17.Categorization and metaphor in grammar

Categorization is the process in which experiences and concepts are recognised and understood. Categorization implies that concepts are classified into categories based on commonalities and usually for some specific purpose. Categorization is fundamental in decision making, in all kinds of interaction with the environment, and in language. Categorization is central issue in Cogntive Linguistics in which it is argued to be one of the primary principles of conceptual and linguistic organization.

Levels of categorization

Taxonimies of categories are organized into levels of categorization. There are three levels:

•Superordinate level: Superordinate categories are the most general ones. They are the ones that are at the top of a folk taxonomy).

•Basic, or generic, level: categories at the basic, or middle, level are perceptually and conceptually the more salient. The generic level of a category tends to elicit the most responses and richest images, providing a basic gestalt, and seems to be the psychologically basic level.

Basic level categories are members of superordinate level categories.

•Subordinate level: Subordinate level categories are the most specific ones. They are the members of the basic level categories. They have clearly identifiable gestalts and many individuating specific features.

Grammatical metaphor may be defined,broadly speaking, as a variation in the grammatical forms through which a semantic cholee is typically realized in the lexicogrammar.

Two main types of grammatical metaphor:

1.Interpersonal metaphors (or metaphors of mood),

2.Ideational metaphors (or metaphors of transitivity);

18.Basic cognitive metaphors life, love, happy

Research in the cognitive sciences over the last twenty years has shown us that metaphor is more than a fancy language device used by poets; it is, in fact, the main way in which our mind works. That is, when we interpret things, when we make comparisons, we do it with metaphors.

For linguistic research does not set out with a preconceived set of conceptual metaphors, but instead has to deal with spontaneous metaphorical expressions as they are encountered in concrete uncontrolled language use. There is a decided difference between the postulation of conceptual metaphors such as LIFE IS A JOURNEY, LOVE IS A JOURNEY, HAPPY IS UP, and so on, as well as their illustration by well-chosen examples, on the one hand, and the technical identification in on-going discourse of expressions presumably related to such postulated conceptual metaphors, on the other hand.

LOVE IS A PATIENT: This is a sick relationship. ”It is folly to pretend that one wholly recovers from a disappointed passion. Such wounds always leave a scar”. Most of us know what it means to be ill, it is a very basic experience for all human beings, that is why we are able to comprehend this aspect of any relationship. In Russian there is an expression: ”Ja bol’na ne vami”,word by word translation ”I am not sick because of you”, meaning ”I am not interested in you”.

LOVE IS A JOURNEY:I do not think this relationship is going. We are using space and motion as a metaphor for more abstract ideas”, that explains why the LOVE IS A JOURNEY metaphor is so often used in English when talking about love. However, in English this metaphor is not homogeneous in nature, as it refers to different kinds of journeys.