scholarly journals Compounds and culture

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 257-274
Author(s):  
Tore Nesset ◽  
Svetlana Sokolova
Keyword(s):  
Formation Mechanism ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Slavic Language ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Conceptual Integration ◽  
Language System ◽  
Emergent Structure

Abstract This study explores compounds from the perspective of conceptual blending (conceptual integration), and argues that the meaning of compounds arises through the interaction of three levels: (i) input spaces established for the head and non-head components, (ii) a blended space involving compression and emergent structure, i.e. elements not imported from the input spaces, and (iii) the language system as a whole and the culture this system is part of. With regard to (iii) we propose the “Culture-to-Compound Hypothesis”, according to which compounding can be recruited to represent culturally “novel” content in languages where compounding enjoys a peripheral status in the language system. The examples discussed in the article come from Norwegian (a Germanic language where compounding is a central word-formation mechanism) and Russian (a Slavic language where compounding is more marginal in the language system).

scholarly journals Conceptual integration theory and British humour: an analysis of the sitcom Miranda

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Jabłońska-Hood
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Meaning Construction ◽  
Integration Theory ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Conceptual Integration ◽  
Mental Space ◽  
Mental Spaces ◽  
Emergent Structure ◽  
Conceptual Integration Theory ◽  
Different Levels

Conceptual integration theory (henceforth CIT), aka conceptual blending, was devised by Fauconnier and Turner (2002) as a model for meaning construction and interpretation. It is based on the notion of a mental space, which originated in Fauconnier's early research (1998). Mental spaces are structures that constitute information pertaining to a particular concept (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 40). Interestingly, mental spaces can be linked together and blended so as to produce a novel quality not previously present. In this manner, conceptual integration serves the purpose of a theoretical model which throws light on creativity in language use. In my paper, I will apply CIT to British humour in order to use its multiway blending together with its dynamic, online running of the blended contents for the purpose of comedy elucidation. It is crucial to observe that British humour is a complex phenomenon which pertains to many different levels of interpretation, i.e. a linguistic, cultural or a discourse one. CIT possesses a well suited cognitive apparatus which can encompass the complexity of British humour with all its layers. The primary goal of the article is to analyse a selected scene from a sitcom entitled Miranda in order to show the validity of the theory in respect of humour studies. In particular, I will undertake to demonstrate that CIT, with a special emphasis on its principles such as compression and the emergent structure of the blend can deal with many processes that accumulate within British humour and result in laughter. Simultaneously, I will try to demonstrate that frame-shifting, as proposed by Coulson (2015: pp. 167-190), can be of help to CIT in humour explanation.

The tragic in Greek drama and conceptual blending

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-190
Author(s):  
Georgios Ioannou
Keyword(s):  
Reference Scenario ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Conceptual Integration ◽  
Simultaneous Generation ◽  
Greek Drama ◽  
Common Space ◽  
Mental Spaces ◽  
Emergent Structure

AbstractThis paper examines the tragic sense permeating ancient Greek drama as a product of a special type of conceptual integration between two antithetic mental spaces, which prompts the simultaneous generation of two mutually exclusive emergent structures. The special tragic sense generated carries along the inferences of two equally impossible situations. The key-difference between this type of blend and other counterfactuals is argued to be found in the lack of reference scenario in the blend. In the context of theatrical enactment, the realisation of this special type of antithetic blend is based on the frame-clash between conceived and enacted space, matched by the emotions of pity and fear, respectively. The feeling of catharsis that follows the end of the play is analysed as a second level blend within the emergent structure that leads to the restoration of a single common space of cognitive compatibility between actors and audience.

scholarly journals SENSE SEARCHING AND LINGUISTIC CREATIVITY IN NOMINATION PROCESSES IN THE SPHERE OF NEW INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES

2020 ◽  
pp. 18-25
Author(s):  
Светлана Юрьевна Богданова ◽  
Юлия Николаевна Карыпкина
Keyword(s):  
Information Technologies ◽  
Mental Image ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Language Resources ◽  
Conceptual Integration ◽  
Lexical Unit ◽  
Internal Resources ◽  
Language System ◽  
New Information

В статье анализируются факторы, влияющие на выбор языковых средств номинации объектов и действий в сфере «новые информационные технологии», а также смысловые ограничения, налагаемые этимологией слова, которые необходимо учитывать в процессе лингво-креативной деятельности. В условиях технологического прогресса естественный язык использует все внутренние резервы для обеспечения коммуникации между людьми. В процессе акта номинации определяются связи между тремя категориями различной природы, к которым относятся непосредственно элемент действительности, его мыслительный образ, существующий в сознании человека, и лексическая единица, фиксирующая данный образ в системе языка. Основным концептуальным механизмом номинации в анализируемой сфере является развитие смыслов, под которые подбираются или даже создаются слова. На примере номинативного поля сервиса Twitter продемонстрированы концептуальные механизмы, лежащие в основе словообразовательных моделей, применяемых в данной сфере. К данным механизмам относятся «концептуальная деривация», подразумевающая процесс рекомбинации смыслов, при которой новые концепты формируются на базе первичных, уже существовавших в концептуальной системе человека, и «концептуальная интеграция», обеспечивающая развитие языка и реализацию им ведущей функции передачи разнообразных смыслов при ограниченном наборе языковых средств. В сфере «новые информационные технологии» происходит развитие значений репрезентирующих ее слов, их специализация и закрепление в определенных позициях в грамматической структуре высказываний. The article examines both the factors which influence the choice of the language means for the nomination of objects in the sphere «New Information Technologies» and semantic restrictions imposed by the «intrinsic form of a word» (or etymology) which should be taken into consideration in the process of linguocreative activity. In the situation of technological progress a human language uses all the internal resources to ensure communication between people. In nomination act the ties between three categories of different nature are identified. Those three categories comprise an element of real life, its mental image, and a lexical unit that fixes the image in the language system. The basic conceptual mechanism of nomination can be defined as the advancement of meanings for which appropriate words are chosen or even created. The conceptual mechanisms that underline the word-formation models with the reference to the nominative field of the Twitter service are illustrated. These mechanisms include «conceptual derivation» and «conceptual integration». Conceptual derivation implies the process of recombination of meanings already existing in a language. Conceptual integration guarantees both continual development of a language system and its implementation of the primary function of transmitting diverse meanings with a limited set of language resources.

TO THE QUESTION ABOUT SPECIAL TYPE OF OCCASIONAL WORDS IN RUSSIAN

2019 ◽  
pp. 305-307
Author(s):  
N.N. Zaitseva
Keyword(s):  
Word Formation ◽  
Formation Mechanisms ◽  
Basic Part ◽  
New Words ◽  
Language System ◽  
Informal Conversation ◽  
Mobile Part

The lexical level is the most mobile part of the language system. This mobility is in many respects caused by word-formation mechanisms. In live informal conversation the process of occurrence of new words is continuous and active. The basic part of new words is created according to productive models. The share of occasional ways in word-formation is less. However, it grows, as the occasional way in itself is more expressive and more emphatic. In the work we will pay attention to the words created by means of one of the ways of occasional word-formation.

Thinking Through Monuments: Levantine Monuments as Technologies of Community-Scale Motivated Social Cognition

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Timothy Hogue
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Scientific Model ◽  
Conceptual Integration ◽  
Iron Age Levant ◽  
Relational Qualities ◽  
Motivated Social Cognition

This study proposes that monuments are technologies through which communities think. I draw on conceptual blending theory as articulated by Mark Turner and Gilles Fauconnier to argue that monuments are material anchors for conceptual integration networks. The network model highlights that monuments are embedded in specific spatial and socio-historical contexts while also emphasizing that they function relationally by engaging the imaginations of communities. An enactivist understanding of these networks helps to explain the generative power of monuments as well as how they can become dynamic and polysemic. By proposing a cognitive scientific model for such relational qualities, this approach also has the advantage of making them more easily quantifiable. I present a test case of monumental installations from the Iron Age Levant (the ceremonial plaza of Karkamiš) to develop this approach and demonstrate its explanatory power. I contend that the theory and methods introduced here can make future accounts of monuments more precise while also opening up new avenues of research into monuments as a technology of motivated social cognition that is enacted on a community-scale.

On the construction of the concept ‘language’: Entrenched Conceptual Integration Networks Encountered in Evolutionary Biology and Studies of Language Evolution

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roslyn M Frank
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Feedback Mechanism ◽  
Integration Theory ◽  
Conceptual Integration ◽  
Emergent Structure ◽  
Conceptual Integration Theory

<p>In recent years the relationship between language change and biological evolution has captured the attention of investigators operating in different disciplines, particularly evolutionary biology, AI and A-Life (Zeimke 2001, Hull 2001), as well as linguistics (Croft 2000; Sinha 1999), with each group often bringing radically different conceptualizations of the object under study, namely, “language” itself, to the debate.&nbsp;Over the centuries, meanings associated with the expression “language” have been influenced by mappings of conceptual frames and inputs from the biological sciences onto the entity referred to as “language”. At the same time the prestige of the “science of linguistics” created a feedback mechanism by which the referentiality of “language”, at each stage, was mapped back into the field of evolutionary biology along with the emergent structure(s) of the resulting “blend”. While significant energy has been spent on identifying ways in which biological evolution has been linked to concepts of language evolution (Dörries 2002), little attention has been directed to the nature of the conceptual integration networks that have been produced in the process. This paper examines the way conceptual integration theory can be brought to bear on the “blends” that have been created, focusing primarily on examples drawn from 19th century debates concerning the “language-species-organism analogy” in the emerging field of comparative-historical philology.</p><p>In recent years the relationship between language change and biological evolution has captured the attention of investigators operating in different disciplines, particularly evolutionary biology, AI and A-Life (Zeimke 2001, Hull 2001), as well as linguistics (Croft 2000; Sinha 1999), with each group often bringing radically different conceptualizations of the object under study, namely, “language” itself, to the debate. Over the centuries, meanings associated with the expression “language” have been influenced by mappings of conceptual frames and inputs from the biological sciences onto the entity referred to as “language”. At the same time the prestige of the “science of linguistics” created a feedback mechanism by which the referentiality of “language”, at each stage, was mapped back into the field of evolutionary biology along with the emergent structure(s) of the resulting “blend”. While significant energy has been spent on identifying ways in which biological evolution has been linked to concepts of language evolution (Dörries 2002), little attention has been directed to the nature of the conceptual integration networks that have been produced in the process. This paper examines the way conceptual integration theory can be brought to bear on the “blends” that have been created, focusing primarily on examples drawn from 19th century debates concerning the “language-species-organism analogy” in the emerging field of comparative-historical philology. The document includes Supplemental Materials: Resource Guide and Commentaries.</p>

Implied narratives of medical practice in learning-for-doing texts: a simulation semantics approach to rhetorical analysis

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd Oakley
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Rhetorical Analysis ◽  
Meaning Construction ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Semantic Approach ◽  
Conceptual Integration ◽  
Print Advertisements ◽  
Medical Practitioners ◽  
Simulation Semantics

The functional interdependence of word, image, narration, and reason is recognized as a fundamental condition of modern-day persuasion, yet a substantial gap still exists in our understanding of how static textual elements interact to generate dynamic, persuasive narratives. This article attempts to narrow that gap in understanding through the development of a simulation semantics approach to rhetorical analysis as applied to print advertisements in medical journals. Located within the broader field of cognitive linguistics, simulation semantics is a theory of linguistic meaning based on the hypothesis that language users run mental simulations of perceptual and motor content of experiences which distribute inferences from these simulations during language comprehension and production. Using the perspectives and methods of conceptual blending, a programmatic model of meaning construction developed by Fauconnier and Turner (2002) and elaborated by many associates (e.g. Brandt and Brandt, 2002; Coulson and Oakley, 2000), the article attempts to show how a simulation semantic approach can lead to cognitively plausible explanations of how persuasion works in a genre of print advertisements aimed at physicians and medical practitioners I call learning-for-doing. In addition, I seek to further refine conceptual blending theory as an interpretive framework by arguing for the need to incorporate the notion of a grounding space as well as the need to distinguish between conceptual blending and conceptual integration.

On twittizens and city residents

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-41
Author(s):  
Elizaveta Tarasova ◽  
Natalia Beliaeva
Keyword(s):  
Formation Mechanism ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Semantic Relations ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Semantic Level ◽  
Semantic Relationships ◽  
Experimental Findings

Abstract The present study analyses native speaker perceptions of the differences in the semantic structure of compounds and blends to specify whether the formal differences between compounds and blends are reflected on the semantic level. Viewpoints on blending vary, with some researchers considering it to be an instance of compounding (Kubozono, 1990), while others identify blending as an interim word formation mechanism between compounding and shortening (López Rúa, 2004). The semantic characteristics of English determinative blends and N+N subordinative compounds are compared by evaluating the differences in native speakers’ perceptions of the semantic relationships between constituents of the analysed structures. The results of two web-based experiments demonstrate that readers’ interpretations of both compounds and blends differ in terms of lexical indicators of semantic relations between the elements of these units. The experimental findings indicate that language users’ interpretation of both compounds and blends includes information on semantic relationships. The differences in the effect of the semantic relations on interpretations is likely to be connected to the degree of formal transparency of these units.

CONCEPTUAL BLENDING IN METAPHORS IN THE 2016 PRE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 281-285
Author(s):  
Alzira Akhsianovna Minikeeva ◽  
Aida Gumerovna Sadykova ◽  
Edward Lazzerini
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Conceptual Models ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Conceptual Integration ◽  
The Social ◽  
Teachers And Students

Purpose: The article examines metaphor as transferring features of the social world onto the other elements of reality, the 2016 pre-election campaign in particular; the theory of conceptual integration of J. Fauconnier and M. Turner is used to analyzing the metaphor. Methodology: As a material of the research, there were examined transcripts of the 2016 pre-election campaign debates for the presidential position of Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton. Result: The analysis reveals convergent and divergent features of metaphor in the pre-election campaign of Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton. Metaphor in D. Trump’s texts tends to focus on conceptual models ‘we’ and ‘they’ which is deduced with the help of quantitative analysis whereas in H. Clinton’s texts ‘divided nation’ model is mostly described through metaphor. Applications: This research can be used for universities, teachers, and students. Novelty/Originality: In this research, the model of Conceptual Blending in Metaphors in the 2016 Pre-Election Campaign is presented in a comprehensive and complete manner.

Blending and characters’ mental functioning in Virginia Woolf's ‘Lappin and Lapinova’

2006 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Semino
Keyword(s):  
Mental Functioning ◽  
Conceptual Integration ◽  
Central Aspect ◽  
Married Life ◽  
Fantasy World ◽  
Female Protagonist ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Mental Spaces ◽  
Emergent Structure ◽  
The Relationship

In this article I apply Fauconnier and Turner's (2002) theory of conceptual integration, or blending, to the analysis of a central aspect of the main characters’ mental lives in Virginia Woolf's story ‘Lappin and Lapinova’. The female protagonist of the story, Rosalind, has difficulties adjusting to her role as the new wife of Ernest Thorburn, and therefore constructs an alternative fantasy world where Ernest is a rabbit king called Lappin. At the beginning of their married life, Rosalind and Ernest develop this fantasy world together, and add to it a counterpart for Rosalind herself – a hare called Queen Lapinova. With the passing of time, Ernest loses interest in the fantasy, but Rosalind becomes increasingly dependent on it, so that Ernest's announcement of Lapinova's death at the end of the story also results in the ‘end’ of their marriage. In my analysis, I show how the ‘rabbit’ fantasy world can be described in terms of what Fauconnier and Turner (2002) call a conceptual integration network: a dynamic construct resulting from the interaction of different mental spaces and involving the creation of a blended space with ‘emergent structure’ of its own. In order to account for the different roles that the blended space plays for Rosalind as opposed to Ernest, I adopt Palmer's (2004) distinction between ‘intramental’ and ‘intermental’ functioning. I therefore describe the fantasy world as a multiple blend that begins as an intramental construct, develops into an intermental construct, and ends as a largely intramental construct once again, with serious implications for Rosalind's sanity and the relationship between the two main characters in the story.

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