Langacker on Cognitive Abilities |
Introduction:
In Langacker's view, language use is dependent on general cognitive abilities.
He argues that language use depends upon higher-level abilities and that it is not necessary to know what they depend upon at lower levels which is the work of cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists. He notes that what happens in our brains is a combination of neurological processes of immense complexity but that the process, which is of incredible complexity at "lower" levels can be repeated sufficiently to become a routine.at a "higher" level.(Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, 99-100). One of the higher level processes is comparing.
comparing:
In Langacker's view, comparing is a cognitive process that enables us to develop several other processes: "Fundamental to cognitive processing and the structuring of experience is our ability to compare events and register any contrast or discrepancy between them" (101). To notice any discrepancy, we have to recall the first event when experiencing the second since they are not simultaneous. Even if we are comparing two objects both of which are within sight, to compare them, we focus on some feature of one object and subsequently on a parallel feature or its absense in the other. In comparisons, mental constructs are used as "standards" against which the "target" object of attention is compared. (102).
Our ability to perceive the difference between man and a woman makes it possible to associate different sounds to call attention to a woman rather than a man or a man rather than a woman. Once different sounds are established for different men and women, we can call attention to individuals. Underlying our use of language is our ability to compare (to see, hear, feel taste, differences).
Our ability to listen to music depends upon our ability to distinguish among sounds. Our ability to enjoy food depends upon our ability to distinguish among tastes. Our ability to build homes depends upon our ability to distinguish among materials, colors, densities.
Comparing objects functions just as crucially in more abstract domains. For example, our ability to read texts depends upon our ability to distinguish among black marks on a page such as this one, recalling the sounds they record that direct our attention to aspects of our experiences. And so on, and so on.
Langacker notes that: mage and imagery
describe the occurrence of a perceptual sensation in the absense of the corresponding percpetual input. If I close my eyes, I can nevertheless evoke a kind of visual sensation by imagining or visualizing a scene. (110)
In particular, the phenomenon of being able to visualize experiences after they have occured is the principle component in our understanding of "reality." The fact that we can contrast a visual image with the actual experience allows us to "designate" particular mental constructs with attention to actual experiences.
selecting:
We know from experience that our attention is "selective." In most comparisons the sensory data is quite complex. For example, when I compare one apple to another, several senses supply data. I see the general similar between the two apples, but they may differ in color, in size, in texture, in taste, in ripeness. In any comparison, I am able to attend to any of these sensations in particular and compare the apples with respect to their size, or their color, or their ripeness, as well as their taste.
Because I can focus my attention on some facet of the two apples, I can select that facet mentally as the basis of my comparison.
Related to selection is abstraction. Because I can select one of several facets of my experience of an apple, I don't select the others. In effect, I can abstract the size of the apple from my experience of it.
categorizing/abstract types:
Our cognitive ability to identify similarities and differences allows us to abstract categories (select domains) from experience. We know the difference between an apple and an orange. We also know that cows, chickens, and fish differ from one another. Because we can tell differences amidst similarities, we can invent categories to organize our experiences. Apples and oranges are fruit and differ from carrots and beans. We know that fish and fowl go better with white wine and steaks go better with red wine. It seems that we develop generalized mental units that typify the similarities in our experiences. If I think of "tree," a general image comes to mind and I can scan my memory for visual experiences that fit the type.
Categories are arbitrary. Long ago, someone made them up to organize his or her world put them into words and passed it all down to users of the same language.
By imposing "categories" on the world of our experience through language, we structure our experiences.
framing (or structuring)
Once we put some concepts in the same category as other concepts, a structure begins to emerge. Spiders belong with ants (they are quite small) but cats belong with dogs (pets) but children belong with parents (family) and doctors belong with nurses (medical professionals). Our world takes on a structure as we put experiences into "mental spaces" in our minds as we create "mental models" of the world in which we live. The analogy of a mental map works well to describe the process. We are always drawing and redrawing our mental map of our world.
Since comparison deploy a "standard" against which a "target" is matched, if the standard is valued, the target is either "valuable" or "valueless" to the extent that the comparison is "positive" (a match) or "negative" (not a match).
Two important cogntive abilities are related to comparisons: judging and recognizing. If a match is positive, a "judgment" occurs that includes the "recognition" that the target is identical or at least similar to the standard.
imaging/imagining:
Of the senses we use to make comparisons in our experience, sight is paramount. In comparisons of scenes, items are perceived as figures against a background. If an item is selected from the background, its status is reversed as it is foregrounded and other items recede into the background.
Because of our ability to adjust perspectives in our imaginations and match them against actual experiences, we develop a distinction between "subjectivity" (inside the mind) and "objectivity" (outside the mind). For example, we know that inside our minds we can change perspectives without physically moving around an environment but that in the environment, we have to move around to change our perspective.
In addition, we can take different perspectives on scenes (figures in backgrounds). Because of our ability to image a scene in its absense, allows us to combine various viewpoints we have had of the experience and rehearse it in our minds from varying perspectives. Thinking of a simple object such as a desk, we can imagine it from the front or the back, from above or beneath, from the right or from the left.
Our ability to foreground (select) certain features of a domain of experience, and then select alternative features of the same experience, allows us to construe experiences (put our selections into language) in alternate ways.
Our ability to select a figure from a background or a domain within a domain enables us to predicate. For example, we can say
(1) the lamp is on the table
or
(2) the table with the lamp is new
These are simple declarations that instruct a listener how to focus her attention on a scene.
transferring/transforming:
Because of our ability to hold experiences in memory and select various aspects of them from different perspectives, we are able to "transfer" the selected features of an experience to our model of another experience. The most common example is imagining a unicorn by transfering our remembered experiences of animal horns, and cone shaped objects to our remembered experience of a zebra placing a cone-shaped horn on the zebra's head. The result is a transformation of the concept of a zebra. Our capactiy to transfer and transform is not limited to images. We can transfer abstract concepts to other domains and transform them. For example, we can transfer the concept of a computing machine (a computer) to a concept of a human brain and transform the concept of cognition (thinking). But in Langacker's view, transferring the concept of a computer to language use is misleading. Instead, although this may be a bit unfair to Langacker, he transfers the concept of "seeing" to our concept of thinking and transforms our concept of language. In Langacker's view, our uses of language derive from our experience of living in a world, seeing, hearing, and fully sensing it with our bodies.
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jjs
Notes:
. [The prevailing view has been that there is a special cognitive module in our brains dedicated to the use of language. For Langacker our use of language depends on the general cognitive abilities identified by cognitive pyschologists and neuroscientists.] ... 
.[Selecting smething is not synonymous with attenting to something. Not everything to which we attend is selected for comparison. At the same time, we cannot select something for mental construction without having first at some time attended to it. (The fact that we can compare unicorns to zebras is dependent on prior attention to zebras and animals with horns and tubular cones.)] ...
. [See the entry for categorizing.] ...
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last revised:
September 3, 2007
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