Open AccessCOMPARATIVE SEMANTICS: AN INTRODUCTION TO CONCEPTUAL BLENDING THEORY
Author(s) -
Khairulanwar Abdul Ghani
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
international journal of humanities, philosophy and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2600-8270
DOI - 10.35631/ijhpl.414003
Subject(s) - conceptual blending , meaning (existential) , linguistics , sociology , theoretical linguistics , epistemology , perspective (graphical) , criticism , cognition , psychology , computer science , philosophy , literature , neuroscience , artificial intelligence , art
Conceptual Blending Theory (Fauconnier & Turner, 2002) aims to provide a general cognitive model related to meaning construction. This theory was created based on the fundamental question raised by contemporary linguists about how a new concept is formed based on the human cognition system. According to Fauconnier, the theory encompasses all domains of meaning creation, whether involving language domains (metaphors, advertisements, and satire) or the use of gestures to convey non -linguistic meaning, such as the way people line up to get tickets at the cinema or certain symbolism in communication. If we can see at the current scenario in linguistic research, this theory has attracted wide attention in various fields of research, from the study of discourse analysis by Oakley (2008), the study of Haiku by Hiraga (1999) to the study of ritual by Sweetser (2000). Due to its holistic nature, it is not surprising that this theory has been heavily criticized by some linguists from the structural school (Broccias, 2004; Gibbs, 2000), and not least there are some Vygotsky scholars (scholars that influenced by Vygotsky thought) who doubted the ability of this theory. Therefore, this paper is written to (i) provide an overview of the proposed theory; (ii) display some analysis of non-linguistic domains based on conceptual blending perspective; and lastly (iii) some counter respond to a previous criticism about this theory.