A New Approach in Cognitive Narratology based on Mental Narrative Spaces and NMSB Model

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

• Azadeh Najafi
• Mohammad Reza Pahlavan Nejad
• Shahla Sharifi

Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

10.22067/jls.v49i1.57518

Abstract

1. Introduction
Based on the general issues in cognitive linguistics regarding the role of different linguistic processes in meaning construction in a narrative text, introducing a new methodological analysis of meaning construction process in the emergent story of a text needs a methodological model. Hence, the general purpose of this article is to introduce and apply a cognitive analytical model for investigating the meaning construction processes in narrative texts. In this line, Facuconnier Mental Space Theory (MST) (2008) and Dancyiger Methodology (2008, 2010) introduced powerful arguments about the meaning construction in discourse. Cognitive analysis of mental spaces is very helpful in determining writer`s/ reader's mind while producing/reading text. The present article accounts meaning construction in a Persian narrative text by exemplifying, as an example of five other texts which have been analyzed by the researchers in the main project. The aim is to test the application of MST principles in cognitive analysis of long narrative text along with introducing MST as a new methodological tool for cognitive narratology.
2. Methodology
As a qualitative research, this article uses descriptive-analytical method, i. e. after describing the “narrative mental space” representation in the story. Besides, the application of the fundamental theoretical research concepts in creating coherence and dynamism in the emergent story would be analyzed and discussed.
The data analysis has been divided into two stage based on the research purpose: Fistly, recognizing and representing narrative mental spaces, and secondly representing the blending of these spaces in the emergent story.

3. Results
The present article, as a part of an extended project in the application of MST in narrative text analysis, attempts to answer the fundamental question in cognitive linguistics that how different language processes can play a role in the creation of an emergent story in a narrative text. The analyses practically shows mental spaces make the writer or reader able to create and understand the coherence and dynamism of the story. The findings clear the narrative counterpartsof fundamentalmental space concepts as elements, counterpartelements, propagator element, identity relation, reference chain, discourse management, and bidirectional projection. Narrative counterparts of these concepts can be participants, compression, and viewpoint management in a narrative text.
Narrative mental space representation and NMSB model show many complexities in the texts that cannot be seen or notified by the reader in the first reading.
Analyses also show that some mental technical concepts can have narrative equivalences as direct/indirect speech and feeling/belief citations which make the blended emergent story. By NMSB model we represent the topology of the story. The analyzed diagrams show how the emergent story will reach coherence and dynamism as a whole.
Thus, the findings can show the practical role of mental space concepts in analyzing the meaning construction process in narrative texts and as well as introducing Dancyiger methodology as a new methodological tool for narratology.
As the literature presents, the practical side of mental space theory has always been neglected by Persian researchers. So the present article seems to be somewhat, can fill this gap filling.

Keywords

• Cognitive Analysis
• Meaning Construction
• Mental Space Theory
• Emergent Story

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