The ICM for STUDENT…as if this was really still a hot topic in Cognitive Linguistics

Image via Wikipedia

ICMs structure mental spaces by providing asymmetrical matching or mismatching between concepts, center-periphery models to structure categories, and encapsulated categories to structure to the scope of predication.  Below is an assortment of these three strategies including sarcasm derived from mismatch, radiality stemming from extension from the base definition, and  metonymic effects in some of the images presented as social stereotypes.

STUDENT

• The TRADITIONAL MODEL: a prototypical student attends a school at a school building during set hours (usually 8am to 3pm) to learn from a licensed teacher or professor who evaluates their progress and testifies to the student’s acquisition of knowledge through a grading system.  This student progresses through a series of academic levels which increase in difficulty and specificity.

• The NON-TRADITIONAL MODEL: a student is someone who is unable to participate in the complete traditional school system because of restrictions or scheduling.  However, the role of student and the role of teacher remain similar to  that of the traditional model.  This model of student can be a commuter, a night school student, a distance learner, a trade-school student.

• The AUTODIDACTIC MODEL: a student is someone who approaches learning with a student mentality, outside of the traditional infrastructure of an institutionalized school. For instance, there are life-long learners, self-taught painters, Helen Keller, tinkerers, enthusiasts.  Also, practicing ethnographers may fall into this model as they learn about cultures through observations, interviews, and other self-directed techniques.

• The APPRENTICE MODEL: a student is an apprentice to a master in some discipline or trade which may or may not belong to an institutionalized guild system.  The apprentice learns from the wisdom of the master who has accumulated knowledge through years of experience.

• The PROTEGE MODEL: a student is an extension of the teacher, in some cases for the glory of the teacher more than the student.

• The CATHOLIC SCHOOLGIRL MODEL:  the ubiquitous Halloween costume almost as blase as HOOKER or NUN.

• The PERFORMANCE MODEL: a student can exhibit a range of behaviors that indicate quality of performance. For instance, there are class clowns, dunces, straight A students, B students, model students, lazy students, drop out students.

• The APPEARANCE MODEL: a student is anyone in the suburbs who reads thick books, looks young, or drives a car from the late 80s to mid 90s.