Cognitive Semiotics and Conceptual Blend: A Case Study from The Crying of Lot 49

Abstract

Cognitive semiotics has been defined by the linguist Jordan Zlatev as “the need to unify or at least to ‘defragment’ our world-views, the need to come to terms with increasingly higher levels of dynamism and complexity”. If we consider, as it is clear from the second cognitive revolution, when embodiment claimed its leading role, that meaning emerges from the constant interaction of body-brain-environment, we need to redefine the field that asks “what is meaning and how does it emerge.” New theories about metaphors as neural nodes and image schemas would shed light over the emergence of meaning in human communication, and, to do so, the study of conceptual blends as essential cognitive tools and as an integrative theory should be put in the center of the debate. In words of Brandt and Brandt, “blends occur as signs and are therefore a natural subject of cognitive semiotics”. Here, we will represent the emergence of meaning in a blend from the highly dynamic and complex narrative The Crying of Lot 49 by Pynchon and propose a conceptual story (or mental space sequence of the story) of the mentioned blend.