Dwie koncepcje profilowania pojęć w lingwistyce
TWO LINGUISTIC CONCEPTIONS OF PROFILING

Summary/Abstract: The article offers a synthesis of the conceptions of profiling proposed by Ronald W. Langacker and Jerzy Bartminski. In the former, profiling is understood as one of the dimensions of imagery, as various construals of a given situation. Profiling is tantamount to attributing greater salience to certain semantic structures within the cognitive base. The base of a predication is its matrix, i.e. a set of active domains. The predication's profile, then, is equivalent to those elements of the base which receive greater salience. A full description of the semantic structure of a linguistic expression requires a full description of cognitive domains presupposed by that expression. All linguistic expressions, regardless of their complexity, can be semantically characterized in terms of profiling of base elements. Thus, profiling in this conception is the basis for underscoring and defining the semantic pole of grammatical categories (e.g. nouns profile things, verbs profile processes), grammatical morphemes, syntactic structures, single lexemes and multilexical expressions. Jerzy Bartminski, in turn, understands profiling as a process in which a variant of an idea of a given object is created. A given profile is derived from the base set of semantic features within the same meaning, the latter being viewed as a finite but open collection of features. A profile of a concept is a variant created by a certain dominant factor, the semantic determinant. The process of profiling includes a preliminary categorization of the object, a selection of aspects corresponding to that categorization and a qualitative characterization of the object within those aspects (facets). The key role of the subject is emphasized, profiling being determined by the subject's point of view, type of rationality, knowledge of the world, system of values, etc. The article ends with a comparison of the two conceptions.

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