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Reading Readers Reading a Poem: From conceptual to cognitive integration

Reading Readers Reading a Poem: From conceptual to cognitive integration Margare t H. Freeman Reading Readers Reading a Poem: From conceptual to cognitive integration My attempt in this paper is to further the discussion of the role of conceptual blending in cognitive poetics by looking more closely at the cognitive processes by which readers interpret a literary text. I start by describing the results of an informal experiment to de- termine what mapping strategies people actually use to solve an analogical problem. I discovered that people tend to map on the basis of similarity and relation; they do not spontaneously apply the more abstract reasoning processes based on form that may be unique to human beings, what Holyoak and Thagard (1995) call system mapping. I then analyze critical readings of a poem by Emily Dickinson from the perspective of conceptual blending. My analy- sis shows that different interpretations arise as a result of readers selecting different topologies and projections to make sense of the text according to their own knowledge, experience, intentions, and motivations. Missing from their interpretations is any attention paid to formal qualities — such as order and shape, or prosodie and linguistic features — that reveal the poem's tone or feeling, elements that would need to http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Cognitive Semiotics de Gruyter

Reading Readers Reading a Poem: From conceptual to cognitive integration

Freeman, Margaret H.
Cognitive Semiotics , Volume 2 (s1): 27 – Mar 1, 2008
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Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
© 2013 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.
ISSN
2235-2066
eISSN
2235-2066
DOI
10.1515/cogsem.2008.2.spring2008.102
Publisher site
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Abstract

Margare t H. Freeman Reading Readers Reading a Poem: From conceptual to cognitive integration My attempt in this paper is to further the discussion of the role of conceptual blending in cognitive poetics by looking more closely at the cognitive processes by which readers interpret a literary text. I start by describing the results of an informal experiment to de- termine what mapping strategies people actually use to solve an analogical problem. I discovered that people tend to map on the basis of similarity and relation; they do not spontaneously apply the more abstract reasoning processes based on form that may be unique to human beings, what Holyoak and Thagard (1995) call system mapping. I then analyze critical readings of a poem by Emily Dickinson from the perspective of conceptual blending. My analy- sis shows that different interpretations arise as a result of readers selecting different topologies and projections to make sense of the text according to their own knowledge, experience, intentions, and motivations. Missing from their interpretations is any attention paid to formal qualities — such as order and shape, or prosodie and linguistic features — that reveal the poem's tone or feeling, elements that would need to

Journal

Cognitive Semiotics – de Gruyter

Published: Mar 1, 2008

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