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Showing 9 results for Cognitive Poetics

Leila Sadeghi Esfehani,
Volume 3, Issue 10 (12-2010)
Abstract

Connecting the literary text world to reader's world as well as reading all signifying aspect of a fiction's world is not achievable by literary criticism, so it seems there is a necessity to have a theory which could study the text world in terms of both scientifically and literary creativity, that is a theory which produces the possibility of scientific survey of literature. To evaluate text world theory, in this article, it is supposed to analyze all the fictions of “the panthers who have run with me” by Bijan Najdi, an Iranian story writer. The question raised in this paper is, therefore, whether text world theory could identify the elements which structure Najdi's fiction narration? Then how he is distinguished from other authors through the production of his text world and understanding them by readers? To answer the first question, every text includes three levels: discourse world, text world and text sub-world to construct a part of the narration. The answer to the second question, Najdi produces a cohesive discourse world in his book by considering some common elements in all his fictions, so the separated fictions would be connected to each other invisibly. The important point in this paper is that, according to Najdi's text world's reading, every world could embed another world inside and create an underlying fiction by different narrative techniques. To conclude, the most important point in Najdi's works is the production of sub-stories by underlying or sub-text worlds, which are activating underlying stories.

Volume 5, Issue 4 (12-2014)
Abstract

Cognitive poetics includes a theory of analogical mapping, which shows employing different skills of finding similarities, relationships, and structural systems. Microstructure could be considered as parts or constrains of sentences in a discourse, while macrostructure is a large-scale statement of the content of a text. If some common schemata cover these both structures, this part-whole relation will map the macrostructure of the text through some paratextual and cohesive elements on all texts of the stories in a collection, and will create an untold story, a macrofiction. In fact, this untold story has a main role in the interpretation of the “Conference of the Birds”. The aim of this study is to investigate how the macrostructure influences the structuring of each story of the world text of the “Conference of the Birds” (1177), a well-known Persian poem, by cognitive poetics approach. The author is going to demonstrate how the macrostructure leads to creating a macrofiction, which offers a new reading of the text. Moreover, it examines how macro-fiction and system mapping may interact in a literary text like the “Conference of the Birds” and what is the result of their interaction. This study posits, firstly, how the concepts of variety (multiplicity) and unity (oneness) assume to construct the macro- and micro-structures of the “Conference of the Birds” through the system mapping, and how the text leads to a new structure, called macrofiction. Secondly, how macrofiction could have an effect on the reading of the text. Consequently, the concept and structure of the “Conference of the Birds” are in harmony, so the variety and a large number of the birds who desire to reach phoenix (Simorgh) are represented in the course of different and various stories concerning the same pattern. As a result, studying the text world by this approach could provide a suitable device for analyzing a text and its macro-structures through conceptual mappings as a step forward in the area of literary critic.

Volume 5, Issue 5 (3-2014)
Abstract

Cognitive poetics answers to the fundamental questions on the cognitive tools of art, language and literature. This is the strong point of this approach over the other approaches, especially literary theory, which has limitations such as inability to understand how different meanings are created and various interpretations of literary texts are possible. This paper explores how to connect the text world to the reader’s world to interpret the text and extend the reader's mental spaces in the understanding of literary texts as the research field. The main aim is the application of a model for the free reading of such interpretation, which is left to the person who relies on the opinion of cognitive poetics. Analysis of the story of Shazde Ehtejab (Golshiri, 1384/2005) is to check the elements in building the story. The questions are: 1) Which of the building elements of the story of Shazde Ehtejab can be identified by the Text World Theory? and 2) How does the identification of these elements help to interpret different text worlds? The answers to these questions (three layers of the text -“text world”, “discourse world” and “sub world”) are identified based on the Text World Theory, which is involved in building of the story. Then the link between the micro-text worlds in the form of included text world that has emerged in the mind of the Shazde and formed the original text world of the story, would be shown. The contrast between the characters and the mental spaces that are occurred through their thoughts, and form the smaller text worlds within the Shazde’s original text world, would be effective in systematic interpretation of the text.
Soleiman Ghaderi,
Volume 6, Issue 23 (10-2013)
Abstract

In the field of cognitive linguistics and cognitive poetics, researchers have emphasized metaphor’s important role in conceptualizing world experiences. In this respect, body parts have always been considered as a source domain in structuring various concepts in most languages and they’ve been exploiting the cultural models of each language in this deed. So, in order to investigate the interaction between metaphor, body, and culture in Persian, the present study tries to analyze some body-part metaphors including del (heart-stomach), jegar (liver) and chechm (eye). The data was collected from Sa'di’s Bustan which is the demonstrative of Persian culture and has a great deal of body-parts metaphors. The analysis of the metaphorical expressions was carried out within a theoretical framework based on insights from cognitive linguistics and poetics. The data analyzed shows that Iranian cultural models, derived from Iranian traditional medicine and Persian spiritual belief systems such as the Sufi worldview and Islamic religion are some factors that affect the structure of cross-domain conceptual mappings.

Volume 8, Issue 3 (8-2017)
Abstract

This paper examines the interaction between the visual and the verbal modes, that is, the multimodality of transferring the meaning in Persian visual poetry in terms of cognitive base of different types of integrations which occur in the brain after different sensory channels transferring the visual and verbal data. Although contemporary poetry is multimodal, the visual poetry is considered a type of poetry that has both the verbal and the visual as the dominant, mixed modes that tend to construct the poetic meaning. Different arrangement of words and images, which has a neurological ground, requires different kinds of cognitive processing and will therefore induce different feelings, impressions, and connotations. Consequently, the general meaning of a multimodal text goes beyond that of the combination of the two modes.
Drawing on cognitive semiotics, this paper demonstrates how the multimodal poem is conceptualized through embodied experience. Furthermore, it shows how various types of visual/verbal synthetization in a poetry text are differed by a number of distinctive features. Moreover, it is shown how the meaning-making process and the resulting affection become possible in each type of visual poetry. Through modifying Aarhus’s model (2005, 2012), itself based on Fauconnier and Turner’s conceptual blending theory, this research puts forward twelve different types of interaction between the verbal and visual modes, which, in this paper, are mentioned just the three super basic classified categories due to the limitation of the journal’s space. In fact, the three super categories are:
It is about the general relations among the two or more modes or media. In this kind of relation, each mode/medium comprises separable and individually coherent texts in different mode/media to improve the meaning space at the end.  It is divided into two sub-groups, which are Mode-adjacency and Multimodality.
It is a kind of transformations from one medium to another. An inter-medial text could be divided into Duplicating and Iconicity (Image iconicity, Relational diagram iconicity and Structural diagram iconicity). Duplicating could not presents an indissoluble connection of diverse modes as a fusion of different modal processes, while in the second one (Iconicity), the verbal and visual modes are fused together to represent the similarity or adjacency. The Duplicating could also be based on similarity or contiguity as well, that is the whole or a part of the text could be duplicated due to similarity of the verbal mode to visual mode or the contiguity of both together.
The third and the last type of relation between verbal and visual modes is mix-modal text, which is the combination of modes in a way that the complex signs in different modes would not be coherent or self-sufficient outside of that context. It is divided into four groups which are called in this research Counter-iconicity (Counter iconicity of mis-matching and Paradox-counter iconicity), Mode-situational inclusion, Mode-overlapping and complementary relation. Cognitively, these three basic types are processed respectively as following: bottom-up, top-down and integrated processing. Furthermore, these types are based on the structure of human brain and the functions of neurological cells, to study multimodal, especially visual poetry. Since both brain and literature contain similar patterns, it is inferred that each type of verbal-visual interaction that is constructed through a particular cognitive process will necessarily form specific emotions and impressions.
 
 

Volume 11, Issue 1 (3-2020)
Abstract

The current study investigates the similarities and differences of conceptualization of SADNESS in representative corpuses of ordinary (non-poetic) and poetic language. Analysing two separate corpuses (Persian Language Data Base and Farsi Language Corpus), the writers managed to identify and extract the relevant conceptual metaphors of SADNESS in both ordinary language and contemporary poetics respectively. Then according to Conceptual Metaphor Theory of Lakoff and Johnson (1989), the most frequent generic and specific mappings of SADNESS in both ordinary and poetic language were determined. The study showed that almost all the generic metaphors of SADNESS occur in both types discourse, though some of them occur significantly in either the one or the other type. An analysis of the two sets of metaphors revealed several important differences between poetic and non-poetic conceptualization of SADNESS, including the higher degree of agentivity, positive conceptualization of SADNESS and unconventionality in poetic language compared to non-poetic genre. The finding that almost all the identified metaphors are found in poetic and non-poetic language supports Lakoff and Turner’s claim (1989) that there is nothing essentially different about poetic metaphors.
 
 

Volume 11, Issue 6 (3-2020)
Abstract

Cognitive poetics as one of the new branches of cognitive science, provides appropriate tools for analyzing the text for the literay critics. The theory of text worlds is one of these tools and is useful in analyzing the textual space. In this study the authors seek to analyze the function of this theory in representing the world of constructed text in Persian poetry. To this goal, the authors  analyzed a sonnets of Saadi and a free verse poem of Nima, and examined the function of the theory of the text worlds. The results of this study indicate that this theory is more suitable for the analysis of free verse poetry, and in classical poetry, especially the liryc poetry, there are obstacles due to the inherent limitations of this kind of poetry. To solve the problems of classical poetry analysis, the authors have presented solutions using the theory of text worlds.

1. Introduction
Cognitive poetics as one of the new branches of cognitive science, provides appropriate tools for analyzing the text for the literary critics. The theory of text worlds is one of these tools and is useful in analyzing the textual space. Our purpose in this study is to analyze the function of this theory in representing the world of constructed text in Persian poetry. To this goal, we analyzed a sonnets of Saadi and a free verse poem of Nima, and examined the function of the theory of the text worlds. The results of this study indicate that this theory is more suitable for the analysis of free verse poetry, and in classical poetry, especially the lyric poetry, there are obstacles due to the inherent limitations of this kind of poetry. To solve the problems of classical poetry analysis, we have presented solutions using the theory of text worlds.
The article can be elaborated in more detail: Text world theory is one of the tools of cognitive poetics that provides the reader with the ability to carefully examine the components of a text. This theory has a coherent method for modern literary analysis because it explores internal elements and then analyzes the evolution of text discourses. The present research has demonstrated in practice that this theory is a tool for accessing discourse and the constituent elements of Persian poetic texts. An important point that the interpreter must consider in analyzing the text world of classical poetry is to pay attention to the elements of discourse and not to examine grammatical sentences.
In the analysis of poetry, this theory, more than anything else, deals with the context of the text and the explanation of the textual elements of the poem, and does not have the special ability to examine the rhetorical elements of the text. At the same time, in the course of our research, we have shown that despite the limitations of this theory in dealing with the rhetorical elements of the text, the rhetorical simile can be explored in sub-worlds of text. The inherent limitations of classical Persian poetry, such as the lack of narration and the lack of vertical focus in many poems, as well as the necessity of weight and the existence of rhyme and line, cause this theory to generally face limitations in dealing with classical poetry. With the application of several guidelines, this theory can be applied to classical Persian poetry. This theory is well-suited to criticism in modern poetry because of its greater narrative and lack of limitations on classical poetry
Leila Sadeghi Esfehani,
Volume 13, Issue 51 (8-2020)
Abstract

Figure and ground are cognitive devices for text analysis, indicating a phenomenological relation between literature and human beings. So critical research by cognitive poetics approach, on one hand, includes the possibility of analyzing texts considering the author, text and reader simultaneously, although different traditions have emphasized on just one or two of them. On the other hand, it gives phenomenological value to the literary research for the reason that it is created based on body, mind and human life. The concepts of figure and ground were first introduced in Gestalt Theory, and they were later developed in cognitive poetics to make the comprehension of a text possible, as lack of figure in any text can lead to a flat reading. Figure could be created through repetition, unfamiliar naming, innovative metaphor, creative syntactic ordering, use of puns, inner rhyme in a text, or any other technique which results in deviations from the expected use of language.  This paper draws on the function of figure and ground to analyze a poem by Nima Yooshij, entitled “Oh, Humans” through a cognitive poetics approach. It studied how analytical devices of cognitive theory with neurocognitive and psychological bases could explain the cognitive deviation from the Persian classic meter. Furthermore, it embodied a way that "the self" as a core of consciousness is interpreted through the structural arrangement of the words as well as "the other" as the historical memory in the background. Moreover, this poem is cognitively and structurally classified in three episodes based on the figure and ground's usages, so the iconicity (similarity) of the form-meaning could reflect the absence of dialogue between the self and the other through discursive worlds. This proposes that the representation and recreation of the author-reader’s world through the form (structural arrangement) in a literary work equals the meaning that a text’s world tries to create. Therefore, the study of meaning is not disjointed from the form, that is, the cognitive conformity of form-meaning in this poem conceptualizes the self and the other, as it is conceptualized in the society


Volume 19, Issue 77 (12-2022)
Abstract

Theory of mental spaces is a theory derived from the theory of possible worlds. This theory and its derived theory, conceptual blending, are useful tools for text analysis in the field of cognitive poetics. The purpose of this study is to investigate how these theories encounter Persian poetry. To examine the application of these theories in the analysis of Persian poetry, we first discuss their philosophical aspects and theoretical foundations, and then test how they work in a lyric by Saadi. The results of the present study show that the theory of mental spaces, despite its generally appropriate function, in some positions such as allegorical structures, does not have the necessary efficiency in semantic analysis of poetry and in such circumstances, the theory derived from that, theory of conceptual blending, can cover the functional vacuum. We have also shown that the theory of mental spaces is a tool that explains and analyzes the linguistic nature of ambiguity, as one of the most important elements of rhetoric in poetry.
 

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