Uncanny resemblance

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-57
Author(s):  
Alessandro Cavazzana ◽  
Marianna Bolognesi

Abstract What is the relation between the three following elements: words, pictures, and conceptual representations? And how do these three elements work, in defining and explaining metaphors? These are the questions that we tackle in our interdisciplinary contribution, which moves across cognitive linguistics, cognitive sciences, philosophy and semiotics. Within the cognitive linguistic tradition, scholars have assumed that there are equivalent and comparable structures characterizing the way in which metaphor works in language and in pictures. In this paper we analyze contextual visual metaphors, which are considered to be the most complex ones, and we compare them to those that in language are called indirect metaphors. Our proposal is that a syllogistic mechanism of comprehension permeates both metaphors expressed in the verbal modality as well as metaphors expressed in the pictorial modality. While in the verbal modality the metaphoric syllogism is solved by inference, we argue that in the pictorial modality the role of inference is performed through mental imagery.

Author(s):  
Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr

An important reason for the tremendous interest in metaphor over the past 20 years stems from cognitive linguistic research. Cognitive linguists embrace the idea that metaphor is not merely a part of language, but reflects a fundamental part of the way people think, reason, and imagine. A large number of empirical studies in cognitive linguistics have, in different ways, supported this claim. My aim in this paper is to describe the empirical foundations for cognitive linguistic work on metaphor, acknowledge various skeptical reactions to this work, and respond to some of these questions/criticisms. I also outline several challenges that cognitive linguists should try to address in future work on metaphor in language, thought, and culture.


Author(s):  
Christian W. Schneider ◽  
Michael Pleyer

This chapter applies theoretical constructs from cognitive linguistics to multimodal visual texts, such as comics. In particular, it discusses the concept of cognitive modes of scanning found in Langacker’s cognitive grammar. Mental scanning relates to the way we build conceptual representations of complex scenes and events. These can be apprehended either holistically (summary scanning) or successively (sequential scanning). A distinctly multimodal medium, comics feature the sequential ordering of images as well as their holistic configuration on the comics page. Thus they involve both summary and sequential scanning processes. The chapter uses the example of Alan Moore’s and Dave Gibbons’ graphic novel Watchmen to show how the conceptual distinction between summary and sequential scanning may provide new impulses for the analysis of graphic literature. A highly intricate text, Watchmen uses the tension of different modes of scanning to construct complex temporal configurations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marloes Mak ◽  
Clarissa de Vries ◽  
Roel M. Willems

It is well established that readers form mental images when reading a narrative. However, the consequences of mental imagery (i.e. the influence of mental imagery on the way people experience stories) are still unclear. Here we manipulated the amount of mental imagery that participants engaged in while reading short literary stories in two experiments. Participants received pre-reading instructions aimed at encouraging or discouraging mental imagery. After reading, participants answered questions about their reading experiences. We also measured individual trait differences that are relevant for literary reading experiences. The results from the first experiment suggests an important role of mental imagery in determining reading experiences. However, the results from the second experiment show that mental imagery is only a weak predictor of reading experiences compared to individual (trait) differences in how imaginative participants were. Moreover, the influence of mental imagery instructions did not extend to reading experiences unrelated to mental imagery. The implications of these results for the relationship between mental imagery and reading experiences are discussed.


XLinguae ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 52-63
Author(s):  
Ariadna Strugielska ◽  
Katarzyna Piątkowska

This paper demonstrates that although linguistic competence (LC) is an essential dimension of the Common European Framework of Reference (Council of Europe, 2001; 2018), it is defined in an inconsistent way resulting from combining elements of formal and functional approaches. Thus, rather than interconnected, linguistic competence emerges as dichotomized and in need of an approach that could reconcile incompatibilities in the way(s) LC is characterized in the document. We propose that a cognitive linguistic perspective built on the schematic commitment is a viable approach to re-defining LC.


TEME ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 371
Author(s):  
Татјана Ђуровић

Complementing a wide theoretical framework of cognitive linguistics (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Johnson, 1987; Charteris-Black, 2004; Benczes, Barcelona, & Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, 2011) with multimodality (El Refaie, 2003; Forceville, 2009; Forceville & Urios-Aparisi, 2009; Bounegru & Forceville, 2011), the paper explores the role of pictorial and multimodal metaphors in structuring Europe’s migrant crisis in Serbian daily newspapers. The data collection for our analysis consists of twelve cartoons pertaining to the topic of migrant crisis published in daily newspapers Politika and Večernje novosti in 2015. The aim of our investigation is twofold: a) to determine how visual metaphors, independently or in a symbiosis with verbal metaphors, render two cognitive schemas – CONTAINMENT and MOVEMENT and the metaphors of WALL, HOUSE, JOURNEY, thus contributing to the conceptualisation of the major participants in the migrant crisis; and b) to reveal how visual and/or verbal modalities of metaphor and other cognitive instruments convey an axiological value and more or less covert ideological stances.


1999 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez

Discovering the nature and role of inferential mechanisms in language understanding is a distinctly common concern in work carried out both within Cognitive Linguistics and Relevance Theory. Cognitive linguists increasingly tend to see language-related inferences as a matter of the activation of relevant conceptual structures. This is generally accepted by relevance theorists; however, they tend to play down the importance of such structures in favour of pragmatic principles. This is evident in their treatment of phenomena like metaphor and metonymy, which are explained by them as a question of deriving strong and weak implicatures. In this paper we revise this treatment and argue in favour of dealing with metaphor and metonymy as cognitive mechanisms which provide us with explicit meaning or, as relevance theorists would put it, with sets of "explicatures". This allows us to reformulate the implicature/explicature distinction and to reconsider the way it works in relation to other phenomena which are also of concern to relevance theorists, like disambiguation in conjoined utterances.


2018 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 498-516
Author(s):  
Neil O'Sullivan

Of the hundreds of Greek common nouns and adjectives preserved in our MSS of Cicero, about three dozen are found written in the Latin alphabet as well as in the Greek. So we find, alongside συμπάθεια, also sympathia, and ἱστορικός as well as historicus. This sort of variation has been termed alphabet-switching; it has received little attention in connection with Cicero, even though it is relevant to subjects of current interest such as his bilingualism and the role of code-switching and loanwords in his works. Rather than addressing these issues directly, this discussion sets out information about the way in which the words are written in our surviving MSS of Cicero and takes further some recent work on the presentation of Greek words in Latin texts. It argues that, for the most part, coherent patterns and explanations can be found in the alphabetic choices exhibited by them, or at least by the earliest of them when there is conflict in the paradosis, and that this coherence is evidence for a generally reliable transmission of Cicero's original choices. While a lack of coherence might indicate unreliable transmission, or even an indifference on Cicero's part, a consistent pattern can only really be explained as an accurate record of coherent alphabet choice made by Cicero when writing Greek words.


Author(s):  
Linda MEIJER-WASSENAAR ◽  
Diny VAN EST

How can a supreme audit institution (SAI) use design thinking in auditing? SAIs audit the way taxpayers’ money is collected and spent. Adding design thinking to their activities is not to be taken lightly. SAIs independently check whether public organizations have done the right things in the right way, but the organizations might not be willing to act upon a SAI’s recommendations. Can you imagine the role of design in audits? In this paper we share our experiences of some design approaches in the work of one SAI: the Netherlands Court of Audit (NCA). Design thinking needs to be adapted (Dorst, 2015a) before it can be used by SAIs such as the NCA in order to reflect their independent, autonomous status. To dive deeper into design thinking, Buchanan’s design framework (2015) and different ways of reasoning (Dorst, 2015b) are used to explore how design thinking can be adapted for audits.


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