Quiltiness & Fuzzy Edges

When I was in graduate school in Linguistics in the early 1980s I was fascinated by an innovative theory about language generally referred to the Prototype Theory of Categorization. I mentioned this theory obliquely in my last post on defining a Southern Quilt Style.
Prototype theory is an alternate to the traditional way of classifying things. Traditionally categorization is viewed as black or white, animal or vegetable, vegetable or fruit, bird or lizard. Prototype theory proposes that this model doesn't actually work and it's not the way humans think---- although they like to believe there are sharp categorical distinctions.


Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?

One category often used to illustrate the prototype theory is birds. Birds have feathers, two legs, wings and they fly.


A robin is an American prototype for a bird. A most typical bird in our mind's eye. It's in the center of the chart.


But what about a penguin? Can't fly. Is it a bird?

Or an ostrich. If the robin is the most typical bird and in the center of our definition of BIRD, then an ostrich or a penguin is way out on the edges of our definition of birds. The fuzzy edges.


Class assignments were to make circle charts like this, putting our prototypical birds in the center and birds that were more questionable in the outer rings. This is somebody's bird categorization---an analysis of "Birdiness".

I'd put the hummingbird and the toucan closer in. They fly.