Firstly,we look at how language influences characterization.For example,early work in color categorization is primarily concerned with establishing a correlation between a linguistic variable distinguishing colors (for example, how easy different colors are to name or how easy they are to communicate about) and a nonlinguistic cognitive variable over colors: memorability. Discovery of such a correlation was interpreted as support for the view that linguistic categorization can influence nonlinguistic perception/cognition.
I propose it is possible to construct an argument about how this idea supports the prototype theory:Having a word for something sharpens the boundaries of the category into which that thing falls.Let us elaborate this with an example:Consider the family of birds,when I decide to call members of that family a BIRD,what I am doing is I am reducing the entire family to a SINGLE four lettered entity called a BIRD.all birds except one,disappear to point to the word.This SINGLE entity should obviously invoke a single prototypical picture in our mind.Once a noun is had,the next step in language is to attach adjectives:say,BIG bird,SMALL bird,surely when we see sparrows and hummingbirds,we imagine them closer in categorical distances.Language,with its grammatical structure,its approach towards tenses and genders,plays a strong role in how we categorize a hitherto unseen object.But I also don't think it is a purely one way street.As language influences categorization and categorizations evolve and change,language(by which,I mean the nature of language in practice) should also evolve,else it will loose its relevance.The reason is language itself is a tool that does not work on the world but representations of it in our mind,and as categories of these representations change,language should also change.
An example of people going beyond similarity to produce their categorization judgements.An experiment was done in which an object needed to be categorized on the basis of the value of one dimension only.For example,one object was "an object three inches in diameter ",and pizza and quarter being the two associated categories.Although,the object was,if anything,closer to a quarter.Subjects judged it more likely to be a pizza than a quarter presumably because there is a constraint on the size of the quarter rather than a pizza.This kind of result comes because one object has a higher degree of variability than the other.These show that subjects consider variability as well as similarity while making a categorization.I think the existence of sub-categories within a category is also a pointer to the involvement of variability in the formation of categories.In the category of birds ,for example,we have birds of prey,water-birds,small birds,etc.The very formation of a category by looking at similarity often fundamentally means how that similarity is different from a more common similarity or a more fundamental similarity.I am not very clear but what I mean,that when we say,for example that "aeroplanes are vehicles that fly" we are inherently actually noticing the difference between the quality of flying of an aeroplane and the quality of rolling on road of a more common land vehicle.Sometimes ,I feel this is a very Hegelian dialectic -"that we form categorizations by noting similarities."
Categorization also emerges from the discreet nature of things around us,the ability of things to have their own unique qualities,a book for example has the quality of bookness,a chair has the quality of chairness.The tendency to categorize is innate even on an evolutionary level.Man's first reaction on seeing something unfamiliar,is to search for a feature that he is familiar with and for that moment categorize it within a known category.It is for this reason that we have such an exhaustive usage of similies in poetry,we have learnt to notice that sometimes we categorize things in a rather noteworthy manner,even if it is practically meaningless.I also believe very strongly that categorization is very closely linked to the way the world is arranged around us,and how much categorization actually helps in our survival.
I propose it is possible to construct an argument about how this idea supports the prototype theory:Having a word for something sharpens the boundaries of the category into which that thing falls.Let us elaborate this with an example:Consider the family of birds,when I decide to call members of that family a BIRD,what I am doing is I am reducing the entire family to a SINGLE four lettered entity called a BIRD.all birds except one,disappear to point to the word.This SINGLE entity should obviously invoke a single prototypical picture in our mind.Once a noun is had,the next step in language is to attach adjectives:say,BIG bird,SMALL bird,surely when we see sparrows and hummingbirds,we imagine them closer in categorical distances.Language,with its grammatical structure,its approach towards tenses and genders,plays a strong role in how we categorize a hitherto unseen object.But I also don't think it is a purely one way street.As language influences categorization and categorizations evolve and change,language(by which,I mean the nature of language in practice) should also evolve,else it will loose its relevance.The reason is language itself is a tool that does not work on the world but representations of it in our mind,and as categories of these representations change,language should also change.
An example of people going beyond similarity to produce their categorization judgements.An experiment was done in which an object needed to be categorized on the basis of the value of one dimension only.For example,one object was "an object three inches in diameter ",and pizza and quarter being the two associated categories.Although,the object was,if anything,closer to a quarter.Subjects judged it more likely to be a pizza than a quarter presumably because there is a constraint on the size of the quarter rather than a pizza.This kind of result comes because one object has a higher degree of variability than the other.These show that subjects consider variability as well as similarity while making a categorization.I think the existence of sub-categories within a category is also a pointer to the involvement of variability in the formation of categories.In the category of birds ,for example,we have birds of prey,water-birds,small birds,etc.The very formation of a category by looking at similarity often fundamentally means how that similarity is different from a more common similarity or a more fundamental similarity.I am not very clear but what I mean,that when we say,for example that "aeroplanes are vehicles that fly" we are inherently actually noticing the difference between the quality of flying of an aeroplane and the quality of rolling on road of a more common land vehicle.Sometimes ,I feel this is a very Hegelian dialectic -"that we form categorizations by noting similarities."
Categorization also emerges from the discreet nature of things around us,the ability of things to have their own unique qualities,a book for example has the quality of bookness,a chair has the quality of chairness.The tendency to categorize is innate even on an evolutionary level.Man's first reaction on seeing something unfamiliar,is to search for a feature that he is familiar with and for that moment categorize it within a known category.It is for this reason that we have such an exhaustive usage of similies in poetry,we have learnt to notice that sometimes we categorize things in a rather noteworthy manner,even if it is practically meaningless.I also believe very strongly that categorization is very closely linked to the way the world is arranged around us,and how much categorization actually helps in our survival.
References:
http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/Editorial/Feature/Why-categorize-9580.aspxhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorization
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