scholarly journals Literary meaning as character conceptualization: Re-orienting the cognitive stylistic analysis of character discourse and Free Indirect Thought

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-165
Author(s):  
Eric Rundquist
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Mental Activity ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Stylistic Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Grammar ◽  
Style Analysis ◽  
Literary Language ◽  
Precise Understanding ◽  
Literary Meaning

AbstractThis article establishes the theoretical bases for a more direct and detailed exploration of fictional minds in cognitive stylistics. This discipline usually analyzes narrative discourse in terms of how readers process language and conceptualize narrative meaning, treating literary language more or less explicitly as a window into readers’ mental experiences. However, it is also possible to treat literary language as a window into characters’ minds, which, in spite of their obvious fictionality, could enhance the potential for cognitive linguistic analysis to inform our understanding of the human mind and consciousness more generally. This article explores the nature of linguistic meaning in different speech and thought presentation techniques primarily through the lens of Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar, ultimately prioritizing the representational semantics of Free Indirect Thought. It proposes a more precise understanding of the concept of ‘conceptualizer’ which would validate a type of mind style analysis that is more narrowly focused on illuminating the underlying mental activity of fictional characters instead of readers. It demonstrates this type of focus with a brief analysis of a passage from Charles Jackson’s The Lost Weekend.

scholarly journals The Famous Poet in Harpur’s Poem

ATAVISME ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-30
Author(s):  
Henriono Nugroho
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Research Result ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Stylistic Analysis ◽  
Semiotic System ◽  
Literary Meaning ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Descriptive Method

This research aims to discuss literary work through stylistic analysis based on sistemic functional linguistics and literature semiotic system. The research methods used are the librarian study, descriptive method and objective intrinsic approach. The research result shows that the semantic analysis has produced the automatized linguistic meaning and foregrounded linguistic meaning. Next, the first meaning produces the subject matter and the secong meaning produces the literary meaning. Later, the literary meaning produces theme. Finally, it is proved that the subject matter tells about harmony; the literary meaning is about Shelley’s fame; and, the theme is about a famous poet. Abstrak: Penelitian ini bertujuan mengkaji karya sastra melalui analisis stilistika berdasarkan ilmu bahasa fungsional sistemik dan sistem semiotik karya sastra. Metode penelitian menggunakan studi pustaka, metode deskriptif, dan pendekatan intrinsik objektif. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa analisis semantik menghasilkan makna bahasa latar belakang (the automatized linguistic meaning) dan makna bahasa latar depan (the foregrounded linguistic meaning). Makna pertama menghasilkan masalah utama (subject matter) dan makna kedua menghasilkan makna sastra (literary meaning). Makna sastra menghasilkan tema. Masalah utama berkisah tentang harmoni, makna sastra tentang ketenaran Shelley, dan tema tentang seorang penyair terkenal. Kata kunci: makna bahasa latar belakang, makna bahasa latar depan, makna sastra, tema.

Towards a new convergence between Anglo-American and Russian literary linguistics: “mind style” and “kartina mira”

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben W. Dhooge
Keyword(s):  
Mutual Influence ◽  
Stylistic Analysis ◽  
Literary Language ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
The World ◽  
Russian Literary ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Mutually Independent

AbstractAnglo-American and Russian stylistics influenced each other substantially in the 1960s and 1970s. From the 1980s on, however, this fruitful mutual influence came to an end. The two schools started to grow apart, but despite that, they would develop almost parallel to each other, displaying many theoretical and methodological similarities. The present paper illustrates this by highlighting one such specificity – the idea of the possible reflection of one's conceptualization of the world in the use of literary language, and the possibility of reconstructing that conceptualization by means of a stylistic analysis (‘mind style’–‘kartina mira’). By comparing the Anglo-American and Russian theories on the topic, it is shown that the separately evolved conceptions are similar and even complement each other: the differences between them clarify and help solve possible theoretical and methodological gaps. Moreover, the juxtaposition of both conceptions allows us to perfect the notion of ‘mind style’ and its practical applications. A similar approach to other conceptions and tendencies in current seemingly mutually independent Anglo-American and Russian stylistics have the same potential, and may lead to a new convergence between the two schools.

scholarly journals Figurative Language in Layla Al-Atrash’s Nesa’a Ala Al-Mafareq: A Stylistic Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 20-26
Author(s):  
Eman Abedelkareem Hijazi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Figurative Language ◽  
Social Values ◽  
Identity Crisis ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Stylistic Analysis ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Arab Woman ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Figurative Speech ◽  
Quantitative Approaches

This study aims to analyze Layla Al-Atrash’s Nesa’a Ala Al-Mafareq stylistically to address the issue of an identity crisis and self-alienation by shedding light on the Arabic narrative discourse that is used by Al-Atrash in the selected novel. The stylistic analysis focuses on casting lights on how the five protagonists of the selected novel employed their feminist narrative discourse to represent their suffering and how the old cultural and social values affect their lives. To achieve the aim of the study, the researcher relies on Geffrey Leech's (2006) theory of figurative language to analyze the novel. Accordingly, this study is considered as the first study focusing on analyzing the language used by Al-Atrash linguistically in light of the stylistic analysis of figurative speech such as a simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification, and metonymy. The researcher used both qualitative and quantitative approaches with (SPSS) program for statistics. The results showed that Al Atrash succeeded in utilizing her feminist narrative discourse linguistically to introduce the catastrophic situation the woman has in the masculine society. Taking into consideration metonyms with the highest rates (189) indicating the problems that the Arab woman encounters without finding a solution. Although hyperbole (126= 23%) refers to the writer's trial to support the readers with the perfect image of a woman’s life and why she surrenders to reality and accepts the outdated conventions and traditions.

scholarly journals The Cognitive Grammar of drunkenness: Consciousness representation in Under the Volcano

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-56
Author(s):  
Eric Rundquist
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Focus ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Grammar ◽  
Style Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Delayed Reaction ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
Under The Volcano ◽  
Free Indirect Style

Cognitive Grammar analyses the semantics of linguistic features in relation to human cognition; Free Indirect Style allows authors to represent their characters’ cognition with language. This article applies Cognitive Grammar to the analysis of a character’s mind that is represented with Free Indirect Style. In the tradition of mind style analysis, it aims to use linguistics to reveal some of the underlying cognitive processes and proclivities at work in the character’s psychology. The character in question is the protagonist in Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano, an alcoholic who is largely characterised by his drunken behaviour and ideation. This article therefore focuses on the linguistic features that serve to represent his inebriated state of mind. It analyses the semantic effects of those features primarily in terms of attentional focus, drawing on Cognitive Grammar concepts, such as objective construal, specificity, scope, profile and domain, and relating these to the protagonist’s cognitive proclivities for solipsism, partial awareness, delayed reaction, attenuated experience and self-delusion. The article also discusses the theoretical background for mind style analysis, arguing for the continued importance of focusing on the relationship between the text and a character’s mind, alongside the focus on the reader’s mind that has come to dominate cognitive stylistics.

scholarly journals “Leda and the Swan”’s Revisions: A Cognitive Stylistic Analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 193
Author(s):  
Hua Guo
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Stylistic Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Grammar ◽  
Analysis Framework ◽  
Literary Interpretation ◽  
Point Model ◽  
Linguistic Terms ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
The Relationship

Previous literary studies on the revision of “Leda and the Swan” by William B. Yeats are mainly concerned with its psychological, social and historical implications conveyed by the relationship between Leda and the swan, and seldom explain the realization of this relationship in linguistic terms and its reception by the readership. Stylistic studies can furnish linguistic evidence for literary interpretation. Building on previous literary criticism and stylistic analysis, this study takes the first stanza as an example and conducts a cognitive stylistic analysis of the poem’s three versions by means of Langacker’s reference point model and dynamic discourse analysis framework. The poet’s aspiration to achieve subtle balance in the relationship through syntactic and semantic alteration is thus better understood and the possibility of applying Langacker’s cognitive grammar to stylistic analysis of poetry is tentatively explored.

scholarly journals “I can tell the difference between fiction and reality”

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Browse ◽  
Mari Hatavara
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Stylistic Analysis ◽  
Newspaper Article ◽  
Authorial Intention ◽  
Linguistic Representation ◽  
British Prime Minister ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Theresa May

Abstract This article approaches fictionality as a set of semiotic strategies prototypically associated with fictional forms of storytelling (Hatavara & Mildorf, 2017b). Whilst these strategies are strongly associated with fiction, they might also be used in non-fictional and ontologically ambivalent contexts to create ‘cross-fictional’ rhetorical effects. We focus on the representation of thought and consciousness. Using the concept of ‘mind style’ (Fowler, 1977, 1996; Leech & Short, 1981; Semino, 2007), we investigate the linguistic representation of the internal monologue of British Prime Minister, Theresa May, in a satirical newspaper article. The stylistic analysis of the PM’s mind style facilitates an account of the elaborate and nuanced mixing of May and the author’s ideological perspectives throughout the piece. We argue that this cross-fictional, stylistic approach better accounts for the satirical effects of fictionality in the text than those placing a premium on authorial intention and the invented nature of the narrative discourse.

scholarly journals Information Processing

Communication ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Bolls
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Interpersonal Communication ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
General Term ◽  
Mental Activity ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Mediated Messages ◽  
New Research

Information processing broadly refers to the mental activity emerging from processes the human mind engages in while processing information encountered in an individual’s environment. These mental processes have become particularly important to study in the context of communication research because features of communication-related stimuli— present in both mediated and interpersonal communication—construct the most meaningful parts of the social environment in which individuals engage in information processing. Historically, information processing has been considered to be representative of a distinct research approach as much as it defines a set of phenomena investigated by communication scientists. Information processing as a research approach emerged as part of the cognitive revolution in psychology, which brought about a significant paradigm shift in how researchers working in psychology attempted to understand the human mind. Scholars working in psychology at that time suggested that rigorous theoretical explanations of human nature and behavior could only emerge from research directed at systematically and objectively observing mental processes engaged in the minds and brains of individuals engaged in processing meaningful information in their environment. The adoption of this approach led to the establishment of new research methodologies involving psychophysiological measures in addition to self-report and behavioral measures designed to aid researchers in observing the human mind/brain at work. Communication scientists—particularly those interested in studying processes and effects of media—have adopted an information-processing approach to go beyond insight provided by traditional media-effects research and probe mental processes that may underlie the observed influence of mediated messages on individuals. The term “information processing” is biased toward describing more purely cognitive rather than emotional processes. Research in the field of neuropsychology demonstrates the fallacy of viewing cognition and emotion as isolated processes; thus, the term “information processing” is viewed as having limited utility in describing the more complex, integrated cognitive and emotional mental-activity that scientists engaged in this area investigate. The more general term “mental processing” or “mental processes” will be used here to more accurately describe the phenomenon that communication scientists involved in studying what has been historically considered information processing actually investigate. The first three headings of this bibliography have been included to present references that should provide foundational theoretical and methodological knowledge required to study information processing as mental processes engaged by communication activities, primarily media use. References provided in the remaining sections feature examples of recent information-processing research conducted in important areas of media research.

The Realization of Strategy of Generalization In Metadiscourse (On the Example of English Narrative Discourse)

2018 ◽  
pp. 46-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Оксана Федотова ◽  
Oksana Fedotova
Keyword(s):  
Emotional State ◽  
Mental Activity ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Factual Information ◽  
Surrounding World ◽  
Historical Periods

The paper deals with the fiction communication between the author and the reader. Fiction text consists from factual information and from metadiscourse which guides the reader through the text. The paper shows that on the level of metadiscourse the author touches upon general issues which are not directly connected with the fictional reality of the story. The author’s address to the reader is formed with the help of abstract lexical sets. The most important lexical sets are “man” and “the surrounding world”. The paper shows that different lexical sets are used with different frequency in different historical periods. The most permanent lexical sets are “man and woman”, “family”, “mental activity”, “emotional state”, “attitude to other people”, “cooperation with other people”. These sets are formed with the help of the same vocabulary items in different historical periods. Such lexical sets as “society” and “the surrounding world” undergo considerable changes.

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