During the Upper Paleolithic, human beings developed an unprecedented
ability to innovate. They acquired a modern human imagination, which
gave them the ability to invent new concepts and to assemble new and
dynamic mental patterns. The results of this change were awesome: human
beings developed art, science, religion, culture, refined tool use,
and language. Our ancestors gained this superiority through the evolution
of the mental capacity for conceptual blending. Conceptual blending
has a fascinating dynamics and a crucial role in how we think and live.
It operates largely behind the scenes. Almost invisibly to consciousness,
it choreographs vast networks of conceptual meaning, yielding cognitive
products, which, at the conscious level, appear simple. Blending is
governed by uniform structural and dynamic principles and by optimality
constraints. The theory of conceptual blending has been applied by scores
of researchers, in cognitive neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology,
linguistics, music theory, poetics, mathematics, divinity, semiotics,
theory of art, psychotherapy, artificial intelligence, political science,
discourse analysis, philosophy, anthropology, and the study of gesture
and of material culture.
Fauconnier and Turner. 2000.
Amalgami: Introduzione ai Network
di integrazione concettuale. Urbino: Quattroventi. [Italian version
of "Conceptual Integration Networks." Tr. Marco Casonato, Antonino Carcione,
and Michele Procacci. A volume in the series Neuroscienze cognitive
e psicoterapia.]
Brandt, Per Aage. In press. "Cats in Space." Acta Linguistica.
[Jakobson and Lévi-Strauss' structuralist reading of Baudelaire's
"Les Chats" is reconsidered in light of cognitive rhetoric and conceptual
blending theory.]
Bundgård, Peer
F. 1999. "Cognition and Eventstructure," Almen Semiotik 15:
78-106. [A review of conceptual integration theory.]
Burke, Michael. 2003. "Literature as Parable." In Cognitive Poetics in Practice,
eds. Gavins, J. & Steen G. London: Routledge, pages 115-128.
Casonato, Marco M.. 2000. "Scolarette sexy: processi cognitivi
standard nella scena della perversione." Psicoterapia: clinica,
epistemologia, ricerca, 20-21, Spring. [An analysis of the role
of blending in sexual imagination and realized fantasy, including
but not restricted to "perverse" scenes.]
Casonato, Marco, Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner. "Lfimmaginazione
ed il cosiddetto 'conflitto' psichico." Annuario di Itinerari
Filosofici, volume 5 (Strutture dell'esperienza), number
3 (Mente, linguaggio, espressione). Milano: Mimesis, 2001.
Chen, Melinda. 2000.
"A Cognitive-Linguistic View of Linguistic (Human) Objectification."
A discussion of blends in objectifying human beings.
Collier, David and Stephen Levitsky. 1997. "Democracy with Adjectives:
Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research." World Politics
49:3 (April), 430-451.
Coulson, Seana. 1995. "Analogic and metaphoric mapping in blended
spaces" Center for Research in Language Newsletter, 9, 1:
2-12.
Coulson, Seana. "Conceptual
Integration and Discourse Irony." Beyond Babel: 18th Annual Conference
of the Western Humanities Alliance. San Diego, October 1999.
Coulson, Seana. 1997.
"Semantic Leaps: The role of frame-shifting and conceptual blending
in meaning construction." Ph.D. dissertation, UC San Diego.
Csabi, Szilvia. 1997. "The Concept of America in the Puritan
Mind." Paper to be presented at the 5th Conference of the International
Cognitive Linguistics Association, Amsterdam, July 14-19, 1997.
Evans, Vyvyan. (Website) 1999. "The Cognitive
Model for Time." Beyond Babel: 18th Annual Conference of the Western
Humanities Alliance. San Diego, October.
Fauconnier, Gilles. 2001. "Conceptual blending and analogy."
In Gentner, Dedre, Keith Holyoak, and Boicho Kokinov, editors. 2001.
The analogical mind: Perspectives from cognitive science. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press. Pages 255-286.
Fauconnier, Gilles.
2000. "Methods and Generalizations." In T. Janssen and G. Redeker,
editors, Cognitive Linguistics: Foundations, Scope, and Methodology.
The Hague: Mouton De Gruyter. Pages 95-127. [Cognitive Linguistics
Research Series]
Fauconnier, Gilles.
2000. "Conceptual Integration and Analogy." In Gentner, D., Holyoak,
K. J., & Kokinov, B. N., editors, The analogical mind: Perspectives
from cognitive science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Fauconnier and Turner.
1996. "Blending as a Central Process of Grammar" in Conceptual
Structure, Discourse, and Language. Edited by Adele Goldberg.
Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI),
113-130 [distributed by Cambridge University Press]. Expanded
web version. Also available in RTF
format. [A Polish translation appears in Jezykoznawstwo kognitywne
II: Zjawiska pragmatyczne (Cognitive Linguistics II: Pragmatic
Phenomena). Edited by Wojciech Kubinski and Danuta Stanulewicz. Gdansk,
Poland: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdanskiego (University of Gdansk
Press), 2000.]
Fauconnier and Turner.
1998. "Principles of Conceptual Integration." Discourse and Cognition.
Edited by Jean-Pierre Koenig. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language
and Information (CSLI), 269-283 [distributed by Cambridge University
Press].
Fauconnier and Turner.
1999.
"Metonymy and Conceptual Integration." In Metonymy in Language
and Thought. Edited by Klaus-Uwe Panther and Günter Radden.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Pages 77-90. [A volume in the series Human
Cognitive Processing].
Fauconnier and Turner.
Under review. "Polysemy and Conceptual Blending." In Polysemy:
Patterns of Meaning in Mind and Language. Edited by Brigitte Nerlich,
Vimala Herman, Zazie Todd, and David Clarke.
Fauconnier and Turner.
"Compression and Global Insight." Cognitive Linguistics. 11:3-4 (2000). Pages 283-304
Fauconnier, Gilles and Turner,
Mark . 1998. "Conceptual
Integration Networks."Cognitive Science. Volume 22,
number 2 (April-June 1998), pages 133-187. [A Danish translation by
Martin Skov, "Konceptuelle integreringsnetværk," will appear
in Kognitiv semiotik, edited by Peer F. Bundgård, Jesper
Egholm, and Martin Skov (Copenhagen: Forlaget Gyldendal, 2000). An
abbreviated version, with additions, is to be reprinted as "Conceptual
Blending" in Cognitive Linguistics and the Verbal Arts: From Metaphor
to Blending, edited by Vimala Herman (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press).]
Fludernik, Monika, Donald
Freeman, and Margaret Freeman. 1999. "Metaphor and Beyond: An Introduction."
Poetics Today. 20:3, 383-396.
Forceville, Charles.
"Blends and metaphors in multimodal representations." 7th International
Cognitive Linguistics Conference, July 2001.
Freeman, Donald. 1999.
"'Speak of me as I am': The Blended Space of Shakespeare's Othello."
Beyond Babel: 18th Annual Conference of the Western Humanities Alliance.
San Diego, October.
Freeman, Margaret. 1997. "Grounded spaces: Deictic -self anaphors
in the poetry of Emily Dickinson," Language and Literature,
6:1, 7-28. [Contains a blended space analysis of Dickinson's "Me from
Myself - to banish -"]
Freeman, Margaret. 1999.
"Sound Echoing Sense: The Evocation of Emotion through Sound in Conceptual
Mapping Integration of Cognitive Processes." Beyond Babel: 18th Annual
Conference of the Western Humanities Alliance. Sixth International
Cognitive Linguistics Conference. San Diego, October.
Goguen,
Joseph. 1999. "An Introduction to Algebraic Semiotics, with Application
to User Interface Design." In Computation
for Metaphor, Analogy, and Agents. Edited by Chrystopher Nehaniv.
Berlin: Springer-Verlag, pages 242-291. A volume in the series Lecture
Notes in Artificial Intelligence. ["This paper introduces a new
approach to user interface design and other areas, called algebraic
semiotics. . . . One important mode of composition is blending
. . .; we relate this to certain concepts from the very abstract area
of mathematics called category theory."]
Grady, Joseph., Todd
Oakley, and Seana Coulson. 1999.
"Conceptual Blending and Metaphor." In Metaphor in cognitive
linguistics, edited by Steen, G., & Gibbs, R. Amsterdam and Philadelphia:
John Benjamins.
Gréa, M. Philippe. "La théorie de lfintégration
conceptuelle appliquée à la métaphore et la métaphore
filée." Dissertation.
Grush, Rick and Nili
Mandelblit. 1997. "Blending in language, conceptual structure, and
the cerebral cortex." The Roman Jakobson Centennial Symposium:
International Journal of Linguistics Acta Linguistica Hafniensia
Volume 29:221-237. Per Aage Brandt, Frans Gregersen, Frederik Stjernfelt,
and Martin Skov, editors. C.A. Reitzel: Copenhagen.
Herman, Vimala . 1999. "Deictic Projection and Conceptual Blending
in Epistolarity." Poetics Today. 20:3, 523-542.
Hiles, John. 2003. "Integrated Asymmetric
Goal Organization (IAGO): A Multiagent Model of Conceptual Blending." White Paper, Naval Postgraduate
School.
Hiraga, Masako . 1999. "Blending and an interpretation of Haiku."
Poetics Today. 20:3, 461-482.
Hiraga, Masako. 1999.
"Rough Sea and the Milky Way: 'Blending' in a Haiku Text."
In Computation for Metaphor, Analogy, and Agents. Edited
by Chrystopher Nehaniv. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, pages 27-36. A volume
in the series Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence.
Hofstadter, Douglas .1999. "Human Cognition as a Blur of Analogy
and Blending." Beyond Babel: 18th Annual Conference of the Western
Humanities Alliance. San Diego, October. [Hofstadter discusses frame
blends and "frame blurs" in Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies
and Le Ton beau de Marot, both published by Basic Books. Douglas
Hofstadter and David Moser analyze formal blending in "To Err is Human:
To Study Error-Making is Cognitive Science." Michigan Quarterly
Review, 28:2 (Spring 1989) 185-215. Hofstadter deals in some detail
with these topics in unpublished manuscripts.]
Holder, Barbara and
Seana Coulson. 2000. "Hints on How to Drink from a Fire Hose: Conceptual
Blending in the Wild Blue Yonder." Fifth Conference on Conceptual
Structure, Discourse, and Language. Santa Barbara, May 11-14.
Kim, Esther. 2000. "Analogy
as Discourse Process." Includes discussion of blending in discourse.
Lakoff, George and Rafael
E. Núñez. 1997. "The Metaphorical Structure of Mathematics:
Sketching Out Cognitive Foundations For a Mind-Based Mathematics."
In Lyn English, editor, Mathematical Reasoning: Analogies,Metaphors,
and Images. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Analyzes blending in the invention
of various mathematical structures.
Lee, Mark and John Barnden.
2000. "Metaphor, Pretence, and Counterfactuals." Includes discussion
of blending in counterfactuals. Fifth Conference on Conceptual Structure,
Discourse, and Language. Santa Barbara, May 11-14.
Liddell, Scott K. 1998.
"Grounded blends, gestures, and conceptual shifts." Cognitive Linguistics,
9.
Maglio, Paul P. and
Teenie Matlock. 1999. "The Conceptual Structure of Information Space"
in Munro, A., Benyon, D., and Hook, K., editors, Personal and Social
Navigation of Information Space. Springer-Verlag. [Includes a
section, "Conceptual Blends in Information Space."]
Mandelblit, Nili. 1996.
"Formal and Conceptual Blending in the Hebrew Verbal System: A Cognitive
Basis For Morphological Verbal Pattern Alternations." Unpublished
manuscript.
Mandelblit, Nili. 1995.
"Beyond Lexical Semantics: Mapping and Blending of Conceptual and
Linguistic Structures in Machine Translation." In Proceedings of
the Fourth International Conference on the Cognitive Science of Natural
Language Processing, Dublin, 1995.
Mandelblit, Nili &
Gilles Fauconnier. 2000. "Underspecificity in Grammatical Blends as
a Source for Constructional Ambiguity." In A. Foolen and F. van der
Leek, editors, Constructions. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Oakley, Todd . 1995. "Ghost-brother" [and related chapters] in
"Presence: the conceptual basis of rhetorical effect." Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Maryland. "Ghost-brother" was presented at the Fifth
International Conference on the Cognitive Science of Natural Language
Processing, Dublin, 1996.
Olive, Esther Pascual.
"Why bother to ask rhetorical questions (if they are already answered)?:
A conceptual blending account of argumentation in legal settings."
7th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, July 2001.
Ramey, Lauri. 2002.
"The Theology of the Lyric Tradition in African American Spirituals." Journal of
the American Academy of Religion 70:2 (Oxford University Press, June 2002),
347-363. This article demonstrates how the slaves were able to achieve a high level of conceptual freedom and
spiritual self-determination in the spirituals as a liberating response to the constraints of their existence through
the use of creative blends.
Ramey, Lauri. 1996. "The Poetics of Resistance: A Critical Introduction
to Michael Palmer." University of Chicago, Ph.D. dissertation. [See
especially chapter four.]
Ramey, Lauri. 1998. "'His Story's Impossible to Read': Creative
Blends in Michael Palmer's Books Against Understanding." Twentieth
Century Literature Conference. University of Louisville. Louisville,
Kentucky, February 1998.
Ramey, Lauri. 1997. "A Film Is/Is Not A Novel: Blended Spaces
in Sense and Sensibility." Popular Culture Association/American Culture
Association in the South Conference. Columbia, South Carolina, October
1997.
Ramey, Lauri. 1997. "What n'er was Thought and cannot be Expres't:
Michael Palmer and Postmodern Allusion." Ninth Annual Conference on
Linguistics and Literature, University of North Texas, Denton, February
1997.
Ramey, Lauri. 1995. "Blended Spaces in Thurber and Welty." Marian
College Humanities Series, Marian, Wisconsin, February 1995.
Ramey, Martin . 1997. "Eschatology and Ethics," chapter four of
"The Problem Of The Body: The Conflict Between Soteriology and Ethics
In Paul." Doctoral dissertation, Chicago Theological Seminary. Contains
a discussion of blending in 1 Thessalonians.
Récanati, François . "Le présent épistolaire:
une perspective cognitive." L'information grammaticale, 66,
juin 1995, 38-45. Récanati applies the earliest work on blended
spaces to problems of tense. He translates "blended space" as "espace
mixte."
Robert, Adrian . 1998. "Blending in the interpretation of mathematical
proofs." Discourse and Cognition.. Edited by Jean-Pierre
Koenig. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information
(CSLI) [distributed by Cambridge University Press].
Sondergaard, Morten . "Blended Spaces in Contemporary Art." Beyond
Babel: 18th Annual Conference of the Western Humanities Alliance.
San Diego, October 1999.
Sun, Douglas . 1994. "Thurber's Fables for our Time: A Case Study
in Satirical Use of the Great Chain Metaphor." Studies in American
Humor, new series volume 3, number 1 (1994), pages 51-61.
Sweetser, Eve. 1999.
"Compositionality and blending: semantic composition in a cognitively
realistic framework" in Janssen, Theo and Gisela Redeker, editors.
Cognitive Linguistics: Foundations, Scope, and Methodology. Berlin
and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pages 129-162.
Sweetser, Eve and Barbara
Dancygier. "Semantic overlap and space-blending." Sixth International
Cognitive Linguistics Conference. Stockholm, July 1999.
Teuscher, Christof. Amorphous Membrane Blending: Novel and unconventional
biologically-inspired computing machines. Ph.D. dissertation, Logic Systems Laboratory,
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. 2003.
Tobin, Vera. "Texts that pretend to be talk: Frame-shifting and
frame-blending across frames of utterance in Mystery Science Theater
3000." 7th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, July 2001.
Turner, Mark.
2002. "The Cognitive Study of Art, Language, and Literature." Poetics
Today. 23:1, pages 9-20
Turner, Mark . 1996. "Conceptual Blending and Counterfactual Argument
in the Social and Behavioral Sciences," in Philip Tetlock and Aaron
Belkin, editors, Counterfactual
Thought Experiments in World Politics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press. pages 291-295.
Turner and Fauconnier.
1999. "Miscele e metafore." Pluriverso: Biblioteca delle idee per
la civiltà planetaria 3:3 (September 1999), 92-106. [Translation
by Anna Maria Thornton.]
Turner and Fauconnier.
1998. "Conceptual Integration in counterfactuals." Discourse and
Cognition. Edited by Jean-Pierre Koenig. Stanford: Center for
the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), 285-296 [distributed
by Cambridge University Press].
Turner and Fauconnier.
2000. "Metaphor, Metonymy, and Binding."
In Metonymy and Metaphor at the Crossroads. Edited by Antonio
Barcelona. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Pages 133-145.
A volume in the series Topics in English Linguistics.
Veale, Tony. 1999. "Pragmatic
Forces in Metaphor Use: The Mechanics of Blend Recruitment in Visual
Metaphors." In Computation
for Metaphor, Analogy, and Agents. Edited by Chrystopher Nehaniv.
Berlin: Springer-Verlag, pages 37-51. A volume in the series Lecture
Notes in Artificial Intelligence.
Veale, Tony . 1996 manuscript.
Pastiche: A Metaphor-centred Computational Model of Conceptual
Blending, with special reference to Cinematic Borrowing.
Vorobyova, Olga. "Conceptual
blending in narrative suspense: Making the pain of anxiety sweet."
7th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, July 2001.
There is also work in
progress on blending in ASL (Scott Liddell), blending with material
anchors (Ed Hutchins), and blending in impersonal SE constructions
(Ricardo Maldonado). Joseph
Goguen and his students have devised an interesting mathematical
approach to integration operations, using algebra of categories (See
The Semiotic
Zoo), and there is some modeling being done (ICSI, and Nanterre).
The
Metaphor Center provides other papers on blending, including Ed
Heil's thesis on blending in Ovid and
Tim Rohrer 's work on blending and the information superhighway.
