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1
chapter
VantageTheory:
originandbasictenets
1.Introductorycomments
Between1978and1981,anAmericananthropologistandlinguist,RobertE.
MacLaury,touredMesoamericawithasetofMunsellcolourchipsandcon-
ductedinterviewswithspeakersofindigenouslanguages.Hisaimwastodis-
coverhowhissubjectscategorizecolour.Intotal,MacLauryandhisassociates
interviewedapproximately900speakersof116languages.Thefieldworkwas
conductedastheMesoamericanColorSurvey,partofthemorecomprehensive
WorldColorSurvey,anditsfindingswerelaterenrichedwithdatafrommany
otherlanguagefamilies.Thescholarthenatemptedtoexplainhisfindings
bymeansofthemodelsavailableatthetime.However,noneseemedtobe
fullyadequate,beittheclassicalconceptionofnecessaryandsufcientcondi-
tions,Zadeh’s(1965)fuzzysetsorRosch’s(e.g.1975,1978)prototypeapproach.
Puzzledbythefindings,MacLauryproposedhisownmodel,whichhecalled
VantageTheory(VT).Inanutshell,themodelpostulatesthatcategoriesare
constructedasvantages,orpointsofview.However,thesearenotmerelocations
oneadoptsforseeingbutcomplexandcoherentarraysofcognitiveprocedures
constructedasarrangementsofmentalcoordinates.
AcomprehensivedescriptionofboththeinterviewsandthetheoryisMac-
Laury’sColorandCognitioninMesoamerica(1997,reprintedin2011).Thepresent
chapterwillpresentVTsuccinctly.