Metaphor, Embodied Realism, and Sacramental Truth

This chapter and the next provide an introduction to the field of cognitive linguistics. This chapter focuses on core concepts including conceptual metaphor, metonymy, polysemy, and prototype theory (conceptual blending is explored in Chapter 3). Based on this overview, the author argues that language “means” not through referential correspondence to objective, observer-independent reality but by prompting for embodied simulation on the part of hearers and readers. Language, then, is true insofar as these simulations are apt to reality as experienced by embodied human beings. The chapter proposes that this epistemological perspective of “embodied realism” is congruent with the critical realism endorsed by many recent theologians and with a sacramental worldview in which the material world can be the arena for God’s self-communication.

Conceptual Blending and Two Ways of Feeding on Jesus

Chapter 3 continues the introduction to cognitive linguistics begun in Chapter 2 by exploring conceptual blending, a second-generation development within the field. It presents two strands of Christian piety related to eating and drinking, one based on the eucharistic elements and the other on feeding spiritually on Jesus through scripture and prayer. The author traces these pieties to two scriptural blends of opposite metaphoric directionality, BREAD IS JESUS and JESUS IS BREAD—or, more precisely, THIS LOAF AND WINE ARE JESUS’S BODY AND BLOOD and JESUS’S FLESH AND BLOOD ARE HEAVENLY LIFE-GIVING BREAD AND DRINK. The former arises from the Synoptic and Pauline institution narratives and supports the idea of sacramental communion; the latter arises from John 6 and supports spiritual communion. Both blends are analyzed in detail. The author writes that all Christians can accept Johannine spiritual communion but that an ecumenical divide remains regarding the Synoptic/Pauline blend.

Metaphors of Eucharistic Presence

One of the most challenging questions for Christian ecumenical theology is how the relationship between the eucharistic bread and wine and Jesus Christ’s body and blood can be appropriately described. This book takes a new approach to controverted questions of eucharistic presence by drawing on cognitive linguistics. Arguing that human cognition is grounded in sensorimotor experience and that phenomena such as metaphor and conceptual blending are basic building blocks of thought, the book proposes that inherited models of eucharistic presence are not necessarily mutually exclusive but can serve as complementary members of a shared ecumenical repertoire. The central element of this repertoire is the motif of identity, grounded in the Synoptic and Pauline institution narratives. The book argues that the statement “The eucharistic bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ” can be understood both as figurative and as true in the proper sense, thus resolving a church-dividing dichotomy. The identity motif is complemented by four major non-scriptural motifs: representation, change, containment, and conduit. Each motif with its entailments is explored in depth, and suggestions for ecumenical reconciliation in both doctrine and practices are offered. The book also provides an introduction to cognitive linguistics and offers suggestions for further reading in that field.

Pragmatics and Semiotics

Meaning is determined by both immanent and transcendent semiotic structuring : it is both conceptual and contextual. The recursion of semiosis makes it possible to understand and theorize this open but non-chaotic relation between minimal, medial, and maximal sign structures and the experiential lifeworld that infuses social systems with meaning and lets cultural, semiosic, and mental content develop as a continuity. Semiotics and pragmatics are interconnected, and their bonds are indissoluble ; if cut off, pragmatics would become a part of psychology and semiotics a specialty of linguistics. The cognitive theory of mental spaces and conceptual blending needed a semiotic and, as suggested in the article, a semio-pragmatic grounding in order to grow out of its initial format as a philosophical daydream. The model explained here shows how situational and experiential contributions intervene in the sense-making.

КРЕАТИВНІСТЬ ІДІОМАТИЧНОГО ПРОСТОРУ СОЦІАЛЬНОЇ ІНТЕРАКЦІЇ

The present paper is a study of creativity of idiomatic space in the national varieties of English. The defi nition of the term ‘idiomatic space of social interaction’ has been suggested, formulated as “the property of the idiomatic space of social interaction to, either individually or collectively, form new idiomatic units or to adjust them according to the pragmatic and communicative goals of discourse”, and is further investigated in the News on the Web (NOW) corpus evidenced from canonical and non-canonical forms of the idiom have your cake and eat it (too). In total, 1158 instances of the use of the above idiom were investigated in fi ve national varieties of English (British English, American English, Canadian English, Australian English, and New Zealand English). Based on the data obtained, it was discovered that canonical forms of the idiom under analysis prevail over non-canonical forms (79.8% to 20.2%). Further, this was verifi ed with the help of concordance analysis using AntConc freeware corpus analysis toolkit, which showed minor deviations of the idiom from its base form. However, despite being in the minority, the non-canonical forms of have your cake and eat it (too) lend themselves to a rigorous analysis from the standpoint of the conceptual integration theory. One such instance of conceptual blending – to have their cake and eat it and then expect to still have it to eat later on when they’re hungry. And a bag to put it in – was considered in the present paper. The overall analysis has proved the applicability of the conceptual integration theory to idiomatic creativity in terms of idiomatic inputs and blends. Since no direct blends inv olving the above idiom were identifi ed in the NOW corpus, a wider context of the idiom (at least two or three sentences along with the title of the relevant publication) was considered. This provides certain evidence to hypothesize that the conceptual integration theory is not a universal one when it comes to interpreting idiomatic creativity. With this in mind, further quantitative and qualitative analyses are needed to rigorously determine the place of the conceptual integration theory in examining idiomatic creativity. Key words: study of idioms, idiomatic space, corpus analysis, conceptual integration theory, creativity of idiomatic space.

A integração conceptual como uma máquina de Carnot no processamento de informações com finalidade à comunicação | Conceptual integration as a Carnot machine in the processing of information for the purpose of communication

Neste artigo, temos como objetivo um paralelismo epistemológico entre a integração de conceitos (FAUCONNIER; TURNER, 2002) e a eficiência de uma máquina termodinâmica (CARNOT, 1824). Nossa hipótese é a de que o comportamento linguístico equivalha a um sistema adaptativo complexo (DUQUE, 2016),com eficiência máxima em seus processos comunicativos,tal qual uma máquina termodinâmica. Com base em nosso objeto,a saber, as redes de integração conceptual (SILVA, 2019), percebemos que o ser humano mistura conceitos a partir de muitas frentes de informação (frames) e compõe uma estrutura conceptual nova, fruto da amálgama de informações desses frames. Assim, baseando-nos emum método qualitativo, apoiado na visão de Silverman (2000), concluímos que a rede de integração conceptual funciona de forma semelhante a uma máquina térmica de Carnot, na qual elementos são processados de forma a garantir a máxima eficiência.Palavras-chave: Integração conceptual. Máquina de Carnot. Sistemas adaptativos complexos. Comunicação. AbstractIn this article, we aim at an epistemological parallelism between the conceptual blending (FAUCONNIER; TURNER, 2002) and the efficiency of a thermodynamic machine (CARNOT, 1824). Our hypothesis is that linguistic behavior amounts to a complex adaptive system (DUQUE, 2016) with maximum efficiency in its communicative processes in the same way as a thermodynamic machine. Supported by our object, namely the conceptual integration networks (SILVA, 2019), we perceive that the human being mixes concepts from many information fronts (frames) and composes a new conceptual structure, resulting from the amalgamation of information from these frames. Thus, based on the qualitative method supported by Silverman's (2000) vision, we conclude that the conceptual integration network works similarly to a Carnot thermal machine, in which elements are processed in order to ensure maximum efficiency.Keywords: Conceptual blending. Carnot machine.Complex adaptative systems. Communication. ORCIDhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-7626-1504https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5263-8979

Do Verbal Meanings Have a Radial Organization?

The paper presents a cognitive-functional analysis of two Hungarian verbs, eszik ‘eat’ and táplál ‘feed’, with the aim of providing a sample for an exhaustive semantic description of verbal polysemy and of relations between verbal meanings. The hypothesis of the study was that a radial category description of the internal semantic structure of both verbs is possible. The assumption, however, was not confirmed by the analysis; not all meanings of the verb eszik ‘eat’ can be described as deriving from the prototypical eating situation. Some show cases of conceptual blending, while others have a source domain other than the prototypical eating situation. Nonetheless, many figurative meanings seem to be the result of metaphorical meaning shift trigged by common components we experience in the prototypical eating situation and other perceptions. These common components show resemblance on a schematic base.

Conceptual blending and (im)politeness in political cartooning

This paper is meant to give an account of multimodal (im)politeness in political cartoons, drawing primarily on critical discourse studies (CDS) (in particular, Teun van Dijk’s notion of “context models” and Paul Chilton’s concept of “critical discourse moments”), blending theory (Fauconnier and Turner 2002), and speech act theory (especially Geoffrey Leech’s most recent revisions of Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson’s notions of negative and positive face). There is of course an abundant literature on blending theory, but the potential of this theory for analysing face-enhancing or face-threatening multimodal discourse has not been fully realised. It is shown that political cartoons can exemplify not only face attack but also face enhancement, and that blending theory can contribute to the comprehending and critique of sociopolitical action or linguistic and nonlinguistic forms of control that may operate in the world. The article thus demonstrates the value that results from merging critical cognitive linguistics and sociopragmatics.

How Audience Members Envision New Testament Characters: Mental Character Models, Blending, and the Reception of Luke 1:5–2:52

In the Gospel of Luke 1–2, the narrator focuses on two couples and their (future) sons. The plot of the narrative emphasizes the main characteristics of the characters, which in turn accentuate important characteristics of God. Audience members construct these characters like real-life persons based on the discourse aspect (textual features which indicate character traits, plots, focalization, etc.) and the suggestion aspect (memories, emotions, schemata that are activated or primed, etc.). In this article, the construction of characters is analyzed with insights into mental character models and social schemata. The linear presentation of information in orally performed narratives structures the first part of the analysis. The latter part draws on conceptual blending theory to explore how the character of God is constructed based on selected information projected from the utterances of the other characters to the blended space.

Wyrażenie Certyfikat „Super HoSpa” i jego rola w kształtowaniu obrazu opieki paliatywnej we współczesnym dyskursie medycznym

This paper is an analysis of the expression hospa, which is a part of the name Certyfi kat „Super HoSpa” (“Super HoSpa” Certifi cate), a distinction awarded to the best Polish hospices by the Rak’n’Roll Foundation. The neologism hospa is described in terms of its formal structure (as a contamination compound) and at the conceptual level (as a cognitive amalgam) using G. Fauconnier and M. Turner’s conceptual blending theory. Based on dictionary and corpus data as well as texts concerning hospices with the title “Super HoSpa”, the author reconstructs the representation of a patient-friendly hospice. What serves as a background for the description is the issues of palliative medicine and care and the stereotypical image of hospice established in the society, which the creators of the certifi cate are trying to “disenchant”, also through language.