STEREOTYPE AS A KEY TO THE LINGUISTIC WORLDVIEW OF THE CZECH DEAF: PART 1
Dear ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, friends.
Let me first try to master the microphone a bit.
Is it okay now?
I am very happy that all of today will be dedicated to
cognitive linguistics of sign languages and cognitive linguistics in general.
We have been preparing today's programme for quite a long time.
With my colleagues, we had a special seminar.
Its result was the theme of stereotypes,
which gathers what is important in cognitive linguistics.
But before starting to talk about a stereotype,
I'd like to say that the theoretical talk to be held by me
was divided into three parts,
separated by breaks.
And as your materials contain only the Stereotypes 1, 2 and 3,
we will outline what the individual parts will cover.
The first part will address the research context,
the cognitive linguistics, the term "linguistic worldview",
which needs to be taken into account when a stereotype is addressed.
It needs to be our point of departure.
Then we will address categorization
because it is something that a stereotype is closely linked with.
Afterwards we will move on to characterize a stereotype.
The second part, after the break, will address social stereotypes.
These are stereotypes representing something typical in their category.
And we will also address these in the talks
held by my colleagues Lucie Břinková, Marie Basovníková.
These are stereotypes related to persons:
Stereotypes of professions, of nationalities.
In my talk, this will be illustrated by the stereotype of a gypsy, a Romani
in the milieu of the Czech Republic, i.e. what the stereotype of a gypsy is.
We will see how to detect stereotypes,
by what sort of linguistic data,
how stereotypes are detected in spoken languages
where dictionaries are available
and where most of the things are "frozen".
Then we will address the issue of what kind of data
suitable for looking for stereotypes are available in sign languages.
This is what we discussed a lot in our seminar.
We will ask these questions to let you, too, reflect on them.
The third part will be perhaps most closely linked to
the stereotypes in sign languages, more precisely in the Czech SL.
We will see that they are constructed
on the basis of double mapping,
metaphorical or metonymical one
but with iconic background.
This will be illustrated by examples of significant personalities in CzSL.
Many of you have already explored stereotypes in your sign languages,
having been assigned tasks and instructions as to
what to prepare for our Summer School's workshops.
So the individual puzzle pieces might start to come together now
and you'll be realizing what it was that you were actually doing
when you were looking for the signs,
or e.g. for anecdotes about the hearing in your sign languages,
i.e. what can be the result: what kind of image, stereotype.
So then I will give the floor to my colleagues-students
who will follow up with their specific presentations.
Afterwards participants will disperse into individual workshops.
Let me begin the actual talk now.
When speaking about a stereotype,
we need to, as indicated, start with the term "linguistic worldview"
because a stereotype is a part and a kind of unit
of linguistic worldview.
Our heads, as may be seen in the picture,
contain a certain model of the world,
harboured there on the basis of language,
be it spoken or sign one.
The model of the world is projected back into the language
and, conversely, the language affects our minds.
The basic postulate of cognitive linguistics is
that language is fundamentally related, on one hand, to our thinking,
to our mind, human cognitivity in the narrower sense of the word,
and, on the other hand, to a certain community's culture.
Both is significantly reflected in language.
A well-known example may be given,
I believe a telling one in spite of how traditional it is:
The division of colour scales in various languages,
again no matter whether in spoken or sign ones.
If we have the standard equipment of sight,
if we are not e.g. colour-blind,
we all see the same colour scale,
as our sensorial, physiological equipment allows us.
From the physical and physiological view we only have one colour scale.
But we know that different languages
divide the scale to individual colours in a different manner.
We may ask ourselves,
when looking at the models' clothes,
what colour each of them wears.
If speakers of different languages are present,
they can provide differing answers.
In Czech or English, the basic colours are green and blue.
The prototype of green is the colour of plants.
The prototype of blue is the colour of the sky.
One workshop will also deal with the colours.
But when we ask a Russian
about one of the pictures, the last one or last but one,
where a Czech or an English speaker would identify the blue colour,
a Russian would answer that, in the former case,
the colour is called "goluboy",
and "siniy" in the latter case.
The prototype is, in the former case, the daytime sky.
In the latter case, it is the nighttime sky.
In Russian these are basic colours.
The most interesting language for our culture might be
a rather remote one
such as Vietnamese,
which is mentioned as the third example.
Vietnamese includes all the colour shades
in a single colour "xanh".
I wonder if there is a Vietnamese participant here to confirm this.
I have only read it in academic literature.
But it is supposed to be the case.
It is the colour of calm sea, sky, plants and rocks.
This is an example of linguistic relativity
and of how our conceptualization is influenced by culture,
i.e. to which culture we belong and which language is our mother tongue.
Another example of how the worldviews or models of the world are varied:
When I say "Jsem svobodný/ svobodná" in Czech,
it can mean two things
and would have to be translated in two different ways into English:
When desiring to express that "I am free, independent",
the translation is "I am free".
This is what refers to political freedom or independence.
Or one can say that a criminal is free again.
The free movement, freedom of thinking, of speech, etc., is implied.
In Czech, though, one says "Jsem svobodná"
even when desiring to express that "I am not married".
Or "Nejsem ženatý" for a man.
"I am single."
We can see that the range of meanings
of a term may differ in various languages.
The demarcation lines between meanings are varied.
The meaning develops in various directions.
Which is what is addressed by congnitive linguistics
and by cultural linguistics, the ethnolinguistics.
Let me now outline our theoretical and methodological points of departure.
It is, for one thing, the classical US cognitive linguistics,
which thematizes especially the terms "metaphor", "metonymy",
"categorization", "prototype", "corporeality".
We will cover these later.
The US cognitive linguistics is represented e.g. by George Lakoff,
Mark Johnson, Eleanor Rosch,
whom we will be referring to today. We will disregard the rest for now.
Let me mention the cognitive linguistics of sign languages here, too,
which has been developing considerably in the past decades.
It's a pity that Mrs and Mr Wilcox are not here with us.
Phyllis Wilcox and Sherman Wilcox are leading representatives
of the cognitive linguistics of sign languages.
Let me also mention e.g. Sarah Taub.
All these deal with iconicity of sign languages
and metaphor and metonymy,
which is closely linked with the iconicity in sign languages.
This is specific to sign languages compared to spoken ones.
The SL are distinguished by very strong iconicity.
As for the "double mapping", we will cover that later.
Our second source, which might be quoted most frequently today
and from which we borrowed the term "stereotype",
is Polish ethnolinguistics.
In the Polish town of Lublin there is a university
where Prof. Jerzy Bartmiński works,
together with the team of his colleagues and students,
who have been developing a school of linguistic research
which has recently been called "cognitive ethnolinguistics".
The part "ethno" is very important
as the cultural dimension of languages is taken into account.
The terms like "linguistic worldview" or "stereotype" are crucial in this school.
I'd also like to mention briefly the philosophical basis of our research.
I hope at least some of you will find it interesting.
The philosophical basis is phenomenology,
the European one.
In particular, in our Czech context,
I'd like to mention the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka.
If you know something about our culture, our mental world,
then you are likely to know the name, perhaps also from another context,
but I'd like to mention him in relation with his term "natural world".
Instead, you might have heard
Edmund Husserl's term "Lebenswelt",
which is similar in many respects.
Another one is "fourness", which anchors man in his existence
as what is most important of him,
i.e. body, community, language, world.
Corporeality, as may be seen in one of the pictures,
is very important, determinative, for our thinking.
Our body is also in our mind.
A cognitivistic book by Mark Johnson is called "The Body in the Mind".
Which is shown to be the case in all languages,
to be the basis under which one cannot dig any deeper,
under which nothing more basal than our corporeal experience may be found.
The other crucial aspect is culture, living in a certain community
and sharing the worldview with it.
And the worldview is rooted in language,
again, be it spoken or sign language.
The principles I mentioned may be outlined within this scheme.
All this is connected, interrelated.
The mind rises from the body, the corporeality,
and is interconnected with the culture, with what is called "ethnos".
One may speak about collective mind.
And, on the right side of the scheme, we may see
Patočka's "body-community-language-world".
Here we can see a definition...
I apologize if this is too difficult for the interpreters.
I will slow down a little.
OK, we can continue.
OK, the definition of the linguistic worldview.
Let me also read it in Czech. It is devised by Jerzy Bartmiński.
It is "interpretation of reality encoded in a given language,"
"which may be perceived as a sum of judgements about the world."
"The judgements may either be entrenched in the language,"
"its grammatical forms, lexicon and 'frozen' texts, e.g. proverbs,"
"or only implied by linguistic forms and texts."
Language may contain these judgements in a more or less explicit manner.
One may also say that this is conceptualization of the world
which is frozen in language.
Which implies that it is ascertainable on the basis of language,
of linguistic facts, of language and text.
The term "linguistic worldview" and the research
done by the Polish cognitive school
currently concern, of course, primarily, or better to say, only spoken languages.
But a certain worldview is, naturally, frozen in sign languages, too.
The question is: What worldview is it and how to ascertain it?
Based on what kind of data?
The data helping us to capture the stereotypes
in spoken languages have already been researched; they are set.
One could even say that a certain manual can be followed.
It is available and both me and my colleagues will demonstrate it.
The question is whether this theory and methodology
can also be applied to sign languages.
A lot has been written about the linguistic worldview.
I'd like to condense everything into this single slide.
The linguistic worldview is, in a nutshell, anthropocentric.
It is very important and, again, valid both for spoken and sign languages.
As indicated, humans are anchored in the space via their body
they know and feel where up and down, in front and behind, left and right is,
have certain motoric skills,
have sensory equipment as the world gives itself to us through senses.
as postulated by phenomenology.
All this is shown in language.
Lakoff and Johnson state:
If we were shaped as spheres,
or if we were altogether weightless,
what would "up", "down" mean?
We would not be able to handle our languages at all.
Our languages could not be what they are
because they are based on our corporeality.
Related to anthropocentrism is the "own-foreign" opposition.
What is my own, mine, what belongs into my group
tends to be viewed as positive,
as the basis, as normal, as good and proper.
And what is foreign tends to be viewed as bad.
We are now also arriving at the fact
that the linguistic worldview is full of assessment.
That it is axiological.
I forgot to mention this explicitly in the slide.
but the axiology, the assessment, is very important.
The linguistic worldview also employs strongly the stereotype,
which is based on the anthropocentrism,
on the "own-foreign" opposition,
on what is considered
normal in our group,
or what we idealize and what we would like to be the case,
what is ideal for us.
This is what is also projected in the stereotype.
OK, we can move on.
As stated, linguistic worldview has been explored on spoken languages so far.
The question is: Can this methodology be applied to sign languages?
Or, what methodology can be applied?
What is the linguistic worldview of the Deaf,
that of the Czech Deaf?
How is it different from the linguistic worldview of the hearing Czechs,
i.e. from the view rooted in Czech?
And how is the worldview of the Czech Deaf different
from that of the German Deaf?
That of the American Deaf?
That of the Polish Deaf? Etc.
What is common to all sign languages?
What is common to all languages, i.e. spoken as well as sign ones?
What is universal?
Those are the questions that may be posed by cognitive linguistics
and by cognitive linguistics of sign languages.
The specificity of how the Deaf experience the world
is given, to a great extent, by their different corporeal equipment.
The different bodying constitutes a distinct manner of being in the world.
It might be somewhat reduced compared to what the hearing experience
but might contain something extra, something different,
something interesting for us because difference is always enriching.
It is always interesting, allowing us to view what is ours
as completely different, interesting.
I.e. it is very interesting even for us, e.g. Czech Studies scholars,
or those dealing with linguistics of sign languages,
to look at the sign languages from this perspective
as something new, different will be revealed to us
about our languages and spoken language, too.
In this slide I also mentioned one of our dear guests, Prof. Trevor Johnston,
because the term "Umwelt" caught my attention in his paper.
It is connected to the Deaf culture
and might, to a certain extent, also correspond to the "natural world"
and certainly with what Patočka, within the "fourness", calls the "world"
because here the "world" signifies the context in which we view the things
and which is always very important.
Stereotypes may be considered in three kinds of context.
So far it has been debated and outlined in relation to the linguistic worldview.
Let us now outline the categorization context.
It is something which a stereotype is inherently connected with.
Then we will see
the stereotype in connection with meaning and semantic connotations.
But this will be addressed only in the following parts.
Let us now begin with the categorization.
When we look around, be it here or around a landscape,
when we imagine the sky, woods, trees in the landscape,
when we look at such a landscape, what do we see?
We probably do not see undifferentiated continuum
but as people equipped with a certain language
by means of which a certain notional system is created in us,
we perceive the reality in a segmented manner.
And we thus see a tree as a tree, a wood as a wood, a sky as a sky.
We, as humans, need to reduce
complexity of the world, to make it clearer.
This is because the world which we live in is very diverse, variable.
We need to make it simpler.
And this is what our categorization skill helps us to do.
I.e. we keep converting things to common denominators.
By thinking and speaking, we keep categorizing.
This is how we arrange chaos, which could otherwise drive us insane
if not for our ability to simplify it.
Based on their own experience and, in particular, based on a convention,
or culture, humans perceive certain common features of things.
They assort them into classes, i.e. categories.
Based on various categories, we classify things as "wood", "sun",
"bird", "fear" or a certain emotion, i.e. abstract nouns are included,
as well as activities, qualities, etc. Categorization concerns everything.
According to a basic model starting already with Aristotle,
categorization means sorting things
into "drawers" based on what they have in common.
There are drawers labelled "dog", "cat",
and when their specimen is in our view, we assort it somewhere.
This is the traditional conception.
But cognitive linguistics offers slightly more complex perspective.
We know well that it can sometimes be difficult
to tell whether the colour is blue or green.
Or whether a melon is a vegetable or a fruit.
Whether a certain piece of clothing is a blouse or a dress.
We do not know because it lacks unique features.
Cognitive linguistics does not view a category as a vessel
where something belongs or not
but rather as certain space with a centre and a periphery.
Located in the centre is a prototype, or stereotype,
i.e. the most typical example,
e.g. of a blue colour, of a dress or fruits.
In our culture, for example, the most typical fruit is an apple.
Located in the centre of the fruit category is an apple.
This is the representative with the most typical features.
Let us mention the US cognitive psychologist Eleanor Rosch here,
who has conducted a lot of research.
Perhaps the best-known one deals with the prototype of a bird.
She was asking respondents
which bird they consider the most typical one.
The research was conducted in the early 1970s.
The respondents were seeking the best example of a bird
and were then placing other bird representatives
at various distances from the prototype.
This is because it was discovered, also based on this research,
that adherence to a category is scaled.
That a certain bird is more of a bird than another bird.
We could also try to solve the problem received by the respondents.
I listed several birds and you should determine the prototype,
as well as which of them are actually no birds
and which are birds only to a certain extent.
What is the basis on which our mind proceeds?
These are all unconscious processes.
But research can then reveal
what the most typical bird has to be distinguished by to be so labelled.
A bird, not only the most typical one, is distinguished by wings, feathers,
a beak, incontestably, lays eggs...
But a bird can also fly.
In our view, a typical bird can fly.
We may then have doubt if the non-fliers such as a penguin or ostrich are birds.
In our view, a typical bird also tends to be a small songbird.
Based on her research, even Eleanor Rosch concluded
that this is what a typical bird is for US respondents.
In Czech and Polish, the typical bird is a sparrow.
Let us see it now.
It is a similar bird.
The translation of the word "robin" poses certain problems.
Sometimes it is translated as "thrush",
sometimes as "redbreast".
Here we can show that what is important is not only
what kind of categorization mechanisms there are in our minds
but also in what culture and environment we live in.
This is e.g. because this small bird
is not as widespread here in Central Europe as in the USA.
We may now contemplate what is a prototypical bird
in various sign languages.
Perhaps such debates will be led in corridors.
As mentioned, this is the typical Czech bird, a sparrow.
It is often portrayed in flocks
because it can rarely be found alone; there is always a lot of them.
And it has certain typical features.
I do not think I should elaborate on this now.
But let us take a look at another interesting thing.
Categorization can be variously played around with.
And, indeed, we do so, e.g. when teaching children or in artistic texts.
And this is a play with categorization in children's literature.
I found a fairy tale featuring a bird
which does not know where it belongs.
It has features of three birds:
A peacock, a crow, a sparrow. It resembles each of them a bit.
However, it is neither a peacock, nor a crow, nor a sparrow.
We can see that we are approaching the stereotype now.
Imagine a stereotypical peacock: it has a distinctive tail.
This is how we recognize and characterize it.
A stereotypical rook or crow is black.
And it may have other features
which are based on typical scenarios in which we fit it.
But that is another story.
This is another issue that we have to address here,
at least for the sake of our internal communication:
Eleanor Rosch and US cognitive linguists prefer the term "prototype"
whereas Bartmiński uses the term "stereotype".
Linguists interpret these variously.
Sometimes both terms are considered identical.
They are basically the same thing but the prototype accentuates
the cognitive-psychological dimension.
I.e. how the image of an object is being created in our mind.
The stereotype, on the other hand,
takes account of and perhaps highlights the sociocultural domain.
I.e. how a typical representative functions in a certain community.
This is why the titles of
this lecture and the following workshops
include the term "stereotype".
This is because we are interested in the social, shared dimension.
Also, the most typical stereotypes are the social ones,
i.e. those associated with humans.
This is because the term "stereotype" originated in sociology.
Its first professional use dates back to 1922
when German-born US sociologist Walter Lippmann's book was published.
Lippmann dealt with stereotypes from the sociological perspective.
He, too, however, was pointing out that stereotypes are rooted in language,
rooted linguistically.
The social and cultural aspect of the stereotype is thus emphasized.
It usually features a strong assessing aspect
sometimes also a self-defining one.
These are already the social stereotypes.
As far the stereotype in linguistic research is concerned,
it can be encountered only much later than in 1922.
A significant attempt to incorporate research on stereotypes into linguistics
was made by an American scholar Putnam,
followed by an even greater effort, with emphasis on the cultural aspect,
by the said Jerzy Bartmiński.
We are drawing to an end of this part now.
I believe that we are more or less on time.
We have moved on to the definition of stereotype.
Let me borrow it again from Jerzy Bartmiński.
In his words, a stereotype is "representation of an object,"
"formed in a certain shared empirical framework"
"and defining what the object is, what it looks like,"
what impression it makes, how one treats it."
"This definition is entrenched in language"
"and forms part of shared awareness of the world."
Again, as stated, the stereotype forms part of the linguistic worldview.
We are really drawing to a close now.
Let me emphasize the following:
A stereotype is a certain type of a term.
Another type of a term is the scientific, theoretical term.
E.g. a technical term.
The technical term does not feature assessment.
It contains no cultural aspects, is shared internationally.
One could call it a term "free of smell and taste".
Let us demonstrate it on the stereotype of the Sun.
When "Sun" corresponds to the technical term,
e.g. an astrophysical one,
relating to the gaseous sphere of certain composition and functioning,
with certain impact on the outer space,
it is shared internationally; all physicists understand one another.
They communicate in technical terms in order to understand one another.
The sun within the linguistic worldview on the "naive" level,
in the natural world, is a different sun.
It is a sun which, as used in Czech and other spoken languages, rises and sets.
I.e. we seem to adhere naively to the geocentric worldview.
This is because the term "sun" originated very long time ago
and the naive view of the world was the primary one back then.
It is also primary for children.
Briefly, it is the perspective of the natural world.
Very frequently, the sun occurs in diminutives. We call it "sluníčko".
We often personify it, hence the drawings of the face.
This concludes the first part of our presentation.
I will be looking forward to the second part,
where the social stereotypes will be addressed.
Thank you for your attention and see you again after the break.