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Информация об авторе:
Рагимова Фарида Сиражадиновна - кандидат филологических наук, доцент кафедры журналистики и русской литературы ХХ века КемГУ, ida.ragimova @yandex.ru.
Farida S. Ragimova - Candidate of Philology, Assistant Professor at the Department of Journalism and Russian XXth Century Literature, Kemerovo State University.
Статья поступила в редколлегию 18.09.2015 г.
УДК 81'366.58
КОГНИТИВНАЯ ИНТЕГРАЦИЯ КАК МЕТОД ДИСКУРСИВНОЙ ИНТЕРПРЕТАЦИИ ВРЕМЕННОЙ МЕТАФОРЫ
М. Ю. Рябова
COGNITIVE INTEGRATION AS A METHOD OF DISCOURSE INTERPRETATION OF TENSE METAPHOR M. Iu. Riabova
Статья посвящена проблеме описания категориального значения времени английского глагола, семантика которого есть результат когнитивного сдвига, т. е. метафорического переключения, вследствие которого форма представляется как знак временной метафоры. Цель статьи заключается в попытке предложить метод интерпретации метафорического употребления форм глагола, содержащих метафору времени. Метод основан на механизме ментальной интеграции или когнитивного объединения, который позволяет анализировать категориальный смысл вербальной формы как интеграцию двух типов референций: дейктической (в форме иконических и индексальных знаков) и денотативной (в форме символических знаков). Анализ смысла темпоральности художественного дискурса позволяет установить, что данный смысл является результатом метафорического расширения. Механизм дейктической темпоральной референции осуществляется посредством форм категории времени. Механизм денотативной референции актуализируется в таксисных структурах, задающих порядок предшествования-следования, создавая временную иллюзию, не связанную со временем реального мира. Таким образом, временная метафора создает иллюзию изолированности мира художественного текста, давая возможность читателю воспринимать вымышленный мир как реальность.
The paper describes the process of decoding the categorical meaning of English tense forms characterized by a complicated temporal semantics as a result of cognitive shift, due to which the form presents itself as a sign of tense metaphor. The aim of the article is to offer a mechanism of metaphorical usage interpretation of grammatical forms (or tense metaphor). This mechanism is based on the principle of mental integration or cognitive blending that enables to interpret the categorical meaning of a tense form as a blend of dual references: deictic (iconic or indexical verbal signs) and denotative (symbolic verbal signs). The analysis of temporality encoded in tense forms of a given discourse reveals the semantics of temporal signification as a result of metaphorical extension within a hyper structure of a literary text. The mechanism of deictic temporal reference operates through tense forms. The mechanism of denotative reference operates through taxis constructions creating perspectives of anteriority - posteriority type, producing temporal illusions without any connections to the real time of the world. Thus, a temporal metaphor produces an illusion of total isolation of the fictitious textual world allowing the reader to perceive the imaginary world as reality.
Ключевые слова: когнитивная интеграция, временная метафора, темпоральность, референция, дейктиче-ская референция, денотативная референция, таксис.
Keywords: cognitive blend, tense metaphor, temporality, reference, deictic reference, denotative reference, taxis.
Introduction: Mental spaces and conceptual blending A conceptual blend is a general cognitive operation of mental integration or fusion of certain cognitive spaces or worlds. Conceptual integration is a basis for grammatical constructions of analogy, cognitive modeling, conceptual categorization or frame generating. The mechanism of blending is an operation of projection from some input cognitive space to an integral mental space, which is the basis of conceptions, mental conclusions, viewpoints, in-
terpretations, and is the backbone of cognition as such. Thus, blending can serve as a mechanism of interpretation, on the one side, and constructing of a metaphor as well as many other grammar phenomena (like tense metaphor), on the other side. Cognitive integration can be the basis of a metaphorization process [2]. We assume that blending can solve the problem of decoding the metaphorical meaning of words, grammatical verbal tense forms and structures that can present a case of metaphorical meaning. The aim of the
paper is to find an adequate mechanism of interpretation cases of metaphorical usage of grammatical forms (or tense metaphor). This mechanism is based on the principle of mental integration or cognitive blending.
1. A conceptual integration within a tense form semantics
The operation of projection within structures of different levels is the central cognitive idea of a conceptual integration. Projection connects frames to specific situations, to related frames or conventional scenes [2]. Projec-
Past
t -
t
As we see, this model is the result of blending of two referential lines representing verbal forms of "Future Simple" and "Future in the Past". This blend is the projection of coordination points: PS (point of speech), PR (point of reference) and PE (point of event). The corresponding temporal shift of the coordination point (PS 1) programs the situation denoting by the verbal form "Future in the Past" as a secondary relative temporal form. Thus, the metaphor, implied in the grammatical form "Future in the Past" is the result of actualization of its referential meaning in a fragment of a possible space where the event denoted by this form takes place, cp.:
The general secretary said there would be another round of talks;
This I told her was not true but I would contact the paper and see about it.
2. Cognitive tense metaphor
It can be assumed that every utterance is a part of a dialogue. As T. Todorov claims: "Dialogue can be interpreted in a much broader manner as referring not only to the direct verbal communication which is voiced between interlocutors, but also encompassing every form of verbal communication" [12, p.167].
The problem of temporal reference in any form of verbal communication (in a dialogue or any other form of discourse) is a cognitive interpretation of the language world image and its identification with the picture of reality. If one can recount or describe an event one has just perceived then the mere act of narrating this event will place the author outside the time-space where it has occurred. "It is impossible to be absolutely identified with oneself, to reconcile one's veritable "I" with the "I" of his narration, just as it is inconceivable to lift oneself up by his own hair. However realistic and authentic a represented universe may be, yet it can never be chronologically identical to the real representing universe in which the author-creator of the representation is located" [12, p. 171].
The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of things in terms of another [6]. Why do we use expressions metaphorically instead of saying exactly and literally what we mean?
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tion can connect related linguistic constructions. Projection is the backbone of analogy, categorization and grammar.
Thus, for example, with the help of a cognitive blend, using the operation of projection, it is possible to reconstruct the cognitive model of a temporal shift in a categorical system of tenses of the English verb within a deictic temporal reference. The frame of the temporal situation denoted by a verbal form "Future in the Past" can be modeled with a projection of the following type (Figure).
►
According to Ch. S. Peirce, metaphor is an iconic sign which names its object on the principle of parallelism and/or similarity with another object [8]. A metaphor contains an indirect icon, which is not shown directly but is only described. W. Noth argues that iconism of the metaphor is based on cultural conventions, as well as on the similarity between the image and a previously culturalized content [7].
Therefore, metaphor is not to be analyzed on the semantic, but rather on the pragmatic level. Metaphor is an instruction for interpretation. If the literal meaning of the phrase is obviously defective, than consider the real world situation and look for some other meaning in terms of resemblance. Most authors agree that metaphor rests on some sort of abnormality, on a deviation and discrepancy. The defective literal meaning has to be reinterpreted according to our knowledge of the lexicon and the world. The question how we link words and human experience leads to the problem of categories and properties: what is a category and which reality does it cover? At this point, the argument seems to have come full circle and returned to the semantic interaction theories that were first rejected.
A temporal metaphor is a metaphorical reference of time in a discourse which presupposes a distance between a referential time of the event denoted in the utterance and the "now" moment of the speaker (i.e. the moment of speech). Grammatically speaking, tense metaphor can be defined as a perceptible distance between two referential points in the process of temporalization: the "now" of the speaker and the "then" point of the event, i. e. asynchronism (or non-concomitance) between the formal grammatical time and the real temporal meaning of the sign.
In terms of C. Bach, tense metaphor is a functional textual entity: "A tense functions metaphorically if it appears not with the members of its own group, but in the 'foreign company' of the other group. Such tense form gets an unpredictable and surprising meaning" [1, p. 22], e. g.:
There was excitement in the air. Tomorrow was the great day: the boyar was coming, a bishop from Vladimir, too (E. Rutherfurd);
PS 1
PR
PE 2
Figure.
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Now as autumn approached, the trees and the heavyset city itself were left with a light covering of the finest dust; summer now began to depart (E. Rutherfurd).
3. Cognitive shifting
A pragmatic mechanism that determines the metaphorization in temporal signification is the operation of shifting [3] or temporal localization [1]. A temporal localization is one of the procedures of temporalization that enables to locate different narrative programs in relation to each other temporally [1, p. 181]. As a result of this shifting two zero temporal positions are fixed in a discourse: the "then" time (or utterance time) and the "now" time (or enunciation time), which are distanced from each other and condition to create a special temporal perspective in the utterance, organizing the latter into a taxis structure of the order: concomitance - non-concomitance (anteriority - posteriority).
Thus, grammatical category of taxis is a way of programming a chronological order (or sequence) between the events in a discourse, which is characterized by the mechanism of temporal metaphorization of the reference based on the process of shifting out, which orders the progression of an anteriority - posteriority type. In other words, the grammatical category of taxis is a form of relations of consecution between narrative programs. A temporal localization interprets every presupposed narrative as either anterior or posterior to a presupposing narrative program. Such ordering of narrative events within a discourse represents a special type of temporal reference, different from the deictic reference of verbal tense forms, i. e. the reference which is non-deictic by nature and which we call a denotative temporal reference or temporal programming.
In general, temporalization in a discourse may consist of two sets of references: the first one - a deictic temporal reference functioning with the forms of verbal tense system (the principal of iconic and/or indexical signification) and the second one - a denotative metaphorical temporal reference functioning within taxis text forms and constructions (based on the principle of symbolism, i. e. language conventionality).
The two references are "means of pinning this universe onto a totally distinct exteriority - reference to the subject (to the domain of the enunciation) and reference to the object (to the world which surrounds human beings as referent). These references succeed only in the final analysis in producing illusions: the referential illusion and the enunciative illusion" [3, p. 102].
The mechanism of deictic temporal reference carried out through verbal tense forms was investigated and described by a large number of linguists. It appears that nowadays the interest is within the sphere of language games, i.e. unusual and/or nonconventional usage of language signs that are indicative, indexical, signaling, iconic and symbolic at the same time, and which corresponds to the concept of denotative reference or tense metaphor. As P. Hopper remarked "grammatical meaning, as much as lexical meaning, is capable of metaphorical extension, if not metaphorical in essence" [4, p. 1].
We assume that the concept of tense metaphor is characterized by the operation of shifting out or temporal programming. Temporal programming can be perceived at various levels.
1) The indexical level of signification when verbal tense forms (indexes) acquire unusual and metaphoric
temporal meanings in peculiar conditions of a communicative situation (in a dialogue).
2) The symbolic level of signification when verbal tense forms present taxis constructions which create perspectives of anteriority - posteriority type, producing temporal illusions without any connection to the real time of the world. A temporal metaphor produces an illusion of total isolation of the fictitious textual world from the outside real world. And we perceive in the text an imaginary world as if it really existed.
3) The iconic level of signification: a temporal metaphor combines the properties of an icon and that of a symbol, representing the chronological order of events in the utterance exactly in the way they occur in reality.
Consider examples at the indexical level of temporal programming:
Robert: I was catching the script of Sonia William's new novel, and I thought it might make him (the puppy) sick. You see, Miss Mockridge, how we talk of you novelists (J. Priestley)
- where the verbal form of Present Simple 'talk' refers the event to the moment of time prior to the speech point and thus the verb talk denotes a past action rather than a present one.
Cp.: Miss M.: Yes, I heard you (J. Priestley)
- the meaning of the Past Simple 'heard' includes the speech moment into the sphere of event time, so the past form heard has a present time interpretation (preterit-present).
Cp.: Robert: Yes, I can understand that. But why didn't you tell me? Why did you keep it to yourself, why have you kept it to yourself all this time? (J. Priestley)
- the Present Perfect tense form 'have kept' indicates that there is a temporal shift to the present, a past event is viewed from the present moment and is actual for the speaker.
Cp.: Freda (going out): I hear you had a very good time in America (J. Priestley)
- the Present Simple form 'hear' refers to a past event.
Cp.: Robert: It seems to me it's about time some of us began telling the truth - for a change (J. Priestley)
- the Past Simple form 'began' refers to a present or even future event.
Cp.: Freda: No, I wasn't thinking of Martin's. I must have been thinking of another one - perhaps your own (J. Priestley)
- the Past Continuous form 'wasn't thinking'refers to a present time event.
Cp.: Stanton: I'll see these infants home and then turn in myself (J. Priestley)
- the Present Simple form 'turn in' refers to a future event.
The examples given above illustrate the process of temporal programming of indexical tense forms. The in-dexical nature of shifters is the relation between a sign and an object when there is a space-temporal continuity between them. As Peirce states, reality is compulsive, but the compulsiveness is absolutely hic et nunc [8]. It is for an instant and it is gone. Reality can exist only as an element of metaphorical illusion or temporal approximation (achieved through the series of shifting). The use of narrative present in English has little in common with 'time' in either objective or linguistic sense, rather it deals with
shifts in how the participants in the discourse perceive the events, whether the speaker is aiming to create involvement with the interlocutor. The use of the so called 'present tense forms' in English is not necessarily constant across language games. In some contexts it will suggest a temporal deixis relative to the speech act. In others it is generic, in still others narrative, and so on. Explanations along the lines of the speaker bringing a past event into the present in order to lend vividness to the report confuse different language games, borrow a generalization from one language game in order to account for usage in another quite different one [4].
A symbolic level of metaphorization can be presented by taxis constructions, e.g.:
Robert: Did you know then that Martin had taken it? (J. Priestley);
After he goes out, the three who are left drift nearer the fire and one another (J. Priestley);
They laugh, and then there comes a subdued burst of laughter from the men in the dining room (J. Priestley);
Stanton: You wanted the truth, and now you 're getting it.(...) Martin shot himself, and he did it knowing that he'd never touched the money (J. Priestley);
Gordon: You 're just saying this because you're jealous (J. Priestley);
Freda: He told me himself how tired he was of your hanging about him and suddenly becoming hysterical (J. Priestley).
The first three examples illustrate taxis relations of non-concomitance with the accent on the temporal semantics of either anteriority or posteriority. While three further examples demonstrate simultaneity between the events of the utterances. The symbolicity of temporal programming accounts for the fact that the text, composed of imitation speech acts performed by fictional characters, is self-sufficient and needs only a reader to activate it. The reader creates the world of a literary text which is a part of a "possible world", where temporal oscillation may not necessarily correspond with the time of reality, presenting
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itself as a function of a temporal order (in terms of consequence). Time, then, does not present a preexistent framework, a flux against which things happen, but rather time is secondary to sequencing. Time is defined by the sequentiality of events rather than the other way round.
The iconicity of a temporal reference is based on the following rule of interpretation: "In the absence of linguistically coded information, the order of representation of the actions conveys the order of the actions presented" [9, p. 306]. Similar ideas were earlier formulated by R. Jacobson who claimed that Caesar's acts as reported in the sequence veni, vidi, vici is a straight forward example of the way in which "the temporal order of speech events tends to mirror the order of narrated events in time or in rank" [5, p. 317].
Temporal reference in a literary text, unlike the one in a real communication, is hyper structural and multistage: the number of links and the degree of their complexity in the text increases greatly. The addressee of the text is not able to decode and/or reconstruct (and the author to program) all possible structural links and levels of meanings in the text. As a result, firstly, the mechanism of arbitrary connections within the text comes into operation: everything can be linked with everything, language grammar rules can be violated or "neglected" since a literary text has its own grammar and its own rules; secondly, there is a presumption of openness of text links, continuity and infinity of their numbers and meanings. The author produces a machine generating meanings and senses. There is a general structure of a textual sense ordered by the author and perceived by the reader plus a prospection of complex meanings and associations with much deeper and arbitrary links and an awareness of a principle openness of this structure. All this forms the concept of a literary text.
Thus, a general device that forms the hyper structure of a literary text is a metaphorical temporal reference (or temporal programming) that produces the alternation of time and space images.
References
1. Bach C. Veibal Aspect. A General Theory and its Application to Present-day English. Odense: Univ. press, 1985. 337 p.
2. Fauconnier G., Turner M. Conceptual Integration Networks // Cognitive Science. 22(2). 2001. P. 133 - 187.
3. Greimas A. J., Courtes J. Semiotics and Language. An Analytical Dictionary. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. press, 1982. 409 p.
4. Hopper, P. J. Times of the Sign. Carnegie Mellon University, 1989. 15 p.
5. Jacobson R. Selected Writings, Vol. 1. Phonological Studies. Paris - The Hague: Mouton, 1971. P. 316 - 319.
6. Lakoff G., Johnson M. Metaphors We Live by. The University of Chicago Press, 1999. 242 p.
7. Nöth W. Handbook of Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. press, 1990. 575 p.
8. Peirce Ch. S. Collected Papers of Ch. S. Peirce. Vol. 2. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard Univ. press, 1960. 535 p.
9. Posner R. Iconicity in Syntax // Iconicity. Essays on the Nature of Culture. Tubingen: Stauffengen - Verlag, 1986. P. 305 - 337.
10. Priestley J. B. The Dangerous Corner. Oberon Books, 2001. 107 p.
11. Rutherfurd E. Russka. New York: Ivy Books, 1992. 960 p.
12. Todorov T. Bakhtin's Theory of the Utterance // Semiotic Themes. Lawrence: Univ. of Kansas publ., 1981. P. 165 - 179.
Информация об авторе:
Рябова Марина Юрьевна - доктор филологических наук, профессор кафедры переводоведения и лингвистики КемГУ, mriabova@inbox.ru.
Marina Iu. Riabova - Doctor of Philology, Professor at the Department of Translation, Inerpretation and Linguistics, Kemerovo State University.
Статья поступила в редколлегию 18.09.2015 г.
