Schema Theory and Text-worlds: A Cognitive Stylistic Analysis of Selected Literary Texts (original) (raw)
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Re-reading the script: a discursive appraisal of the use of the ‘schema’ in cognitive poetics
This paper argues that what at first sight appear to be claims about the minds of readers can often be better understood as arguments about the qualities of texts. It is both a critique of schema theory as applied to literary analysis and a study in the rhetoric of literary evaluation. Two literary readings that employ schema theory are analysed: Sara Mills's reading of Martin Amis's novel, London Fields, and Guy Cook's reading of Edward Bond's poem, 'First World War Poets'. It is argued that the rhetorical effectiveness of these writings is largely independent of the validity or otherwise of schema theory. This paper can be downloaded free of charge: http://oro.open.ac.uk/15336/1/Allington\_2005.pdf
Literary Theory, Stylistics and Cognitive Poetics
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The desire to understand and interpret the underlying mechanisms involved in the creation and reception of literary texts, and the influence of these mechanisms on human cognition goes back at least to Aristotle's Poetics. However, the last century has witnessed a vast variety of approaches to the understanding of literature: a plethora of theories such as feminist, post colonialist, queer and reader response theories as well as some practical ways of analysis and interpretation such as formalism, new criticism, stylistics, cognitive poetics have shown themselves at the opposite end of the continuum. Stylistics and its evolved form, cognitive poetics have been significantly influential in the understanding of the processes involved in the creation and reception of literature. Although stylistics and cognitive poetics have usually been covered under the broad heading of literary theory, it has been observed that the divergence in the ways they operate makes such claims invalid because, unlike theory, empirical evidence is at the heart of stylistics and cognitive poetics. This paper aims to provide an overview of stylistics, and cognitive poetics and illustrate how they differ from literary theory.
Introduction to _The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Literary Studies_ (2015)
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Freeman 2 Literary critics have long been familiar with such topics as perspective, point of view, flashbacks, foreshadowing, etc. that cognitive linguists are just now exploring. One question that inevitably arises is what new insights Cognitive Linguistics provides in literary studies that literary criticism has not already discovered. The corollary, what literary criticism can contribute to cognitive linguistics, is almost always never asked (but see Brandt . In its focus on the processes of literary creation, interpretation, and evaluation, Cognitive
Cognitive Stylistic Analysis of Kamila Shamsie’s Short Story the Walk
Panacea Journal of Linguistics & Literature
This research is concerned with the application of two key approaches of cognitive stylistics i.e. Schema theory and Text World Theory approach to Kamila Shamsie‟s short story The Walk (2020). The role of cognitive analysis in interpretation of the text is manifold as it reveals how a creator of the text takes care of the text at discourse level and at text-world. Exposing himself or herself to the audience, the author conveys the message and the reader decode the embedded message conveyed through the specific text. Thus constructing textual meanings not simply requires further elaborations but needs reader‟s „mental space‟ involvement in the process of creating the Text world. Text world theory aims to clear the distance laid between the reader and author. The „reading experience‟ involves the focus of cognitive stylistics as what happens when this action of reading the text happen and also how this action shape the construction of meaning and interpretation of text (cf. e.g., Ibra...
Cognitive Literary StudieS emerged in the 1980s from the investigation of literature in relation to the embodied mind. Today we may define the field as an interdisciplinary initiative that integrates humanistic and scientific approaches and methodologies into a powerful tool to explore the complex dynamics between cognition and literature.1 In this chapter we provide readers with a sense of how some of the most significant lines of inquiry in cognitive literary studies have evolved during the last few years. We will highlight a few representative themes and studies, focusing on recent developments and what we see as new directions. Our objective is to emphasize both the continuity and the vitality of a field that is based on a dialogue among a variety of disciplines.2 i. Further expLoring disCourse And the embodied mind Several cognitive literary approaches have placed language and mental processing at the core of their inquiry, with humanists and scientists exploring literature both as a cognitive act but also as a key to understanding how the mind works. Over the last few years, researchers have stressed the need to consider cognitive processes and literary artifacts in relation to phenomenological and contextual factors, such as feeling or medium (the format in which stories come to us), in order to obtain a more coherent picture of literature as a discursive phenomenon.