Cultural Conceptualisations

and Language

Theoretical framework and applications

Farzad Sharifian
Monash University
Chapter 1 - On cultural conceptualisations

1.1 Conceptualization
1.2 Cultural conceptualizations: A distributed model
1.3 Examples of cultural conceptualizations
1.3.1 Event schemas
1.3.2 Role schemas
1.3.3 Proposition schemas
1.3.4 Emotion schemas
1.4 Instantiation of cultural conceptualizations
1.5 Identifying cultural conceptualisations
On Cultural Conceptualization
• Conceptualization: fundamental cognitive processes such as
schematization and categorization
• Schematization: a process that involves the systematic selection of
certain aspects of a referent scene to present the whole, disregarding
the remaining aspects (Talmy, 1983: 225)
• Categorization: a process by which distinct entities are treated as
somehow equivalent (Rosch, 1978)
Cultural Conceptualizations
• Conceptualizations can be initiated in individuals’ cognition, but they may well
emerge as cultural cognitions.

• ‘Distributed representation’: cultural cognitions may be best described as

networks of distributed representations across the minds in cultural groups.

• Cultural conceptualizations are developed through interactions between the

members of a cultural group and enable them to think as if in one mind,
somehow more or less in a similar fashion.

• (Aboriginal Australians heavily rely on oral narrative for the maintenance of their
cultural conceptualizations.)
Examples of cultural conceptualisations:

• Event Schemas
• Role Schemas
• Image Schemas
• Proposition-schemas
• Emotion Schemas
Event Schemas
• Event schemas: our experience of certain events (Mandler, 1984; Schank & Abelson,
1977).

• Example: funerals and wedding ceremonies in different cultures

• The Western-Christian schema of Wedding usually includes subschemas of church

ceremony, reception etc.

• There are also cultural differences in schemas and categories that are associated with
every event.

(The items that might be considered as appropriate gifts for a wedding might differ across
cultures.)
Event Schemas
• The Aboriginal schema of Funeral: A significant obligation for
Aboriginal people and also necessitates a relatively high degree of
mobility on their part.

• Aboriginal people may travel long distances to attend the funerals of

what might be considered by Anglo Australians as their ‘distant
relatives’.
Role Schemas
• Role schemas: knowledge structure that people have of specific role
positions in cultural group (Augoustinos & Walker, 1995: 39).

• Among many Aboriginal Australians, the word for ‘mother’ evokes a

role category, which would extend well beyond the biological mother
and among certain Aboriginal people. It may even include some male
members of the extended family, such as uncle.
Proposition Schemas
• Proposition schemas: abstractions which act as models of thought
and behavior (Quinn, 1987).

• These proposition schemas may in fact provide a basis for different

patterns of reasoning across cultural groups.
• ANCESTOR SPIRITS MADE THE LAW FOR US AND TOLD US HOW TO LIVE.
• BREAKING ABORIGINAL LAW CAN BRING HARM TO EVERYONE.
Emotional Schemas
• Emotional schemas: emotions are complex configurations of goal-
driven imagery that govern feeling states and scenarios, including
discourse scenarios (Palmer, 1996).

• Aboriginal people associate the feeling of ‘shame’ with certain

situations. (‘Shame’ does not necessarily involve guilt but some form
of discomfort.)
Identifying Cultural Conceptualizations:
Family
• Family is the essence of Aboriginal existence.

• It is almost impossible to study an Aboriginal cultural group without

understanding the structure and function of the Aboriginal family since it is
the main pillar of the Aboriginal psyche and cultural group.

• Family in Aboriginal cultures moves beyond that of nuclear family and

captures one’s extended family including cousins, and cousins of cousins,
etc.

• ‘Father’, ‘mother’, ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’ may even include people whom an
Anglo Australian might categorize as ‘second cousins’.
Identifying Cultural Conceptualizations:
Family
• Many Aboriginal groups have a special ‘avoidance’ style of speaking.
This avoidance may be associated with the presence of a relative with
whom one can only use the formal style of speech, with no joking,
according to laws of the kinship system.

• A man and his mother-in-law, or a woman and her son-in-law may not
be allowed to look directly at one another, and have to use an
avoidance speech style when in the other’s presence.
Conclusion
• Cultural conceptualizations are viewed to be representations that are
distributed across the minds of members of a cultural group.

• These conceptualizations largely emerge from the interactions

between the members of the cultural group and are constantly
negotiated and renegotiated across generations.

• In addition, it is argued that various cultural artefacts such as

narratives may instantiate cultural conceptualizations.
Chapter 2 -
Distributed, Emergent Cultural Cognition, Conceptualization
and Language
• Emergent cultural cognition: cognition is an emergent system resulting
from the interactions between the members of a cultural group across time
and space. (a property of cultural groups, not just individuals)

• Cultural cognition is heterogeneous in the sense that it is heterogeneously

distributed across the minds in a cultural group.

• The notion of cognition encompasses complex systems that are dynamic

and ever evolving, rather than a fixed set of representations that extend to
a cultural group.
Emergent Cultural Cognition
• In terms of consciousness, members of a group may be conscious of
the influence that a particular ‘collective’ cognition as on their
thought patterns and behavior and in fact may try to opt out of it, or
some aspects of it.

• Cultural cognition is usually the basis for many aspects of our actions
and behavior in two senses:
• Our behavior: our linguistic performance, largely derives from our cultural
cognition
• Other interactants’ behavior draw on the same cultural cognition
Emergent Cultural Cognition and Language
• The way and the degree to which the conceptualizations have been
encoded in human languages differ from one language to another
(Palmer, 1996).

• For Aboriginal speakers, the word ‘home’ gives rise to

conceptualizations that would be associated with the company of the
extended family members whereas Anglo-Australian speakers largely
associate the word with a building that is being rented or owned by
themselves or a member of their nuclear family.
Emergent Cultural Cognition and Language
• Cultural conceptualizations may also be marked on morphosyntactic
features of some languages.

• Aboriginal cultural conceptualizations of kinship are encoded in certain

morphosyntactic features of Aboriginal languages.

• Murrinh-Patha:
• Second person pronouns: family members
• ‘nhi’: ‘you singular’
• ‘nanku’: ‘you two brothers and sisters’
• ‘nanku ngintha’: ‘you two who are not brothers or sisters and one both are female’
Emergent Cultural Cognition and Language
• Aboriginal English speakers do not appear to rely very much on
chronological sequencing of the events in their discourse production.
Rather, in Aboriginal English discourse, events may be ordered
according to their salience and significance in the cultural
conceptualizations that the speaker is drawing on.
Conclusion
• The importance of viewing cognition as a property of cultural groups and not just
individuals.

• Cognition is a heterogeneously distributed system with emergent properties that

arise from the interactions between the members of a cultural group.

• An integral aspect of this view of cultural cognition is group-level

conceptualization.

• Conceptualizations such as models, schemas and categories have an individual

basis as well as an emergent basis as the cultural level of cognition. These
cultural conceptualizations are often instantiated in various cultural artefacts and
activities.