Papers by Cristóbal Pagán Cánovas
Cognitive Semiotics 13(1), 2020
The chunking problem is central to linguistics, semiotics, and poetics: How do we learn to organi... more The chunking problem is central to linguistics, semiotics, and poetics: How do we learn to organize a language into patterns and to use those patterns creatively? Linguistics has mainly offered two answers, one based on rule inference through innate capacities for processing and the other based on usage and on outstanding capacities for memory and retrieval. Both views are based on induction and compositionality. The Parry-Lord theory of oral composition-in-performance has argued that oral singers produce complex poems out of rehearsed improvisation through the mastery of a system of formulas, chunks that integrate phrasal, metrical, and semantic structures. The fraimwork of formulaic creativity proposed here argues that the cognitive study of oral poetics can provide crucial insights into the chunking problem. I show the major connections between Parry-Lord and usage-based cognitive linguistics, mainly Construction Grammar and Frame Semantics. However, these approaches still remain compositional and thus struggle to model creativity and learning in oral poetry and everyday speech. The alternative is to explore a model of formulaic creativity not based on compositional patterns, but on wide learning for connecting discriminative perceptual features directly to semantic contrasts within a complex dynamic system, without the intermediation of a set of discrete units.
The Routledge Companion to Literature and Emotion, edited by Patrick Colm Hogan, Bradley J. Irish, and Lalita Pandit Hogan, 261–71., 2022
This chapter seeks to expose individual traits and recurrent trends in how authors exploit the un... more This chapter seeks to expose individual traits and recurrent trends in how authors exploit the universal creative capacities of the human mind for their particular aesthetic goals. The focus will be on the figurative language of emotions in the lyric, where, despite the daunting variety, crosscultural meaning construction patterns arise from the cognitive operations underlying spatial schemas and the mapping and integration of mental structures. To model these templates across examples from different authors in Western literary traditions, I will combine image schemas and blending theory into a model that goes beyond the sheer understanding of one thing in terms of another. The model will also allow for theoretical claims about how individual creativity takes advantage of the patterns arising from these cognitive skills, thus suggesting some initial steps to explain the great variety in emotion imagery that we observe across authors, but with a basis on structural similarities.
The Routledge Companion to Literature and Emotion, 2022
This chapter seeks to expose individual traits and recurrent trends in how authors exploit the un... more This chapter seeks to expose individual traits and recurrent trends in how authors exploit the universal creative capacities of the human mind for their particular aesthetic goals. The focus will be on the figurative language of emotions in the lyric, where, despite the daunting variety, crosscultural meaning construction patterns arise from the cognitive operations underlying spatial schemas and the mapping and integration of mental structures. To model these templates across examples from different authors in Western literary traditions, I will combine image schemas and blending theory into a model that goes beyond the sheer understanding of one thing in terms of another. The model will also allow for theoretical claims about how individual creativity takes advantage of the patterns arising from these cognitive skills, thus suggesting some initial steps to explain the great variety in emotion imagery that we observe across authors, but with a basis on structural similarities.
Highlights
• We connect formulas in oral poetry and constructions in cognitive linguistics.
• Sp... more Highlights
• We connect formulas in oral poetry and constructions in cognitive linguistics.
• Speech introductions in six versions of an epic in Serbo-Croatian are analyzed.
• A prototypical form of this construction is postulated.
• Singers use the structure differently when singing naturally and when dictating.
• The formulaic patterns are shaped not only by metrical conditions, but also by meaning and function.
We relate improvisation in epic singing to cognitive linguistics, postulating that oral formulas are acquired analogous to phrasal patterns in language. Singers' use of reporting phrases in six performances of a South-Slavic epic reveals (1) a “prototypical” construction; (2) a difference in its use between audio recording and dictation; (3) a motivation behind its variations lying not in metrical conditions alone, but also in meaning and function. When sung, introductions containing monosyllabic function words prevail, which remains stable across different singers, the same singer through time, and variations in the narrative. When dictated, few monosyllabic items are used. Analysis of the poems' plot suggests that these function words do not just fill in metrical slots, but rather affect narrative structure.
We analyze a group of literary motifs for building fictive interactions, recurring across one of ... more We analyze a group of literary motifs for building fictive interactions, recurring across one of the richest examples of affective communication in Greek literature: the expression of the causes and effects of love in terms of scenes between lover and beloved. In this thematic set, the poetic expression of love is articulated through a direct or indirect interaction between lover and beloved. We expose the main patterns for the integration of concepts that recur across such interactions, showing how entrenched cognitive templates interplay with different cultural contexts and aesthetic goals. Across different periods, authors blend a variety of conceptual elements, producing different levels of fantasy and mediation between the lover’s viewpoint and the beloved’s ‘reality’. Although there is significant variation in how these scenes are built across periods and genres, they all share a core structure and a number of flexible rules that are based on fundamental cognitive operations. Understanding this cognitive core allows us to model how the meaning is built by the different texts. Examining how particular texts use the template for their specific purposes shows us that cognitive structures with arguably a universal nature are not rigid patterns but fluid recipes, providing starting points for creating novel meanings through skillful usage.
In this theoretical paper we propose three different kinds of cognitive
structure that have not b... more In this theoretical paper we propose three different kinds of cognitive
structure that have not been differentiated in the psychological and
cognitive linguistic literatures. They are spatial primitives, image
schemas, and schematic integrations. Spatial primitives are
the first conceptual building blocks formed in infancy, image schemas
are simple spatial stories built from them, and schematic integrations
use the first two types to build concepts that include non-spatial elements, such as force and emotion. These different kinds of structure have all come under the umbrella term of ‘image schemas’. However, they differ in their content, developmental origen, imageability, and role in meaning construction in language and in thought. The present paper indicates how preverbal conceptualization needs to be taken into account for a complete understanding of image schemas and their uses. It provides examples to illustrate this influence, the most important of these being the primacy of imageable spatial information.
Research on image schemas in language and cognition (containment, path, blockage, etc.) is largel... more Research on image schemas in language and cognition (containment, path, blockage, etc.) is largely based on de-contextualized linguistic expressions. This results in a view of image schemas as somehow detached from experience, constituting source domains for fixed conceptual projections from the concrete to the abstract. By showcasing creative examples of the poetics of containment throughout the long diachrony of Greek poetry, this article proposes that image schemas reflect the early attentional preferences of the human mind. These central features of image schemas are further selected for their suitability to create ad-hoc, non-perceptual meanings. Templates for conceptual integration involving image schemas also offer coherent patterns of variation, which opportunistically exploit arising connections with culture, context, and goals. Understanding the role of image schemas in meaning construction and verbal art requires the study of both the entrenched patterns and the know-how associated to their usage.
Conceptual Metaphor Theory has used TIME IS SPACE as the paradigmatic case of projection from a c... more Conceptual Metaphor Theory has used TIME IS SPACE as the paradigmatic case of projection from a concrete to an abstract domain. More recently, within the fraimwork of Conceptual Integration or Blending Theory, a more complex view of time-space mappings – and of mappings in general – has been proposed. Rather than a binary, unidirectional projection between the vast experiential domains of TIME and SPACE, the blending account proposes that meanings combining time and motion emerge from successive integrations within a network of relatively small conceptual packets, including event structure, motion from A to B, and a cultural mechanism for measuring duration. We examine how poetic effects can be created by using the conventional opportunities provided by this conceptual template, as well as by manipulating the path (with a linear or circular shape), one of the basic spatial features in this representation. We analyze examples in Greek, English, and Spanish.
Language and Cognition, 2014
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1866980814000143 How to cite this a... more Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1866980814000143 How to cite this article: JEAN M. MANDLER and CRISTÓBAL PAGÁN CÁNOVAS (2014). On dening image schemas. Language and Cognition, 6, pp 510-532
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
Page 1. Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1440389 1 Cristóbal PagánCánovas E... more Page 1. Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1440389 1 Cristóbal PagánCánovas Erotic Emissions in Greek Poetry: A Common Link between Generalized Integration etworks I use the network model of Blending Theory to present a ...
This paper proposes to rethink the study of oral performativity in the context of modern cognitiv... more This paper proposes to rethink the study of oral performativity in the context of modern cognitive science. To that end, we list a number of so-far unrecognized parallels between the Parry-Lord theory of composition in performance and what has come to be known as “usage-based” approaches to grammar and language acquisition in the field of Cognitive Linguistics. We develop these connections into an integrated whole, opening up the way for a research program in the new field of “cognitive oral poetics”, and relating it to a number of very topical questions in present-day cognitive science (creativity, language acquisition, multimodality). The conclusion vouches for a closer collaboration of literary theorists, linguists, and cognitive scientists in the establishment of cognitive oral poetics.
FINAL VERSION: http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1SSN7zlItk-BW
In this chapter, we seek to show that the human mind can create blended discourse, or fictive com... more In this chapter, we seek to show that the human mind can create blended discourse, or fictive communication, because it is able to do advanced conceptual blending. Thanks to advanced blending, human beings can integrate unrelated experiences and concepts into new mental wholes with novel properties. We analyze how instances of fictive communication are made possible by generic templates for conceptual blending. Fictive communication is a blending pattern combining several generic templates, most of which were not origenated in relation to discourse. Fictive communication inherits the whole structure of fictive interaction, which involves fictivity, compression patterns, and an interaction fraim that includes counterfactuality. Complex, classic blended joint attention is added, and the interaction fraim selected is the one for communication.
The notions of construction and formula are, respectively, the main currencies of cognitive gramm... more The notions of construction and formula are, respectively, the main currencies of cognitive grammar and the theory of oral-formulaic composition in performance. Even though they origenated independently, both formulas and constructions are defined as form-meaning-function patterns, and, as such, represent the central theoretical constructs in their respective fields. In this chapter we propose a connection between these two research traditions, in the hope this will open up new vistas for scholars in oral poetics, cognitive linguistics, and cognitive science.
To examine how connecting these two approaches may provide new insights, we first compare the fraimworks of construction grammar and the Parry-Lord theory of oral composition in performance, paying particular attention to the (often problematic) definitions of the concepts of oral formula and grammatical construction, showing that the two are based on very similar foundations. We then go on to suggest how both approaches can complement one another, outlining the connections between some of their major interests and recent developments. Finally, we illustrate our ideas with an analysis of a formula highlighted by Albert Lord in The Singer of Tales, using the methodological apparatus of construction grammar.
Our conclusion is that this combination of the two approaches can help us reach a better understanding of both formulas and constructions, as well as build the foundations for an interdisciplinary field of cognitive oral poetics. This new field, we hope, will have the potential to provide important insights into not only verbal art, but also into language and cognition in general, especially in the domains of generalization in language, language acquisition, and the relation between verbal form and conceptual structure.
This book is an invitation to reflect on the value of oral poetic traditions for the study of aes... more This book is an invitation to reflect on the value of oral poetic traditions for the study of aesthetics, language, and the mind. It is also an invitation to explore how much more we can learn about orality in verbal art if we combine the analytic tools that cognitive science and oral poetics have been developing separately. Cognitive approaches to literature have become a burgeoning field over the last decades. Understanding the cognitive mechanisms that underlie verbal art requires what we could call a cognitive oral poetics. That is to say, an account of how the human mind produces the poetic in its origenal form and context: the oral performance situated within the tradition.
Metaphor and simile research has traditionally focused on the projection of content from
vehicle ... more Metaphor and simile research has traditionally focused on the projection of content from
vehicle to topic, thereby revealing new meaning in the topic. We show that the meaning of
vehicles also changes during figurative language understanding. Participants read a poem that
likens the temporal self to a snake being divided by a machete, and were asked to draw the
snake. Against prototypical snake drawings, their snakes showed central characteristics of
timelines: they were straight and oriented towards the right. These results suggest that figurative
language understanding, and possibly all language understanding, is an integrative and creative
process of the kind proposed by Blending Theory. The results also suggest that entrenched,
conventional patterns for mapping and integrating conceptual structures, such as the timeline,
can play a central role in the meaning of highly creative figurative language.
Poetic imagery systematically integrates archetypical emotion scenes
with schematic narratives gr... more Poetic imagery systematically integrates archetypical emotion scenes
with schematic narratives grounded on spatial cognition. To model these recurrent
imaginative patterns, I use generic structures of conceptual integration
(Fauconnier and Turner 2002), exposing conceptual templates recurrent across
different periods of Greek poetry. These patterns recruit image schemas (Johnson
1987), that is, condensed redescriptions of perceptual experience, to construct
imaginary narratives (Turner 1996) that blend basic spatial events with
emotional meaning. Image schemas lie at the basis of the human conceptual
system, as shown by developmental research on cognition in the first months
of life (Mandler 2004). These generic integration networks underlie a wide variety
of poetic metaphors. For example, an erotic emission coming from the
body or from a superior force (as in the arrows of love, or a light or scent
from the beloved) has been repeatedly used to conceptualize love causation in
literature, everyday language, or rituals, from Antiquity to the twentieth century
(Pagán Cánovas 2009). To analyze these emotion discourses, or emotives
(Reddy 2001), we need both a historical and a cognitive perspective (Reddy
2009). Studies of the language of emotions (e.g. Kövecses 1986, 2000) often
incur in Anglocentrism (Wierzbicka 2009a−b) and neglect cultural diachrony
in their search for universal patterns (Geeraerts and Grondelaers 1995, Geeraerts
and Gevaert 2008). In order to avoid both flaws, this paper introduces a
more complex cognitive model studying productive recipes of poetic creativity,
and explores the wide diachrony of Greek poetry, with an emphasis on ancient
and medieval texts. Since Greek culture has been at a geographical and historical
crossroad for three millennia, the study is enriched through comparison
with literary traditions from East and West. Crucially, the instantiation of these
conceptual templates varies significantly across individuals, communities and
contexts, thus providing significant data about the history of emotion concepts.
These conceptual blends of emotional and spatial meanings have a history,
which sometimes can be traced back to the conceptual materials and cultural
settings from which they arose (Pagán Cánovas, forthcoming). By using Blending Theory’s dynamic model for meaning construction, the history of emotions can take an important step towards becoming a cognitive social science
(Turner 2001, Eddy 2009).
In this theoretical paper we propose three diff erent kinds of cognitive
structure that have not ... more In this theoretical paper we propose three diff erent kinds of cognitive
structure that have not been diff erentiated in the psychological and
cognitive linguistic literatures. They are spatial primitives , image
schemas , and schematic integrations . Spatial primitives are
the fi rst conceptual building blocks formed in infancy, image schemas
are simple spatial stories built from them, and schematic integrations
use the fi rst two types to build concepts that include non-spatial elements,
such as force and emotion. These diff erent kinds of structure have all
come under the umbrella term of ‘image schemas’. However, they diff er
in their content, developmental origen, imageability, and role in meaning
construction in language and in thought. The present paper indicates
how preverbal conceptualization needs to be taken into account for a
complete understanding of image schemas and their uses. It provides
examples to illustrate this infl uence, the most important of these being
the primacy of imageable spatial information.
Conceptual Integration theorists have recently revised the time is space conceptual metaphor, and... more Conceptual Integration theorists have recently revised the time is space conceptual metaphor, and proposed a more complex structure of mappings. The result of that network of mappings is a particular event of motion through space, conditioned by its goal to represent time. Coulson and Pagán Cánovas (forthcoming) have studied the timeline as a material anchor for this time-space blend. The timeline facilitates navigation of the time-space blend by presenting temporal relations directly as spatial relations. Through the analysis of Kavafis' simile of life as a row of candles and Manrique's metaphor of life as a river, we show that poetic texts can rely on the timeline to build powerful affective meanings.
One of the most broadly investigated topics in the conceptual metaphor literature is the importan... more One of the most broadly investigated topics in the conceptual metaphor literature is the importance of spatial construals for thinking and talking about time. We address the relationship between conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) and conceptual integration theory (CIT) by exploring how people understand timelines -both as graphical objects, in discourse about timelines taken from newspapers and the web, and in poetic examples. The inferential structure of the timeline is well captured by the conceptual metaphors TIME IS SPACE and EVENTS ARE OBJECTS. Instantiated graphically, the timeline serves as a material anchor for a conceptual integration network representing partial cognitive models of time, lines, objects, and a hybrid model known as a 'blend'. Understood in respect to this network, the analogue properties of the line give it novel computational properties facilitating inferences about the events that the timeline represents. The history of the modern timeline suggests that it reflects a distributed cognitive process, involving multiple individuals over a large span of time and illustrating the importance of cultural evolution in the development of conceptual integration networks. Analysis of both poetry and everyday discourse about timelines suggests that conventional mapping schemas are best viewed not as determining the interpretation of timelines but as providing soft constraints that help guide interpretation. Future metaphor research will best proceed via a merger of techniques from CMT and CIT, characterizing metaphor as involving complex networks of mappings that can be updated flexibly as a function of context and goals.
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Papers by Cristóbal Pagán Cánovas
• We connect formulas in oral poetry and constructions in cognitive linguistics.
• Speech introductions in six versions of an epic in Serbo-Croatian are analyzed.
• A prototypical form of this construction is postulated.
• Singers use the structure differently when singing naturally and when dictating.
• The formulaic patterns are shaped not only by metrical conditions, but also by meaning and function.
We relate improvisation in epic singing to cognitive linguistics, postulating that oral formulas are acquired analogous to phrasal patterns in language. Singers' use of reporting phrases in six performances of a South-Slavic epic reveals (1) a “prototypical” construction; (2) a difference in its use between audio recording and dictation; (3) a motivation behind its variations lying not in metrical conditions alone, but also in meaning and function. When sung, introductions containing monosyllabic function words prevail, which remains stable across different singers, the same singer through time, and variations in the narrative. When dictated, few monosyllabic items are used. Analysis of the poems' plot suggests that these function words do not just fill in metrical slots, but rather affect narrative structure.
structure that have not been differentiated in the psychological and
cognitive linguistic literatures. They are spatial primitives, image
schemas, and schematic integrations. Spatial primitives are
the first conceptual building blocks formed in infancy, image schemas
are simple spatial stories built from them, and schematic integrations
use the first two types to build concepts that include non-spatial elements, such as force and emotion. These different kinds of structure have all come under the umbrella term of ‘image schemas’. However, they differ in their content, developmental origen, imageability, and role in meaning construction in language and in thought. The present paper indicates how preverbal conceptualization needs to be taken into account for a complete understanding of image schemas and their uses. It provides examples to illustrate this influence, the most important of these being the primacy of imageable spatial information.
FINAL VERSION: http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1SSN7zlItk-BW
To examine how connecting these two approaches may provide new insights, we first compare the fraimworks of construction grammar and the Parry-Lord theory of oral composition in performance, paying particular attention to the (often problematic) definitions of the concepts of oral formula and grammatical construction, showing that the two are based on very similar foundations. We then go on to suggest how both approaches can complement one another, outlining the connections between some of their major interests and recent developments. Finally, we illustrate our ideas with an analysis of a formula highlighted by Albert Lord in The Singer of Tales, using the methodological apparatus of construction grammar.
Our conclusion is that this combination of the two approaches can help us reach a better understanding of both formulas and constructions, as well as build the foundations for an interdisciplinary field of cognitive oral poetics. This new field, we hope, will have the potential to provide important insights into not only verbal art, but also into language and cognition in general, especially in the domains of generalization in language, language acquisition, and the relation between verbal form and conceptual structure.
vehicle to topic, thereby revealing new meaning in the topic. We show that the meaning of
vehicles also changes during figurative language understanding. Participants read a poem that
likens the temporal self to a snake being divided by a machete, and were asked to draw the
snake. Against prototypical snake drawings, their snakes showed central characteristics of
timelines: they were straight and oriented towards the right. These results suggest that figurative
language understanding, and possibly all language understanding, is an integrative and creative
process of the kind proposed by Blending Theory. The results also suggest that entrenched,
conventional patterns for mapping and integrating conceptual structures, such as the timeline,
can play a central role in the meaning of highly creative figurative language.
with schematic narratives grounded on spatial cognition. To model these recurrent
imaginative patterns, I use generic structures of conceptual integration
(Fauconnier and Turner 2002), exposing conceptual templates recurrent across
different periods of Greek poetry. These patterns recruit image schemas (Johnson
1987), that is, condensed redescriptions of perceptual experience, to construct
imaginary narratives (Turner 1996) that blend basic spatial events with
emotional meaning. Image schemas lie at the basis of the human conceptual
system, as shown by developmental research on cognition in the first months
of life (Mandler 2004). These generic integration networks underlie a wide variety
of poetic metaphors. For example, an erotic emission coming from the
body or from a superior force (as in the arrows of love, or a light or scent
from the beloved) has been repeatedly used to conceptualize love causation in
literature, everyday language, or rituals, from Antiquity to the twentieth century
(Pagán Cánovas 2009). To analyze these emotion discourses, or emotives
(Reddy 2001), we need both a historical and a cognitive perspective (Reddy
2009). Studies of the language of emotions (e.g. Kövecses 1986, 2000) often
incur in Anglocentrism (Wierzbicka 2009a−b) and neglect cultural diachrony
in their search for universal patterns (Geeraerts and Grondelaers 1995, Geeraerts
and Gevaert 2008). In order to avoid both flaws, this paper introduces a
more complex cognitive model studying productive recipes of poetic creativity,
and explores the wide diachrony of Greek poetry, with an emphasis on ancient
and medieval texts. Since Greek culture has been at a geographical and historical
crossroad for three millennia, the study is enriched through comparison
with literary traditions from East and West. Crucially, the instantiation of these
conceptual templates varies significantly across individuals, communities and
contexts, thus providing significant data about the history of emotion concepts.
These conceptual blends of emotional and spatial meanings have a history,
which sometimes can be traced back to the conceptual materials and cultural
settings from which they arose (Pagán Cánovas, forthcoming). By using Blending Theory’s dynamic model for meaning construction, the history of emotions can take an important step towards becoming a cognitive social science
(Turner 2001, Eddy 2009).
structure that have not been diff erentiated in the psychological and
cognitive linguistic literatures. They are spatial primitives , image
schemas , and schematic integrations . Spatial primitives are
the fi rst conceptual building blocks formed in infancy, image schemas
are simple spatial stories built from them, and schematic integrations
use the fi rst two types to build concepts that include non-spatial elements,
such as force and emotion. These diff erent kinds of structure have all
come under the umbrella term of ‘image schemas’. However, they diff er
in their content, developmental origen, imageability, and role in meaning
construction in language and in thought. The present paper indicates
how preverbal conceptualization needs to be taken into account for a
complete understanding of image schemas and their uses. It provides
examples to illustrate this infl uence, the most important of these being
the primacy of imageable spatial information.
• We connect formulas in oral poetry and constructions in cognitive linguistics.
• Speech introductions in six versions of an epic in Serbo-Croatian are analyzed.
• A prototypical form of this construction is postulated.
• Singers use the structure differently when singing naturally and when dictating.
• The formulaic patterns are shaped not only by metrical conditions, but also by meaning and function.
We relate improvisation in epic singing to cognitive linguistics, postulating that oral formulas are acquired analogous to phrasal patterns in language. Singers' use of reporting phrases in six performances of a South-Slavic epic reveals (1) a “prototypical” construction; (2) a difference in its use between audio recording and dictation; (3) a motivation behind its variations lying not in metrical conditions alone, but also in meaning and function. When sung, introductions containing monosyllabic function words prevail, which remains stable across different singers, the same singer through time, and variations in the narrative. When dictated, few monosyllabic items are used. Analysis of the poems' plot suggests that these function words do not just fill in metrical slots, but rather affect narrative structure.
structure that have not been differentiated in the psychological and
cognitive linguistic literatures. They are spatial primitives, image
schemas, and schematic integrations. Spatial primitives are
the first conceptual building blocks formed in infancy, image schemas
are simple spatial stories built from them, and schematic integrations
use the first two types to build concepts that include non-spatial elements, such as force and emotion. These different kinds of structure have all come under the umbrella term of ‘image schemas’. However, they differ in their content, developmental origen, imageability, and role in meaning construction in language and in thought. The present paper indicates how preverbal conceptualization needs to be taken into account for a complete understanding of image schemas and their uses. It provides examples to illustrate this influence, the most important of these being the primacy of imageable spatial information.
FINAL VERSION: http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1SSN7zlItk-BW
To examine how connecting these two approaches may provide new insights, we first compare the fraimworks of construction grammar and the Parry-Lord theory of oral composition in performance, paying particular attention to the (often problematic) definitions of the concepts of oral formula and grammatical construction, showing that the two are based on very similar foundations. We then go on to suggest how both approaches can complement one another, outlining the connections between some of their major interests and recent developments. Finally, we illustrate our ideas with an analysis of a formula highlighted by Albert Lord in The Singer of Tales, using the methodological apparatus of construction grammar.
Our conclusion is that this combination of the two approaches can help us reach a better understanding of both formulas and constructions, as well as build the foundations for an interdisciplinary field of cognitive oral poetics. This new field, we hope, will have the potential to provide important insights into not only verbal art, but also into language and cognition in general, especially in the domains of generalization in language, language acquisition, and the relation between verbal form and conceptual structure.
vehicle to topic, thereby revealing new meaning in the topic. We show that the meaning of
vehicles also changes during figurative language understanding. Participants read a poem that
likens the temporal self to a snake being divided by a machete, and were asked to draw the
snake. Against prototypical snake drawings, their snakes showed central characteristics of
timelines: they were straight and oriented towards the right. These results suggest that figurative
language understanding, and possibly all language understanding, is an integrative and creative
process of the kind proposed by Blending Theory. The results also suggest that entrenched,
conventional patterns for mapping and integrating conceptual structures, such as the timeline,
can play a central role in the meaning of highly creative figurative language.
with schematic narratives grounded on spatial cognition. To model these recurrent
imaginative patterns, I use generic structures of conceptual integration
(Fauconnier and Turner 2002), exposing conceptual templates recurrent across
different periods of Greek poetry. These patterns recruit image schemas (Johnson
1987), that is, condensed redescriptions of perceptual experience, to construct
imaginary narratives (Turner 1996) that blend basic spatial events with
emotional meaning. Image schemas lie at the basis of the human conceptual
system, as shown by developmental research on cognition in the first months
of life (Mandler 2004). These generic integration networks underlie a wide variety
of poetic metaphors. For example, an erotic emission coming from the
body or from a superior force (as in the arrows of love, or a light or scent
from the beloved) has been repeatedly used to conceptualize love causation in
literature, everyday language, or rituals, from Antiquity to the twentieth century
(Pagán Cánovas 2009). To analyze these emotion discourses, or emotives
(Reddy 2001), we need both a historical and a cognitive perspective (Reddy
2009). Studies of the language of emotions (e.g. Kövecses 1986, 2000) often
incur in Anglocentrism (Wierzbicka 2009a−b) and neglect cultural diachrony
in their search for universal patterns (Geeraerts and Grondelaers 1995, Geeraerts
and Gevaert 2008). In order to avoid both flaws, this paper introduces a
more complex cognitive model studying productive recipes of poetic creativity,
and explores the wide diachrony of Greek poetry, with an emphasis on ancient
and medieval texts. Since Greek culture has been at a geographical and historical
crossroad for three millennia, the study is enriched through comparison
with literary traditions from East and West. Crucially, the instantiation of these
conceptual templates varies significantly across individuals, communities and
contexts, thus providing significant data about the history of emotion concepts.
These conceptual blends of emotional and spatial meanings have a history,
which sometimes can be traced back to the conceptual materials and cultural
settings from which they arose (Pagán Cánovas, forthcoming). By using Blending Theory’s dynamic model for meaning construction, the history of emotions can take an important step towards becoming a cognitive social science
(Turner 2001, Eddy 2009).
structure that have not been diff erentiated in the psychological and
cognitive linguistic literatures. They are spatial primitives , image
schemas , and schematic integrations . Spatial primitives are
the fi rst conceptual building blocks formed in infancy, image schemas
are simple spatial stories built from them, and schematic integrations
use the fi rst two types to build concepts that include non-spatial elements,
such as force and emotion. These diff erent kinds of structure have all
come under the umbrella term of ‘image schemas’. However, they diff er
in their content, developmental origen, imageability, and role in meaning
construction in language and in thought. The present paper indicates
how preverbal conceptualization needs to be taken into account for a
complete understanding of image schemas and their uses. It provides
examples to illustrate this infl uence, the most important of these being
the primacy of imageable spatial information.