CONCEPT EVALUATION: THE PROBLEMS OF MODELING

CONCEPT EVALUATION: THE PROBLEMS OF MODELING

Author:  Irina A. Solodilova

Affiliation:  Orenburg State University

Abstract:  This paper presents the results of the research carried out by the author and focuses on the concept EVALUATION based on the German fiction. We consider the concept under study in the aspect of evaluation meaning formation as a result of real life objects’ evaluative categorization. The author implies to handle the problem in two ways, through identification of language mechanisms providing for evaluative lexis functioning as well as through examination of specificity of thinking and creation of evaluation categories as conceptual structures in the human mind. We study evaluation in the framework of N.N. Boldyrev’s theory of evaluational conceptualization and categorization as a modus category being a result of interpretation or secondary cognition of objects’ ontological properties. The author considers it rational to distinguish between separate evaluation concepts and the corresponding categories, and evaluation as a superconcept and accordingly mental-linguistic category uniting separate concepts and their language correlates on the basis of their common function, i.e. evaluation. The article stipulates basic characteristic features of the superconcept EVALUATION as the most significant ones from the point of interpretation of the major cognition results as well as three ways of evaluation representation on the mental level: evaluation as a quality concept, image concept and situation concept.

We regard evaluative meaning in the aspect of knowledge as a cognitive integrative structure, as multifold knowledge connected with various conceptual spheres being the sources of its content and maintaining its peculiarities. Thus to identify the whole spectrum of evaluation meanings the author offers a cognitive matrix analysis of an evaluative statement based on the matrix as a system of interrelated cognitive spheres or contexts. The theory is exemplified with a number of extracts by German fiction writers. The analysis focuses on the so called contextual evaluation treated by the author on the ground of frame semantics theory.

Keywords:  concept, evaluating categorization, cognitive-matrix analysis, evaluating meaning

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Pages:  25-32