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Journal ArticleDOI

‘Your duplicitous point of view’: Delayed revelations of hypothetical focalisation in Ian McEwan’s Atonement and Sweet Tooth:

23 Apr 2021-Language and Literature (SAGE PublicationsSage UK: London, England)-Vol. 30, Iss: 2, pp 174-199
TL;DR: The authors explored two 21st century novels by the British postmodernist author Ian McEwan, one of the first to explore cognitive-poetic and possible worlds theories, and the other to explore the possible worlds theory.
Abstract: Framed by cognitive-poetic and possible worlds theories, this article explores two 21st century novels by the British postmodernist author Ian McEwan. Building upon Ryan’s (1991) seminal conceptual...
Citations
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Journal Article
01 Jul 1998-Style
TL;DR: Short as discussed by the authors discusses the relationship between linguistics and literary studies and argues that a focus on linguistic mechanism paid no attention to literary considerations; and that stylistics involved the use of technical jargon, which was supposedly disagreeable to students.
Abstract: Mick Short. Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose. London: Longman, 1996. xvi + 399 pp. Stylistics has been a productive interdiscipline between linguistics and literary studies for around thirty years now. Controversial at first, attacked by the entrenched litcrit establishment, it became more theoretically sophisticated and diverse as it engaged with changes in the dominant models of linguistic theory: a brief liaison with transformational-generative grammar, a longer relationship with the functional grammar of M. A. K. Halliday and his associates, and a very fertile and developmental relationship with the increasingly powerful and insightful discipline of linguistic pragmatics. And as stylistics has responded to changes in linguistic theory, it has also been alert to the teachings of other intellectual movements: Russian Formalism, French Structuralism, Poststructuralism, etc. Original theorists such as Barthes, Bakhtin, Genette, and Foucault have become standard references in contemporary stylistics. An increasing range of topics and a growth of theoretical sophistication has been one aspect of the maturing of stylistics; another, the basic task of consolidating the practice of textual analysis. The original claim for of linguistic stylistics was that it provided a highly illuminating way of doing textual analysis. The original objections to this claim were (a) that a focus on linguistic mechanism paid no attention to literary considerations; and (b) that stylistics involved the use of technical jargon, which was supposedly disagreeable to students. Stylistics has effectively disposed of these criticisms. Most practitioners are happy for their investigations of texts to be framed by traditional literary categories such as point of view, metrical structure, and metaphor; and where the range of literary concepts has been extended by ideas from linguistics and related fields, e.g. foregrounding or the application of pragmatic analysis to dialogue, these extensions are now well established. As far as 'jargon' is concerned, it has long been realized that a little linguistic method goes a long way. Students do not need to learn an extensive technical terminology in order to say something meaningful about a poem or a prose extract. Certain very powerful linguistic-pragmatic concepts, once learned, provide critics and students with an analytic tool which gives rewarding results with simple application: I am thinking of concepts such as transitivity, modality, deixis, implicature, and register. And it is satisfying to record that such methodologies have now been comfortably absorbed into stylistic education for generations of students of literature. The book under review is an excellent instance of successful assimilation of linguistic method into literary studies via the stylistics interface. Its author, Mick Short, is an experienced teacher and writer in the pedagogics of stylistics; he and his colleague Geoffrey Leech at the University of Lancaster have produced a number of highly useful, very practical, books in literary stylistics, notably Leech's A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry (1969) and the coauthored Style in Fiction (1981). All three books are addressed to student readers; all are theoretically and methodologically eclectic (though there is a constant interest in foregrounding); all are rich in textual analysis and exemplification. The three books contribute strongly to the basic original aim of stylistics, to deploy linguistics in textual analysis, and they do so not as mechanical exercises, but always with a keen sense of literary relevance. Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose is an introduction, for newcomers to stylistics, to how "the language of literary texts acts as the basis for our understanding and responses when we read" (xi). It provides analytic tools which will allow the literature student to come to an understanding of literary processes in the activity of describing and discussing texts: describing texts is an exploration, not only of objective structures of language, but at the same time of our experiences in reading them. …

160 citations

Journal Article
01 Apr 2001-Style
TL;DR: Nelles as mentioned in this paper provides a good overview of earlier and current theories, and the disagreements around those theories, all of which provide a broad context in which readers may locate his instructive approach to this intriguing structural device that is "so widely found in the literature of all cultures and periods as to approach universality" (1).
Abstract: William Nelles. Frameworks: Narrative Levels and Embedded Narrative. New York: Peter Lang, 1997. 208 pp. /$42.95 cloth. In mapping out the geography of embedded narrative theory, William Nelles has provided us with a scholarly and yet readable roadmap to follow in Frameworks: Narrative Levels and Embedded Narrative. And, like any good map, this book takes into account old roads and new, providing a satisfying overview of earlier and current theories, and the disagreements around those theories, all of which provide a broad context in which readers may locate his instructive approach to this intriguing structural device that is "so widely found in the literature of all cultures and periods as to approach universality" (1). Perhaps the hallmark of this writer's own style is that he is considerate of contemporary readers' sensibilities: he does not ignore competing or dissenting voices in his discussion but, instead, he welcomes the interaction of ideas. The effect of such inclusivity builds confidence in readers used to encountering either polemical invective or dogmatic narrowness in books of a theoretical bent. He greets other theorists like a modern Zeno, "with an open hand instead of a closed fist" (Hatch 4). This "persuasive sweetness" (using that phrase in the same way that the ancient Greeks did-as a chief characteristic of successful teaching), combined with well-worked logic, goes a long way: Nelles has provided us with a convincing inductive argument about this aspect of narrative theory, and, by doing so, he has underscored the interdependence of theory and interpretation in a way that will be useful for years to come. In taking what he himself describes as a structuralist and narratological approach to his subject (159), Nelles directly confronts and lays to rest two criticisms of structuralist theories of narrative from humanists and from those "theorists committed to the cutting edge of the various poststructuralisms" (161). As for the humanists and their fears that the general field of narratology works to simplify the multiple nuances of narrative discourse into scientific formulas and diagrams, Nelles provides the comforting reassurance that his theoretical approach to embedded narratives "does not at all eliminate the need for interpretive 'readings' but rather presupposes and in fact underscores it" (160). As a case in point, a clear understanding of the definitions of both the unreliable narrator and the ironic narrator will not help us decide what is at work in Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal." Only an interpretation can do that for us (160). On the other hand, deconstructionists looking for contradictions and gaps in Nelles's work will find that he acknowledges the possibility of inconsistencies in his narratological theory. As a matter of fact, they will find that he has hung a lantern on them already, thus taking the sting out of the usual poststructural critique. As Nelles succinctly puts it, "the premises upon which the model rests are no more than strategic moves that are not grounded in either concrete realities or transcendent truth. Narrators do not literally speak and no one will ever know how the implied reader will interpret a given text" (161). Subsequently, he deftly parries in both directions without closing off a productive dialogue with either theoretical camp. Nelles's openhanded and inviting stance is maintained throughout the book. In chapter 1, "Historical and Implied Authors and Readers," he sorts out for readers these two concepts, which have been, he correctly notes, "a recurring source of confusion for theories of narratives and their applications" (9). To begin with, he offers his own understanding in his characteristically easy-to-understand way: "the historical author writes, the historical reader reads; the implied author means, the implied reader interprets; the narrator speaks, the narratee hears." He usefully complicates these definitions by providing examples from well-known literary works. …

23 citations

Book ChapterDOI
13 May 2020
TL;DR: McEwan's engagement with neo-Darwinism in its manifestation as evolutionary psychology is explored in this paper, where the author argues that human behaviour is driven by genetic self-interest and society is structured around competition, while our tendency to self-deception disguises our motives from ourselves and others.
Abstract: Chapter 3 considers Ian McEwan’s engagement with neo-Darwinism in its manifestation as evolutionary psychology. From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, human behaviour is driven by genetic self-interest and society is structured around competition, while our tendency to self-deception disguises our motives from ourselves and others. This bleak view of human nature, which was promoted in the 1990s by influential figures such as Daniel Dennett and Steven Pinker, informs the characterization and plot of McEwan’s major novels (Enduring Love, Atonement, and Saturday). It also inflects the movement known as literary Darwinism, with which McEwan was closely associated. Having charted McEwan’s tight connections with neo-Darwinism, the chapter concludes with a reading of his recent novel Nutshell (2016) as a witty subversion of the neo-Darwinian orthodoxies which shaped his earlier work

16 citations

Journal Article
22 Sep 2013-Style
TL;DR: Oatley as discussed by the authors argues that reading fiction is a "guided dream" or "a model of the world" that offers readers a glimpse "beneath the surface of the everyday world".
Abstract: Keith Oatley, Such Stuff as Dreams: The Psychology of Fiction. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. 290pp. ISBN 9780470974575. "Who would ever think of learning to live out of an English novel?" --Anthony Trollope Just like broccoli, so too is reading fiction good for you. Well, not exactly. However, with his claim that stories function as simulations of the social world, cognitive psychologist and novelist Keith Oatley argues that reading novels, short stories, poems, and dramas enable us to better understand other people and navigate the complexities of social life. Oatley proposes to develop what he sees as a neglected field of inquiry--the "psychology of fiction." Geared towards "general readers, psychologists, literary theorists, and students" (x), Such Stuff as Dreams aims to demonstrate "how fiction enters the mind, how it prompts us toward emotions, how it affords insights into ourselves and others, how it is enjoyable, [and] how it has been shown to have worthwhile effects on readers" (7). Oatley's central premise (borrowed from Shakespeare and others) is that fiction is a "guided dream" or "a model of the world" that offers readers a glimpse "beneath the surface of the everyday world" (2). Oatley draws upon the results of his research group's experiments with readers, along with recent scientific techniques such as brain scans (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging), to demonstrate reading as a process of simulation. "Narrative stories are simulations that run not on computers but on minds" (17). The recent discovery of mirrors neurons, the "smart cells" in our bodies constitutes the neural underpinnings of reading as a process of simulation. Mirror neurons are cells in the brain that fire both when an action is observed and when that same action is enacted by the observer. Citing recent fMRI evidence that brain regions track different aspects of a story, Oatley explains that "recognition of an action in the imagination when we hear or read about it involves brain systems responsible for initiating that action"; thus, "readers construct an active mental model of what is going on in the story, and can also imagine what might happen next" (20). Oatley sees readers as participating in a collaborative relationship with the writer--when we read, we create "our own version of the piece of fiction, our own dream, and our own reenactment." Oatley suggests that "with the idea of fiction as world-creating, and also world reflecting, we can understand something of what happens psychologically when we engage with fiction as readers or audience members" (18). That there is constant interplay between author, reader and text is not exactly news. Wolfgang Iser first conceptualized reading as an active practice of meaning making in The Implied Reader (1978), though he focused more on features of the text rather than psychological processes. For Iser, the novel was the genre in which reader involvement coincided with meaning production. (1) Later, in The Fictive and the Imaginary: Charting Literary Anthropology (1993), Iser explained how the literary text brings "into view the interplay among the fictive, the real, and the imaginary." (2) More recently, in Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative (2004), David Herman has emphasized narrative as an instrument of mind, describing the processes by which readers co-construct narrative worlds as "worlding the story" and "storying the world." Strangely, Oatley's entire discussion of creativity and imagined worlds--"we write our own versions of what we read" (62)--neither extends nor nuances Iser's or Herman's far more developed theories of fiction as a sense-making activity. Building on Brian Boyd's theory in The Origin of Stories (2000) that fiction originates in play, Oatley says that "pretend play" (make-believe or "what if") involves discovery--we become things we are not (27). Our ability to engage in such imaginative play as children becomes the basis for how we later create, understand, and enjoy stories. …

16 citations

DissertationDOI
31 Oct 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, a cognitive-narratological approach is proposed to analyse counterfactual historical fiction, a genre that creates fictional worlds whose histories run contrary to the history of the actual world.
Abstract: The primary aim of my thesis is to offer a cognitive-narratological methodology with which to analyse counterfactual historical fiction. Counterfactual historical fiction is a genre that creates fictional worlds whose histories run contrary to the history of the actual world. I argue that Possible Worlds Theory is a suitable methodology with which to analyse this type of fiction because it is an ontologically centred theory that can be used to divide the worlds of a text into its various ontological domains and also explain their relation to the actual world. Ryan (1991) offers the most appropriate Possible Worlds framework with which to analyse any fiction. However, in its current form the theory does not sufficiently address the role of readers in its analysis of fiction. Given the close relationship between the actual world and the counterfactual world created by counterfactual historical fiction, I argue that a model to analyse such texts must go beyond categorising the worlds of texts by also theorising what readers do when they read this type of fiction. For this purpose, in my thesis I refine Ryan's Possible Worlds framework so that it can be used to more effectively analyse counterfactual historical fiction. In particular, I introduce an ontological domain which I am calling RK-worlds or reader knowledge worlds to label the domain that readers use to apprehend the counterfactual world presented by the text. I also offer two cognitive concepts – ontolological superimposition and reciprocal feedback – that support a Possible Worlds analysis of counterfactual historical fiction and model how readers process such fiction. In addition, I redefine counterpart theory, transworld identity, and essential properties to appropriately theorise the way readers make the epistemological link between a character and their corresponding actual world individual. The result is a fully fleshed out Possible Worlds model that addresses the reader's role by focusing on how they cognitively interact with the worlds built by counterfactual historical fiction. Finally, to demonstrate my model's dexterity, I apply it to three texts – Robert Harris' Fatherland (1992), Sarban's The Sound of his Horn (1952), and Stephen Fry's Making History (1996). I conclude that the Possible Worlds model that I have developed is rigorous and can be replicated to analyse all fiction in general and counterfactual historical fiction in particular.

8 citations

References
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MonographDOI
01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: Language and Gender as discussed by the authors is an introduction to the study of the relation between gender and language use, written by two leading experts in the field, who argue that the connections between language and gender are deep yet fluid, and arise in social practice.
Abstract: Language and Gender is an introduction to the study of the relation between gender and language use, written by two leading experts in the field. This new edition, thoroughly updated and restructured, brings out more strongly an emphasis on practice and change, while retaining the broad scope of its predecessor and its accessible introductions which explain the key concepts in a non-technical way. The authors integrate issues of sexuality more thoroughly into the discussion, exploring more diverse gendered and sexual identities and practices. The core emphasis is on change, both in linguistic resources and their use and in gender and sexual ideologies and personae. This book explores how change often involves conflict and competing norms, both social and linguistic. Drawing on their own extensive research, as well as other key literature, the authors argue that the connections between language and gender are deep yet fluid, and arise in social practice.

1,383 citations


"‘Your duplicitous point of view’: D..." refers background in this paper

  • ...The specialised terminology of ‘faience bowl,’ especially, dovetails with their suggestion that women have ‘supposedly more articulated concepts and beliefs’ in this most domestic of domains (Eckert and McConnell-Ginnet, 2013: 203)....

    [...]

Book
25 Jun 1993
TL;DR: The author uses examples from a variety of literary and non-literary text types such as, narrative fiction, advertisements and newspaper reports to explore the ways in which point of view intersects with and is shaped by ideology.
Abstract: This systematic introduction to the concept of point of view in language explores the ways in which point of view intersects with and is shaped by ideology. It specifically focuses on the way in which speakers and writers linguistically encode their beliefs, interests and biases in a wide range of media. The book draws on an extensive array of linguistic theories and frameworks and each chapter includes a self-contained introduction to a particular topic in linguistics, allowing easy reference. The author uses examples from a variety of literary and non-literary text types such as, narrative fiction, advertisements and newspaper reports.

718 citations


"‘Your duplicitous point of view’: D..." refers background in this paper

  • ...Subjective and evaluative, prototypically Category A, positive (Simpson, 1994: 55–56), it is nonetheless complete conjecture....

    [...]

Book
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: Turner as discussed by the authors argues that story, projection, and parable precede grammar, and that language follows from these mental capacities as a consequence, concluding that language is the child of the literary mind.
Abstract: We usually consider literary thinking to be peripheral and dispensable, an activity for specialists: poets, prophets, lunatics, and babysitters. Certainly we do not think it is the basis of the mind. We think of stories and parables from Aesop's Fables or The Thousand and One Nights, for example, as exotic tales set in strange lands, with spectacular images, talking animals, and fantastic plots-wonderful entertainments, often insightful, but well removed from logic and science, and entirely foreign to the world of everyday thought. But Mark Turner argues that this common wisdom is wrong. The literary mind-the mind of stories and parables-is not peripheral but basic to thought. Story is the central principle of our experience and knowledge. Parable-the projection of story to give meaning to new encounters-is the indispensable tool of everyday reason. Literary thought makes everyday thought possible. This book makes the revolutionary claim that the basic issue for cognitive science is the nature of literary thinking. In The Literary Mind, Turner ranges from the tools of modern linguistics, to the recent work of neuroscientists such as Antonio Damasio and Gerald Edelman, to literary masterpieces by Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Proust, as he explains how story and projection-and their powerful combination in parable-are fundamental to everyday thought. In simple and traditional English, he reveals how we use parable to understand space and time, to grasp what it means to be located in space and time, and to conceive of ourselves, other selves, other lives, and other viewpoints. He explains the role of parable in reasoning, in categorizing, and in solving problems. He develops a powerful model of conceptual construction and, in a far-reaching final chapter, extends it to a new conception of the origin of language that contradicts proposals by such thinkers as Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker. Turner argues that story, projection, and parable precede grammar, that language follows from these mental capacities as a consequence. Language, he concludes, is the child of the literary mind. Offering major revisions to our understanding of thought, conceptual activity, and the origin and nature of language, The Literary Mind presents a unified theory of central problems in cognitive science, linguistics, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. It gives new and unexpected answers to classic questions about knowledge, creativity, understanding, reason, and invention.

687 citations


"‘Your duplicitous point of view’: D..." refers background in this paper

  • ...She merges the two concepts in the blend (Turner, 1996) resulting from the conceptual metaphor and repeatedly declares ‘I saw him’ (165, 181) to her interrogators....

    [...]

Book
01 Jan 1989
TL;DR: Katie Wales has rigorously updated the book, included many additional new terms to cover the new areas and has added an additional reading section.
Abstract: Comprehensive and easy to use, this dictionary explains clearly and concisely over 600 alphabetically listed entries. Drawing material from a range of sources, including sociolinguistics, semiotics, poetics and traditional rhetoric, it provides a valuable reference work of the terminology which surrounds stylistics, discourse analysis, text linguistics, and literary theory and criticism. With numerous quotations, explanations for many basic terms from grammatical theory and an exhaustive bibliography this is a valuable reference work.

562 citations

Book
05 Dec 2019
TL;DR: The second edition of Cognitive Poetics as discussed by the authors offers a rigorous and principled approach to literary reading and analysis, including new explanations of literary meaning, the power of reading, literary force, and emotion.
Abstract: A pioneering text in its first edition, this revised publication of Cognitive Poetics offers a rigorous and principled approach to literary reading and analysis. The second edition of this seminal text features: • updated theory, frameworks, and examples throughout, including new explanations of literary meaning, the power of reading, literary force, and emotion; • extended examples of literary texts from Old English to contemporary literature, covering genres including religious, realist, romantic, science fictional, and surrealist texts, and encompassing poetry, prose, and drama; • new chapters on the mind-modelling of character, the building of text-worlds, the feeling of immersion and ambience, and the resonant power of emotion in literature; • fully updated and accessible accounts of Cognitive Grammar, deictic shifts, prototypicality, conceptual framing, and metaphor in literary reading. Encouraging the reader to adopt a fresh approach to understanding literature and literary analyses, each chapter introduces a different framework within cognitive poetics and relates it to a literary text. Accessibly written and reader-focused, the book invites further explorations either individually or within a classroom setting. This thoroughly revised edition of Cognitive Poetics includes an expanded further reading section and updated explorations and discussion points, making it essential reading for students on literary theory and stylistics courses, as well as a fundamental tool for those studying critical theory, linguistics, and literary studies.

457 citations


"‘Your duplicitous point of view’: D..." refers background in this paper

  • ...As it is concerned with mental representations created by readers while processing a text, it has a clear affinity with text and possible world theories, a fact many a stylistician (e.g. Stockwell, 2002; Stockwell and Harrison, 2015; Werth himself, 1999) has noted....

    [...]

  • ...Adaptations to Emmott’s theory (Stockwell, 2000; 2002) have appended the notion of frame replacement....

    [...]