(Keynote Address: Trinity University, 2002
For two millennia the role of metaphor as an instrument of linguistic creativity was disparaged by philosophers and scientists. Recent work in the field of the cognitive sciences has demonstrated that metaphor is not only an intrinsic part of human creativity, but also that it plays a significant role in linguistic creativity and in linguistic change. This presentation will address the nature of this change. It is argued that metaphor is central to analogical reasoning. Another trope that has been recently revived is metonymy. It will be demonstrated how both of these tropes developed out of cognitive models of categorization, and schema theory. In addition, it can be demonstrated that most linguistic change is metaphorical. No only do lexical items undergo metaphorical change, but also grammatical constructions. These concepts will be discussed under the rubric of grammaticalization, the creation of new grammatical constructions that are created by metaphorical extension of existing structures. Finally, the presentation will address the concept of linguistic borrowing and translation theory and it is argued that most borrowed forms are essentially new forms that undergo metaphorical shifts and reanalysis when imported into another linguistic system. Similarly, translation theory involves the ingenious use of human creativity as literal translations are impossible. There is an old Italian adage: traduttore è traiditore (a translator is a traitor). This should now be restated as: a translator is a creative genius.
INTRODUCTION
There was a time in the history of western thought was the concept
of metaphors were took on a pejorative meaning and this negative
concept of tropes has lingered on until the present time. This
situation arose over two millennia ago in ancient Greece when
Plato headed his own Peripatetic school. One of his students was
Aristotle, a brilliant scholar and the once designated to be the
new master to replace Plato upon his retirement. One day, Plato
decided to retire and named his nephew as the new head of the
school. The Greek word for nephew is nepotos as the concept of
nepotism arose from this moment in European history. When Aristotle
heard of the news, he turned against Plato. Everything that Plato
said and did became suspect in his eyes. One of the concepts that
Aristotle openly attacked was Plato's use of various figures of
speech such as metaphor and metonymy. Plato often used these linguistic
tools to create dialectics, dialogues about new systems of thought.
Aristotle attacked this use of language and favored language that
adhered to the status quo. What Aristotle advocated became known
as rhetoric, the study of established patterns of speech. What
is interesting about this reaction to Plato by Aristotle is that
it became the model of thought for centuries of western philosophers
and scientists. They all bemoaned the use of metaphor as inadequate
speech.
The disparagement of metaphor is now a thing of the past. Recently,
linguists have turned their energies into reinvestigating the
use of tropes in language (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; and Lakoff,
1987). Lakoff was aware of the changes taking place in the cognitive
sciences and knew that the field was being reconceptualized. Not
only were cognitive scientists interested in analogical reasoning,
but they were also interested in how visual thinking was used
to create schemas, frames, and scenarios in language. Gibbs (1994)
demonstrated that the dichotomy between figurative and literal
language could not be sustained. Many literal terms are metaphorical
in nature . Later, cognitive scientists noted how analogical language
is used to create mental spaces and metaphorical blends. Gilles
Fauconnier (1994) created a model of mental spaces and demonstrated
how categories are used to move from a source to a target space
in the creation of metaphor. In arguing "The surgeon is a
butcher" one chooses the butcher as the source concept and
uses it to create a target, the surgeon. The metaphor is created
in a blended space that uses short term memory, long term memory,
and the structure of the radial networks associated with the items
butcher and surgeon. He referred to his model as mental spaces,
the place where concepts and categories combine in working memory.
Recently, scholars working within the field of grammaticalization
(Hopper and Traugott, 1993) have demonstrated that not only lexical
metaphors dominate language, but also grammatical metaphors. They
provide numerous examples of new grammatical constructions that
have emerged through the metaphorical construction of linguistic
patterns. What they demonstrate has been widely known in the field
of historical linguistics. New grammatical categories are continuously
created and re-created in language metaphorically. For example,
in many language systems a new form of the future was created
and modeled on verbs of motion.
| Spatial Movement: | John is going to town. |
| Metaphorical Movement: |
John is going to sleep John is going to laugh |
| Temporal Movement: | John is going to Spain tomorrow. |
What this amounts to is the fact that metaphors play a significant
role in linguistic creativity. In the aforementioned examples,
one finds a metaphorical movement based on a change of state (from
non-sleeping to sleeping state, from non-laughing to laughing
state) and time (from the present state to a future state). This
creative use of metaphor is the focus of this presentation. However,
before delving into this topic, one needs to understand some of
the trends and ideas that led up to this development. One needs
to understand what the cognitive sciences are and why linguistics
is a part of that new interdisciplinary thrust. One needs to investigate
the concept of cognitive linguistics and its various explications
in the form of cognitive grammar. Similarly, one needs to have
some familiarity with the concept of grammaticalization and how
metaphor plays a dominant role in this endeavor, and also one
needs to know how the concept of categorization has been redefined
in the light of research by cognitive anthropologists and cultural
psychologists on the nature of human categorization.
There are numerous implications for the new approach to language
and one of the most interesting comes from translation theory.
For the first time, linguists have a viable model of computer
translation that adequately addresses semantic domains, cultural
history, and grammaticalizations across cultures.
WHAT ARE THE COGNITIVE SCIENCES?
There are several deep questions that have plagued European scholarship.
Many of these questions can be readily attributed to Plato, the
noted Greek philosopher. They all have to do with the nature of
knowledge. What is knowledge? Where does it come from? How is
it represented in the mind? In essence, Plato was concerned with
a theory of human knowledge. In the famous Hixon Symposium at
California Institute of Technology in 1948, many of these same
questions were addressed. However, in this academic event, the
setting was different. This was not a meeting of Plato and his
favorite students. It was not a meeting of philosophers. Instead,
it was a meeting of noted international scholars from a wise range
of disciplines that would eventually come to be known as the cognitive
sciences (Gardner, 1987: 10-14). In lieu of referencing the noted
analytical mind of Socrates, these scholars spoke a marvelous
new machine called the computer. For example, John von Neumann,
a mathematician, drew striking analogies between the computer
and the human mind. Warren McCulloch, a neurophysiologist and
mathematician, compared the brain with the computer and how they
both processed information. Karl Lashley, a psychologist, argued
strongly for a study of the mind and noted how the organization
of language is most characteristic of all cerebral events. He
demonstrated how many forms of expression couldn't be explained
within the context of behaviorism because the rapid execution
of those expressions does not leave time for feedback to occur.
Such actions can and do occur because they emanate from within
the organism as a plan. Just as computers make use of plans that
are incorporated into the machine as software so it can be argued
that the human mind has plans in the form that are represented
in the form of goals, and models. These mental structures function
as software programs of the mind.
Why did the computer play such a significant role in the development
of the cognitive sciences? The answer to this question is interesting
because it provides significant insight into the nature of this
new machine. What makes the computer so unique is that it is the
first time in the history of mankind that a machine can be used
for more than one purpose. In the past, a machine or implement
was built with a special purpose in mind. Computers turn out to
be general problem solvers. What gives it flexibility is its software
structure that allows the same machine to do different tasks.
What fascinated cognitive scientists was the ability of the computer
to emulate the functions of the human mind. This emulation is
known as artificial intelligence. Hence, the computer became a
way for scientists to model the human mind. All of the disciplines
that are engaged in this quest of modeling the nature of the mind
are known as the cognitive sciences. They include the disciplines
of linguistics, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience,
and artificial intelligence .
WHAT IS COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS?
If programs exist in the mind and if they designate and articulate
human behavior, then what are they? One of the earliest attempts
to model this ability came from research on protocol statements
by Schank and Abelson, 1977). They argued that knowledge structures
must be built into computer programs as part of an a priori data-base.
These canonical set of events were called scripts. They used the
concept of eating at a restaurant as a content area that could
be readily scripted . The vocabulary that can be associated with
the restaurant can be designated. Restaurants have menus, waiters,
bus boys, utensils, serving ware, tables, chairs, cashiers, and
other related items. Furthermore, there are certain kinds of protocol
statements or designated requests than can be effortlessly associated
with restaurants. One asks for a menu, one orders a meal, one
may ask for a dessert cart, and one asks for the check before
going to the cashier to pay for the meal and exiting the culinary
place of business. This structured framework of knowledge was
significant because it enabled the computer understand the context
of the situation. This approach to creating background knowledge
is known as expert systems and has met with great success in the
realms of artificial intelligence.
Marvin Minsky (1975) also worked on a top-down (deductive) approach
to computer processing . His contribution came from the creation
of frames, expected structures of knowledge. In lieu of lexical
domains and protocol statements, Minsky developed frames that
modeled an event or location in the form of slots. Hence, in his
attempt to create a robot that could navigate the parameters of
a building, he built in the frame of a room and one of the slots
in that construction was a doorway. What Minsky wanted to do was
to create a robot that would recognize a doorway when it came
upon it. He also wanted the robot to have prior knowledge of what
constitutes a room. Hence, he created a system in which the recognition
of a doorway by the robot would simultaneously activate the whole
room frame. Minsky (1985) went on to argue for a theory of mind
that is constituted by numerous mental agents which can handle
different types of knowledge. He referred to this model as a Society
of Mind.
What is significant about the work of these early cognitive scientists
is that they argued for a deeper understanding of language in
artificial intelligence programs. Schank and Abelson (1977), for
example, noted that scripts, protocols, and vocabularies were
about language. So they naturally asked not only about how computers
code human behavior, but also about how languages are used to
negotiate social reality. Minsky (1985) noted that in addition
to using language to form frames, scripts, metaphors, and the
society of mind, one needs to look at the mind as a parallel processor,
one capable of handling several scripts simultaneously, a situation
comparable to how human languages function within social contexts.
Understandably, linguistics became one of the central disciplines
within the cognitive sciences.
One remaining problem had to be resolved before cognitive linguistics
could emerge as a viable area of investigation. Linguists had
to seriously work with cultural complexity and resolve problems
of linguistic diversity across languages. Linguists, it should
be noted, used a formal model of language that made strong claims
about the commonality of linguistic structures, i.e., a universal
grammar. Anthropologists were not against the quest for universals,
but merely found the current model of formal linguistics to be
inadequate. They argued in favor of a position once articulated
by the noted anthropologist, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl (1922),
who stated that primitives do not reason badly, they only reason
differently from the inhabitants of industrialized nations. Lévy-Bruhl
was arguing against the majority of the European scholars of his
time who had argued that the mind of the primitive was pre-logical
and hence inferior. Lévy-Bruhl argued that the fundamental
structure of the mind is the same everywhere. Nevertheless, after
much interaction with comtemporary psychologists (Shore, 1996),
psychologists and formal linguists, anthropologists were successful
in getting them to modify their approaches to language and culture.
What anthropologists wanted to attack was the claim that linguistic
forms are universal and common in all language. What is common,
they correctly noted, is the ability of human beings to create
frames, schemas, scripts, and other forms of cognitive expression.
Languages and culture differ in how these common instruments of
cognitive expression are employed.
Once the focus shifted from the study of form to the investigation
of the cognitive processes underlying symbolic interaction, Lakoff
and Johnson (1980) were able to more fully articulate their concept
of cognitive linguistics in their highly influential treatise
on language and metaphor. Later, Lakoff (1987) would go on to
detail the implications of this new approach to the cognitive
sciences, which he called cognitive linguistics. Particular explications
of how these concepts function in grammar took on the name of
cognitive grammar (Langacker, 1987) and functional discourse theory
(Givón, 1993). The whole movement was reinforced by the
related concept of grammaticalization (Hopper and Traugott, 1993).
WHAT IS GRAMMATICALIZATION?
Traditional scholars of historical linguistics have always had
a problem with those who make strong claims about the universals
of language. They have much experience in studying language change
and are only too familiar with numerous case studies in which
old linguistic categories are lost or new one are created within
a language. Once linguistic research moved away from formal representations
of language and towards language pragmatics (i.e., how one uses
language in a social context), historical linguists found refuge
in the newer theory of cognitive linguistics. What they have been
studying is called grammaticalization. This process occurs when
new grammatical items or constructions are developed from within
a language via the cognitive processes of metaphor, metonymy,
and other major tropes. Language, it was argued, uses metaphor
to create new constructions, new meanings, new categories, and
new semantic domains. Consider the following example (Heine, 1997:
8).
| Source Pattern: | They keep the money. |
| New Pattern: | They keep complaining. |
Here one has a linguistic frame composed of an agent, a verb of
retention, and a physical object. The new pattern is created by
using the old pattern in a new metaphorical context. In lieu of
money, one retains a non-physical object, a process involving
complaints. This new metaphorical use of language raises several
interesting questions. Has the verb "to keep" become
polysemous or does the new use of "keep" create a new
verb in the process.
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It appears that a new verb form was created in this metaphorical process. There are too many examples of linguistic creativity that involve new constructions based on metaphor. Consider the use of prepositions and verb particles and how they operate in language. Givón (1993: 138-143):
| Source Pattern: | They broke the house. |
| Metaphorical Extension: | They broke up the house. |
| New Verbs: | They broke the house up. |
These kinds of constructions can be traced back to the time of
Shakespeare. This kind of grammaticalization is common to Germanic
languages. The metaphorical constructions in English become obvious
when one compares these new two-word verbs in English with translations
in non-Germanic languages, for example, as in Portuguese.
|
English (Two-Word Verbs) |
Portuguese |
| Basic Form To break | Quebrar (to break) |
|
|
|
| To break out |
|
| To break in |
|
|
To break up broke up). |
|
| To break down |
|
| To break through |
|
| To break off |
|
| To break even |
|
| To break into |
|
| To break open | arrombar To break the news Dar a noticia. Eles darara a notícia a Marta (They broke the news to Martha). |
What is interesting about these constructions in English is that they began as Verb+Preposition Constructions and ended up as Verb+Verb Particle Constructions.
| |
There appears to be three stages in the grammaticalization of two-word verbs in English. The first stage is where the prototype construction (archetype) or the canonical forms can be found. The second stage emerges as metaphorical versions of the prototype and the last stage is where reanalysis has taken place and new verb forms emerge.
Before leaving this discussion of grammatical metaphors, it is important to note that Portuguese and other romance languages tend to use morphological metaphors for their construction of new concepts. These forms can be found in words in English that came from Latin: ex-plode, im-plode (from in+plode). Hence, Portuguese has numerous morphological constructions that differ substantially from those of English. The reason for this is simply because Latin used a different set of metaphors in conjunction with morphological prefixes.
Latin: prehendere (to hold or grasp); cum prehendere (to hold or grasp with the hand); Solare (to be alone), in-solare (to be isolated), insula (island, an isolated place), paene-insula (peninsula, an almost isolated place).
HOW ARE CATEGORIES CREATED AND DEFINED?
The major breakthrough in cognitive grammar came about when both
anthropologists and psychologists replaced the philosophical concept
of a logical grammar with a more pragmatic model that was based
on communicative intent. This focus on logical form had been such
a dominant cultural imposition in Western intellectual history
that it was very difficult to differentiate what philosophers
wanted language to be from what it really was. The classical view
of categorization can be traced back to Aristotle who felt that
natural objects in the world could be categorized into groups
and defined by unique attributes.
Major Premise: Socrates is a man
Minor Premise: All men are mortal
Conclusion: Socrates is mortal
This view of categorization has certain interesting assumptions. It is predicated on the belief that categorization is, in essence, a theory of reference. It is a way of discussing the real world of physical objects. It is based on the assumption that the attributes that define classes of objects are shared by all of its members. Furthermore, it was believed that the intension (the set of attributes) determines the extension of a category to which items are members. In other words, categories within classical philosophy did not have internal structure .
WHY WAS CLASSICAL CATEGORIZATION THEORY REPLACED?
What changed this reliance on traditional models of philosophical
categorization came from the work of Eleanor Rosch (1978). In
her visit to study the Dani in New Guinea, she found that the
speakers of this language had only two color terms: mola for bright,
warm hues and mili for dark, cold ones. After exposing the Dani
to forty color chips in order to study their perceptual abilities,
she confirmed that they indeed had a very different culture, a
confirmation of her belief in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis . However,
upon continuing her investigation, she discovered some rather
surprising information. She noted that the Dani did physiologically
recognize colors in a manner very similar to those of Americans.
The differences in naming colors were perceptually structured
in the same way others outside of this cultural milieu. They used
similar strategies in the storage, remembrance, and recollection
of colors. They differed in how they were categorized in their
own language. Humans do not differ in how their nervous systems
organize colors, but how they name them, place them into categories.
Recent research on color categories argue that cultures differ
as to the location of the focal points of ideal colors, i.e.,
the prototype colors for color categories differ across cultures
because they have different focal points. In some cultures, for
example, the colors of blue and green have focal points that are
closer to each other and for this reason many shades of blue and
green overlap and are seen as color confusion by those outside
of the cultural matrix.
Rosch continued her research into other aspects of linguistic
categorization. She was intrigued by the fact that in many cultures
there are thousands of words for birds, but no one overall category
for birds (Palmer, 1996). In the United States, for example, one
can readily find a general categorization of all birds into a
common class.
| Superordinate Level: | Birds |
| Basic Level: | Prototype with the exemplar of a robin |
| Subordinate Level: | blue bird, black bird, jay bird, cardinal |
What does it mean to say that a superordinate level or a general
class for birds does not exist? What Rosch found was that in these
cultures exemplars or prototypes can be used for designate a whole
class or category. It is as if native speaks of English referred
to the class of all birds as robins.
Her findings no longer directly challenged the traditional concept
of categorization. Others were soon to follow with other cultural
examples of the new categorization system (Dirven and Verspoor,
1998).
| Category: | chair |
| Prototype: | kitchen chair (Exemplar) |
| Non-Prototypes: | swivel chair, office chair,
high chair, arm chair, wheel chair, desk chair, electric chair, etc. |
What is interesting about categorization is that some of the senses of a category are closer to the prototype and therefore more naturally belong to the same class of objects. Others, such as electric chair, are marginal as a member of the class of objects categories as chairs.
Cognitive psychologists (Howard, 1987) learned is that people
do not categorize their experiences of the world in accordance
with traditional logic as evidenced in creation of logical forms
espoused by advocates of transformational grammar (Senft, 2000;
Taylor, 1995). Humans create categories for things, places, events,
and experiences. Their representations are ideal. For example,
the category of bird is represented by an ideal bird, which in
North America, is the robin. In Australia, the ideal category
for a bird may be the canary and in Brazil, it may be the parrot.
These ideal examples are called exemplars. What is important about
exemplars is that they provide a richness of details associated
with the human experience. So, if one mentions a bird, the category
invokes an exemplar that connotes wings, a certain wing shape,
a certain color, a certain kind of beak, flight patterns, food
preferences, etc. Although one would like to believe that these
categories refer to the real world (Kant's noumena) , it does
not. Categories are phenomenological. They reflect the perceptual
structure of the perceiver. Even though categories harbor prototypes,
what constitutes a prototype is usually culturally defined.
In addition to categorizing experiences, events, and percepts
in terms of a basic member or prototypes, they are further organized
them with regard to superordinate, subordinate levels. A chair,
for example, is a category by itself. However, it belongs to a
larger category of furniture. The prototype represents the basic
level for a category. It is the one that is most easily learned
by children and most readily recalled by them.
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What is interesting about this theory of categorical levels is that it accounts for lexical networks. Words, it has been argued, do not exist alone. They are part of semantic domains. They relate to each other within lexical networks. Hence, when one thinks of a door, other elements are invoked that are part of a door. This study of the relationship of the parts to the whole is called mereology. Hence, the lexical item "door" invokes such related concepts as "door knob, key, key hole, door jamb, front of the door, back of the door," etc. Lexical networks that have been investigated by linguists in the past were based on genetic relationships, diachronic relationships over time, e.g., the relationship that exists among words such as father, paternal, patronymic, etc. . The new approach to networking is functional and cultural. There are cultural reasons for creating lexical networks and these differ over time and place.
 |
| vogel (bird) = movement in
space fisch (fish) = movement in water wyrm (worm) = movement under ground tier (animal ) = movement on land. |
This spatial classification is interesting because the metaphor
of space was a significant part of medieval thought. This metaphor
even included the Great Chain of Being whereby humans where visualized
as belonging to a vertical space in which the Pope was closer
to God and the masses were closer to animals.
HOW DOES PROTOTYPE THEORY WORK IN LINGUISTICS?
It is interesting to study the change of these lexical networks
through time. In modern English, meat refers to the flesh of animals
used for food. In Old English, mete simply meant food.
| The mete shall be mylk,
honey and wyne. (mete = food) After mete, before mete, at mete (mete = meal) boef vs kuh (beef versus cow; beef is mete or edible flesh) lambe vs mutton (lamb vs mutton, mutton is mete or edible flesh) It is mete and drinke (mete = food) |
What changes over time is the exemplar. At one time the exemplar of mete was food. There were other senses of this word such as a meal, a kind of food (not a drink) and the fleshy parts of animals (boef, mutton). Over time, one of the senses of the category of mete emerged as the prototype of a new category, meat.
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| Food functions as the exemplar | Food functions as a sense |
| Old English mete functions as a sense | Meat functions as the exemplar |
What was a secondary sense of food in Old English becomes the
primary meaning behind the modern English word meat. This change
of meanings over time raises even more significant questions about
the social history of the world of Old English as compared to
Modern English. There more interesting questions behind these
prototypical shifts remain to be resolved within the context of
social history. What culinary customs transformed this re-categorization
from Old English to Modern English? Was this development based
on a practice within one subcultural before it spread to others
or was it an intrinsic part of the culture as a whole? The new
cognitive model brings linguistic theory back into the center
of research in the humanities.
Another interesting shift in lexical networks over time can be
found in the two senses of the word dog between the 14th and the
16th centuries. During the earlier period, the general category
was that of hounds . There were many kinds of hounds: poodles,
spaniels, greyhounds, and dogs. The prototype of this category
was the dog and the exemplar of the dog was the mastiff, a large
strong kind of dog that was used to guard houses. Later during
the 16th century, the major category was the dog. Under the new
categorization, dogs included the mastiff, poodles, spaniels,
and greyhounds.
| 14th Century | 16th Century |
| Prototype: Hound | Prototype: Dog |
| Exemplar: Mastiff | Exemplar: Mastiff |
|
|
Once again, one may what has transpired in this time frame to cause this shift in how hounds were re-categorized as dogs?
LANGUAGE AS SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
What one learns from this new approach is that language, it turns
out is not about the real world. It is not based on a theory of
reference as envisaged by philosophers of language. Language is
about how human beings organize and represent concepts (Heine,
1997; Dirven and Vespoor, 1998). Language is not a positivistic
enterprise. It is phenomenological. Sociologists, for example,
provide an interesting approach to how individuals interact symbolically.
They call it conversational images.
CONVERSATIONAL IMAGES
When two people meet each other for the first time, they create
in their own minds what that other person is like. They create
images of the other based on various kinds of information deriving
from their culture, life styles, and past experiences. What is
interesting is that when these same individuals meet again, they
do not directly address each other, but they talk to the conversational
image they have of the other person. These images are maintained
for decades as evidenced by how parents still see their adult
children as "my little girl" or "my little boy."
They same concept is involved in one addressing an audience. One does not actually address individuals, but has an image of others and talks to that image. There are, however, some interesting issues regarding the interaction of a speaker with his or her audience. The concept of an audience exists in the mental space created between individuals.
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In this chart, A is the speaker; B is the hearer; and C represents the joint attentional space between them (Tomasello, 1999). There are several ways in which symbolic interaction can occur. There are instances, as in the case of mass communication, where the speaker has an intent and communicates that intent to a large number of hearers (B). Since there is no interaction at C, one is never confident that communication has indeed taken place. In mass communications, one has to infer this conclusion from market surveys, listener trends, etc. Another kind of communicative scenario can be found in situation where the focus is only on the hearer. This approach can be found in the work of Stanley Fish (1980) and his reader response theory. Fish sees the reader as being the creator of texts. In the Fish model of communication, the author is mute and only the reader matters. The final model of an audience comes into play when a speaker and a hearer share a mental space, a joint attentional space. What happens in this mental space is that one person socially constructs a reality (A) and shares it with another (B) in a joint mental space (C). Both interact and redefine the categories and the concepts in that space until their concur on the shared meanings. When this happens, they have socially negotiated the meaning of their symbolic interaction. This last model is known under the name of symbolic interactionism. It is a social theory construct envisions communication as a highly interactive social event.
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| Mass Media - Speaker Focus | Reader Response Theory | Symbolic Interactionism |
| Speaker is foregrounded | Reader is foregrounded | Both speaker and listener are foregrounded |
WHY ARE SCHEMAS, FRAMES, AND SCENARIOS IMPORTANT?
Plato and Aristotle both had their own theories of knowledge.
In Plato's model, he envisioned an abstract world of ideal eternal
forms. What one sees and knows in everyday life are instances
of those ideals. In Plato's model, perfect geometric forms exist
in one's mind even though one never sees them or experiences them.
All that they experience are the phenomena of decaying changing
forms of everyday life. Immanuel Kant (1781) took this concept
of ideal types and modified it into schema theory. In his version
of a theory of knowledge, one creates in the mind an image that
represents the perception of an object, event, or experience.
What this amounts to is an image based on concrete experiences
rather than abstract universals. In Kant's model, schemata exist
between ideal eternal forms (Plato's Ideal Forms) and the material
world (Plato's Material Expressions). Now why is this concept
important and why do cognitive linguists adhere to this view of
knowledge? The answer comes from cognitive psychologists who argue
that human beings use schemas to represent concepts. Furthermore,
language is an instrument that enables human beings to organize
these concepts, categorize their socially constructed realities,
and share them with others in shared moments of mental space.
Language, it is argued, is essentially schemata theory. It is
how human beings represent concepts and share them with each others.
Here are some of the more common schemas ( Heine, 1997: 90-98;
Dirven and Verspoor, 1998: 82-90).
| Source Schema | Label of Schema | Linguistic Example |
| X takes Y | Action |
|
| Y is located at X | Location | John is at
home John is in church John is near the house |
| X is with Y | Companion |
|
| X's Y exists | Genitive | Turkish. Kitab-im var (my book exists) "I have a book" |
|
Y exists for X Y exists to X |
Goal | French: Le livre est â moi (the book is to me) "I have a book" |
| Y exists from X | Source | John is from Spain |
| As for X, Y exists | Topic | As for John, he knows Mary |
| Y is X's (Y) | Equation | The car is mine |
| Being Schema |
|
This is Cleveland John is a student John is happy John is here There is a book |
| Happening Schema | Eventing | The weather
is clearing up The stone is rolling down the hill The dog is whining His health is improving |
| Doing Schema | Agent |
|
| Experiencing Schema |
Patient Experiencer |
Harry saw
a snake He knows that it is dangerous He thinks that he feels better He feels happy |
| Having Schema | Material
Possession Mental Position Affected-affection Whole-part Kinship Relations |
Doreen has
a house John has an idea John has a flu The table has four legs John has two sisters |
| Moving Schema | Source-Path-Goal Spatial Temporal States |
The apple
fell from the tree They searched from noon to midnight The weather changed from dark to sunny Transferring Schema Receiver and Goal John gave Mary a cake John gave a cake to Mary John have the door a coat of paint |
In addition to the organization of concepts into schemas, language
also enables its users the opportunity to socially construct knowledge
through various instruments of symbolic interaction such as lexical
elements, sentence patterns, etc.
| Language is used to talk about things that exist in space and time, Hence, the use of concrete nouns. |
| Language provides means of organizing and portraying temporal events such as seasons, days, etc. |
| Through language one can talk about abstractions that neither exist in time or space (abstract nouns). |
| Through language one can distinguish between animate and inanimate by using noun classes designated for that purpose: cow, human vs. rock, sand. |
| Nouns can also be used to connote entities and names to denote entities: A professor vs. John. |
| Nouns are structured syntagmatically and paradigmatically to designate different semantic roles (case theory): John (Agent) read the book (Patient). |
| By means of affixes, new concepts are morphologically created: write > writer, a writing, etc. |
| Dimensions of space and time can be marked and measured as when qualities are converted into entities such as wide > width, steal > stealth, heal > health, etc. |
| Events can be restructured through suffixes as when in the case of child > childhood. |
| Language allows its users to combine categories to make compound entities (mail-man). |
| Adjectives are used to denote states as when happy, an adjectival form, denotes that state of being happy. Happiness, the noun form, is used to mark the event. |
| Through adjectives one can create evaluative descriptions and judgments such as John is happy with his present. John is certain that he will go. |
| Through the use of suffixes, one can compare qualities (bigger, smaller, equal to, the biggest, etc.) |
| Some suffixes allow one to take actions and make them into states (abuse > abusive). |
| Language allows one to negate events, states, and experiences as in un-kind, illogical, atheistic. |
| In language verbs to constitute the core of a semantic frame. Verbs are also the first grammatical forms to emerge in child language. |
| In language one finds various devices to create and state causative relationships (large >enlarge) |
| Language provides numerous devices that allow the modification of time thorugh aspect markers: John has seen Mary, John is seeing Mary. |
| Language also provides numerous devices that allow the modification of actions in the form of manner adverbs or adverbial phrases. John broke it with a hammer. |
| Although language allows one to make proclamations of truth, certainty and probability by means of epistemic adverbs (it is true, certain, probably, etc.), it is not the major use of language envisioned by philosophers.. |
| Some languages have modals as epistemic verbs and others have subjunctive paradigms. |
| Language also allows one to express obligation, attitudes, through perceptive and cognitive utterances (obligation, hope, fear, etc.) |
| Experiences can be quantified through language as evidence by the function words such as some, all, and many. |
| We depict states as existing conditions with no change and do this by means of adjectives (happy means being in a happy state) |
| Language allows one to depict events as change in state over time. John got drunk, John was sick, etc. |
| Language allows one to depict actions that are initiated by an agent (indicative voice) from those that are not (middle voice). |
| Language allows for topic control by various devices such as movement rules (pseudo cleft construction, topicalization, etc.). |
| Languages allow for process copulas such as get a life, become happy, etc. |
| Languages allow for stative copulas such as seem, appear. etc. |
| Languages allow for state of being constructions such as John is at home = being at a location. |
All of these devices exist in language and allow individuals to socially construct social realities that they share and interact with symbolically. Non-verbal communication lacks this great specificity of socially constructing reality. Without language, the social construction of reality would be severely curtailed. Meanings are negotiated within a commonly shared mental space, a joint attentional space. Coherence results when this negotiation of meaning succeeds. The aforementioned constructions are just be basic tools that constitute human communication. Through the use of metaphor, metonymy, and other fundamental tropes, these devices are used to create newer categories, events, schemas, and scenarios.
LINGUISTIC CREATIVITY AND TRANSLATION THEORY
There is an old adage in Italian that goes: Traduttore è
traiditore. What this saying says is that "A translator is
a traitor" and what it means is that literal translations
are impossible due to great disparities between languages, cultures,
social histories, and other salient features of symbolic interaction.
The best that a translator can do is to decide what to translate
and what to distort. Consider the translation of poetry as a case
in point. What does a translator do when taking a poem from one
language and rendering it into another? In most cases, the rhythmical
patterns differ substantially so one cannot even translate them.
What transpires is the creation of a new poem that mirrors the
target language. The same could be said for translating from the
semantic domain of one language into that of another. There may
be some similarities between languages, but the nuances may differ
substantially. One may not even be able to capture the connotations
characteristically associated with the source language. As a consequence,
the poet must create a new poem in the process. What this means,
in essence, is that a translator is a creative genius. He or she
must excel in sensitivity to both languages, cultures, experiential
frameworks, and various social constructions of reality consistent
with the target language and culture.
Earlier in this essay, the author discussed the concept of a radial network. The example chosen was that of a door. It was argued that a door is not an isolated concept but is imbedded into a larger radial network that involves related mereology such as key, key hole, door knob, front of door, back of door, door jamb, etc. Any one of these related items invoke the whole network. It is this property of lexical networks that allow metonymy to take place . In addition, one can create propositions about a lexical network that highlights certain features and places others in the background. Hence, the following perspectives or metaphorical constructions depict different aspects of an event:
John opened the door with a key
John opened the door
The key opened the door
The door opened
It is interesting to look at this same lexical network and ask how it is translated across languages. In Japanese, for example, the word "doa" has been borrowed from English "door." The Japanese already have words for door, to, shoji, and kura. If they already have words for door, why would they need to borrow another one? The answer can be found by more closely investigating the Japanese concept of door. The shoji, for example, consists of a wooden reticulated frame that slides open and shut and its covered on one side by bamboo paper. Obviously, this concept of a door differs substantially from the English version which consists of a heavy wooden frame that is covered on both sides with ply wood, contains a key hole, a door know, and is supported with door jamb structures. So, the question that one needs to ask: what was really borrowed from one language to another? Perhaps the word "doa" was borrowed from English not as a positive concept, but as a negative one. It could be argued that a new word was created in the process and "doa" means, essentially, a non-Japanese door. The kura is a heavy wooden door that can be found on the outside portion of a home. It resembles the western doa in many ways. However, it is steeped in tradition that goes back to the Meiji Era and would not do as an equivalent of a western door. What seems to be missing from the literature of loan words is the question: Why were these words borrowed in the first place? It is known, for example, that in some cultures, the use of foreign words conveys prestige. This reason partially explains the context of borrowing. Why, it should be asked, were certain loan words borrowed over others? When the Romans occupied Britain, for example, they left behind a host of loan words that had to do with daily living and government administration. These loan words came into the English language because of the cultural context of the times. The peoples of Britannia at that time had to negotiate with the Romans on matters of government, military control, and administration. The Romans also intermarried with the local tribes and brought in new kinds of utensils and ways of cooking.
LATIN.
I. The Period of Continental Borrowing. (First to fifth
centuries A.D. Around fifty words came into the language
through Germanic contact with Rome before the invasion and
settlement of Britain.)
a. War: camp (L. campus) 'battle,' pil (L. pilum)
'javelin,' straet (L. strata) 'road,' mil (L. milia)
'mile;'
b. Trade: ceap (L. caupo) 'bargain,' pund (L. pondo)
'pound,' win (L. vinum) 'wine,' mynet (L. moneta)
'mint, coin;'
c. Domestic Life: cuppe (L. cuppa) 'cup,' disc (L.
discus) 'dish,' pyle (L. pulvinus) 'pillow,' cycene (L.
coquina) 'kitchen,' linen (L. linum) 'linen,' gimm (L.
gemma) 'gem;'
d. Foods: ciese (L. caseus) 'cheese,' butere (L. butyrum)
'butter,' pipor (L. piper) 'pepper,' senep (L. sinapi)
'mustard,' cires (L. cerasus) 'cherry,' pise (L. pisum)
'pea,' minte (L. mentha) 'mint.'
e. Other: mul 'mule,' pipe 'pipe,' cirice 'church.'
Loan words constitute a different kind of linguistic creativity. It directly addresses cultural and social concepts, categories, and semantic domains. The documentation of loan words provide the mere beginning of a long journey into the social history of a culture, where it was when the borrowing occurred and why it found it necessary to borrow these words.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Metaphor plays a dominant role in language. It is one of the major
forces behind linguistic creativity. Metaphor is not only used
to create new lexical domains, but also for new grammatical constructions.
This new user of metaphor is a major part of the focus of this
presentation. To understand how grammatical constructions can
be metaphorical, one needs to delve into the emergent theory of
cognitive linguistics with its new research interests in conceptualization,
categorization, grammaticalization, and the use of language for
the communication of meaning. This is not to say that linguistic
forms are not important. They are. However, forms are used for
the purpose of communicating in a meaningful way. This new way
of communicating meaning consists of schemes, frames, and scenarios.
It employs a phenomenological approach to language and differs
substantially from the older positivistic paradigms in linguistics.
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