Cognitive Grammar in Literature

This chapter provides an outline of Ronald Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar explaining and exemplifying how it can be used for the analysis of literature as part of a cognitive stylistics. The chapter covers the basic principles of Cognitive Grammar and its position as a theory of language more broadly within cognitive linguistics. It then outlines ‘construal phenomena’, which provide the basic architecture for text analysis. Using these construal phenomena, the chapter then provides detailed analyses of a poem, ‘Buoys on the Sea’ by Mel Wardle, and of two extracts from the novel 'Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow' by Gabrielle Zevin. Both analyses explore how readers are positioned in relation to the fictional world construed. The chapter ends with a reflection on the capacity for Cognitive Grammar to capture the dynamic and embodied experiences of reading.