Cover not available
Article published In:
Visual Metaphors
Edited by Réka Benczes and Veronika Szelid
[Cognitive Linguistic Studies 7:1] 2020
► pp. 201–221
Applications of visual and linguistic metaphor

Rendering, generalization and variation

On the use of multiple parallel texts as a comparative method in cognitive poetics

| Masaryk University
| Masaryk University
The article presents a case study of how the use of multiple parallel texts may be employed as a useful research method in cognitive poetics, using the English version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and its four published Czech versions as the samples. In the analysis, we examine the language of space in alternative verbalizations of the same literary scene across languages (English and Czech) and within the target language (Czech), and the different mental images invoked by the different ways of verbalizing the same scene. Our analysis shows that the use of multiple parallel texts can be a helpful research method in cognitive poetics, in the sense that the method is capable of providing naturalistic and representative linguistic evidence of how languages systematically differ, even for a domain as basic as space.
Keywords: construal, construction, generalization, parallel texts, stylistics
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data and method
  • 3.How the systems are similar
  • 4.When the systems differ: Flexibility and irreducible difference
    • 4.1Multiple parallel texts as a window to human cognitive flexibility
    • 4.2Diachrony in multiple parallel texts as a key to identifying an irreducible difference between languages
  • 5.Towards the use of multiple parallel texts as a method in comparative cognitive poetics
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.00054.kno
References (44)
References
Berman, R. A., & Slobin, D. I. (1987). Five ways of learning how to talk about events: A cross-linguistic study of children’s narratives. Cognitive Science Program, Institute of Cognitive Studies, University of California at Berkeley.Google Scholar
(1994). Relating events in narrative: A crosslinguistic developmental study. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Bowerman, M. & Pederson, E. (1992). Topological relations picture series. In Cross- linguistic studies of spatial semantic organization. Annual report of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 53–56.Google Scholar
Brône, Geert & Vandaele, J. (2009). Cognitive poetics: Goals, gains and gaps. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carroll, L. (1902). Malé Elišky země divů a příhod. (J. Váňa, Trans.). Praha: Alois Hynek. (Original work published 1865)Google Scholar
(1904). Kouzelnýkraj. (J. Houdek, Trans.). Praha: J. R. Vilímek. (Original work published 1865)Google Scholar
(1931). Alenčinadobrodružství v říšidivů. (J. Císař, Trans.). Praha: František Borový. (Original work published 1865)Google Scholar
(1931). Alenčinadobrodružství v říšidivů a zazrcadlem. (J. Císař, Trans.) Praha: Fr. BorovýGoogle Scholar
(1961). Alenka v krajidivů a zazrcadlem. (A. Skoumal & H. Skoumalová, Trans.) Praha: SNDK.Google Scholar
(1961). Alenka v kraji divů (A. Skoumal & H. Skoumalová, Trans.). Praha: SNDK. (Original work published 1865)Google Scholar
(2000). Alice’s adventures in wonderland. New York: New American Library.Google Scholar
Clark, H. (1973). Space, time, semantics, and the child. In T. E. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language (pp. 27–63). New York: Academic Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fillmore, C. (1968). The case for case. In E. Bach & R. T. Harns (Eds.), Universals in linguistic theory (pp. 1–88). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Firbas, J. (1992). Functional sentence perspective in written and spoken communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gavins, J., & Steen, G. (2003). Cognitive poetics in practice. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, A. E. (2006). Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gruber, J. S. (1965). Studies in lexical relations (Doctoral Dissertation). Reprinted as part of Lexical structures in syntax and semantics. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1983). Semantics and cognition. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Landau, B., & Jackendoff, R. (1993). “What” and “where” in spatial language and spatial cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 161, 217–265. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Langacker, W. R. (1991). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar: Descriptive application, Vol. II1. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
(1995). The symbolic alternative. In H. Kardela, G. Persson (Eds.), New Trends in Semantics and Lexicography (pp. 89–118). Umea: Swedish Science Press.Google Scholar
Leech, G. N. & Short, M. (1981). Style in fiction: A linguistic introduction to English fictional prose. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. (2003). Space in language and cognition: Explorations in cognitive diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lu, W. & Verhagen, A. (2016). Shifting viewpoints: How does that actually work across languages? An exercise in parallel text analysis. In B. Dancygier, W. Lu & A. Verhagen (Eds.), Viewpoint and the fabric of meaning: Form and use of viewpoint tools across languages and modalities (pp. 169–190). Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lu, W. (2017). Metaphor, conceptual archetypes and subjectification: The case of COMPLETION IS UP and the polysemy of shàng in Chinese. In Angeliki Athanasiadou (Ed.), Studies in figurative thought and language (pp. 231–249). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2019). Time, tense and viewpoint shift across languages: A Multiple-Parallel-Text approach to “tense shifting” in a tenseless language. Cognitive Linguistics, 30(2), 377–397. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lu, W., Shurma, S., & Kemmer, S. (2020). Use of multiple parallel texts in contrastive cognitive poetics: A Cognitive Grammar analysis of word formation in Jabberwocky. Submitted to Review of Cognitive Linguistics 18(1), 244–274. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lu, W., Verhagen, A., & Su, I. (2018). A Multiple-Parallel-Text approach for viewpoint research across languages: The case of demonstratives in English and Chinese. In Szilvia Csábi (Ed.), Expressive minds and artistic creations: Studies in cognitive poetics (pp. 131–157). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rambousek, Jiří. (2015). Czech [1904]. Czech 1901. Back-translation and notes. In Jon A. Lindseth and Alan Tannenbaum (Eds.). Alice in a world of wonderlands: The translations of Lewis Carroll’s masterpiece (Volume 21: Back translations), 151–156. Delaware: Oak.Google Scholar
Semino, E., & Culpeper, J. (2002). Cognitive stylistics: Language and cognition in text analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Slobin, D. I. (1996). Two ways to travel: Verbs of motion in English and Spanish. In M. Shibatani & S. A. Thompson (Eds.), Grammatical constructions: Their form and meaning (pp. 195–220). Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Stockwell, P. (2002). Cognitive poetics: An introduction. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Strnadová, Z. (2006). Předložky. In L. Dušková, et al. (Eds.), Mluvnicesoučasné angličtinynapozadíčeštiny (pp. 273–302). Praha, CZ: Academia.Google Scholar
Tabakowska, E. (1993). Cognitive linguistics and poetics of translation. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
(2014). Lewis Carroll’s Alice in grammatical wonderlands. In Ch. Harrison, L. Nuttall et al. (Eds.), Cognitive Grammar in literature (pp. 101–116). Amsterdam: John Benjamin. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Talmy, L. (1983). How language structures space. In H. L. Pick Jr., & L. P. Acreo (Eds.), Spatial orientation: Theory, research, and application (pp. 225–282). New York: Plenum Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2000). Toward a cognitive semantics. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, J. R. (2012). The mental corpus: How language is represented in the mind. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tsur, R. (2008). Toward a theory of cognitive poetics. Brighton and Portland: Sussex Academic Press.Google Scholar
Tyler, A. & Evans, V. (2001). Reconsidering prepositional polysemy networks: The case of over . Language, 77(4), 724–765. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Verhagen, A. (2012). Construal and stylistics – within a language, across contexts, across languages. Stylistics across disciplines:Conference proceedings (CD-ROM). Leiden.Google Scholar
Zhang, Y., Segalowitz, N. & Gatbonton, E. (2011). Topological spatial representation across and within languages: IN and ON in Mandarin Chinese. The Mental Lexicon, 6(3), 414–445. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Bogaards, Maarten
2022. The Discovery of Aspect: A Heuristic Parallel Corpus Study of Ingressive, Continuative and Resumptive Viewpoint Aspect. Languages 7:3 ► pp. 158 ff. DOI logo
Lu, Wei-lun
2020. Narrative viewpoint and subjective construal across languages. Cognitive Linguistic Studies 7:2 ► pp. 334 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.