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3.3. Cognitive Stylistics
Cognitive stylistics is a relatively new and rapidly developing field of language study at the interface between linguistics, literary studies and cognitive science. E. Semino defined it as the way in which linguistic analysis is systematically based on theories that relate linguistic choices to cognitive structures and processes (Semino, Culpeper, 2002). According to P. Simpson cognitive stylistics makes the main emphasis on mental representation rather than on textual representation and is aimed to shift the focus away from models of text and composition towards models that make explicit the links between the human mind and the process of reading (Simpson, 2004).
It needs to be stressed from the beginning that there are close links between Cognitive Linguistics and Stylistics. It is accounted for by the fact that the main theoretical assumptions of these sciences have much in common:
language is regarded as a means of communication and cognition;
both cognitive linguistics and stylistics focus on the processes of conceptualization, categorization and interpretation of textual information;
language is characterized by creative and imaginative capabilities;
both disciplines are based on the methodological principles of anthropocentrism and interdisciplinarity;
the main object of investigation in both sciences is text as a complex communicative-cognitive phenomenon;
both sciences postulate the necessity to consider linguistic expressions in the relation to non-linguistic factors (knowledge about the world, sociocultural context, communicative and aesthetic intentions).
Cognitive stylistics embraces a wide range of questions, including:
● the problems of cognitive style;
● the problem of conceptualization and categorization of textual information;
● cognitive principles of presenting information in the text;
● cognitive grounding of stylistic devices;
● the theory of cognitive metaphor in different text types;
● implicative aspects of textual communication;
● “figure and ground” theory;
theory of conceptual blending.
Let us elaborate briefly on some of these problems.
Cognitive style is the author’s individual way of conveying and presenting information, the peculiarities of its arrangement in the text/discourse related to a specific choice of cognitive operations and their preferable usage in the process of text production (КСКТ, 1996:80). Cognitive style is considered to be associated with the author’s personality, individual world picture, creative process of thinking and subjective modality.
In applying the principles and methods of cognitive linguistics to stylistics a special attention should be attached to the problem of stylistic devices. Traditionally stylistic devices have been studied from the point of view of their structural and semantic organization and stylistic functions. However, a satisfactory account of these phenomena can only be arrived at by means of a cognitive approach. In this sense stylistic devices are regarded as means of transmitting the conceptual information of the text, representing the conceptual world picture and knowledge structures (allusion, antonomasia, symbol, cognitive metaphor, cognitive metonymy, etc).
One of the most important notions in Cognitive Stylistics is the notion of information. Information is understood as knowledge represented and transferred by language forms in the process of communication (КСКТ, 1996). Of great importance is differentiation of various types of information. I.R. Galperin distinguishes the following types of information: factual, conceptual and subtextual (Galperin, 1981). Besides, information can be subdivided into cognitive and contextual (Dijk, 1981). Cognitive information consists of knowledge, convictions, opinions, views, positions. This type of information is of a particular relevance to literary text interpretation. No less important for the cognitive approach to the text are the types of information which are called old (given, known) and new (unknown) (Prince, 1981). It should be noted that from the position of cognitive stylistics new information is not necessarily connected with new facts. More often information is conditioned by creative potential of language, a twofold use of the language medium, various kinds of occasional transformations of language means and deviations from the norm.
In conclusion, it should be stressed that though Cognitive Linguistics is characterized by a multitude of views, problems, and approaches, it represents now one of the most expanding linguistic disciplines within a unified theoretical framework and methodology.
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