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METAPHOR, METONYMY, AND COGNITIVE MODELS, Metaphoric Models, Cognitive…
METAPHOR, METONYMY, AND COGNITIVE MODELS
The theory of cognitive models assumes a historical development from basic sets of perceptual schemas that have a basis in human morphology. Further developments and modifications of these schemas, however, are culturally relative.
Cognitive models and schemas, like other forms of cultural software, survive and reproduce with different degrees of success in different ecologies. Hence we should expect different cultures to produce different cognitive models and thus to employ different metaphors and metonymies.
The idea that cognitive structures emerge from bodily experience has a long history. The approach has interesting similarities to Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of habitus. A habitus is a set of generative principles of understanding shared by members of a given culture.
Metaphorical models can be combined with other metaphorical models, producing increasingly complex structures of metaphorical entailment.
A metaphorical model not only describes but also structures understanding. It not only compares but produces cognitive coherence. This is its signal value as a heuristic. A metaphorical mapping imports and applies a ready-made structure that is already understood.
Metaphoric understanding operates according to the formula X is Y. The is is not the is of identity. It connotes the modeling of one thing in terms of another, or, more generally, the mapping of one domain of experience onto another.
Thus we can see two different ways in which metaphoric models produce ideological effects. First, metaphoric models selectively describe a situation, and in so doing help to suppress alternative conceptions.Second, and perhaps more important, metaphorical description positively produces social reality as much as it suppresses aspects of it.
The potential for ideological effects from this metaphorical model flows directly from the ways in which the model is partial and selective. Comparing rational argument to war captures certain features of rational argument: that individuals strive to better each other in rational argument, that argument is a test of a certain type of strength, and that the participants regard each other as opponents or adversaries.
Metaphors produce ideological effects because they are selective accounts of experience. Understanding X in terms of Y emphasizes only some features and discounts others. It organizes our imagination about X in one way rather than another.
But like metaphorical models, metonymic models can produce ideological effects because the features of B can be confused with those of A. We may confuse effects with causes, symbols with the things they stand for, partsof a social system with the social system itself, individual actors with the institutions they represent, and so on.
In classical rhetoric, a metonymy substitutes one thing for another that it bears some relationship to.
According to this theory, members of each category share common properties that are necessary and sufficient for membership in the category. These defining properties apply equally well to all members.
The classical model of categories can be a theory of human mental operations or a theory of the underlying logical structure of the world. As a theory of human mental operations, it has come under increasing attack.
Prototype effects occur when one member of the category, the prototype, displays asymmetrical or hierarchial relationships with other members of the category. The prototype may thus be seen as more representative of the category than other members. Subsequent experiments showed that prototypes displayed other interesting features.
People may assume that all members of a category have the same characteristics as prototypes or prototypical examples.
Stereotypes can be positive or negative, and they can be derived from other forms of cultural software. Social stereotypes are often interrelated: the stereotypical man may be viewed as rational and stable, while the stereotypical women is viewed as intuitive and emotional. These symmetrical stereotypes, in turn, can lead to equally symmetrical overgeneralizations and inappropriate inferences.
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