Publications
Publication details [#5727]
Herman, Vimala. 1999. Deictic projection and conceptual blending in epistolarity. Poetics Today 20 (3).
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Keywords
Abstract
Among the many figurative modes of thought and forms of conceptual structuring that cognitive studies have made available, mental space projection and conceptual blending are particularly relevant for this study. Mental spaces can be projected, changed, and tracked as dynamic and continuous activity in discourse. Elements and partial structure from input spaces can be blended into new, original, and creatively constructed spaces. Blending processes are particularly valuable in helping us analyze the creative transformation in deictic scenarios that occur when deictic centers are imaginatively projected and transposed in discourse. This is particularly the case in the epistolary genre, which seeks to transmute the absences that are endemic to the genre into the presences of the face-to-face via deictic projection.
(Vimala Herman)