology in these trends with specific reference to the common neglect of Classical Hebrew terminology and expressions relating to the emotion of anger. Such styles lead to an impoverished understanding of the ideal cognitive model of anger as reflected in Classical Hebrew. By contrast, the few recent cognitive linguistic studies on the same subject prove to be far more successful in giving a detailed account of the ancient Israelite conceptualisation of this emotion.

Visual representations of the idealized cognitive model of anger in the Asterix album La Zizanie

The conceptual metaphor program launched by Lakoff and Johnson [Metaphors We Live By, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1980] attempts to chart and describe the Idealized Cognitive Models (ICMs) that govern human thinking. The manifestations of these models studied hitherto, however, are almost exclusively verbal ones. In the interest of enriching insights into ICMs, non-verbal and multimedial representations need be investigated as well. In turn, picture theory can benefit from instruments developed in the cognitive linguistics paradigm. Kövecses [Metaphors of Anger, Pride and Love, Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1986; Metaphor and Emotion: Language, Culture, and Body in Human Feeling, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, and Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris, 2000] has demonstrated that verbal expressions and idioms used to describe emotions can be traced back to a limited number of conceptual metaphors. This paper investigates non-verbal manifestations of anger in the Asterix comics album La Zizanie in the light of Kövecses’ findings. It is argued that (i) the representations of anger found here are, at the least, compatible with the most dominant anger metaphor found by Kövecses, ANGER IS THE HEAT OF A FLUID IN A CONTAINER, and are probably motivated by it; and (ii) the medium of comics may privilege aspects of ICMs that are less dominant, or even absent, in its linguistic manifestations. Furthermore, the method of analysis employed is reflected on, since it is intended to be applicable beyond the questions addressed here.

Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics: Selected Papers from the Fifth International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Amsterdam, July 1997 (review)

Reviewed by: Metaphor in cognitive linguistics: Selected papers from the Fifth International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Amsterdam, July 1997 ed. by Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr., Gerard J. Steen Kenneth A. McElhanon Metaphor in cognitive linguistics: Selected papers from the Fifth International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Amsterdam, July 1997. Ed. by Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. and Gerard J. Steen. (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series IV-Current issues in linguistic theory, 175.) Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1999. Pp. viii, 225. $72.00. The book consists of eleven diverse articles on metaphor. Noteworthy articles include Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano’s [End Page 605] ‘Metaphorical mappings in the sense of smell’, which rejects suggestions that the sense of smell is mapped metaphorically and proposes a process of property selection within an inherent structure that is similar to the concept of radial structure. Joseph E. Grady, Todd Oakley, and Seana Coulson (‘Blending and metaphor’) argue that conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) and conceptual blending theory (BT) represent complementary approaches that differ mainly in (1) the number of mental representations each allows (CMT—two, BT—more than two); (2) basic unit of cognitive organization (CMT—semantic domain, BT—mental spaces as scenarios structured by given domains); (3) strict directionality (CMT—yes, BT—no); and (4) the kinds of relationships they posit between mental representations (CMT—entrenched and conventional, BT—short-lived and novel). They propose a principle of BT, that a blend is based upon particular connections within the network of input spaces not upon a systematic mapping of one domain onto another. Noticeably absent, however, is a consideration of whether or not such mental spaces are grounded in ICMs (Idealized Cognitive Models) and, if so, how the ICMs might frame the scenes and contribute encyclopedic knowledge. Gerard Steen, ‘From linguistic to conceptual metaphor in five steps’, attempts to develop a procedure for identifying conceptual metaphors in discourse. The primary task of the linguist who wishes to describe and explain the structure and function of language is metaphor analysis, not metaphor understanding—a purely cognitive process. Nevertheless, his procedures are very much grounded in understanding inasmuch as metaphor identification ‘is fundamentally a matter of conceptual analysis’, and an ‘analysis . . . lays bare how metaphors can differ from each other with respect to important dimensions of conceptual structure’ (64–65). The proposed methodology seems complex, perhaps because it is bound to a theory that requires a propositional analysis of literal and nonliteral meaning and is designed to assist an analyst who is apparently not a native speaker of the language under analysis. Joseph E. Grady, ‘A typology of motivation for conceptual metaphor: Correlation vs. resemblance’, explores systematic analyses of conventional and novel metaphorical expressions to discover ‘primary metaphors’, those fundamental, experientially motivated metaphors which serve as the basis for further mappings. Grady suggests two distinct classes of metaphors which differ in terms of directionality, ontology, and conventionality: One is based upon resemblance (rather than similiarity) and the other upon correlation. Four papers address the relationship between cultural metaphors and cultural models and claim that cognition is inextricably culturally-based. Raymond Gibbs, ‘Taking metaphor out of our heads and putting it into the cultural world’, suggests that metaphorical mappings are grounded in embodied behavior which in turn is connected with cultural experience. Zoltán Kövesecs, “Metaphor: Does it constitute or reflect cultural models?’, claims that basic experiences select the appropriate, simple, generic cultural metaphors that constitute the cultural models that structure abstract concepts. Alan Cienki, ‘Metaphors and cultural models as profiles and bases’, adopts Ronald Langacker’s base-profile model and claims that metaphors are profiled against cultural models. Michele Emanation, ‘Congruence by degree: On the relation between metaphor and cultural models’, suggests that a scale of congruence may be useful in accounting for the varying relationships between cultural models and conceptual metaphors. Kenneth A. McElhanon Summer Institute of Linguistics Copyright © 2002 Linguistic Society of America

El lexema verbal transitivo : criterios de selección de un corpus nuclear para la enseñanza/aprendizaje de una L2

From the functional and cognitive approaches to language, the lexical component represents the main element in the linguistic analysis. The present article supposses the application of this principle to the teaching of English as L2 through the establishment of a series of criteria for the selection of a nuclear functional lexical syllabus. These criteria coincide with a corpus of prototypical transitive verbs, as it is revealed by linguistic and cognitive reasons: first, in such verbs there are a confluence of prototipicallity referred to the three levels of language as communication (lexical-grammatical and discoursive); second, the idealized cognitive models (ICMs) these verbs are represented by are not only universal buy, furthermore, they structure and determine the mental lexicon operation. These properties presented in a cognitive-semantic-map frame could shorten the cognitive distance between Spanish and English by transfering the cognitivelinguistic resources which learners already possess in their first language.