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1.2.Teconceptofconcept
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highlysubjective.Tirdly,thetermitselfisambiguousandmayrefertodiferent
aspectsoftheappraiseditems,i.e.perceptualsimilarity,functionalsimilarity,and
thelike.AccordingtoTaylor(1995),thismakessimilarityjudgmentsafunctionofat
leastthreeinteractingfactors:perceptualsalienceofanentity’sattributes,(cultural)
contextofcomparison,andrelatedprototypecategories.Similarcriticismshavebeen
leveledatthenotionofgoodness-of-exemplar(GOE),whichisusedinexperimental
designsassessingtheso-calledbestexamplesofcategories,i.e.prototypes.Crof
andCruse(2004:80)commentthatevaluationsofthetypeHowgoodisXan
exampleofcategoryY?moreofenthannotfocusontheexamples’typicalityand
tendtobeconstrainedbyanindividual’sfamiliaritywithallorsomeoftheusual
members.Anotherfactorisclosenesstotheidealmodelasitmaybeadomainof
expertknowledge.Finally,sinceprototypesarerecursiveandmaythereforebebest
determinedintermsofotherprototypes,itmaybeimpossibletoavoidcircularity
andimprecisioninprototypedefinitions.Forthisreason,theliteratureofenresorts
tomoreinclusiveterminologyandspeaksofprototypeefects.
Apointworthnotingisthat,followingtheworkofJohnAustin(1961),who
postulatedthatwordmeaningswereorganizedaround(semantic)prototypes,it
wascommonpracticeinmany,ifnotmostofthestudiesreportedintheliterature,
toemploylinguisticpromptstotapprototyperepresentations.Moreover,research
confirmedthatthemeaningsofnounsandverbssuchaslook,kill,speakand
walk,aswellasspeechacts,e.g.tellingalie(Aitchinson1997;Taylor1995)arealso
builtaroundprototypes(Kövecses2006).Morphology-wise,prototypicalwords
tendtobelesscomplex,meaningtheyarenormallymonomorphemicandmore
autonomoussemantically.Onpurelypsycholinguisticgrounds,however,prototype
theoryseemstobeyetanotherproposalderivedfromthebeliefthatwordsreflect
concepts.AnotableexceptiontothistrendwastheworkofLabov(1973),who
usedpicturedrawingsandvisualizationtechniquestotapintotheextra-linguistic
representations.
InbilingualandSLAcontexts,researchintoprototypeefectshasaddressed
avarietyofissues,oneofthembeinginter-groupdiferencesinwordchoicebetween
L2learnersfromdiferentL1backgrounds(Jarvis1998).Teresearchshowsthat
thelexicalrangesthatlearnersdrawonwhennamingparticularreferentsandthe
emergentlexicalprototypesreflectL1-basedcategorizations.Jarvisdefinesthe
(referential)lexicalrangeasallofthevocabularyitemsthatareconsistentlyused
torelatetoaspecificreferent.Telexicalprototype,bycontrast,is“thelexicalitem
thatischosenmostfrequentlybythemembersofagroupwhendenotingagiven
referent”(Jarvis1998:69).Otherstudiesintheareaconcentratedonprototype-
inducedlexicaldecisionsbybothnativeandnon-nativespeakers(Aitchinson
1992)andincludedsemanticjudgmenttestswheresubjectswereexpectedtoassign
itemstospecificcategories,e.g.Islettuceavegetable?,aswellascategorizationtasks
involvingidentificationofthebestexamples(Rosch1977,1978,citedinGoddard
1998)ofcategoriessuchasfurniture,birds,fruit,andvegetables.Alsoinvestigated