From Philosophy of Fiction to Cognitive Poetics

2016 ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary-Anne Shonoda

Scholars in children's literature have frequently commented on the humorous and ideological functions of intertextuality. There has however, been little discussion of the cognitive processes at work in intertextual interpretation and how they provide readers with more interpretive freedom in the meaning-making process. Drawing on research from the field of metaphor studies and the interdisciplinary area of cognitive poetics, this article suggests that the interpretation of foregrounded intertextuality is analogous to the interpretation of metaphoric expression. Current models of metaphor interpretation are discussed before I outline my own intertextuality-based variant. The cross-mapping model developed is then applied to literary intertexts in Inkheart and cultural intertexts in Starcross in order to show how the model might work with intertexts of varying degrees of specificity and that serve different narrative functions. The explanatory power of the cross-mapping model is not limited to cases where elements in the primary storyworld can be directly matched with those in the intertext, but extends to instances that involve a recasting of the intertext and thus retelling as in Princess Bride.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Coats

Critical attention to children's poetry has been hampered by the lack of a clear sense of what a children's poem is and how children's poetry should be valued. Often, it is seen as a lesser genre in comparison to poetry written for adults. This essay explores the premises and contradictions that inform existing critical discourse on children's poetry and asserts that a more effective way of viewing children's poetry can be achieved through cognitive poetics rather than through comparisons with adult poetry. Arguing that children's poetry preserves the rhythms and pleasures of the body in language and facilitates emotional and physical attunement with others, the essay examines the crucial role children's poetry plays in creating a holding environment in language to help children manage their sensory environments, map and regulate their neurological functions, contain their existential anxieties, and participate in communal life.


2020 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-81
Author(s):  
T. A. Sidorova

The main aim of this research was to identify the features of B. V. Shergin’s cognitive style through comprehension of the artistic image of the sea in the works of this writer. An analysis of this image was conducted from the standpoint of cognitive poetic. Cognitive poetic is considered as the main method of linguopoetic interpretation of a literary text, whose basic principles include analysis of conceptual structures reflected in the text. In the process of research, the concept of “cognitive style” in correlation with the literary text was clarified, The components of cognitive style, objectified by the image of the sea were specified. Since the literary text was interpreted from the position of cognitive poetics, the main attention was paid not only to linguistic, but also to mental structures. Furthermore, the article explores the wellknown structures of knowledge: presuppositions, concepts, motives, ideas, etc., along with semantic dominants and semantic constructs as strong meaning formations, which are determined by the author’s needs, values, world view and world perception. Therefore, the process of text interpretation takes into account the specificity of linguistic and artistic consciousness of the author, including features of the socio-cultural consciousness of Pomors (members of a subculture). The study showed that each component of B. V. Shergin’s cognitive style has its specific characteristics. The manner of presenting information in the text is characterized by a special emotional tension: understandable and close to the people daily life gets an ontological understanding. Among the cognitive mechanisms, the secondary conceptualization of the concepts of Russian Northern culture plays a special role: many of them acquire a sign of spirituality. It is shown that the specifics of the author’s cognitive style is determined by the features of his consciousness; therefore, the knowledge as sententias, semantic dominants, semantic constructs, stereotypes, values and oppositions holds the central position.


The Language of Fiction brings together new research on fiction from philosophy and linguistics. Fiction is a topic that has long been studied in philosophy. Yet recently there has been a surge of work on fictional discourse in the intersection between linguistics and philosophy of language. There has been a growing interest in examining long-standing issues concerning fiction from a perspective informed both by philosophy and linguistic theory. The Language of Fiction contains fourteen essays by leading scholars in both fields, as well as a substantial Introduction by the editors. The collection is organized in three parts, each with their own introduction. Part I, “Truth, reference, and imagination”, offers new, interdisciplinary perspectives on some of the central themes from the philosophy of fiction: What is fictional truth? How do fictional names refer? What kind of speech act is involved in telling a fictional story? What is the relation between fiction and imagination? Part II, “Storytelling”, deals with themes originating from the study of narrative: How do we infer a coherent story from a sequence of event descriptions? And how do we interpret the words of impersonal or unreliable narrators? Part III, “Perspective shift”, zooms in on an alleged key characteristic of fictional narratives, viz. the way we get access to the fictional characters’ inner lives, through a variety of literary techniques for representing what they say, think, or see.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-61
Author(s):  
Ньюман Джон

Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel Rebecca provides rich opportunities for the study of imaginary narrative spaces and the language associated with such spaces. The present study explores the linguistics of the imaginary narrative spaces in Rebecca, drawing upon three lines of linguistic research consistent with a Cognitive Linguistic approach: (i) an interest in understanding and appreciating ordinary readers’ actual responses (rather than merely relying upon “expert” readers’ responses), (ii) the construction of worlds or “spaces”, and (iii) the application of ideas from Cognitive Grammar. The study reveals a surprisingly intricate interplay of linguistic devices used in the construction of imaginary narrative spaces and the maintenance of such spaces in extended discourse. References Armitt, L. (2000). Contemporary women’s fiction and the fantastic. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Beauman, S. (2003). Afterword. In Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (pp. 429-441). London: Virago Press. Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., & Finnegan, E. (Eds.) (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Limited. Birch, D. (2007). Addict of fantasy. The Times Literary Supplement, 5447-5448, 17-18. Dancygier, B. (2012). The language of stories: A cognitive approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dancygier, B. (2017a). Introduction. In B. Dancygier (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of cognitive linguistics (pp. 1-10). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dancygier, B. (2017b). Cognitive Linguistics and the study of textual meaning. In B. Dancygier (Ed.) The Cambridge handbook of cognitive linguistics (pp. 607-622). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Du Maurier, D. (2012). Rebecca. London: Virago Press. Emmott, C. (1997). Narrative comprehension: A discourse perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Evans, V., & Green, M. (2006). Cognitive linguistics: An introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Fauconnier, G. (1985). Mental spaces: Aspects of meaning construction in natural language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Forster, M. (1993). Daphne Du Maurier. London: Chatto & Windus. Gavins, J. (2007). Text world theory: An introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Hadiyanto, H. (2010). The Freudian psychological phenomena and complexity in Daphne Du Maurier’s “Rebecca” (A psychological study of literature). LITE: Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, Dan Budaya 6(1), 14-25. Available at: https://publikasi.dinus.ac.id/index.php/lite/article/ view/1348/1014. Harrison, C., Nuttall, L., Stockwell, P., & Yuan, W. (Eds.) (2014). Cognitive grammar in literature. Amsterdam & New York: John Benjamins. Harrison, C., & Stockwell, P. (2014). Cognitive poetics. In J. Littlemore and J. R. Taylor (Eds.), The Bloomsbury companion to cognitive linguistics (pp. 218-233). London: Bloomsbury. Horner, A., & Zlosnik, S. (1998). Writing, identity, and the Gothic imagination. London: Macmillian. Huddleston, R. (2002). The verb. In R. Huddleston & G. K. Pullum (Eds.), The Cambridge grammar of the English language (pp. 71-212). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kelly, R. (1987). Daphne du Maurier. Boston: Twayne Publishers. Lakoff, G., & Turner, M. (1989). More than cool reason: A field guide to poetic metaphor. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press. Langacker, R. W. (1991). Foundations of cognitive grammar. Vol. II: Descriptive application. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Leech, G. N. (1969). A linguistic guide to English poetry. London: Longman Group Limited. Margawati, P. (2010). A Freudian psychological issue of women characters in Daphne Du Maurier’s novel Rebecca. LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature IV(2), 121-126. Available at: https://journal.unnes.ac.id/nju/index.php/LC/article/viewFile/900/839 Naszkowska, K. (2012). Living mirror: The representation of doubling identities in the British and Polish women’s literature (1846–1938). Doctoral dissertation, The University of Edinburgh. Palmer, F. R. (1974). The English verb. London: Longman Group Limited. Stockwell, P. (2002). Cognitive poetics: An introduction. London & New York: Routledge. Turner, M. (1996). The literary mind. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press. Turner, M. (2015). Blending in language and communication. In E. Dąbrowska & D. Divjak (Eds.), Handbook of cognitive linguistics (pp. 211-232). Berlin & Boston: de Gruyter Mouton. Werth, P. (1999). Text worlds: Representing conceptual space in discourse (M. Short, Ed.). Harlow, UK: Longman. Wilde, O. (1996). The picture of Dorian Gray. In The complete Oscar Wilde: The complete stories, plays and poems of Oscar Wilde (pp. 11-161). New York: Quality Paperback Book Club. Winifrith, T. J. (1979). Daphne du Maurier. In J. Vinson (Ed.), Novelists and prose writers (Great writers of the English language) (pp. 354-357). New York: St. Martin’s Press.


2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (69) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Conte

I den indledende artikel af Joseph M. Conte, “Det multimodale ikon: Syn, lyd og kognition i nyere poesi”, opridses poesiens historie frem til i dag med udgangspunkt i den tese, at der er sket et skift i den måde, hvorpå vi afkoder poesi. Mens man tidligereopfattede poesi som en kunstart, der kun udtrykte sig i én kode, nemlig bogstaverne på bogsiden, er digtet i den digitale tidsalder blevet et multimodalt ikon, i hvilket tekst og billede samvirker i betydningsdannelsen på en kompleks måde. Hvis fortolkeren skal være på højde med den nyeste poesi, kræver det ifølge Contesåledes også nye tilgange og kompetencer.Joseph M. Conte: “The Multimodal Icon: Sight, Sound and Intellection in Recent Poetries”This article examines the shift from single to multiple semiotic modes in poetry during the age of digital media. While one can argue that in the history of poetry the text has always represented “sight, sound and intellection,” the propagation of digital media and the devolution of popular culture into a predominantly graphical regime have made an irrevocable impression on poetry on-the-page. The production of multimodal poetry in print literature presents the hybridization of text and image, or typography and the visual arts. In the multimodal poetry of Emily McVarish,Steve McCaffery and Geof Huth, the reader encounters two or more semiotic modes simultaneously. The relation between text and image is not one of dependency or autonomy but rather a bilateral interactivity that requires and stimulates a cognitive poetics. Such print works demand that readers pursue a multiplicity of readingpaths and develop the interpretive skills required by multimodal metaphor in which signs are drawn from more than one mode.


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