Esta dissertação tem por objetivo reconstruir os modelos cognitivo-culturais que estruturam a categoria conceitual RELIGIÃO, com base nos discursos dos/sobre os imigrantes das antigas colônias italianas na região Nordeste do estado do Rio Grande do Sul, relativamente ao modo como esses experienciavam a religiosidade. Isso se dá a partir de uma análise semântica dos enunciados presentes, por exemplo, em textos de natureza antropológica, historiográfica; relatos de memórias, cartas e diários. As fontes desses discursos são documental-bibliográficas e cobrem o período de 1875 à década de 1950. O corpus é constituído de 138 segmentos discursivos, organizados de acordo com cinco categorias diferentes de fontes. A investigação situa-se no campo da Semântica Cognitiva, orientada pela Teoria dos Modelos Cognitivos Idealizados (TMCI), proposta por Lakoff e seus colaboradores. Esse trabalho se justifica uma vez ainda não existirem estudos empíricos sobre a religião em uma cultura ou subcultura sob o viés da Semântica Cognitiva, garantindo seu caráter inédito. Essa teoria permite avaliar como uma categoria conceitual se estrutura e evolui em uma cultura. A análise empreendida dá-se dentro da esfera da Religião Católica, uma vez ser esta a religião predominante na cultura em questão. O método utilizado é o hipotético-dedutivo, a partir do qual se constrói a estrutura radial preliminar da categoria, com base numa análise inspecional do corpus inicial. Tem-se por hipóteses que: (1) a categoria tem uma estrutura proposicional radial, cujo submodelo prototípico é RITUAIS; (2) a categoria RELIGIÃO estrutura-se basicamente por radialidade, tendo como eixo-de-raio DEUS, com centro prototípico em PAI; (3) estruturas metafóricas e metonímicas organizam extensões ou projeções a partir desses raios; (4) tipos de estruturas proposicionais, como o modelo proposicional script, organizam elementos constitutivos da estrutura radial. O Sistema da Metáfora Moral é aplicado como um modelo organizador dessa estrutura. A análise do corpus selecionado confirma as hipóteses inicialmente levantadas. O submodelo RITUAIS é confirmado como o que prototipicamente representa a categoria. Outra hipótese confirmada é a da influência do modelo proposicional script, como parte integrante do modelo RITUAIS. A estrutura radial hipotética preliminar, ao final das análises, é ajustada aos achados da pesquisa. Esta investigação não visa levantar concepções de religião, mas investigar a estrutura semântico-conceitual de RELIGIÃO por meio da codificação explícita revelada em expressões lingüísticas ou em inferências a partir delas, por meio de modelos metafóricos, metonímicos e proposicionais. / This dissertation has the goal of reconstructing the cognitive cultural models that made up the conceptual category RELIGION, with a basis on the discourse of/about immigrants from the Old Italian colonies from the northern region of Rio Grande do Sul, in relation to how they experienced religiosity. This is done through a semantic analysis of the expressions used, for instance, in the texts of anthropologic and historiographic nature; reports of memories, letters, and diaries. The sources of this discourse are documented bibliographies that cover the period from 1875 to the decade of 1950. The corpus of this work is made up of 138 segments, organized accordingly into five categories with different sources. The investigation centers on the field of Cognitive Semantic, oriented by the Theory of Idealized Cognitive Models (TICM), proposed by Lakoff and his colleagues. This study justifies itself and guarantees its unprecedented nature since there has not yet been empirical studies done about religion in a culture or sub culture. The theory presented allows the evaluation of how a conceptual category structures itself and evolves in a culture. The analysis takes place inside the sphere of Catholic Religion, since this is the religion that predominates the culture in question. The method utilized is the hypothetic-deductive, from which the preliminary radial structure of the category is built, with a basis on the inspectional analysis of the initial corpus. The hypotheses is that: (1) the category has a structure that is propositional radial, in which the prototypical sub-models are RITUALS; (2) the category RELIGION has a radial structure having GOD as a radial axis and FATHER as the prototypical center; (3) metaphoric and metonymic structures organize extensions or projections from these rays; (4) the types of propositional structures, like the propositional model script, organize elements that make up the radial structure. The Moral Metaphor System is applied as a model that organizes this structure. The analyses of the selected corpus confirm the initial hypotheses suggested. The sub model RITUALS is confirmed as the one which prototypically represents the category. The other hypotheses confirmed concerns the influence of the propositional model script as the integral part of the RITUALS model. The preliminary hypothetic radial structure, at the end of the analyses, is adjusted to the findings of the research. This investigation does not aim to bring up conceptions of religion but rather to investigate the semantic-conceptual structure of RELIGION through the explicit codification reveled in linguistic expressions or in inferences from them, as well as through metaphoric, metonymic, and propositional models.

In Swedish dialects we find the terms ris, skäver and skärva referring to illnesses in children. The words are also parts of various compounds which refer to variants of the illnesses. The terms are linguistic expressions denoting two folk categories of illnesses, RIS and SKÄVER/SKÄRVA. These categories are investigated from a cognitive semantic perspective. The cognitive perspective argues that we organize our understanding of reality by using Idealized Cognitive Models (ICM) based on our physical, mental and emotional experiences of the world. The aim is twofold: to demonstrate the bases on which an experienced illness is placed in a certain category, and to show how a folk conception of illness is reflected in the word formation strategies. The word formation strategies emanate from notions of characteristic symptoms, and from notions of causes of illnesses. Both categories, RIS and SKÄVER/SKÄRVA, are based on a number of ICM's. The category RIS is a radial structure, which means that the category is held together although its members have no structural criteria in common. The category SKÄVER/SKÄRVA is a concentrating structure, meaning that all members share all structural criteria. There is a strong connection between word formation strategies and the structures of the categories. Terms related to symptoms refer to members of a category which are part of a radial structure, while terms related to causes refer to members of a category which are part of a concentrating structure. This can be explained by two of the basic assumptions of cognitive semantics: semantic content is structred and symbolized overtly on the surface form of a language and categories are conventional, based on cultural assumptions about the world. / digitalisering@umu

In this thesis, a new approach for generating reaction time predictions for Bayesian cognitive models of sequential decision-making is proposed. The method is based on a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm that, by utilizing prior distributions and likelihood functions of possible action sequences, generates predictions about the time needed to choose one of these sequences. The plausibility of the reaction time predictions produced by this algorithm was investigated for simple exemplary distributions as well as for prior distributions and likelihood functions of a Bayesian model of habit learning. Simulations showed that the reaction time distributions generated by the Markov chain Monte Carlo sampler exhibit key characteristics of reaction time distributions typically observed in decision-making tasks. The introduced method can be easily applied to various Bayesian models for decision-making tasks with any number of choice alternatives. It thus provides the means to derive reaction time predictions for models where this has not been possible before. / In dieser Arbeit wird ein neuer Ansatz zum Generieren von Reaktionszeitvorhersagen für bayesianische Modelle sequenzieller Entscheidungsprozesse vorgestellt. Der Ansatz basiert auf einem Markov-Chain-Monte-Carlo-Algorithmus, der anhand von gegebenen A-priori-Verteilungen und Likelihood-Funktionen von möglichen Handlungssequenzen Vorhersagen über die Dauer einer Entscheidung für eine dieser Handlungssequenzen erstellt. Die Plausibilität der mit diesem Algorithmus generierten Reaktionszeitvorhersagen wurde für einfache Beispielverteilungen sowie für A-priori-Verteilungen und Likelihood-Funktionen eines bayesianischen Modells zur Beschreibung von Gewohnheitslernen untersucht. Simulationen zeigten, dass die vom Markov-Chain-Monte-Carlo-Sampler erzeugten Reaktionszeitverteilungen charakteristische Eigenschaften von typischen Reaktionszeitverteilungen im Kontext sequenzieller Entscheidungsprozesse aufweisen. Das Verfahren lässt sich problemlos auf verschiedene bayesianische Modelle für Entscheidungsparadigmen mit beliebig vielen Handlungsalternativen anwenden und eröffnet damit die Möglichkeit, Reaktionszeitvorhersagen für Modelle abzuleiten, für die dies bislang nicht möglich war.

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