An application of MacLaury's Vantage Theory to abstract categories: identity and the process of categorisation

This paper is an application of Robert E. MacLaury's Vantage Theory (VT) to the analysis of real life spoken discourse. It utilizes Dennis R. Preston's (1994) modification of MacLaury's VT. It elucidates how cognitive processes of coordinate selection and combination contribute to the on-line construction of category membership in the abstract category of national identity. The analysis of data shows that in abstract categories coordinates can receive various strengths depending on the environmental pressures on the speaker. Also, unlike in the case of the physiologically-based category of colour, in the abstract category of identity the coordinates are hierarchically structured.