Joanna Gavins

Gerard Steen

Cognitive poetics involves the application of cognitive linguistics and psychology to literary texts. This student-friendly book provides case studies to help students understand the theory and master the practice of cognitive poetic analysis.

Cognitive Poetics in Practice

Simon Armitage

This is a survey of where poetry is now (or will be very soon). It features work by newcomers to the publishing scene alongside more established young writers such as Liz Berry and David Tait.

Cast

Cognitive Poetics is a new way of thinking about literature, involving the application of cognitive linguistics and psychology to literary texts. This student-friendly book provides a set of case studies to help students understand the theory and master the practice of cognitive poetics in analysis. Written by a range of well-known scholars from a variety of disciplines and countries, Cognitive Poetics in Practice offers students a unique insight into this exciting subject. In each chapter, contributors present a practical application of the methods and techniques of cognitive poetics, to a range of texts, from Wilfred Owen to Roald Dahl. The editors' general introduction provides an overview of the field, and each chapter begins with an editors' introduction to set the chapter in context. Specifically designed sections suggesting further activities for students are also provided at the end of each case study. Cognitive Poetics in Practice can be used on its own or as a companion volume to Peter Stockwell's Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction. This book is critical reading for students on courses in cognitive poetics, stylistics and literary linguistics and will be of interest to all those involved in literary studies, critical theory and linguistics.

Louise Nuttall

Dan McIntyre

Ernestine Lahey

World Building represents the state-of-the-discipline in worlds-based approaches to discourse, collected together for the first time. Over the last 40 years the 'text-as-world' metaphor has become one of the most prevalent and productive means of describing the experiencing of producing and receiving discourse. This has been the case in a range of disciplines, including stylistics, cognitive poetics, narratology, discourse analysis and literary theory. The metaphor has enabled analysts to formulate a variety of frameworks for describing and examining the textual and conceptual mechanics involved in human communication, articulating these variously through such concepts as 'possible worlds', 'text-worlds' and 'storyworlds'. Each of these key approaches shares an understanding of discourse as a logically grounded, cognitively and pragmatically complex phenomenon. Discourse in this sense is capable of producing highly immersive and emotionally affecting conceptual spaces in the minds of discourse participants. The chapters examine how best to document and analyze this and this is an essential collection for stylisticians, linguists and narrative theorists.

Discourse in the Mind

World Building

Text World Theory is a cognitive model of all human discourse processing. In this introductory textbook, Joanna Gavins sets out a usable framework for understanding mental representations. Text World Theory is explained using naturally occurring texts and real situations, including literary works, advertising discourse, the language of lonely hearts, horoscopes, route directions, cookery books and song lyrics. The book will therefore enable students, teachers and researchers to make practical use of the text-world framework in a wide range of linguistic and literary contexts.

An Introduction

Text World Theory: An Introduction

What is the literary absurd? What are its key textual features? How can it be analysed? How do different readers respond to absurdist literature?Taking the theories and methodologies of stylistics as its underlying analytical framework, Reading the Absurd tackles each of these questions. Selected key works in English literature are examined in depth to reveal significant aspects of absurd style. Its analytical approach combines stylistic inquiry with a cognitive perspective on language, literature and reading which sheds new light on the human experience of literary reading.By exploring the literary absurd as a linguistic and experiential phenomena, while at the same time reflecting upon its essential historical and cultural situation, Joanna Gavins brings a new perspective to the absurd aesthetic.

Joanna Gavins

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