Michael Hall - Thu Jan 31 16:11:25 2008

Jan 31, 2008 at 1:11 PM
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Doing the GOE work in class was very interesting from the point of seeing how things are categorized by different people. It is really dependent on rather or not one has been acquainted with an object, term, concept, etc. When there is a list consisting of things that are known to someone then you can get a true rating of something that seems to prototypical. On the other hand if you have a category such as the "sports" one then where very few people that even knew what "skeet shooting" was and were not able to rank it as a sport at all. Maybe I'm missing the point and things that are prototypical are also supposed to be well-known, but it is all very relative to me. Any thoughts?

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I agree; it all seems very, very relative. A lot of prototypes may even be influenced by a person's likes and dislikes. For example, I would've wanted to say that my prototypical flower is an orchid, but I know that it wouldn't be for many other people.

The GOE ratings are very subjective. The capers and artichoke example we used received all 6 and 7s, even though they are scientifically classified as flowers. Maybe botanists would have given them higher GOE ratings. Who knows?

Certainly a matter of perspective and conditioning. Within the family of English speakers, one can find a wide array of 'prototypical' sports, which may or may not include those of somone in the next state, region, or country. For example, many Americans would be prone to tossing football right up on top of the prototypical sports pile, and so would an Englishman. However these two would probably be talking about two entirely different sports. As for myself in regard to the flowers category, my perspective is skewed in regarding capers and artichokes. As a cook, I think of those things as the buds of the plants, before they come to flower, but the names 'caper' and 'artichoke' properly refer to the entire plant, the buds, and the flowers equally.

Michael Hall - Thu Jan 31 16:11:25 2008

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