Jennifer McBride
EN-721-Dr. Williamson
What drew me to this book was the title which he explains is a form of classification in Dyirbal, an Australian aboriginal language, where “the noun must be preceded by a variant of one of four words: bayi, balan, balam, [or] bala” (92). The category balan consists of women, scorpions, shields, “anything connected with water or fire” and so forth, thus the title of the book (93). The text itself is quite lengthy consisting of well over 500 pages. I attempt to summarize it here. I will try to give the general idea driving each chapter however, it is important to note that this summary is simply my understanding of Lakoff’s meanings. Also note that italicized words/phrases are taken directly from the text and can be used as guides to inquire further in the index.
Book I—The Mind Beyond the Machine
Part I—Categories and Cognitive Models
Chapter 1—The Importance of Categorization: Lakoff discusses the idea of prototype theory, which is an extension of the old idea “that categories are based on shared properties” and asserts, “there is nothing more basic than categorization to our thought, perception, action, and speech” (5).
Chapter 2—From Wittgenstein to Rosch: This chapter concentrates on numerous themes such as family resemblances and polysemy as categorization as well as scientists such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Lotfi Zadeh who focus on issues of categorization to determine a “cognitive model.”
Chapter 3—Prototype Effects in Language: Discusses in detail the fact that prototypes “have shown up in all areas of language—phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics” (61). Lakoff uses this information “to study the cognitive apparatus used in categorization” (67).
Chapter 4—Idealized Cognitive Models: Abbreviated as ICM, it is the way we arrange information and “category structures and prototype effects are by-products” of those arrangement decisions (68). Numerous examples of this concept are given in this chapter. Particularly effective is the example regarding the word “bachelor” given on page 70.
Chapter 5—Metonymic Models: Details the idea that humans take one aspect of something as use it to stand for the whole entity for example, “Wall Street is in a panic” (77). Lakoff includes paragraphs on our notion of mother and another on housewife to explain this model in depth. He also discusses stereotypes in this chapter.
Chapter 6—Radial Categories: The “subcategories” of metonymic models. Example: concepts such as birth mother and/or surrogate mother are under the larger umbrella of the notion of mother (91).
Chapter 7—Features, Stereotypes, and Defaults: A very short chapter that defines the preceding terms in relation to “prototype effects.”
Chapter 8—More About Cognitive Models: Looks in depth at cognitive models such as folk models, to explain the semantic aspect of issues like presupposition and biology.
Chapter 9—Defenders of the Classical View: Explains why some scientists want to leave prototype theory behind and return to the more narrow understanding of categorization. Includes scientists like Osherson and Smith, and Armstrong, Gleitman and Gleitman.
Chapter 10—Overview: of chapters 1-9.
Chapter 11—The Objectivist Paradigm: Argues against the possibility of objectivity in “doctrines concerning human thought and language” (158). Lakoff is of the opinion that objectivity is idealistic (157).
Chapter 12—What’s Wrong With Objectivist Metaphysics: uses “evolutionary biology” to question objectivist metaphysics.
Chapter 13—What’s Wrong With Objectivist Cognition: Discusses the impossibility of objectivity when dealing with “empirical studies of natural human categories” (196).
Chapter 14—The Formalist Enterprise: Explains why mathematical logic cannot effectively explain cognitive science especially not linguistics or language philosophy.
Chapter 15—Putnam’s Theorem: Discusses Putnam’s proof, which negates the possibility of objectivity in relation to semantics (229).
Chapter 16—A New Realism: Calls for a multi-perspective view and understanding of life and disputes the idea of “God’s eye view of reality” as a result of Putnam’s Theorem (260).
Chapter 17—Cognitive Semantics: Concentrates on foundations, cognitive model theory, and philosophical issues to explain the role of cognitive semantics in “experiential realism” (the idea of “New Realism” as explained in Chapter 16). Possibly a good chapter for reviewing previously discussed issues from Part I.
Chapter 18—Whorf and Realism: Attempts to explain Relativism to increase the reader’s understanding and to “defuse some of the emotionalism surrounding the issue” (304). Lakoff also explains Whorf’s contribution to the idea.
Chapter 19—The Mind-As-Machine Paradigm: Acknowledges the existence of said paradigm and disputes the validity of the idea.
Chapter 20—Mathematics as a Cognitive Activity: I had a bit of difficulty with this chapter. In the most basic sense, I understand Lakoff to be disputing the idea that “mathematics is…some unique transcendental rationality of the universe” (355). This particular chapter seemed convoluted and hard to follow.
Chapter 21—Overview: of Chapters 11-20.
There are three case studies discussed in this section that Lakoff claims are examples of practical applications of the previously discussed information. The first case study concentrates on anger because it “has a rich category structure” (377). The second case study looks at the word “over” because Lakoff wants to use the prototype theory to attempt to understand prepositions better. The third case study discusses “there-constructions” because they are “an extremely complex and well-studied area of English syntax.” Lakoff uses this problem “to present a thorough case for the necessity of cognitive models and prototype theory in grammar” (378).
Overall I would not recommend this book unless an in depth
study of categorization was at hand. It
is not an easily accessible book unless of course, the reader has a strong
background in cognitive science.