Conceptual Integration in Sylvia Plath ’ s “ Getting There ”

The present paper focuses on the way metaphors are created and connected to each other in Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Getting There’. Analysing the metaphors within Fauconnier and Turner’s blending theory, a number of cognitive mechanisms are accounted for, which contribute to the readers’ understanding and interpretation of unconventional metaphoric pairings. The paper brings evidence to the fact that a metonymical extension of an element in an input space can function as organising frame for the input of a subsequent metaphor. It is also pointed out that the merge of the same input spaces can yield different emergent structures. If the analysed metaphors do not project identical elements into the emergent structure, the blends are not ‘run’ in a similar way, and, as a consequence, the listener is involved in mental simulations of different events. The aim of this paper is to account for a number of cognitive mechanisms which contribute to the readers’ interpretation and understanding of unconventional metaphoric pairings – a highly valued manifestation of poetic creativity. According to the definition provided by the Oxford English Dictionary, a metaphor is “the figure of speech in which a name or descriptive term is transferred to some object different from, but analogous to, that to which it is properly applicable”. However, within the field of cognitive linguistics the metaphor is not regarded as a purely linguistic phenomenon, but rather as a conceptual one. There are two main theoretical frameworks in cognitive linguistics within which research on metaphors has been carried out: the conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and the theory of mental spaces elaborated by Fauconnier and Turner (1998). As Grady, Oakley and Coulson (1999) point out, CMT posits stable and systematic relationships between pairs of mental representations called conceptual domains. Particular elements from the domains are picked out and lined up with each other. Yet, the projection of the elements is strictly unidirectional, namely from the source to the target domain. The theory focuses mainly on the analysis of conventional patterns of metaphorical conceptualisation. The theory of mental spaces highlights on the existence of conceptual networks, within which the relationships between the constituent elements can justify the merge of one concept into another, despite the mismatches striking even on superficial analysis. Within this theoretical framework language is viewed as a superficial manifestation of hidden, highly abstract, hierarchically organized and interconnected cognitive constructions. Kémenes Árpád: Conceptual Integration in Sylvia Plath’s “Getting There” Argumentum, 3 (2007), 1-11 Kossuth Egyetemi Kiadó (Debrecen) 2 These constructions are referred to as mental spaces. Although similar, mental spaces are not equivalent to the domains defined in CMT. Each space is a partial representation of “some logically coherent situation or potential reality, in which various propositions are treated as true, objects are assumed to exist, and relations between objects are supposed to hold” (Dinsmore, 1991). Mental spaces represent scenarios whose structure is just a small subset of the knowledge recruited in the whole domain. The construction of these interconnected spaces takes place at a cognitive level, and is distinct from the language structure. However, they relate language to the real world, and contribute to “understandings” of a sentence within a context. Mental spaces and connections are built up as discourse unfolds; the configuration of spaces is dynamically updated, based on lexical and grammatical cues provided in the sentence. Thus, language only provides partial cues for the space-construction process. Apart from language, inferencing and reasoning processes are also involved in space-construction. Mental spaces are internally structured by frames (also called ‘organising frames’) and cognitive models (both obtained from background information) and are externally linked by connectors, which relate elements (or even structures) across spaces. As the interior structure of a mental space is defined by the organizing frame, the frame has to specify a cognitively representable type of activity, the event structure as well as the participants (or entities). Also, frames include roles for the specified participants or entities, which can also be attributed values. However, one has to point out the floating nature of the terms “role” and “value”, since values can often be analysed as roles of a more finely specified frame. The form of mental-space network called blending or conceptual integration is particularly suitable for analyzing the cognitive mechanisms operating within metaphors. Blending involves at least two input spaces that can be associated with the source and target of the CMT. Yet, unlike in the CMT, when matching them, two other spaces emerge: a generic space and a blend. The generic space reflects what the inputs have in common – for example structure and organization – therefore it maps onto each of the inputs (i.e. onto paired counterparts in the two input spaces), and identifies the cross-space mappings between them. The blend, which is actually the outcome of conceptual integration, inherits a generic structure from the generic space. Moreover, owing to the partial projection of elements from the inputs (which are not mapped onto the generic space) and the existence of a more specific structure – within the confines of generic structure – the blend develops a structure that is impossible for the inputs, called the emergent structure. Emergent structures rise out of the following operations: Composition, which is an operation that involves elements from the input spaces, providing relations that do not exist in the separate inputs. Completion most often refers to pattern completion – when structure in the blend matches information in long-term memory such as knowledge of background frames or cognitive and cultural models. Thus, the structure projected from the inputs is completed with a larger structure in the blend. Finally, elaboration is a process that involves mental simulation of the event in the blend, according to its own emergent logic. Blending theory does not deny the findings of the CMT. The short-lived, always updated mental spaces inherit their structure from the more general and stable cognitive domains. However, analysis within CMT stops at the level of cross-space mapping, thus capturing only the conventional patterns of metaphorical conceptualisation. The four-space model, in its turn, “focuses on the ability to combine elements from familiar conceptualizations into new and Kémenes Árpád: Conceptual Integration in Sylvia Plath’s “Getting There” Argumentum, 3 (2007), 1-11 Kossuth Egyetemi Kiadó (Debrecen) 3 meaningful ones” (Grady, Oakley, Coulson, 1999). Unlike in CMT, the projection is not unidirectional; the material is projected both from the source and from the target onto the blended space. Thus, elements that have no counterparts in the other input space can also be projected onto the blend. Grady, Oakley and Coulson (1999) point out that “selective projection from the two input spaces yields an image which is inconsistent with our understanding of the source space, [. ] but that the web of underlying connections allow us to draw inferences from the blend nonetheless”. This feature of blended spaces elegantly accounts for the ability of the listener to recruit more meanings from the metaphor than it would be possible by merely pairing elements from the source to those in the target domain. Moreover, binding theory allows also for complex blends, which means that one blend may be the input for another. This way “iterations of the integration processes”(Grady, Oakley, Coulson, 1999) are also possible. Along these lines, simple metaphors can occur as inputs for more elaborate conceptualisations, forming complex blends. However, not all blendings are interpreted as metaphorical. There are a number of requirements that the connections within the whole network of mental spaces are supposed to fulfil so that the listener should give the blending a metaphorical interpretation. Grady, Oakley and Coulson (1999) mention the following requirements: Fusion meaning that prominent counterparts from the input spaces project to a single element in the blended space. Source and target must be incompatible. Critical knowledge of a given conceptual domain has to be temporarily suppressed. Asymmetrical projection – some salient aspects of our knowledge of the target are not projected onto the blend, and vice versa, some salient structure in the blended space is prevented from floating back into the inputs. Sylvia Plath’s poems, rich in unconventional metaphors, are particularly suitable to exemplify the phenomena presented above (see also Freeman 2005). Analysing the poem “Getting there” I will focus on the way metaphorical blendings are constructed around the entity “train”, the different manifestations of which have an important role in structuring the poem. The analysis of the train-metaphors, however, does not provide an exhaustive description of the interconnections within the network of mental spaces. The different manifestations of these creative metaphors are embedded in a broader conceptual domain: journey, which, in its turn, serves as the source-input for another (conventional) metaphor paraphrasable with “transformation (in our particular case: purification) is a journey”. This composite metaphor has a crucial role when choosing the input spaces that undergo blending in the trainmetaphors. Throughout the poem, the input spaces involved in the train-metaphors are changed according to whether the blend targets at metaphorising the process of purification (see the train-monster blend, quotations 1-3) or the post-purificational state (the train-cradle and the train-L