A COGNITIVE STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF PERSONAL NARRATIVES ABOUT COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

This paper explores how the stylistic framework of Text World Theory can be applied to personal narratives. This approach falls within the scope of the discipline of cognitive stylistics. In order to explore the similarities and differences between readers' experiences, cognitive stylistics draws on cognitive scientific insights into the relationship between the mind, language, and the world, going beyond the traditional method of stylistic accounting for literary interpretation through linguistic models. A qualitative study within an appropriate model is conducted to three narratives collected from Story Center website about COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that context-dependent text world analysis of narratives is an effective method for depicting the participants' senses. It gives an explanation of how readers construct mental models based on the linguistic elements that are offered to them. It provides an explanation of the progression that readers go through as they move from textual information to the profound nature of text worlds. It can be concluded that Text World Theory provides evidence of the cognitive processes that take place during the act of reading, the process that ultimately results in interpretation of the text and the acquisition of meaning.