1

The Conceptualization of Fruit/Vegetable Distinction in Farsi and

American English: A Contrastive Pragmatic Approach

Golnaz Jamalifar

Khorasgan Azad University of Esfahan

Abstract

The insight of this research study comes from the confusion of fruits and vegetables

distinctions. Using the prototype theory, this study aimed at finding the prototypes for fruits

in Iranian and American societies. This research paper also worked on class a social factor

and geographical location, their probable effect on such categorizations. It also investigated

the class categorization of watermelon and cucumber in both societies. And, finally reasons

for conceptualizing three kinds of fruit in both societies were also investigated. To

accomplish the objectives of the research a questionnaire was designed in Farsi and English

for Farsi Native Speakers and English Native speakers. From each target population a

convenient sample of 28 were selected. The results revealed that prototyping is different for

Iranian and American English speakers. It also showed that factors like social class and

geographical location have effect on such categorizations. It also showed that watermelon

and cucumber categorizations in both speech communities were the same. Both groups

agreed upon the fact that travel, the country you come from, export and import are all

variables that can help you to conceptualize quince, date and lychee.

Keywords: Prototype theory, Conceptualization, Fruit and vegetable distinction, Contrastive

pragmatic approach

2

Introduction

The insight of doing this paper comes from a general theory of natural categories, developed

in 1970’s by Eleanor Rosch and her colleagues (Rosch et al, 1976) and referred to here as

prototype theory. It was applied to linguistic categories by George Lakeoff (1982) under the

name of Cognitive Linguistics and it is consistent with the conclusions of a number of other

20th century linguists who have named semantic rather than purely formal aspects of

language. It was suggested that prototype theory offers a principled approach to the

exemplification of form-meaning relationships within language and to the development of

language teaching exercises which focus upon the specific aspects of language system.

According to Rosch (Rosch et al., 1976, p.383) who offered a theory of the ways in which

human beings and other species deal cognitively with their perceptions of the world out there,

she mentioned that:

“the world consists of a virtually infinite number of discriminably different stimulai. One of

the most basic functions of all organisms is the cutting up of the environment into the

classifications by which non-identical stimuli can be treated as equivalent.”

who believe that this process is principled and depends on real-world attributes of what is

perceived, and also upon the characteristics of the perceptual apparatus itself, this means that

we can only categorizes on the basis of what we can perceive and all things being equal, that

which is more easily perceived will be of greater significance to the categorization process.

Also with Rosch and Marvis claims (1975) it was shown that “ the more an item is judjed to

be prototypical of a category ,the more attributes it has in common with members of

contrasting categories.”

3

Also somewhere else Rosch et al.( 1976) have pointed out that “ it is to the organism ‘s

advantage not to differentiate one stimulai from others when that differentiation is irrelevant

for the purpose in hand.”

Accordingly there are two basic cognitive principles operating, one is to reach the maximum

differentiation with the prototypical instance of a category that it distinguishes it most clearly

from all other categories. Another thing is that we must avoid cognitive overload, which can

result in the lack of flexibility in grouping those things which share important characteristics.

The essence of the theory of language is that it is a meaning-driven system. Linguistic rules

exist, to use Sapir’s expression, in order to keep meanings apart. Linguistic forms are discrete

entities, but the meanings that these forms express are not discrete in any sense. Their values

are determined by the nature of the relationships obtaining with other elements within the

system. These relationships are not constant, but maybe strongly expressed through

opposition of prototypical meaning values, or these values may be weakened in non arbitrary

ways depending upon the context.

The prototypical values discussed and illustrated in this paper are clearly not the basic units

of meaning. These have been referred to here is rather informally as 'semantic features' or

'cognitive elements'. Linguists, Psycholinguists, cognitive psychologists, and philosophers,

anyone in fact who might be interested in the study of the nature of meaning, must clearly

focus upon these abstract underlying elements. However the level of abstraction chosen for

discussion here is that which is appropriate for pedagogical purposes; i .e . the level at which

meaning value can be related most transparently to its realisation as linguistic form. The

claim is that prototypical instances of form-meaning relationships offer enriched input to

language learners.

4

According to prototype theory, categorization is accomplished by the acquisition of a

prototypical representation of a category via a form of abstraction process. The prototypical

representation is assumed to be a summary representation that corresponds to the 'central

tendency', such as the arithmetic mean (Posner, 1969) or the mode (Neumann, 1977), of all

the exemplars that have been experienced. New exemplars can then be classified on the basis

of their similarity to this 'best example'. Consider, for example, what happens when one is

asked to imagine a category such as fruit or vegetable. Usually a typical instance of this

category is immediately called to mind. The experimental investigation of this prototype

effect began with Attneave (1957), which was about tress, and in this paper I am attempting

to give this prototypical classification of fruit and vegetable. Research in the field lead to the

fact that prototype view becomes as a firmly established case in the field of human cognitive

psychology as exemplar or feature theories (see Smith & Medin, 1981; Medin & Smith,

1984; Homa, 1984, for a review).

Now, as it is mentioned on the topic of this research, Conceptualization of Fruit and

Vegetable Distinction, I find myself obliged to bring a short review of literature together with

an introduction of fruit and vegetable:

The classification of fruit and vegetable has been studied for a long time in science. There

are many kinds of fruits and vegetables that people cannot classify about which they disagree.

According to scientific classifications vegetables are described as edible parts. The common

groups include roots, stems, leaves, immature flower buds, bulbs, fruits and sprouts

(Valpuesta, 2002).

5

According to the classifications above we can conclude that fruit is the only edible part of

vegetables.

Most people classify fruits and vegetables, regardless of scientific and botanical definitions.

People who do not know about science will not classify those fruits and vegetables as a scientist

would. Tomatoes are botanical fruits but most of us cook and eat them as vegetables, although

some do not cook tomatoes and eat them as fruits. Even in the market or supermarket many kinds

of fruits, which we know as vegetables are arranged in vegetable groups, for example, tomatoes,

limes, and etc. Some scientific criteria classifies fruits, concerned with the amount of seeds inside

a fruit, but people in general do not care about whether a fruit contains seed or not; some do not

know anything about that. For example: here in Iran, watermelon is called a summer crop because

in summer you can find it generally, but socially speaking answers are different when you move

from middle class to upper class.

However, the common meaning of fruit and vegetable also depends on local culinary tradition

and background knowledge. The way people in a particular area cook and eat those fruits and

vegetables effects the way they classify them. For example, watermelon is regarded as fruit in the

United States according to my research paper, but here in Iran it is called summer crop. Probably

it is because in summer it is abundant here.

6

Methodology

Participants

In this study, the population was Farsi native speakers and American English native speakers

.From the accessible population, two convenient sample of native speakers were selected

,one Farsi native speakers ,the other American English native speakers .All of the participants

in Farsi Native Speakers( FNS) group were locals of Esfahan, and the reason for my selection

was based on my accessibility to them. In the other group American English Native Speakers

(AENS), the participants were from America’s metropolitan cities naming: Houston,

California, New York and the reason for selecting them was based on my accessibility. For

selecting participants for both of groups there is no gender differences since the purpose of

my research has nothing to do with gender. In group FNS ,the gender selection was equal

since I had direct access to them (14 female and 14 male), but in group AENS since I had no

direct access and all was based on E-mail exchanges ,there is some variations .

Table 1 summarizes the participant’s characteristics

No. of Participants in FNS 28

No. of Participants in AENS 28

Sexes in both groups Male and female

Mother tongue in FNS group Farsi

Mother tongue in AENS group American English

Age 18 to 30+

7

Procedure and Instrumentation

To collect data, the researcher used two types researcher- made questionnaire. The first

questionnaire was written in English for native speakers, and the other was written in Farsi

for Farsi speakers. The questions were exactly at the same level of difficulty and were

designed exactly the same .The question type designed for this questionnaire varied from

objective multiple questions to subjective essay type ones, also true and false questions were

added. The questionnaire had two parts, one related to background information and only

seven questions, the other designed for the purpose of grasping information and had 13

questions. I could design many more questions for this questionnaire, but I thought as

participants in other country are to answer me by E-mail, It would be boring and they may

decide not to participate. The participants were given consent form to participate in both

places (Esfahan and the named states). The questionnaires designed for Locals of Esfahan

were administered live and they were asked to read the question thoroughly and ask their

probable questions. The other questionnaire that was designed for AENS group, was checked

already with two English language professor and three natives of English language who were

educated academically and expert in the field of language Testing to prevent the mistakes

and misunderstandings and also to check the reliability and validity of the questionnaire.

Respondents had enough time to complete the task .There was no missed or distorted

questionnaire .Respondents were informed that the information they provide is kept

confidential, and it’s only for research purposes .

Results of the Study

The participants’ responses to the questionnaire were analyzed in terms of descriptive and

inferential statistics. The data was nominal and based on frequencies. The raw data was fed

8

into the computer and a non-parametric test of Chi-square was run by the Statistical Package

for Social Science (SPSS) to know whether the both communities have performed the same

or not. Then the non-parametric test of Friedman was also run to detect differences in

treatments across the multiple choices of the question regarding prototype. For comparing

the differences of the both groups of American English native speakers and Farsi speakers

Mann-Whitney test was the tool. Table 1 shows the acceptance level of each of the mentioned

fruits by American English native speakers.

Table 1: Acceptance level of the fruits for AENS group

Fruit Names for American Speakers

Frequency of choice 4

Frequency of choice 3

Frequency of choice 2

Frequency of choice 1

Apple 19 3 0 4

Banana 12 5 4 5

Orange 13 4 5 3

Watermelon 15 6 0 6

Note: To compute the prototyping level of fruits in AENS group, I used ranking scale. In

other words 4 means the most accepted as fruit and 1 means the least accepted as fruit.

Table 2: Friedman table in AENS group

Fruit Names Rank

Apple ٩٨/٢

Banana ١٢/٢

Orange ٢٦/٢

Watermelon ٦٤/٢

Table 3: Chi-Squares and significance level for AENS group

Chi-square ٠١٣/٢٢

Significance level

٠/٠٠

9

According table 3 we can conclude that apple has been called as a prototype among fruits in

American English native group and Banana as a least prototypical of a fruit in AENS group.

Also we can conclude that at the confident level of 0/95 the prototyping level of the fruits is

not the same for AENS group.

Table 4: Acceptance level of fruits for PNS group

Fruit names for Iranian Farsi Speakers

Frequency of choice 4

Freq of choice 3 Freq of choice 2 Freq of choice 1

Apple 10 4 9 5

Banana 7 10 9 3

Orange 7 8 7 5

Watermelon 6 4 2 12

Note: To compute the prototyping level of fruits in PNS group, I used ranking scale. In other

words 4 means the most accepted as fruit and 1 means the least accepted as fruit.

Table 5: Friedman Table for PNS group

Table e 6: Chi-squares and significant level for PNS group

Fruit

+ames

Rank

Apple ٨٣/٢

Banana ٩٢/٢

Orange ٦٥/٢

Watermelon ٦٠/١

Chi-square ٠١٣/٢٢

Significance level

٠/٠٠

10

According to table 4 it is indicated that Banana is the prototype in Iranian society and

watermelon is the least prototypical in PNS group. Also according to the significance level in

table 6 we can conclude that: because the significance level is less than 0/05 at the confident

level of 0/95 the prototyping level among PNS group is not the same.

Table 7: Watermelon class categorization for AENS group

Table 7 reveals that 67/9 % of the American English native speakers have categorized watermelon as fruit,7/1% vegetable, and 25% have categorized it as summer crop.

Figure 1: Watermelon class categorization’s bar graph for AENS

Table 8: Watermelon class categorization by PNS group

Frequency

percentage

Frequency Class

Categorization

١/٧ ٢ Vegetable

٩/٦٧ ١٩ Fruit

٧ ٢٥ Summer Crop

٢٨ ١٠٠ Total

Frequency

Percentage

Frequency Type

٠ ٠ Vegetable

١٤ ٥٠ Fruit

١٤ ٥٠ Summer

crop

٢٨ ١٠٠ Total

11

Table 8 and Figure 2 both reveal that 50% of Farsi speakers have categorized watermelon as fruit and 50% have named it as summer crop but no one has mentioned watermelon as vegetable.

Figure 2: Watermelon class categorization’s bar graph for PNS group

The comparison of American +ative English group and Farsi speaker for watermelon

categorization

Table 9: Mann-Whitney results

Mann-Whitney’s Statistics 280.00

Level of Significance 0.033

To compare both PNS group and AENS group we used Mann-Whitney test and with the significant level of 0.033. we conclude that the class categorization of watermelon is different

in both language communities.

Table 10: The effect of social class on the categorization of fruits or vegetables in AENS

Frequency Frequency Percentage

Yes ٩/٤٢ ١٢

No ١/٥٧ ١٦

Total ١٠٠ ٢٨

12

Figure 3: Bar graph for social class

Table 10 and figure 3 both reveal that 57/1 % of AENS group have agreed upon the fact that

being a member of an especial social class (High, Mid, Low) has the ability to change your

conceptualization about fruit or vegetables. In other words, the class categorization that a

person would create for something edible as fruit is interpreted as vegetable when the social

class of that person changes from low to high.

+ote: Social class is a general term that was asked from research

participants. In this study it wasn’t necessary to define it specifically.

Table 11: The effect of social class on the categorization of fruits or vegetables in PNS

Frequency Frequency

percentage

Yes ٩/٦٧ ١٩

+o ١/٣٢ ٩

Total ١٠٠ ٢٨

13

Figure 4: Bar graph for PNS group

Table 11 and Figure 4 both reveal that: in Iranian community 67/9 % have focused on the

importance of social class and its ability to change these conceptualizations, while 32/1 have

rejected the importance of that.

The Comparison of both groups by the use of Mann-Whitney test for understanding the

effect of social class on the conceptualization of fruits or vegetables

Table 12: Man-Whitney

Mann-Whitney Statistics

٠٠/٢٩٤

Significance level

٠٦٢/٠

According to Man-Whitney’s statistics and the computed level of significance of 0.062 we

conclude that: because the significance level is higher than 0.05 then in the confidence level

of 0.95 American English Native speakers and Farsi Speakers have concluded the same with

the case of the effect of social class and its effect on the conceptualization of something

edible as fruit or vegetable

14

Table 13: Cucumber categorization for AENS group

Frequency Frequency

Percentage

Vegetable ٩/٦٧ ١٩

Fruit ١/٣٢ ٩

Total ١٠٠ ٢٨

Figure 5: Br graph for cucumber categorization

In this question like other questions we asked from 28 American English native speakers

about their ideas for the class categorization of cucumber. From the total number of 28, 19

have categorized it as vegetable and 9 people as fruit. According to table 13 and figure 5 its

concluded that the majority of American English speakers (67/9) have categorized cucumber

as vegetable and 32/1 % as fruit.

15

Table 14: Cucumber categorization for PNS group

Frequency Frequency

Percentage

Vegetable ٣/٦٤ ١٨

Fruit ٧/٣٥ ١٠

Total ١٠٠ ٢٨

Figure 6:

Table 14 and Figure 6 also revealed that 18 person have categorized cucumber as

vegetable,10 person as fruit. And it’s obvious that the majority of Farsi speakers (64.3 %)

have categorized cucumber as vegetable.

Comparison of both groups for class categorization of cucumber by the use of Mann-

Whitney

Mann-Whitney Statistics

٠٠/٣٧٨

Significance level ٠٧٨/٠

16

Mann-Whitney’s table revealed that in the significance level is 0.078 and because that is

more than 0.05 then at the confidence level of 0.095 Farsi speakers and American English

speakers have categorized the same for cucumber.

Table 15: The effect of geographical location and categorizing fruits or vegetables for AENS

Frequency Frequency

Percentage

Yes ٧/٣٥ ١٠

+o ٣/٦٤ ١٨

Total ١٠٠ ٢٨

Figure 7:

According to Table 15 and Figure 7 it is revealed that 64.3 percent of American English

native speakers have believed on the fact that the geographical location of a country has

nothing to do with categorizing something as fruit or vegetable while 35.7 percent believe it

has the power to change fruit or vegetable conceptualizations.

17

Table 16: The effect of geographical location and categorizing fruits or vegetables for PNS

group

Frequency Frequency Percentage

Yes ٧/٦٠ ١٧

No ٣/٣٩ ١١

Total ١٠٠ ٢٨

Figure 8:

With the information in figure 8 and table 16 it’s showed that in Iranian societies 60.7

percent of people have believed on the fact that the geographical location of a country has the

power to change the fruit or vegetable conceptualizations of people ,While in this language

community only 39.9 % have rejected this fact.

The comparison of American English native speakers and Farsi speakers with the

question of geographical location

Mann-Whitney Statistics

٠٠/٢٩٤

Significance level

٠٦٤/٠

18

To compare both groups the non-parametric test of Mann-Whitney was used. Because the

computed significance level is 0.064 we conclude that the significance level is more than

0.05 and at the confidence level of 0.95 both language communities( American , Farsi ) have

agreed upon the fact that geographical location have effect on fruit or vegetable

conceptualizations.

Table 17: The reasons for not conceptualizing Date and Quince in American English Society

Frequency Frequency

Percentage

Knowledge ٤/٤٦ ١٣

Country ٢٥ ٧

Travel ٣/١٤ ٤

Import ٣/١٤ ٤

Total ١٠٠ ٢٨

Figure 9

Knowledge Country

Travel Import

19

The purpose of this question is to find out why in the AENS group we had problem

conceptualizing date and quince which is abundantly found in Iran but rarely in AENS group.

Why Iranians can conceptulize it and Americans couldn’t conceptualize Quince which is a

pure Persian fruit. The results revealed that there are 4 factors to consider: Knowledge (they

haven’t studied about this fruit ), Country (in the country they are living ,it’s not found),

Travel (they haven’t travelled to places that this fruit is abundant), and import.

As it’s shown in table 17 and figure 9 46.6 percent have mentioned knowledge as the reason,

25 % country, 14.3 % travel and 14.3 % import.

Table 20: The reasons for not conceptualizing Lychee in PNS group

Frequency Frequency

Percentage

Knowledge ٢٥ ٧

Export ٩/١٧ ٥

Travel ٢٥ ٧

Country ١/٣٢ ٩

Total ١٠٠ ٢٨

Figure 10

Knowledge Export Travel Country

20

The same question was also to find out why Iranians couldn’t conceptualize lychee which is

not an Iranian fruit. The also mentioned the same for reasons as above. Knowledge 25%

,Export 17.9 % Travel 25 % and Country 32.1 .

The comparison of American English native speakers and Farsi speakers with the

question of conceptualization

Mann-Whitney Statistics

٠٠/٢٦٨

Significance level

٠٣٥/٠

With the use of Mann-Whitney statistics and the computed significance level of 0.035 it’s

revealed that because the significance level is less than 0/05 then at the confidence level of

0/95 knowledge as the reason is not the same.

21

Conclusion

This study was conducted to investigate the prototypes for fruits, Social factors such as class

and its effect on such categorizations, class categorization of watermelon and cucumber, the

effect of geographical location on the categorization of fruits and vegetables and also the

reasons for conceptualization or not conceptualizing 3 kinds of fruit naming lychee, date and

quince in American English and Iranian societies were investigated. The findings of the study

revealed that the degree of prototyping in the both societies were different. For example in

the Iranian society the results revealed that the prototype among these fruits is Banana, while

the prototype in American society was Apple. Also the results indicated that in American and

Iranian societies social class has the power to change the conceptualization of a fruit to

vegetable or vice versa. In the other research question we concluded that the class

categorization of cucumber was the same in both societies and they both classified cucumber

as vegetable. Also with the case of geographical location, both Americans and Iranians

agreed upon the effect of geographical location and the effect that it can have on the

categorization of fruits or vegetables. And finally it investigated that the reasons of

conceptualizing quince, date and lychee in both societies. The both groups agreed that

country, travel, knowledge, export and import have effect on the ability to conceptualize a

kind of fruit. but both groups had different prejudices toward the reason of knowledge on the

ability to conceptualize or not.

22

Reference

Homa, D.(1984). On the nature of categories. In G.Bower (Ed.),The Psychology of Leaning

and Motivation : Advances in research and theory (Vol.18, pp.49-94).New York: Academic Press.

Lakeoff, G.(1982) Categories and cognitive models. Series A, No.96,Trier: Linguistic Agency

University Trier.

Rosch, E. & marvis, C.B(1975). Family resemblances: Studies in the internal structure of

categories: Cognitive psychology(Vol.7, pp.573-605).

Rosch, E., Mervis, B., Gray, W.D., Johnson, D.M. & Bayes-Braem, P.(1976) Basic objects in natural categories. Cognitive Psychology(Vol.8, pp.382-439).

Smith, E.E & Medlin, D.L(1981). Categories and concepts, Cambridge MA :Harward University Press.

Valpuesta, V.(Ed.). (2007). Fruit and vegetable biotechnology. Cambridge: Woodhead Publishing Limited.