본문 바로가기

대학과제/영어영문

About word's prototype (from the 'study of language' 6th edition)

Determining the prototype word.

 

To start

     When you are given a certain category, you will notice that there is a certain word coming up in your mind which represent other members of its category. Like ‘Robin’ in the category ‘bird’. The word takes its center of the category and through the word, you can easily understand and categorize other members of the category. That mental representation of a category calls ‘prototype’, and ‘prototype theory’ is about a process of thought determining a prototype word.

     From the given words related to ‘tableware’ in project, the book asks how to determine prototype word, and also suggests an example of the way to do. The words are related each other by super ordinates and hyponyms, unlikely with given examples of birds illustrated in p132 which are all co-hyponyms. Our team first made a hierarchy form of the words. Then we ran two different surveys to proof our hypothesis from the observation of the hierarchy form of diagram, and to figure out what is the prototype word of ‘tableware’.

To collect results easily, surveys were operated by Korean.

 

Hierarchy form of the words presented in project

 

 

     This picture above is a diagram that our team first formed to answer second question of project. ‘Is a hierarchical diagram illustrating hyponymous relations useful?’ Through an intuitive observation, it seemed dish, fork, or spoon …etc. some words located in the middle of the diagram would have possibility to be a prototype of each hyponym category of tableware, not platter, or flatware. We made three surveys of selecting prototype of each categories including their just own hyponyms of flatware, cutlery, and cup, asking 20 of university students. Suggested a word and give a scale from 5(=”excellent example of tableware”) to 1(=“not really an example of tableware”). According to our hypothesis, I expected dish, fork, and mug to be a prototype of each hyponym of tableware. The result of the survey of cutlery was satisfying as ‘spoon’ having a highest score, and the result of flatware was not bad either. Because there was no right translation for word ‘dish’, which can means both plate and bowl, while Korean word ‘그릇’ and ‘접시’ have only meaning of ‘plate’ and ‘bowl’. So, we don’t know if ‘dish’ had a most vote in the English survey if we added, but still, the word most voted in the flatware’s category, plate, can be considered as a middle-located word in the diagram. Besides, there was almost no gap between ‘그릇’ and ‘접시’ ‘s vote, which are both generally translated words for ‘dish’.

     The most unsatisfying result was the cup category. Our team discussed why our hypothesis gone wrong and realized our mistake. 

 

     In the cup category’s survey, ‘cup’ scored the highest. It was because of the error of categorization.

The diagram can be modified like this. They were co-hyponyms from the start and ‘cup’ was the most excellent example of tableware between them.

 

     If we put ‘drinkware’ as a super ordinate word of cup, glassware, and tumbler, it can explain the reason cup being most voted and that is very helpful to prove our hypothesis. When the words form several hierarchical stages, the middle-located words have tendency to considered as a prototype word. To be detailed, middle-located words really means that possessing specific characteristic and representing that certain characteristic. Spoon for example, it can be explained by a tool for scoop. And the act ‘scoop’ can be varied as ‘scoop the soup’ or ‘scoop the tea powder’. And spoon is tool that representing all scooping activity. While cutlery can be varied by several activities, thus we can’t determine the certain image easily in our mind.

     So, illustrating words as hyponymous relations was useful. From the result, you can specify some range in the process of determining the prototype word by excluding very hyponyms and very super ordinate words.

 

Most good example of ‘tableware’ and conclusion

 

     To select the prototype of tableware, we had an exact same survey as we did above, but this time, containing words of every categories of tableware. Plate was the most rated, then bowl, spoon, cup followed. Fork and knife were rated very low. Again, plate and bowl had very tiny gap of the result. From the result, it can be told that plate is the closest word to the prototype of tableware, to Korean university students. And yes, the highest score indicate the prototype, for the answer to the final question of project, since the survey we did was having a same process with goodness-of-example test (Rosch 1975), determined ‘Robin’ as a prototype of bird category.

as an aside, if you search google with word ‘식기’ or ‘식기세트’ the first appear is the images of various kinds of plates. It is quite sure that plate (and bowl) is dominant as a tableware in our mind.

 

 

     However, the words suggested in project didn’t have the common attributes that all members of the category share, like the bird category in p132. Thus, plate having the highest score can’t be explained as resemblance. Instead, they are related in family resemblance like a diagram in the picture. Attributes are shared between some words but not to other words. They are connected organically.

     The reason plate had the highest score is because it is the most familiar tool to us, and familiarity is that followed by its quantity. Plate is not only used to contain main dishes but also, side dishes. Therefore, plates usually have superior with its number than spoon or others. And the result that cup and spoon followed was because of their relations with plate. While cup and spoon barely shares their attributes.

So, in my opinion, prototype is determined totally by its familiarity, and the familiarity is that severely affected by the word’s quantity from our daily life. The words which most related with attributes that prototype word has, have representation of the category one after another. But still, not the very super-ordinate words or very hyponym words according to a hypothesis we established before. Like platter has much similarity with plate, but not considered as a prototype of tableware at all.

     To clarify this, there are some examples of furniture and vehicle.   

As a prototype of a category ‘furniture’, chair could be a best example. Chair is a furniture that can be easily found in our house, and usually we have plural of them. Each of family members having a chair for the set with desks, and another pair for the table chairs. And we don’t come up with three – legged chair, or school chair when we think about the word ‘chair’.

     Also, ‘car’ is the best prototype of the category ‘vehicle’, and cars we can easily see in the roads very often. And during the process, we don’t occur to specific kind of cars.

 

Limits of determining prototype word

 

     The result could be differed if the surveys were operated to English speaker, by English. For example, ‘식탁용 식기류’ as a translated word for ‘tableware’ is containing meaning of Chinese character, , means, ‘eat’. So, from the survey, cup would be get better score if that conception was excluded

     Besides, flatware, the word our team set as a meaning of ‘dishware’, is now broadly used as a synonym of ‘cutlery’ since 19c. While as a Korean, who is learning English, naturally think it as a meaning of ‘dishware’.

     Also, cultural difference can affect the result. Since Korean uses spoon as a main tool for scooping rice, the spoon ranked 3rd at the survey, compare to knife and fork were ranked very low. This result could be differed if the samples were in the culture where people dines their food in a western style, using knife and fork more often. This kind of difference was also presented in our group. I was wondered seeing a result that ‘plate’ having a highest score because our house possessed bowls more. But out team members said that their house usually uses plates and even rice in it. I had some kind of shock in this conversation.

     And like a case of ‘flatware’. word’s meaning changes as time goes by. Another example is a word ‘game’ which now a days considered as something digital but were accepted as board game, or sports in the early.

The prototype words, which can be differ from context, culture, and the era, can be extremely said that the prototype word has its importance for the sample of the survey only. Prototype word is not a representation of the category but broadly shared recognition by the specific groups of members in contemporary. Maybe even bird’s prototype, ‘robin’ had been changed these days. Who knows.