In this contribution we elaborate the notion of a cognitive grammar as a systematic collection of cultural and spatial relations. Cognitive grammars can enrich and link different data layers describing cultural landscapes, practices, or spatial and temporal arrangements. A grammar rule consists of a) natural or cultural contextual features, b) cultural entities, c) the placement of entities in context, d) a natural language description of the rule, e) etic and emic motivations for the rule and f) a significance test.
Fig. 1 shows a rule that describes the orientation of walled gardens on the Penghu archipelago. This rule can link and enrich two layers: i) a geographic map of Penghu and ii) a data set of gardens with their geo-references and orientations. Mapping areas according to rule adherence, a cultural grid is created that reflects the wind-resistance of gardening practices. The mapping of layers can be summarized as: Cultural and natural notions→ rule ←→ terms,tests→ data sets,values → geo-references→ geographical map.
Linked layers can be mapped in different ways. If a rule, as in Fig.2, resembles itself a map, one can re-project the geographic map to fit it into the schematic map of the rule. Accordingly, the landscape would be seen, not in geographical, but in cultural terms.
Fig. 3 shows that data layers can relate individual media files to a rule and thus receive a cultural interpretation of the media file. This can be useful in multimedia applications for educational purposes.
Finally, rules can be manipulated in psychological experiments or interviews when investigating the notions used and relevant for a community.
Cognitive grammar rules thus are a versatile representational format which through the vertical co-occurrences of terms and indices can link maps, data sets and media files to analyze, interpret or visualize aspects of data in the humanities. At the same time, cognitive rules comprises a low level representational format which allows researchers to interact with community members without interference through top-down theoretical notions.
Figure 1: Walled gardens (caizhai) turn away from the wind
Figure 2: Caizhai, settlement and mountains
Figure 3: Mapping geo-referenced media files through elevation data and geo-references to cultural interpretations
All rules, graphs and images from Streiter, Zhan and Goudin (to appear).
