What is Tango? (Or Tango Categories) - Part 2
A radial category structure.
----------------------------
How we human being categorize and conceptualize becomes rather complex as soon
as we take the question seriously –as we should.
Lakoff and Mark Johnson, the latter who is Lakoff’s co-author of several books,
tell us that there are four major principles that operate to organize the
internal structure of a given category – to wit, the propositional structure;
the image schematic structure; metonymy; and metaphorical mappings.
All these details are most important and interesting at some level, but let’s
forge ahead to look at what seems a simple literal concept --mother. That
should be easy, no?
Following Lakoff, traditional theory should be able to give us necessary and
sufficient conditions for this straightforward universal concept. After all
everybody has a mother. As it turns out just to say a woman who has given
birth to a child is a mother doesn’t cut it.
We all know mothers for whom this definition does not apply.
The category mother is structured radially (please note, radical is something
else) with respect to a number of subcategories.
According to empirical research the category mother is made up of a number of
models forming a cluster category. Again, let’s take a deep breath and charge
ahead. There is the birth model, the genetic model, the nurturance model, the
marital model, the genealogical model. These together make up the central
subcategory. In other words, it defines the prototypical mother who is a
female who gives the genetic material, gives birth to the baby, nurtures it, is
the wife of the father and is the closest female relative. It’s an idealization
that in the real world often does not come to pass.
Without spelling it out we can easily construct where one or the other model
applies but not the other. For instance, the birth mother may not also be the
nurturing mother, etc. Modern technology, such as artificial insemination,
etc. have complicated the picture even further.
One or more of these models motivates extensions, foster-, step-, unwed-,
surrogate-, working-, single mother, etc.
Lakoff suggests that there is a strong inclination to suggest that one of these
models, let’s say the birth model, is the most important one.
But, not even writers of dictionaries can agree which is the real mother.
We may assume that the different types of mothers have strong views on the
matter.
Then there are the metaphorical extensions -- mother of all battles, mother of
all evil, etc.
Is tango similarly structured, that is, structured radially with respect to a
number of subcategories? Lets look and see.
Part 3 to Follow
_______________________________________________
Tango-L mailing list
Tango-L@mit.edu
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
