Stylistics routledge English Language Introductions

schema theory
represents a
significant landmark in cognitive stylistic research. Schema theory is an umbrella
term covering a range of individual cognitive models at the heart of which are situ-
ated the core concept 
schema
and the attendant concepts 
frame
, 
scenario
and 
script
.
One of the most significant developments in this field is Schank and Abelson’s influ-
ential script-based model of human understanding and memory (Schank and Abelson
1977). In their terms, a script (and by imputation a schema) is a chunk of know-
ledge which describes ‘a predetermined, stereotyped sequence of actions that defines
a well-known situation’ (Schank and Abelson 1977: 41). Scripts are expectation-
based, preexisting knowledge stores, but they are also subject to modification in the
course of an individual subject’s experience and development. In other words, fresh
incoming information interacts with what we already know, thereby causing us 
to modify our mental representations. This cognitive process was implicit in the
development of the ‘pub’ scenario in A10.
The importance of the script-based framework lies mainly in its capacity to explain
how we can understand texts without having to rely on explicit linguistic signals 
in
the text (again, see A10). In respect of this issue, Schank and Abelson develop the
famous, and now ubiquitous, ‘restaurant script’ (Schank and Abelson 1977: 42–9).
The restaurant script is a knowledge structure which is activated by an essential
precondition – that is, wanting to eat. The script is sustained further as a ‘giant causal
chain’ by accompanying conceptual slots such as 
roles
, which include sub-entries like
WAITER
and 
CUSTOMER
, or 
props
, with entries like 
TABLE
and 
MENU
(Schank and
Abelson 1977: 43; and see A10). Importantly, scripts allow for new conceptualisa-
tions of objects within them just as if these objects had been previously mentioned,
such that ‘objects within a script may take ‘the’ without explicit introduction because
the script itself has already implicitly introduced them’ (Schank and Abelson 1977:
41). The precise nature of conceptualisations varies from one individual to another,
and there is no obvious upper limit to the number of conceptualisations that can be
invoked for every script. This potentially endless list of specifiable features has resulted
in some criticism of the Schank and Abelson model, the theoretical implications of
11
111
11
111
D E V E L O P M E N T S I N C O G N I T I V E S T Y L I S T I C S
89
B10

---

which must be left aside for now (see Stockwell 2002: 75–89 for a useful survey of
the model).
Although superseded to some extent by more recent developments in AI, appli-
cation of the schema model represented an important move in stylistics, away from
a linguistic and text-based approach and towards a cognitive and expectation-based
approach to literary discourse. One of the most significant of these applications is
Cook’s (1994) assimilation of schema theory with Formalist and Structuralist
concepts like 
deviation
and 
foregrounding
(see B1). An important assumption of the
AI approach is that we draw on schemata to help establish coherence in textual inter-
pretation. However, according to Cook, the primary function of certain kinds of
discourse is to effect a change in the schemata of their readers, and preeminent among
these is literary discourse which often works to 
disrupt
and then 
refresh
schemata
(1994: 191). Cook accepts that other forms of discourse, such as jokes and adver-
tisements, can also refresh schemata. He even gives an example from Stephen
Hawking’s