Attention: profiling in language
A very general cognitive ability that human beings have is attention, together with the ability to shift attention from one aspect of a scene to another. For instance, when watching a tennis match we can variously attend to the umpire, the flight of the ball back and forth, one or both of the players or parts of the crowd, zooming ‘in and out’ so to speak. Similarly, language provides ways of directing attention to certain aspects of the scene being linguistically encoded. This general ability, manifest in language, is called profiling (Langacker 1987, among others; see also Talmy’s (2000) related notion of attentional windowing).
One important way in which language exhibits profiling is in the range of grammatical constructions it has at its disposal, each of which serves to profile different aspects of a given scene. For instance, given a scene in which a boy kicks over a vase causing it to smash, different aspects of the scene can be linguistically profiled:
In order to discuss the differences between the examples in (27), we’ll be relying on some grammatical terminology that may be new to the reader.
The aspects of the scene profiled by each of these sentences are represented in Figure 2.2. Figure 2.2(a) corresponds to sentence (27a). This is an active sentence in which a relationship holds between the initiator of the action (the boy) and the object that undergoes the action (the vase). In other words, the boy is the AGENT and the vase is the PATIENT. In Figure 2.2(a) both AGENT and PATIENT are represented by circles. The arrow from the AGENT to the PATIENT represents the transfer of energy, reflecting the fact that the AGENT is acting upon the PATIENT. Moreover, both AGENT and PATIENT, as well as the energy transfer, are represented in bold. This captures the fact that the entire action chain is being profiled, which is the purpose of the active construction.
Now let’s compare sentence (27b). This is a passive sentence, and is represented by Figure 2.2(b). Here, the energy transfer and the PATIENT are being pro filed. However, while the AGENT is not mentioned in the sentence, and hence is not in profile, it must be understood as part of the background. After all, an action chain requires an AGENT to instigate the transfer of energy. To represent this fact, the AGENT is included in Figure 2.2(a), but is not featured in bold, reflecting the position that the AGENT is contextually understood but not in profile.
The third sentence, example (27c), profiles the change in the state of the vase: the fact that it smashes into bits. This is achieved via a subject-verb complement construction. A complement is an obligatory element that is required by another element in a sentence to complete its meaning. In (27c), the complement is the expression into bits, which completes the meaning of the expression smashes. This is captured by Figure 2.2(c). In figure 2.2(c) it is the internal change of state of the vase that is profiled. The arrow within the circle (the circle depicts the vase) shows that the vase is undergoing an internal change of state. The state the vase is ‘moving to’ is represented by the box with the letter ‘b’ inside it. This stands for the state IN BITS. In this diagram the entity, the change of state and the resulting state are all in bold, reflecting the fact that all these aspects of the action chain are being profiled by the corresponding sentence.
Finally, consider sentence (27d). The grammatical form of this sentence is the subject-copula-complement construction. The copula is the verb be, which is specialised for encoding a particular state. In this case the state is IN BITS, which is captured in Figure 2.2(d).
In sum, each of the constructions ACTIVE, PASSIVE, SUBJECT-VERB COMPLEMENT and SUBJECT-COPULA-COMPLEMENT is specialised for profiling a particular aspect of an action chain. In this way, linguistic structure reflects our ability to attend to distinct aspects of a scene. These examples demon strate how linguistic organisation reflects a more general cognitive ability: attention.
It is worth observing at this point that constructions of the kind we have just discussed are not restricted to encoding a canonical action chain (one involving the transfer of energy). For example, the active construction can often be applied in cases where an action is not involved. Consider stative verbs, like own. A stative verb encodes a relatively stable state that persists over time. This verb can appear in active or passive constructions, even though it describes a state rather than an action:
