cognitive linguistics.

In the following sub-chapter I will attempt to outline some

of his basicideas and findings.2.2.2 Prototypes, frames, metaphors, and linguistic
relativity2.2.2.1 PrototypesOne of the essential abilities of the human beings is
the ability to categorize the objects andevents around us. By creating
conceptual categories we make sense of the world.Categorization has survival
value. The conceptual categories we establish are the backbone oflanguage and
thought. According to recent findings of cognitive linguistics what holds
ourcategories together are not the essential features (as it was considered by the
classical view oncategorization) but rather �family resemblance
relations�.12 The metaphor of familyresemblance was used to suggest that
membership in a family is not defined by a fix set ofproperties but rather a family
is held together by sharing some properties with some membersof the family and
sharing other properties with other members. The classical view ofcategorization
thus should be replaced by prototype categorization. In this new viewcategories are
defined not in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions but with respect
toprototypes and various family resemblance relations to these prototypes.
Prototypicality canbe culture dependent. While apple is a central member of the
category fruit in Europe or theUSA and date is not, we can experience the reverse
in Tunisia or other North AfricanCountries. The prototypes we have for categories
are greatly determined by the context andgoal of categorization. This has far
reaching implications for intercultural understanding. Ifprototypes differ from
culture to culture this will affect the way we understand other groups.Cultural
differences in both concrete and abstract concepts may be a source of
mutualmisunderstanding. The awareness of this is obviously crucial for the
effective use of a foreignlanguage with native speakers. Here again we can relate
back to the bug/ bog�r example. I theunaware native Hungarian might gently call my
English boyfriend � my bug� and offend him.Of course misunderstandings can occur on
much larger levels and can even cause tensionsbetween countries or nations.Most
of the prototypes we have are culturally determined prototypes.
Our mentalrepresentations of categories are both cognitive and cultural in
nature.12Term used by Ludwig Wittgenstein 195327
2.2.2.2 FramesIn the early 1970s three scientists working in different fields
(Ervin Goffman, sociologist,Charles Fillmore, linguist and Marvin Minsky, expert in
artificial intelligence) completelyoblivious of each other have discovered the same
thing, namely the fact that we organize ourknowledge about the world in conceptual
frames. Every word is defined in our brains relativeto some frame. Frames are the
representations of the large amount of underlying knowledgewe have about a concept.
'A frame is a structured mental representation of a conceptualcategory.'13Let us
take for example the frame of RESTAURANT. This frame illustrates the kind
ofknowledge we have about restaurants. Within this frame are roles : waiter,
customer, cook,etc., there are relationships between the roles and there is a
script of the events that usuallyoccur in a restaurant.Meanings are relativized to
frames, that means that the meaning of a word seems to dependon the kind of frame
within which we conceptualize it. Let us take the word Friday. If wethink of it as
part of a SUPERSTITION frames is an unlucky day, as part of a WEEKENDframe it is
the day before the weekend, while as part of a WORKWEEK frame it is the lastday of
the week.An important property of frames is that they can be idealized in several
ways. Often what theframe defines does not actually exist in the world. This
feature of frames make them open tocross-cultural variations. Some particular
frames may only exist in one or a few cultures andnot in others. For example, the
notion of our kind of calendar cycle is a peculiarity of thewestern world. The
frames that we use are not only cognitive in nature but also culturalconstructs. In
some literature they are also called cultural models. Frames represent a hugeamount
of shared knowledge that makes societies, subcultures and social groups of
variouskinds coherent cultural formations. (discourse communities.) We can think of
culture as a