Cover not available
Article published In:
Pragmatics & Cognition
Vol. 30:2 (2023) ► pp.258–295

Dynamic schematic complexes

Image schema interaction in music and language cognition reveals a potential for computational affect detection

| University of Niš
| University of Niš
| University of Niš
The article focuses on meaning generation in music and language cognition based on complexes of image schemas. We hypothesize that schemas are involved in dynamic interactions fostering online complex conceptual construction found both in language and elsewhere in various cognitive code expressions. Expanding on recent work, we propose that an account of image-schema interaction should include the notion of scalarity, a higher-order parameter which captures the intensity with which schemas occur and/or interact with one another. In that sense, schemas are proposed to have a binary valence (positive or negative) and a three-tier range of intensity levels. We focus on some examples of the interaction of force, path, link, balance, and containment image schemas in language and music to illustrate how a formal routine emerging from our proposal may help in addressing not only aspects of propositional semantics, but also affective and connotative nuances in musical and linguistic expression.
Keywords: concept generation, image schemas, scalarity, music, language cognition, affect
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background and previous research
  • 3.Dynamic approach to meaning generation in music and language
  • 4.Improved analysis: Image schematic complexes and scalarity
  • 5.Image schema combinations with the scale factor used in linguistic analysis: Some examples
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 11 July 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.00032.ant
References (74)
References
Antović, Mihailo. 2009. Musical metaphors in Serbian and Romani children: An empirical study. Metaphor & Symbol 24(3). 184–202. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2018. Schemas, grounds, meaning: On the emergence of musical concepts through conceptual blending. Musicae Scientiae 22(1). 57–71. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2022. Multilevel grounding: A theory of musical meaning. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Antović, Mihailo, Austin Bennett & Mark Turner. 2013. Running in circles or moving along lines: Conceptualization of musical elements in sighted and blind children. Musicae Scientiae 17(2). 229–245.Google Scholar
Antović, Mihailo, Dušan Stamenković & Vladimir Figar. 2016. “Association of meaning in program music: On denotation, inherence, and onomatopoeia.” Music Perception. 34(2). 243–248.Google Scholar
Antović, Mihailo, Jana Mitić & Naomi Benecasa. 2020. Conceptual rather than perceptual: Cross-modal binding of pitch sequencing is based on an underlying schematic structure. Psychology of Music 48(1). 84–104. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Athanasopoulos, George & Mihailo Antović. 2018. Conceptual integration of sound and image: A model of perceptual modalities. Musicae Scientiae 22(1). 72–87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barrett, Lisa Feldman. 2006. Solving the emotion paradox: Categorization and the experience of emotion. Personality and Social Psychology Review 10(1). 20–46. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barsalou, L. W. 1999. Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22(4). 577–660. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, Leonard. 1976. The unanswered question: Six talks at Harvard. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bierwisch, Manfred. 2009. Sprache-Musik-Bild. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 39(3). 8–34. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brower, Candace. 2000. A cognitive theory of musical meaning. Journal of Music Theory 44(2). 323–379. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cameron, Lynne. 2007a. The affective discourse dynamics of metaphor clustering. Ilha do Destero Florianopolis 531. 41–61.Google Scholar
. 2007b. Patterns of metaphor use in reconciliation talk. Discourse and Society 18(2). 197–222. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cameron, Lynne J. & Juurd H. Stelma. 2004. Metaphor clusters in discourse. Journal of Applied Linguistics 1(2). 107–136. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cienki, Alan. 1997. Some properties and groupings of image schemas. In Marjolijn Verspoor, Ewe Sweetser & Kee Dong Lee (eds.), Lexical and syntactical constructions and the construction of meaning, 3–15. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clausner, Timothy & William Croft. 1999. Domains and image schemas. Cognitive Linguistics 10(1). 1–31. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cox, Arnie. 2016. Music and embodied cognition: Listening, moving, feeling, and thinking. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Dewel, Robert. 2005. Dynamic patterns of CONTAINMENT. In Beate Hampe (ed.), From perception to meaning: Image schemas in Cognitive linguistics, 369–394. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dolscheid, Sarah, Shakila Shayan, Asifa Majid & Daniel Casasanto. 2013. The thickness of musical pitch: Psychophysical evidence for linguistic relativity. Psychological Science 24(5). 613–621. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duncan, Seth & Lisa Feldman Barrett. 2007. Affect is a form of cognition: A neurobiological analysis. Cognition and Emotion 21(6). 1184–1211. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eitan, Zohar. 2017. Musical connections: Cross-modal correspondences. In Richard Ashley & Renee Timmers (eds.), The Routledge companion to music cognition, 213–224. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eitan, Zohar & Renee Timmers. 2010. Beethoven’s last piano sonata and those who follow crocodiles: Cross-domain mappings of auditory pitch in a musical context. Cognition 114(3). 405–422. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Evans, Vyvian & Melanie Green. 2006. Cognitive linguistics: An introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1995. Media Discourse. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Gibbs, Raymond W. 1994. The poetics of mind: Figurative thought, language, and understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Grady, Joseph E. 2005. Image schemas and perception: Refining a definition. In Beate Hampe (ed.), From perception to meaning: Image schemas in Cognitive linguistics, 35–55. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gray, Elizabeth K. & David Watson. 2007. Assessing positive and negative affect via self-report. In James A. Coan & John J. B. Allen (eds.), The handbook of emotion elicitation and assessment, 171–183. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hedblom, Maria, Oliver Kutz & Fabian Neuhaus. 2015. Choosing the right path: Image schema theory as a foundation for concept invention. Journal of Artificial General Intelligence 6(1). 21–54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2016. Image schemas in computational conceptual blending. Cognitive Systems Research 391. 42–57. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hedblom, Maria, Oliver Kutz, Rafael Peñaloza & Giancarlo Guizzardi. 2019. Image schema combinations and complex events. Künstliche Intelligenz 331. 279–291. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1990. Semantic structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
. 2002. Foundations of language. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray & Fred Lerdahl. 2006. The capacity for music: What is it, and what’s special about it? Cognition 100(1). 33–72. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Mark. 1987. The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2005. The philosophical significance of image schemas. In Beate Hampe (ed.), From perception to meaning: Image schemas in Cognitive linguistics, 15–33. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2007. The meaning of the body. Aesthetics of human understanding. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Mark & Steve Larson. 2003. “Something in the way she moves”: Metaphors of musical motion. Metaphor & Symbol 18(2). 63–84. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Koelsch, Stefan. 2012. Brain and music. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Koffka, Kurt. 1936. Principles of Gestalt psychology. London: Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Krzeszowski, Tomasz P. 1993. The axiological parameter in preconceptual image schemata. In Richard Geiger & Brygida Rudzka-Ostyn (eds.), Conceptualizations and mental processing in language, 307–330. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Küssner, Mats B., Liila Taruffi & Georgia A. Floridou (eds.). 2022. Music and mental imagery. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
. 1999. Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George & Mark Turner. 1989. More than cool reason: A field guide to poetic metaphor. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1990. The invariance hypothesis: Is abstract reason based on image schemas? Cognitive Linguistics 1(1). 39–74. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Larson, Steve. 2012. Musical forces. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Lerdahl, Fred & Ray Jackendoff. 1983. A generative theory of tonal music. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Mandler, Jean & Cristóbal Pagán Cánovas. 2014. On defining image schemas. Language and Cognition 6(4). 1–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mandler, Jean. 1992. How to build a baby: II. Conceptual primitives. Psychological Review 99(4). 587–604. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2004. The foundations of mind: Origins of conceptual thought. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
. 2005. How to build a baby: III. Image schemas and the transition to verbal thought. In Beate Hampe (ed.), From perception to meaning: Image schemas in Cognitive linguistics, 137–163. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2012. On the spatial foundations of the conceptual system and its enrichment. Cognitive Science 36(3). 421–451. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marcoci, Sanda. 2014. Some typical linguistic features of English newspaper headlines. Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations 131. 708–714.Google Scholar
Mårdh, Ingrid. 1980. Headlinese: On the grammar of English front page headlines. Lund: CVVK Gleerup.Google Scholar
Oakley, Todd. 2007. Image schema. In Dirk Geeraerts & Hubert Cuyckens (eds.), The Oxford handbook of Cognitive linguistics, 214–235. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Popova, Yanna. 2005. Image schemas and verbal synaesthesia. In Beate Hampe (ed.), From perception to meaning: Image schemas in Cognitive linguistics, 395–419. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Powers, Harold S. 1980. Language models and musical analysis. Ethnomusicology 24(1). 1–60. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pratt, Carroll C. 1930. The spatial character of high and low tones. Journal of Experimental Psychology 13(3). 278–285. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Richardson, John E. 2007. Analysing newspapers: An approach from critical discourse analysis. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rothfarb, Lee. 2002. Energetics. In Thomas Christensen (ed.), The Cambridge history of Western music theory, 927–955. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Russell, James A. 1980. A circumplex model of affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39(6). 1161–1178. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Russell, James A., Anna Weiss & Gerald A. Mendelsohn. 1989. Affect grid: A single-item scale of pleasure and arousal. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57(3). 493–502. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Russell, James A. 2003. Core affect and the psychological construction of emotion. Psychological Review 110(1). 145–172. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ruwet, Nicolas & Mark Everist. 1987. Methods of analysis in musicology. Music Analysis 6(1/2). 3–36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Saslaw, Janna. 1996. Forces, containers, and paths: The role of body-derived image schemas in the conceptualization of music. Journal of Music Theory 40(2). 217–243. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Spence, Charles. 2020. Assessing the role of emotional mediation in explaining crossmodal correspondences involving musical stimuli. Multisensory Research 33(1). 1–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stadler, Michael W. 2020. The ontological nature of part-whole oscillations. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Talmy, Leonard. 1988. Force dynamics in language and cognition. Cognitive Science 12(1). 49–100. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Watson, David, Lee Anna Clark & Auke Tellegen. 1988. Development and validation of brief measure of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54(6). 1063–1070. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zbikowski, Lawrence M. 2002. Conceptualizing music: Cognitive structure, theory, and analysis. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008. Metaphor and music. In Raymond W. Gibbs (ed.), The Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought, 502–524. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017. Foundations of musical grammar. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar