No. 85 (2021): Southern Archive (philological sciences)
Romanic, Germanic and other languages

COGNITIVE-PRAGMATIC APPROACH TO CATEGORIZATION: THEORY OF ROBERT MACLAURY

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  • Svitlana Anatoliivna Lyubymova
Svitlana Anatoliivna Lyubymova
Kyiv National Linguistic University
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32999/ksu2663-2691/2021-85-15

Published 2021-04-12

Keywords

  • vantage theory, categorization, space-time orientation, perspectivization, sociocultural stereotype
  • теорія побудови перспектив, просторово-часова орієнтація, фіксовані і змінні координати, перспективіза- ція, вербалізований соціокультурний стереотип

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to determine the principles of Robert MacLaury’s Vantage Theory and to review its application in various linguistic studies.

Methods, used in the paper, include analysis and description, the application of which was conditioned by the task to distinguish the main tenets of the Vantage Theory and to present experience of its application in various linguistic studies.

Results. A groundbreaking theory of R. MacLaury has overcome the lack of explanatory power of cognitive grammar and the prototype theory. The starting point of the Vantage Theory is the recognition that categorization takes place on analogy of human’s orientation on terrain with regard to movement. Adapted by primitive people for information processing, the cognitive mechanism of orientation in space and time is deeply rooted in human consciousness. Any category appears in comparison with images or other types of discrete ideas that correspond to fixed space-time coordinates to which observer’s attention is drawn while detecting similarities and differences in the object of perception. The categorization model consists of three levels, which correspond to a pair of fixed and variable coordinates. A person can focus on only one pair of coordinates at a time, others are stored in memory as proven facts, which become a prerequisite for inference and an integral part of the categorization model. Apart from numerous works on colour semantics, the theory is applied to address a wide range of issues in sociolinguistic studies, discourse analysis, cognitive grammar, etc. The theory is also applicable in the study of verbalized sociocultural stereotypes. The author of the article uses the Vantage Theory in the cognitive-linguistics study of sociocultural stereotypes in American media discourse. As verbalized, conventionally evaluative patterns of social groups, sociocultural stereotypes are formed in comparison with the ethical, behavioural, and aesthetic standards of American culture that act as fixed coordinates of mental space.

Conclusions. The Vantage Theory of Robert MacLaury is a further step in the development of cognitive linguistics. The universality of this theory lies in its ability to explain many linguistic facts and therefore it can be applied in the study of a wide range of issues related to the linguistic representation of knowledge, such as concepts and stereotypes, which are categories of a verbalized picture of the world.

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