Conceptual Blending Theory Research Articles

Image-Based Internet Memes as Conceptual Blends

The present text aims to discuss a certain kind of internet meme, construed here as an image macro, in the context of Conceptual Blending Theory (Fauconnier and Turner 2002). Image-based memes (image macros) that contain a verbal layer appear to be the most popular form of such memes. Their concise form demonstrates a creative potential: memes are packed with meaning, reflected in various conceptual packets integrated into their verbal and visual semiosis. Blending theory thus seems an appropriate framework for a discussion of the cognitive mechanisms of memes and the relation between the verbal and the visual, as well as for tracing how the analogy between given domains/input spaces contributes to the effectiveness of a message.

Using Conceptual Blending Theory to help college students design online communication models

Objective: This study examines modal social media visuals using Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT) and its theoretical foundation, Conceptual Blending Network, to improve college students' visual communication on social media. Methods: The study explores social media visuals and CBN's mechanism. It goes beyond meme design to explain the key factors and reinforcement strategies needed to use CBN to create social media visuals. This study creates an empirical experimental model for validation, a novel approach. The experimental model teaches college students how to create engaging social media visuals. Three university teachers in relevant fields collaborated on the research project with 232 diverse undergraduates who completed surveys and interviews. Results: The study found that undergraduates recognise the importance of visual language organisation for accurately conveying complex information on social media. Collaboration with experts and the introduction of CBT and CBN helped university students accept this advanced visual language organisation method for social media visuals. Conclusion: Participants' understanding, comprehension, and practical exposure to the proposed methodology significantly reduced their difficulties in designing compelling social media visuals. This research helps us understand social media visual dynamics and informs educators and practitioners who want to improve digital visual communication.

Conceptual Blending Theory: The Case of ‘Flying Bus’ from Turkish

Based on current discussions on Conceptual Blending/Integration Theory (CIT) and Conceptual metaphor Theory (CMT), this study investigates the application of Conceptual Blending Theory to a Turkish scenario where a Turkish speaker conceptualises a dangerously speeding bus as flying and associates it with Turkish Airlines. The study emphasizes the role of conceptual blending in creating novel meanings online by integrating disparate conceptual elements, as well as highlighting the complementary nature of CIT and CMT in meaning construction. In our scenario, the speaker’s metaphoric utterance as a reaction to the overspeed of a bus was explained by the metaphor TOO FAST DRIVING IS FLYING, which inherits the superordinate metaphor FAST MOTION IS FLIGHT, which is entrenched in our cultural cognition. Through a conceptual blending network mentally activated by the conceptualisation of the speeding bus as if flying, we illustrated how selected elements from the source (bus and driver) and target (plane and pilot) spaces were projected onto the blended space. It was also shown that Vital Relations within the blending network like Space, Role, and Disanalogy compressed the relevant counterparts from the source and target spaces into new integrated concepts to create novel meanings in the emergent structure, emphasizing the danger involved in the situation in the scenario.

Meaning And Humor Comprehension of Chinese-English Pseudo Words Among Chinese EFL Speakers: A Conceptual Blending Perspective

Assuming that Chinese–English pseudo words (CEPWs) are humorous and have multiple meanings, this study, based on the conceptual blending theory (CBT), investigates the comprehension of meaning and humor in CEPWs for Chinese speakers learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Specifically, it aimed to answer the following questions: 1) What is the humorous effect of CEPWs as perceived by Chinese EFL speakers? 2) What is the comprehensive understanding of CEPWs among Chinese EFL speakers according to CBT? and 3) How are Chinese EFL speakers’ understanding of CEPWs and their perception of the humorous effect related? This study adopted a mixed method of quantitative (questionnaire) and qualitative (semi-structured interview) approaches. It surveyed 114 native Chinese EFL speakers and interviewed 12 of them. Quantitative data were collected via a questionnaire disseminated on the online questionnaire platform wenjuan.com, gathering 114 valid responses. After collection, the quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS Statistics 20 software. The findings revealed that CEPWs are more humorous than their Chinese originals. A conceptual blending model of Chinese EFL speakers’ comprehension of CEPWs was proposed, which allows these speakers to generate numerous interpretations of CEPWs. The humor in CEPWs comes from homophony, bilingual speech, and conceptual blending, facilitated by the meaning correspondence of English words in the CEPW and context. This suggests that the incongruity between input spaces and the emergent structure of conceptual blending is involved in creating humor. CEPWs meet the criteria for puns, providing a new perspective on this phenomenon. The findings provided empirical data, based on which a model of Chinese EFL speakers’ comprehension process of CEPWs was devised, providing insights into the cognitive process behind the use of Internet language.

Analyzing creative metaphors in advertising: Integrating relevance theory and conceptual blending approaches

This article introduces a hybrid model for analyzing creative metaphors in commercial advertising by combining Relevance Theory and Conceptual Blending Theory. The model's algorithm for metaphorical mapping considers contextual assumptions and relevance principles to select mental input structures for blending. The initial stage of explicature decoding, following Relevance Theory, identifies input mental spaces through reference assignment and content enrichment. In the Composition stage, an ad hoc source concept is adapted to the target, establishing metaphorical alignments within the blend. The blending's cognitive context involves abstract structures and vital relations in a generic space, rooted in human experience, to facilitate interpretations with minimal cognitive effort. At the Completion stage, contextual assumptions about the brand’s implied meanings generate new structures within the blend. Finally, the Elaboration stage incorporates assumptions about the brand’s messaging, aimed at addressing the audience's motivational needs and encouraging them to fulfill these needs by purchasing the advertised product.

Cognitive Analysis of Euphemisms in The Big Bang Theory under CBT

This research delves into the pragmatic function of euphemisms in the context of the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory, utilizing Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT) as the analytical framework. The purpose is to understand how euphemisms, as a form of polite language, are constructed to avoid direct and potentially offensive expressions, thus promoting social harmony. The methodology involves a detailed analysis of euphemistic language within the sitcom, focusing on the integration of mental spaces as proposed by CBT. The study identifies key euphemisms and constructs a conceptual integration network for each, revealing the input spaces, generic space, and the blended space that emerges, offering new meanings. The main results demonstrate that euphemisms are cognitively processed through the blending of spaces, where elements from different domains combine to form a less confrontational meaning. The conclusion underscores the efficacy of CBT in explaining the complexity of euphemistic language, showcasing its role in navigating social norms and cultural sensitivities. This research provides insights into American cultural nuances and the strategic use of language in social interactions, enhancing the understanding of euphemisms as a cross-cultural communication tool.

When Gestures also Argue: Multimodal Viewpoint Shift as a Rhetorical Strategy in American Political Talk Shows

Drawing on Mental Spaces Theory and Conceptual Blending Theory in Cognitive Linguistics, we examine the interaction between speech and co-speech gestures in The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Statistical analysis shows that viewpoint shift in the self-built multimodal corpus, generally following the pattern: Base Space->News Narrative Space(->Base space)->Source Viewpoint Space(+)(->Base space), is significantly related to the use of verbal markers and gestural types. Moreover, multimodal viewpoint shift in political talk shows can achieve such rhetorical functions as enhancing ironic effects, solidifying and highlighting opposing positions, and simplifying political issues. Since verbal markers and gestures can mobilize the audience’s embodied experience by primarily activating mental images and motor programs, we claim that mental simulation and perspective taking play a pivotal role in the cognitive processing of multimodal viewpoint shifts by promoting viewpoint alignment between the audience and the host.

HUMAN THOUGHT PROCESS ON HOTEL ADVERTISEMENTS:

Conceptual Blending (CB) is a framework within Cognitive Linguistics to create meaning construction that determines brain cognitive functions upon reading hotel advertisements which the study aimed to illustrate and elaborate. The study utilized advancement theory of CB by applying intertextuality concept to create multiple meanings done from prior studies. The study also utilized qualitative method to analyze a poster from ANA Intercontinental Manza Beach Resort through applying non-participant observation, purposive sampling, and triangulation theory methods. To analyze the data, the concepts of data collection, data condensation, data display and data conclusion were used. The study found that the processes of composition, completion, and elaboration within blended space of CB built the meaning construction within human brain. Composition stage created arrays of features from composing features within input spaces that build up new concepts within completion stage. The completion stage then created new concepts based on cultural knowledge combining all the features composed within composition process and the meanings were broaden by elaboration stage which cleared out what the new concepts actually meant for. These processes created the emergent structure which carries novelty meanings from the analysis. In this stage, the meaning has been completely concluded from all the elaborated meaning happening on prior stages.

The Role of Conceptual Blending Theory in Understanding and Solving Arabic Riddles

The Role of Conceptual Blending Theory in Understanding and Solving Arabic Riddles

Poetic Metaphors Related to Birds: A Conceptual Blending in Puisi-Puisi Cinta, WS. Rendra

Metaphors are commonly used to vividly convey deeply abstract human emotions. This is because human emotions are indeed an abstract – conceptual. In the poem of Puisi-Puisi Cinta, the poet employs a great deal of emotional poetic metaphors relating to birds in order to communicate the variety of feelings that are experienced by the characters, such as features, roles, and visual aspects. This paper aims to study the emotional poetic metaphors related to birds in Puisi-Puisi Cinta using conceptual blending theory. The research data in the study consists the poetic metaphors related to Birds in Puisi – Pusi Cinta by WS Rendra. The data are conducted qualitatively using the blending theory. The blending theory’s G.Fauconnier and M.Turner (2002) came to the conclusion that metaphorizing is not limited by the projection from “the source domain” to “the target domain”, but includes complex dynamic integration processes, creating new blended mental spaces, which are able to create the meaning structure. The findings reveal that these vivid poetic metaphors in Puisi-Puisi Cinta by W.S Rendra are substantial through the use of imagery depicting aspects of the birds' appearances and its features to human beings. The metaphorical process, which projects from the birds to human beings, can be seen as a process of conceptual blending. In addition, each and every poetic metaphor related to birds of the poem has its characteristics in a certain cognitive model.

World Englishes and Cultural Linguistics: Theory and research

AbstractThis article explores the evolution of Cultural Linguistics, its fusion with Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Sociolinguistics, and its application to the study of world Englishes, emphasising the cultural dimension of language and cognition. It investigates key theoretical concepts in Cultural Linguistics such as cultural categories, schemas, conceptualisations, keywords, models and scenarios as essential analytical tools for examining the interplay between thought, language and culture. Using examples from English varieties in sub‐Saharan Africa, Great Britain, Ireland, India and Hong Kong, this article demonstrates how these conceptual phenomena interact at increasing levels of conceptual complexity. The discussion also distinguishes conceptual metaphor (and metonymy) from the somewhat problematic concept of ‘cultural metaphor’, previously used in some cultural‐linguistic approaches to world Englishes. Finally, the article delves into Conceptual Blending Theory as a possible extension of Cultural Linguistics that synthesises diverse cultural knowledge to interpret culture‐specific expressions in contemporary multilingual settings.

A Study on Chinese Culture in High School English Textbooks of BNUP from the Perspective of Conceptual Blending Theory for Multimodal Metaphors

At the end of the 20th century, scholars represented by Forceville dived into the construction and representation of metaphors using various modalities, leading the shift of metaphor studies towards multimodality, which consequently put the study of multimodal metaphors in the spotlight. English textbooks, as a combination of visual and linguistic modes of expression, contain a large number of metaphors. From the perspective of conceptual blending theory, the paper explores the construction and meaning of multimodal metaphors of Chinese culture in three compulsory high school English textbooks of Beijing Normal University Press. It is found that these three compulsory high school English textbooks of Beijing Normal University Press (BNUP) contain many multimodal metaphors of Chinese culture, and these multimodal metaphors can activate student’s cultural background knowledge and convey the communicative intention of the pictures, thus arousing students’ interest in Chinese culture and fostering cultural confidence.

Intertextual satire in media discourse

Abstract The paper investigates intertextual satire in media discourse from the cognitive linguistic perspective. Within the frameworks of conceptual blending theory and the theory of precedent-related phenomena, we examine the cognitive processes of producing and understanding intertextual satire. By modelling conceptual integration networks, we aim to specify the cognitive mechanisms and operations involved in decoding intertextual satirical articles, drawing on examples from Private Eye magazine. The study demonstrates that the basic cognitive mechanism involved in creating intertextual satire is blending, and, in contrast to ironic utterances, which involve two contexts, in intertextual satire one and the same scenario unfolds in three contexts: real, fictional, and satirical. Thus, the blend that occurs as a result of combining real and fictional scenarios is verbalised and obvious to the recipient. The emergent structure, based on the blend, represents the intended (non-verbalised) meaning of intertextual satire, namely indirect criticism of the real situation under focus.

Geospace translation strategies and their cognitive construal

Since the literary geospace is usually tinged with the author’s embodied experiences, it calls on the translator to restore or reconstruct the ST geospace’s geographical reality or imagination in the target language culture. Based on the embodied cognition of the environment, the translator can wash and negotiate the geographical conceptual system of the ST geospace by resorting to the three translation strategies, i.e., retention, reconstruction, and substitution, so as to generate new geospace in the geographical conceptual system of the TL. The article aims to analyze geospace translation strategies from the perspective of conceptual blending theory. The translator’s use of different translation strategies results from different mapping paths among the spaces of the source text, of the translator, and of the target text. It can illustrate the regularities of the translator’s space mediation in translating the geospace. Retention signifies the single-domain mappings from the space of ST. Substitution indicates the single-domain mappings from the space of the translator. Reconstruction denotes the double-domain mappings from both the spaces of ST and the translator. The emergent structure generated in the space of the target text yields the reterritorialization of the geospace in the target language culture, which can stimulate the reader of TT to get a similar geographical experience to that of the author and to empathize with the author’s sense of place to a greater extent.

The cognitive and psychological mechanism of Chinese oxymoron “tough women”

Oxymoron refers to juxtaposing two words that are semantically contradictory to each other in language communication, which makes them have rhetorical connection, and achieves the modification effect of binary opposition through the antonym relationship in semantic components, and which makes the expression profound and more tense. Based on the theory of cognitive linguistics, this study analyzes the formation mechanism of the oxymoron “tough women” from the perspective of “reality-cognition-language” and discusses the cognitive and psychological mechanism of its formation. Conceptual blending theory is used to form the oxymoron conceptual integration prominent model of “tough women”. It is found that the formation of the word “tough women” has a long historical reasons. From ancient times to modern times, because women’s social status changes with the changes of objective social forms, based on physical experience and psychological perception of different times, people form their concepts about the “tough women”. Dynamic cognitive processing of “female” is carried out to form an abstract image schema of modern “tough women”, which integrates the traditional weak characteristic domain of women and the strong male characteristic domain in psychological space, and a theoretical model of conceptual integration of oxymoron is put forward.

A Cognitive Study on Slogans in Public Service Advertisements from the Perspective of Conceptual Blending Theory

A Cognitive Study on Slogans in Public Service Advertisements from the Perspective of Conceptual Blending Theory

Types and Characteristics of Physics Education Research Based on Conceptual Blending Theory

Types and Characteristics of Physics Education Research Based on Conceptual Blending Theory

The Neural Correlates of Creativity and Innovation in Various Domains and Contexts in Germany

Purpose: The aim of the study was to investigate the neural correlates of creativity and innovation in various domains and contexts.
 Methodology: This study adopted a desk methodology. A desk study research design is commonly known as secondary data collection. This is basically collecting data from existing resources preferably because of its low cost advantage as compared to a field research. Our current study looked into already published studies and reports as the data was easily accessed through online journals and libraries.
 Findings: Neuroscientific studies reveal that creativity and innovation engage diverse brain networks, including those governing divergent thinking and cognitive flexibility. These processes show consistent neural activation patterns across different domains, suggesting a universal basis for creativity regardless of context. Environmental factors, like novelty exposure and social interactions, also play significant roles in shaping neural activity underlying creative thinking.
 Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: Conceptual blending theory, network theory of creativity & four-stage model of creativity may be used to anchor future studies on the neural correlates of creativity and innovation in various domains and contexts. Practical implications of understanding the neural correlates of creativity and innovation can inform the design of interventions and training programs aimed at fostering creative thinking skills. Policymakers can leverage insights from research on the neural correlates of creativity to inform decision-making processes related to education, workforce development, and innovation policy.

Bronze Age Stone Anchors as Material Metaphors: Applying Conceptual Blending Theory to Investigate Their Symbolic Value

In ancient navigation, the safety of a ship depended in no small measure on the stability of her anchors, and this crucial role at sea was not overlooked in the ritual symbolism of maritime communities. Accordingly, there is a general consensus on the fact that the anchors deposited at Eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age temples were important carriers of meaning for seafaring groups. Nevertheless, little effort has been made to understand the role of anchors in the conceptual world of the ancient seafarers beyond the fact that they were powerful symbols of maritimity. Borrowed and adapted from linguistics, Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT) provides the theoretical framework to use material culture as a source for the investigation of ancient thought processes. In this paper, I apply the perspective of CBT to the anchors found at the Late Cypriot sanctuary of Kition-Kathari, with comparisons to those from Byblos and Ugarit, and I examine the cognitive implications of anchors as material metaphors and investigate how they embody the blending of the mental spaces of the sacred, the city, and the sea.

DOG and CAT proverbs

Abstract This study investigates the cognitive operations and cultural constraints in DOG and CAT proverbs in Taiwan Hakka and English. For understanding and interpreting proverbs, the target themes are categorized into fundamental human virtues, and the cognitive operations are exhaustively examined by Conceptual Blending Theory. It is found that temperance and humanity are the most prevalent virtues profiled in Taiwan Hakka, while wisdom and knowledge are the most dominant ones in English. The analysis explicates that Conceptual Blending Theory can serve as a universally explanatory model, and at the same time, contextual and cultural factors play crucial roles in providing parametric constraints for the use and creation of proverbs.