The Problems of Literary Genres, vol. 66, no. 1, 2023
Literary genres are important concepts for literary scholars and students of literature alike. Ye... more Literary genres are important concepts for literary scholars and students of literature alike. Yet differences in opinion are common when defining which literary genre a given text fits best. However, my study here takes a step back from that spot to see how critics and other academics can conceptualize a literary genre in the first place. My case study is the modern lyric poem, a well-known literary genre in poetics. The results, never before published, include replies to an informal survey carried out at an international cognitive poetics conference at Osnabrück University in Germany. I begin by discussing handbook definitions and examples named. Then I compare them to results obtained from participants at the academic conference. Results sometimes overlap, aligning with criteria published in handbooks, although there are variations. I consider various reasons why participants might have selected certain examples of the genre, before ending with some suggestions of topics for future research on cognition in poetics.
In this paper, I study citation integration in a small corpus of undergraduate essays written in ... more In this paper, I study citation integration in a small corpus of undergraduate essays written in English in an English Department in France. With the concept of the ‘quotation sandwich’ in mind, I study the various parts of nearly 250 examples. Roughly half the examples seem errorfree, while the other half have problems in nearly equal proportions in their claims, reporting clauses and quotations, or follow-up comments. I discuss some possible causes of the errors, as well as some new ideas for research in stylistics. This article is in Memory of Professor Zoltán Dörnyei (1960-2022), my former colleague at the University of Nottingham.
In this paper with Anne-Sophie Foltzer, we discuss different types of euphemisms, and the creatio... more In this paper with Anne-Sophie Foltzer, we discuss different types of euphemisms, and the creation of new ones and their meanings based on an experiment at PALA 2015. It is from a special issue of the journal (on humor, creativity, and lexical creation) edited by Lucile Bordet & Frédérique Brisset.
This paper in English analyzes four main blends in the landmark modernist poem in French by Cendr... more This paper in English analyzes four main blends in the landmark modernist poem in French by Cendrars. The paper is in the special issue of the journal on cognitive stylistics edited by Prof. Carmen Bretones.
In this paper, I discuss the international use of English as more and more scientists around the ... more In this paper, I discuss the international use of English as more and more scientists around the world are writing their research papers in English.
This paper revists a chapter from Style in Fiction, the landmark book by Leech and Short. Analyse... more This paper revists a chapter from Style in Fiction, the landmark book by Leech and Short. Analyses include a vignette by Hemingway from In Our Time and passages from Sting's autobiography Strange Music. It is a special issue of the journal edited my Manuel Jobert called Style in Fiction today.
I argue that politically subversive texts written in allegorical form attain their significance b... more I argue that politically subversive texts written in allegorical form attain their significance because they are conceptual blends. analyses are of works by Arthur Miller, Orwell, and Bulgakov. Political allegories allow writers to criticise regimes indirectly since writers can count on readers to mentally contruct appropriate blends.
This paper by Svenja Adolphs, Brigitte Nerlich and me is a corpus linguistic analysis of the word... more This paper by Svenja Adolphs, Brigitte Nerlich and me is a corpus linguistic analysis of the word 'risk' in the age of biorisks. It was reprinted in: Mass Communication Research Methods. Ed. Anders Hansen. London: SAGE, 2009.
In this article, I examine three poems by Emily Dickinson. The poems are F372, 'After great pain,... more In this article, I examine three poems by Emily Dickinson. The poems are F372, 'After great pain, a formal feeling comes', F598, 'The Brain-is wider than the Sky', and F1381, 'The Heart is the Capital of the Mind,' from the Franklin edition. In particular, I study the figurative language in these poems, but rather than simply identify figures, I attempt to explain how they function persuasively in cognitive terms. This approach is meant to move rhetorical criticism beyond an exercise in figure identification and towards an exercise in the explanation of the persuasive function of figures. The emphasis on figures owes something to the prominence they play not only in Dickinson's poetry but in all poetry. One implication of cognitive linguistic theories of figures is that they point towards what I envisage as a cognitive rhetoric of poetry. A cognitive rhetoric of poetry ought to be grounded in classical theories of rhetoric and poetics on the one hand, and in cognitive linguistic theories of figures on the other. Such scope would reveal continuity between the concerns of current critics and the concerns of classical rhetoricians. It would also place equal emphasis on the poet's production of figurative language and the reader's comprehensive processing of it. What Dickinson's poems are meant to reveal, ultimately, is poetry's profoundly rhetorical nature.
This is the preface to the special issue of Language and Literature which I guest edited. The the... more This is the preface to the special issue of Language and Literature which I guest edited. The theme was 'rhetoric and beyond.'
Citation: Hamilton, Craig. “Modernism and its Metaphors: Rereading The Voyage Out by Virginia Wo... more Citation: Hamilton, Craig. “Modernism and its Metaphors: Rereading The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf and Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence.” Nottingham Linguistic Circular, vol. 18, 2004, pp. 1-19.
This article is in French in a special issue of the journal on polyphony in English literature. M... more This article is in French in a special issue of the journal on polyphony in English literature. My article is on Bakhtinian narration in Talking it Over and Love, etc, two novels by Julian Barnes. Citation: Hamilton, Craig. “La narration bakhtinienne dans Talking It Over et Love, etc de Julian Barnes” Imaginaires, no. 10, 2004, pp. 177-192. URL: https://www.lcdpu.fr/livre/?GCOI=27000100639060
A note on Charles Williams and WH Auden; Williams presumably was a source of inspiration here for... more A note on Charles Williams and WH Auden; Williams presumably was a source of inspiration here for Auden.
The Problems of Literary Genres, vol. 66, no. 1, 2023
Literary genres are important concepts for literary scholars and students of literature alike. Ye... more Literary genres are important concepts for literary scholars and students of literature alike. Yet differences in opinion are common when defining which literary genre a given text fits best. However, my study here takes a step back from that spot to see how critics and other academics can conceptualize a literary genre in the first place. My case study is the modern lyric poem, a well-known literary genre in poetics. The results, never before published, include replies to an informal survey carried out at an international cognitive poetics conference at Osnabrück University in Germany. I begin by discussing handbook definitions and examples named. Then I compare them to results obtained from participants at the academic conference. Results sometimes overlap, aligning with criteria published in handbooks, although there are variations. I consider various reasons why participants might have selected certain examples of the genre, before ending with some suggestions of topics for future research on cognition in poetics.
In this paper, I study citation integration in a small corpus of undergraduate essays written in ... more In this paper, I study citation integration in a small corpus of undergraduate essays written in English in an English Department in France. With the concept of the ‘quotation sandwich’ in mind, I study the various parts of nearly 250 examples. Roughly half the examples seem errorfree, while the other half have problems in nearly equal proportions in their claims, reporting clauses and quotations, or follow-up comments. I discuss some possible causes of the errors, as well as some new ideas for research in stylistics. This article is in Memory of Professor Zoltán Dörnyei (1960-2022), my former colleague at the University of Nottingham.
In this paper with Anne-Sophie Foltzer, we discuss different types of euphemisms, and the creatio... more In this paper with Anne-Sophie Foltzer, we discuss different types of euphemisms, and the creation of new ones and their meanings based on an experiment at PALA 2015. It is from a special issue of the journal (on humor, creativity, and lexical creation) edited by Lucile Bordet & Frédérique Brisset.
This paper in English analyzes four main blends in the landmark modernist poem in French by Cendr... more This paper in English analyzes four main blends in the landmark modernist poem in French by Cendrars. The paper is in the special issue of the journal on cognitive stylistics edited by Prof. Carmen Bretones.
In this paper, I discuss the international use of English as more and more scientists around the ... more In this paper, I discuss the international use of English as more and more scientists around the world are writing their research papers in English.
This paper revists a chapter from Style in Fiction, the landmark book by Leech and Short. Analyse... more This paper revists a chapter from Style in Fiction, the landmark book by Leech and Short. Analyses include a vignette by Hemingway from In Our Time and passages from Sting's autobiography Strange Music. It is a special issue of the journal edited my Manuel Jobert called Style in Fiction today.
I argue that politically subversive texts written in allegorical form attain their significance b... more I argue that politically subversive texts written in allegorical form attain their significance because they are conceptual blends. analyses are of works by Arthur Miller, Orwell, and Bulgakov. Political allegories allow writers to criticise regimes indirectly since writers can count on readers to mentally contruct appropriate blends.
This paper by Svenja Adolphs, Brigitte Nerlich and me is a corpus linguistic analysis of the word... more This paper by Svenja Adolphs, Brigitte Nerlich and me is a corpus linguistic analysis of the word 'risk' in the age of biorisks. It was reprinted in: Mass Communication Research Methods. Ed. Anders Hansen. London: SAGE, 2009.
In this article, I examine three poems by Emily Dickinson. The poems are F372, 'After great pain,... more In this article, I examine three poems by Emily Dickinson. The poems are F372, 'After great pain, a formal feeling comes', F598, 'The Brain-is wider than the Sky', and F1381, 'The Heart is the Capital of the Mind,' from the Franklin edition. In particular, I study the figurative language in these poems, but rather than simply identify figures, I attempt to explain how they function persuasively in cognitive terms. This approach is meant to move rhetorical criticism beyond an exercise in figure identification and towards an exercise in the explanation of the persuasive function of figures. The emphasis on figures owes something to the prominence they play not only in Dickinson's poetry but in all poetry. One implication of cognitive linguistic theories of figures is that they point towards what I envisage as a cognitive rhetoric of poetry. A cognitive rhetoric of poetry ought to be grounded in classical theories of rhetoric and poetics on the one hand, and in cognitive linguistic theories of figures on the other. Such scope would reveal continuity between the concerns of current critics and the concerns of classical rhetoricians. It would also place equal emphasis on the poet's production of figurative language and the reader's comprehensive processing of it. What Dickinson's poems are meant to reveal, ultimately, is poetry's profoundly rhetorical nature.
This is the preface to the special issue of Language and Literature which I guest edited. The the... more This is the preface to the special issue of Language and Literature which I guest edited. The theme was 'rhetoric and beyond.'
Citation: Hamilton, Craig. “Modernism and its Metaphors: Rereading The Voyage Out by Virginia Wo... more Citation: Hamilton, Craig. “Modernism and its Metaphors: Rereading The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf and Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence.” Nottingham Linguistic Circular, vol. 18, 2004, pp. 1-19.
This article is in French in a special issue of the journal on polyphony in English literature. M... more This article is in French in a special issue of the journal on polyphony in English literature. My article is on Bakhtinian narration in Talking it Over and Love, etc, two novels by Julian Barnes. Citation: Hamilton, Craig. “La narration bakhtinienne dans Talking It Over et Love, etc de Julian Barnes” Imaginaires, no. 10, 2004, pp. 177-192. URL: https://www.lcdpu.fr/livre/?GCOI=27000100639060
A note on Charles Williams and WH Auden; Williams presumably was a source of inspiration here for... more A note on Charles Williams and WH Auden; Williams presumably was a source of inspiration here for Auden.
This is the preface to the special issue of Style that I guest edited on current trends in stylis... more This is the preface to the special issue of Style that I guest edited on current trends in stylistics.
Lien(s): Journées Doctorales des Humanités UHA (2021) , 2022
Primus inter pares or ‘first among equals’ is how many scholars in humanities see the discipline ... more Primus inter pares or ‘first among equals’ is how many scholars in humanities see the discipline of philosophy. When philosophers publish studies on poetry, for example, literature professors take those publications seriously, even if they come from another discipline. Citation patterns in publications in literary studies reveals this profound interest in what others say about literature. The borders are porous, not solid, but citation patterns in philosophy might show that this fascination is not mutual. Since the 1990s, the field of cognitive literary studies has attracted much attention, especially in English-speaking countries. In this paper, I discuss citation patterns that reveal interesting links or networks amongst certain scholars, even if the flow of citations from cognitive science to literary studies is not always a two-way street.
Le Vin et l’Altérité : Le vin à l’épreuve des sciences humaines., 2020
In this paper in French, I analyze the genre of the wine review, its use of rhetoric and figures ... more In this paper in French, I analyze the genre of the wine review, its use of rhetoric and figures based on examples in French and English.
In my chapter for this handbook, I analyze the style and rhetoric in a newspaper editorial to sho... more In my chapter for this handbook, I analyze the style and rhetoric in a newspaper editorial to show that stylistics and rhetoric often deal with the same questions.
This is a chapter in a book edited by Peter Stockwell and colleagues. In my chapter, I analyze po... more This is a chapter in a book edited by Peter Stockwell and colleagues. In my chapter, I analyze poetic uses of conditionals with 'if' across the centuries, ending with an analysis of Kipling's 'If' - a well-known poem.
Ne pas dire : Pour une étude du non-dit dans la littérature et la culture européennes, 2013
This is a chapter in French in a book edited by Peter Schnyder & Frédérique Toudoire. In the chap... more This is a chapter in French in a book edited by Peter Schnyder & Frédérique Toudoire. In the chapter I wrote with Peter Crisp, we analyze conceptual blends and allegory in Sartre's famous play, situating it within its context of Paris during the WWII Occupation.
Au-délà des frontières: Perspectives de la stylistique contemporaine, 2012
This is an article in French in a book edited by Prof. Cécile Narjoux at Université Paris IV - So... more This is an article in French in a book edited by Prof. Cécile Narjoux at Université Paris IV - Sorbonne. Here I survey English stylistics as it has developed in the UK, the US, and Europe.
Blending and the Study of Narrative: Approaches and Applications, 2012
In my chapter for this book edited by Ralf Schneider and Marcus Hartner, I analyze blends in Mila... more In my chapter for this book edited by Ralf Schneider and Marcus Hartner, I analyze blends in Milan Kundera's novel set in France.
Texts and Minds: Papers in Cognitive Poetics and Rhetoric (Lodz Studies in Language 26), 2012
In this paper, I analyze Tony Blair's famous speech on 18 March 2003 in the House of Commons befo... more In this paper, I analyze Tony Blair's famous speech on 18 March 2003 in the House of Commons before the Iraq War. My chapter is in a book edited by Prof. Alina Kwiatkowska.
Rhetoric and Stylistics: An International Handbook of Historical and Systematic Research, vol. 1, 2008
This is a chapter in a handbook edited by Ulla Fix et al. for Mouton de Gruyter. Here I discuss h... more This is a chapter in a handbook edited by Ulla Fix et al. for Mouton de Gruyter. Here I discuss how rhetoric and stylistics have been applied and can be applied to text analyses.
Rhetoric and Stylistics: An International Handbook of Historical and Systematic Research, vol. 1, 2008
This is a chapter in a handbook edited by Ulla Fix et al. for Mouton de Gruyter. Here, I offer a ... more This is a chapter in a handbook edited by Ulla Fix et al. for Mouton de Gruyter. Here, I offer a survey of developments in rhetoric and stylistics in English starting in the 1900s.
This is a chapter in a book edited by Peter Stockwell and Marina Lambrou. Here I study the creati... more This is a chapter in a book edited by Peter Stockwell and Marina Lambrou. Here I study the creation of allegory in Miller's play.
How Globalization Affects the Teaching of English: Studying Culture Through Texts, 2006
Citation: Hamilton, Craig. “Troping the Body: On W.H. Auden and Cognitive Poetics.” How Globaliza... more Citation: Hamilton, Craig. “Troping the Body: On W.H. Auden and Cognitive Poetics.” How Globalization Affects the Teaching of English: Studying Culture Through Texts. Eds. Anja Müller-Wood & Andrea Gerbig. Lampeter, UK: Edward Mellen Press, 2006, pp. 241-263.
This is a chapter on contemporary English studies in a book Philip Martin edited for Palgrave. He... more This is a chapter on contemporary English studies in a book Philip Martin edited for Palgrave. Here I discuss connections between cognitive science and the humanities.
This is a chapter in a book that René Dirven and colleagues edited for Mouton de Gruyter. Citatio... more This is a chapter in a book that René Dirven and colleagues edited for Mouton de Gruyter. Citation: Hamilton, Craig. “Genetic Roulette: On the Cognitive Rhetoric of Biorisk.” Cognitive Models in Language and Thought. Eds. et al. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003. 353-393. URL: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110892901/html
This paper is based on a talk for the conference at SDU Odense upon publication of 'The Way We Th... more This paper is based on a talk for the conference at SDU Odense upon publication of 'The Way We Think' by Fauconnier and Turner.
This is a chapter in the book edited by Elena Semino and Jonathan Culpeper. In my chapter, I anal... more This is a chapter in the book edited by Elena Semino and Jonathan Culpeper. In my chapter, I analyze de Pizan's feminist personifications as blends.
This is a study in English of Lawrence's novel. Citation: Hamilton, Craig. “‘This fretful voyage ... more This is a study in English of Lawrence's novel. Citation: Hamilton, Craig. “‘This fretful voyage of life’: Figurative Language in D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love.” Like a Black and White Kaleidoscope Tossed at Random: Essays on Women in Love. Eds. Jean-Paul Pichardie and Philippe Romanski. Presses Universitaires de Rouen, 2001, pp. 97-109. URL: https://www.lcdpu.fr/livre/?GCOI=27000100288860
This is a 10-page review of a wonderful collection of papers by Dirk Geeraerts, a pioneer in cogn... more This is a 10-page review of a wonderful collection of papers by Dirk Geeraerts, a pioneer in cognitive linguistics.
Cercles: An Interdisciplinary Journal of English Studies, 2007
The appearance of Interdisciplinarity is rather timely given how fashionable the term has become.... more The appearance of Interdisciplinarity is rather timely given how fashionable the term has become. However, it remains as hard a term as ever to define. For Joe Moran, interdisciplinarity is "any form of dialogue or interaction between two or more disciplines" [16], but this is too vague. Publications that successfully draw together insights from different disciplines would represent a useful dialogue, while fruitless disagreements that result in bitter silence would represent a useless interaction. But to call each one a form of interdisciplinarity, as Moran might, entails thinking of interdisciplinary research as simultaneously useful and useless. This would be strange. If interdisciplinarity is attractive today, it is precisely because more often than not it proves to be fruitful rather than useless.
Citation: 14. Hamilton, Craig. Review of Refiguring Mimesis: Representation in Early Modern Liter... more Citation: 14. Hamilton, Craig. Review of Refiguring Mimesis: Representation in Early Modern Literature, edited by Jonathan Holmes and Adrian Streete (University of Hertfordshire Press, 2005). Times Literary Supplement, 28 July 2006, p. 33.
This book offers communication students a major survey of research into persuasion. Stiff and Mon... more This book offers communication students a major survey of research into persuasion. Stiff and Mongeau are well-versed in the persuasion research literature of the last five decades. The book's three main parts are (I) Fundamental Issues in Persuasion Research (chapters 1-4); (II) Components of Persuasive Transactions (chapters 5-9); and (III) Persuasion Models (chapters 10-13). After defining basic concepts, connections between attitudes and behaviors are discussed. Untangling cause and effect here is not easy, but the relationship seems clearer when we read that 'behavior change can produce attitude change' (p. 99). Stiff and Mongeau always offer references to support their claims, and they clearly present the endless models and theories that have been offered in the past to try to account for persuasion accurately. As Chomsky (2000: 16) has noted, however, 'intelligibility of theories' and intelligibility 'of the world' are two distinct things. Therefore, developing theories of persuasion is different from accounting for real cases of persuasion. To their credit, Stiff and Mongeau know this. After explaining a model or theory, they then often say why it is wrong or how it has been falsified. Despite the book's emphasis on models and theories, the final two chapters do offer more concrete instances of persuasive situations. Also, vivid examples of persuasion and compliance are frequently given (e.g. riding with a drunk driver, buying a car or bed, college fundraising, quitting smoking, eating healthy food, smoking marijuana, using condoms, dating, voting, and so on). Students can relate to these topics, of course, but the authors also know 'the perceptions of college students may differ considerably from the perceptions of people in other walks of life' (p. 271), which may limit the usefulness of data. That said, readers may wonder why the book's first Library of Congress subject heading is 'Persuasion (Rhetoric).' The word 'rhetoric' rarely appears although Aristotle's three main rhetorical proofs (ethos, logos, and pathos) do get examined. Topics ranging from perceiving a speaker's credibility to evoking guilt are analyzed, but missing is a dialogue with recent rhetorical scholarship (e.g. Cockcroft and Cockcroft, 1992; Crowley and Hawhee, 1999) and classical rhetoric. The book is thus aimed at Communication students rather than English or Linguistics students. Sociolinguists will wonder why Tannen's (1991) work is overlooked in the discussion of gender and persuasion; discourse analysts will wonder why there is not a single real conversation analyzed from a corpus (e.g. CANCODE) in order to show how persuasion actually occurs; and those in pragmatics will be surprised to see that Sperber and Wilson's (1986) work is overlooked in the discussion of cognitive models of persuasion. No book can be everything to all readers, of course, but an opportunity was missed here to write a book that would have appealed to a much wider audience. To their credit, Stiff and Mongeau wisely discuss cognitive models and theories in many places because they are the most promising when compared to other models and theories.
Cercles: An Interdisciplinary Journal of English Studies, 2005
Much scholarship in the humanities and social sciences can be defined as an attack on categories.... more Much scholarship in the humanities and social sciences can be defined as an attack on categories. Whenever categorization is viewed as a form of oppression, liberation becomes equated with rejecting categories. We often celebrate literary texts that defy genres because critics have come to value the transgression of boundaries. But despite our attempts to reject categories, they will not go away. Indeed, categories persist because we continually categorize. As John Taylor states in Linguistic Categorization, "Human beings are categorizing creatures par excellence" [xi]. If you doubt that fact, simply watch toddlers at play categorize their toys. As to the question of why do we categorize, according to Taylor, "Categorization makes it possible for an organism to reduce the limitless variation in the world to manageable proportions" [51], and "the function of categorization is to reduce the complexity of the environment" [35]. In other words, to categorize is to survive. Categories pervade both everyday life and linguistics, and for Taylor linguistic categorization refers to how verbal language reflects cognitive categories and how concepts used by linguists arise from categories. As an Oxford Textbook in Linguistics, Linguistic Categorization is ostensibly aimed at students. Indeed, each chapter ends with a few study questions. But like many so-called textbooks, teachers may also learn something useful here. This is because Taylor's prose is clear, his argument coherent, and his bibliography rather thorough. Now in its third edition, Linguistic Categorization answers a criticism made by the linguist P.H. Matthews. In his 1992 review of Taylor's first edition, Matthews thought Taylor fell short when what was needed was something "which will allow us to treat 'cognitive linguistics' with more respect." This is now that book. In the first four chapters, Taylor covers the pioneering findings Berlin, Kay, Rosch, Mervin, and Labov, to name just a few of the researchers involved with categorization theory. In contrast to Bloomfield's belief that categories were arbitrary [5], Taylor points to a significant amount of irrefutable empirical evidence to show there is a remarkable cross-cultural consistency, for Reviews http://www.cercles.com/review/r23/taylor.htm
Reasons to doubt the present evidence for metaphoric representation. Cognition 62, 99-108. Rakova... more Reasons to doubt the present evidence for metaphoric representation. Cognition 62, 99-108. Rakova, Marina 2002 The philosophy of embodied realism: A high price to pay? Cognitive Linguistics 13 (3), 215-244.
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