Article
К проблеме категоризации в теории прототипов: pro et conta
Similar to other varieties of cognitive semantics, the prototype’s theory also investigates how we understand the world around us. We can answer this question only by understanding how the categorization works does and how “series of similarities” are formed. In a standard version, the category affiliation is a function of prototypical properties the object shares with a model representative of its category. In an extended version, the category affiliation is defined by analogy with the family resemblance. Even if we assume that linguistic expressions relate to things through the mental representations, we have to admit that these expressions should be studied as linguistic expressions.
The article attempts to classify lexical units denoting a human being in English, paying special attention to substandard and informal words. These units constitute the periphery of a broad category “human being”. The article offers a semantic classification of these lexemes and describes the cognitive processes accounting for their differentiation.
There were attempts to discovered the nature of the unique dialogue between philosopher Strahov and his famous contemporaries and opponents: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and others in the monograph
The effect of conceptual flexibility involves inclusion of attributes that are irrelevant to the formed category in the concept and their further handling where required. The previous studies show that the conceptual flexibility effect arises while performing feature inference tasks and doesn’t arise while performing classification tasks. In the last case attention becomes too focused on one attribute. In the study the hypothesis according to which the conceptual flexibility effect may arise while performing classification tasks is tested on a sample of students (N=60). As this take place objects with attributes that are functionally connected and potentially related to semantic knowledge of the students are used as stimuli.
The material of the present paper is grounded on the holist algebraic method (Q-analysis) proposed by English mathematician and physicist R.H.Atkin. At its core, the approach is aimed at both analysis of systems structures (in the form of simplicial complexes K, which is formed by a set of properly adjoined objects called simplexes) and calculation of numeric estimates of structural complexity of systems based on the results of such analysis.
Turning complexity estimate of system’s structure into a real number creates additional difficulties in the comparison of two different complexes because there is no real verbal scale, which would have been accustomed to human beings and would allow a group of experts to express opinions and draw easily conclusions about degree of complexity of K at each particular dimensional level of its analysis. Therefore, the present paper deals with consideration of the approach that is more focused on human perception of characteristics obtained, mental comprehension and formation (comparison) of personal constructs in psychological space (or, P-space) – modified structural complexity estimate is based right on notions of distance and similarity within psychological space.
Our experimental study looked into the way existing knowledge influences the way subjects con- struct the rules of categorization and modify them as they are applied. We modified the experiment of E. Wisniewski and D. Medina (1994) by asking the respondents not only to create a categorization rule, but also to use it to categorize new images, and we looked at the frequency and type of subsequent rule modification. The respondents, 114 university students, were given a set of images drawn by children and asked to identify their common features under one of the four conditions: relevant prior knowledge (participants were told that the drawings had been made by children with high and low creativity), stan- dard condition (participants were told the drawings had been made by children from groups A and B), standard condition with examples (one sample of drawings from each group was shown), and irrelevant knowledge. We found that under the relevant prior knowledge condition, compared to the other three conditions, the respondents tended to construct more complex and abstract rules and to change them more frequently when they categorized new objects. We also found that rule modifications during usage led to more complex and abstract rules under all four conditions. We interpret the findings as evidence for two stages of categorization, the first stage involving search for existing generalizations in semantic memory, and the second stage involving adaptation of prior knowledge to current conditions.
Human communication is basically the exchange of information. How can this be realized? Each communicant proceeds from a subjective perception of an objective reality; however in order to exchange information relating to this reality communicants are obliged to coordinate their perceptions. Each of us entertains personal experiences based on individual impressions and associations. But communication presupposes the presence of a common experience and the possibility of the coordination of subjective perceptions. It is presumed that communicants share common experiences: this seems to be the natural premise of communication.
How is this possible? How can I be certain, for example, that my interlocutor understands the words in the same way I do? How can we correlate our understanding? It seems obvious that the necessary condition of communication is an agreement between the communicants. But how can this agreement be reached? Where is the initial point of the coordination of individual experience of different persons?
The present book deals with this and related questions. Special attention is given to the role of deixis in the process of communication and to the mechanisms of linguistic comprehension.
The paper is focused on the study of reaction of italian literature critics on the publication of the Boris Pasternak's novel "Doctor Jivago". The analysys of the book ""Doctor Jivago", Pasternak, 1958, Italy" (published in Russian language in "Reka vremen", 2012, in Moscow) is given. The papers of italian writers, critics and historians of literature, who reacted immediately upon the publication of the novel (A. Moravia, I. Calvino, F.Fortini, C. Cassola, C. Salinari ecc.) are studied and analised.
In the article the patterns of the realization of emotional utterances in dialogic and monologic speech are described. The author pays special attention to the characteristic features of the speech of a speaker feeling psychic tension and to the compositional-pragmatic peculiarities of dialogic and monologic text.