Stylistics routledge English Language Introductions

salience
. This involves a judgment of match between the
incoming text and the individual’s expectations and propensities. In other words, 
it is a readerly notion as well as a text-based one. Let me outline the process of
encountering a metaphorical structure-mapping, as follows, by recalling again the
example from Breton that Lakoff (1990) suggested: ‘My wife . . . with the waist of an
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C O G N I T I V E S T Y L I S T I C S A N D T H E T H E O R Y O F M E T A P H O R
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hourglass’. In the discussion above, I suggested that the curvy shape of the hourglass
was mapped, but presumably not the flowing sand inside, nor the glass coldness and
perhaps not the notion of time running out. But why not? And why ‘presumably’?
Certainly this seems intuitively right. So how do we decide that the line is not about
the poet’s wife’s similarity to these other things?
It seems that the notion of the 
shape
of the hourglass is the most salient feature.
Maybe this has become conventionalised (and thus comes to mind most readily) in
the phrase ‘hourglass figure’. It is plausible to suggest that the centrally prototypical
feature of the ‘hourglass’ ICM is its distinctive shape. In any case, what seems to
happen is that once this feature has been mapped onto the target (‘wife’), then that
is satisfactory enough to carry on with the reading of the poem. This was enough
for me on my first reading. The flowing sand inside is a relatively secondary feature,
and one that I only began to consider when I re-read the line in the article by Lakoff.
But I can see no salience in this feature for my reading of the poem, so I don’t think
it is mapped to my image-schema of the ‘wife’. [. . .]
Unfamiliar ICMs are only unfamiliar once, and after several practices of the
mapping the pattern becomes conventionalised. It then becomes difficult to see which
is source and which target [. . .]. [I]t is plausible to suppose that we become accus-
tomed to approaching novel metaphors using the same interpretative strategies: that
is, we look for the most salient features – on the basis of their prototypical ordering
– that will produce a satisfactory reading for the context in hand. I have tried to
demonstrate how changing contexts and reading purposes can account for different
interpretations, within this model.
The key ideas outlined in this paper include the notion that image-schematic struc-
ture-mappings are 
interanimating
rather than unidirectional, and this allows meaning
and interpretation to be 
dialectical
and 
exponential
to the surface realisation of the
proposition. The notion that ICMs are 
radial
and display 
prototype effects
allows an
account of which features are mapped and which left behind, subject to 
salience
. This
notion, related to the pragmatic description of relevance, centres on the purpose of
reading a particular text, joined to a recognition that genres encourage readers to
interpret in particular ways. And finally, it is a key idea that ICM-construction is not
treated as a completed process prior to the reading experience, but that reading itself
serves to refine and revise the features, structures and domains of knowledge. [. . .]
My main interest is in cognitive poetics, which I believe is able to provide a
coherent, valid and workable theory of literature (as argued clearly by M. Freeman
[see Reading D10–P.S.]). The Invariance Hypothesis curtails the perception of
metaphor as creative. It limits our understanding, condemning us to see things only
in the way that we have always seen them. It would prevent us from seeing how we
could possibly genuinely perceive anything new or challenging. It cannot explain the
capacity of language for reference to a new sense beyond source and target, that is
embodied in surrealist poetry, science fiction, and all imaginative works of art. Such
limitations are counter to the larger, more fundamental claims of cognitive linguis-
tics concerning the linguistic basis and embodiment of culture and perception. Here,
I have sought to preserve the general value of cognitive linguistics, while escaping
the inflexibility of invariance.
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ISSUES TO CONSIDER
Stockwell’s paper illustrates well how stylistics can be used to rethink ideas about
language and linguistics. Indeed, it addresses a question posed at the very start of
this book, in A1, which asks ‘What can stylistics tell us about language?’. Specifically,
Stockwell orientates his analysis of examples from literature towards the Invariance
Hypothesis as conceived in cognitive linguistics, which then allows him to challenge
the theory and suggest an alternative solution. In the light of Stockwell’s solution, it
is worth revisiting the passage from Jeanette Winterson provided in unit C11. A key
question to ask of the passage is whether it is only one side of the metaphorical
expression, our understanding of misery, which is altered in the mapping, or is 
our perception of the numerous source domains altered also? In other words, are
Winterson’s metaphors 
interanimating
in the sense proposed by Stockwell?
More suggestions follow:
❏
Take an anthology of poetry and write down every metaphor you can find across
any five pages of print. Consider what mappings between source and target
domain are involved, which elements are mapped and whether the literary
expression really does affect your impression of the source domain as well as the
target domain.
❏
Using the selection of metaphors provided in C11 as a starting point, develop a
comparative analysis of the sorts of metaphors you typically find in specific
discourse contexts. What sorts of metaphors, for example, do you commonly
find in advertising? Or in tourist information, popular science, cook books and
so on?
STYLE AND VERBAL HUMOUR
This reading is taken from Walter Nash’s book 
The Language of Humour
and it
explores some of the stylistic techniques that are used in the development of comic
styles of writing. Nash is particularly interested in 
allusion
and in the role it plays in
the compositional make-up of humorous discourses like parody. The topics broached
in this reading make numerous implicit intersections with material in other units of
this book; this includes intertextuality (see A5), the comic function of allusion and
intertextuality (C1 and C2), grammar and style (B3) and sound symbolism (strand
four). In all, Nash’s reading is an excellent illustration of ‘applied stylistics’ in that it
shows how the stylistic method can serve to identify and explicate various techniques
of creative writing.
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