Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents
Language and Literature
This Article
Right arrow Abstract Freely available
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Stockwell, P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?

Schema Poetics and Speculative Cosmology

Peter Stockwell

University of Nottingham, UK, peter.stockwell{at}nottingham.ac.uk

Speculative cosmology is a sub-genre of science fiction that particularly focuses on the difficulties for the deployment of existing knowledge in reading. This article assesses the usefulness of competing models of world-monitoring in order to arrive at a usable framework for discussing the particular issues in science fictional reading. It is suggested that schema theory, while containing many flaws in general, nevertheless offers an appropriate degree of delicacy for the exploration of sf. Schema poetics - the application of the theory to the literary context - is used to discuss speculative cosmology, with a focus on the work of the Australian sf writer Greg Egan. The analysis investigates the connection between stylistic form and schema operation, and proposes an explanation of `plausibility'. Specifically, sf tends to provide a readerly counterpart in the text, and thereby dramatizes schema refreshment as if it were mere schema accretion.

Key Words: alternativity • Egan, Greg • informativity • plausibility • schema poetics • schemas • science fiction • speculative cosmology

References

  • Abelson, R. (1987) `Artificial Intelligence and Literary Appreciation: How Big is the Gap?', in L. Hálàsz (ed.) Literary Discourse: Aspects of Cognitive and Social Psychological Approaches, pp. 1-37. Berlin: de Gruyter .
  • Allen, S. (ed.) (1989) Possible Worlds in Humanities, Arts and Sciences. Berlin: de Gruyter .
  • Bartlett, F.C. (1932) Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press . (Reprinted 1995.)
  • Baxter, Stephen (1995) The Time Ships. London: Voyager .
  • Cook, G. (1989) Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press .
  • Cook, G. (1992) The Discourse of Advertising. London: Routledge .
  • Cook, G. (1994) Discourse and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press .
  • Culpeper, J. (2001) Language and Characterisation. London: Longman .
  • de Beaugrande, R. (1980) Text, Discourse and Process: Toward an Interdisciplinary Science of Texts. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates .
  • de Beaugrande, R. (1987) `Schemas for Literary Communication', in L. Hàlàsz (ed.) Literary Discourse: Aspects of Cognitive and Social Psychological Approaches, pp. 49-99. Berlin: de Gruyter .
  • Delany, S.R. (1977) The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction. Elizabethtown, NY: Dragon Press .
  • Edwards, D. (1997) Discourse and Cognition. London: Sage .
  • Egan, Greg (1994) Permutation City. London: Millennium .
  • Egan, Greg (1996) Axiomatic. London: Millennium .
  • Egan, Greg (1998) Diaspora. London: Millennium .
  • Egan, Greg (1999) Quarantine. London: Millennium .
  • Egan, Greg (2002a) Schild's Ladder. London: Millennium .
  • Egan, Greg (2002b) http:www.netspace.net.au/~gregegan/ (Last accessed July, 2002).
  • Emmott, C. (1997) Narrative Comprehension: A Discourse Perspective. Oxford: Clarendon Press .
  • Fauconnier, G. (1994) Mental Spaces. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .Original in French as Espaces Mentaux, 1984, Paris: Editions de Minuit .
  • Fauconnier, G. (1997) Mappings in Thought and Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
  • Fauconnier, G. and Sweetser, E. (eds) (1996) Spaces, Worlds and Grammar. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press .
  • Fiedler, L.A. (1984) Olaf Stapledon: A Man Divided. Oxford: Oxford University Press .
  • Fillmore, C. (1985) `Frames and the Semantics of Understanding' , Quaderni di Semantica 6: 222-254 .
  • Fish, S. (1980) Is There a Text in this Class? Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press .
  • Gavins, J. (2001) `Text World Theory: A Critical Exposition and Development in Relation to Absurd Prose Fiction,' unpublished PhD thesis, Sheffield Hallam University.
  • Goldberg, A. (ed.) (1996) Conceptual Structure, Discourse, and Language. Stanford, CA: Center for the Study of Language and Information .
  • Hidalgo Downing, L. (2000) Negation, Text Worlds, and Discourse: The Pragmatics of Fiction. Stamford, CT: Ablex .
  • Littlewood, D, and Stockwell, P. (eds) (1996) Impossibility Fiction: Alternativity - Extrapolation - Speculation. Amsterdam: Rodopi .
  • McCarthy, P.A. (1982) Olaf Stapledon. Boston, MA: Twayne .
  • Maitre, D. (1983) Literature and Possible Worlds. London: Middlesex University Press .
  • Martindale, C. (ed.) (1988) Psychological Approaches to the Study of Literary Narratives. Hamburg: Buske .
  • Minsky, M. (1975) `A Framework for Representing Knowledge', in P.E. Winston (ed.) The Psychology of Computer Vision, pp. 221-277. New York: McGraw-Hill .
  • Minsky, M. (1986) The Society of Mind. London: Heinemann .
  • Ronen, R. (1994) Possible Worlds in Literary Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
  • Rumelhart, D.E. (1975) `Notes on a Schema for Stories', in D.G. Bobrow and A. Collins (eds) Representation and Understanding, pp. 211-236. New York: Academic Press .
  • Rumelhart, D.E. (1980) `Schemata: the Building Blocks of Cognition', in R.J. Spiro, B. Bruce and W. Brewer (eds) Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension: Perspectives from Cognitive Psychology, Linguistics, Artificial Intelligence and Education, pp. 33-58. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates .
  • Rumelhart, D.E. (1984) `Schemata and the Cognitive System', in R.S. Wyer and T.K. Srull (eds) Handbook of Social Cognition, vol. 1, pp. 161-188. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates .
  • Rumelhart, D.E. and Norman, D.A. (1978) `Accretion, Tuning and Restructuring: Three Modes of Learning', in J.W. Cotton and R.L. Klatzky (eds) Semantic Factors in Cognition, pp. 37-53. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates .
  • Ryan, M.L. (1991a) Possible Worlds: Artificial Intelligence and Narrative Theory. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press .
  • Ryan, M.L. (1991b) `Possible Worlds and Accessibility Relations: A Semantic Typology of Fiction' , Poetics Today 12(3): 553-576 .
  • Sanford, A.J. and Garrod, S.C. (1981) Understanding Written Language. New York: Wiley .
  • Schank, R.C. (1982a) Dynamic Memory: A Theory of Reminding and Learning in Computers and People. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
  • Schank, R.C. (1982b) Reading and Understanding: Teaching from the Perspective of Artificial Intelligence. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates .
  • Schank, R.C. (1984) The Cognitive Computer. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley .
  • Schank, R.C. (1986) Explanation Patterns. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates .
  • Schank, R.C. and Abelson, R. (1977) Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates .
  • Searle, J. (1975) `The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse' , New Literary History 6(2): 319-332 .[CrossRef]
  • Semino, E. (1997) Language and World Creation in Poems and Other Texts. London: Longman .
  • Smith, C.C. (1988) Olaf Stapledon and his Critics. Westport, CT: Greenwood .
  • Stapledon, Olaf (1930) Last and First Men. London: Methuen .
  • Stapledon, Olaf (1937) Star Maker. London: Methuen .
  • Stockwell, P. (2000) The Poetics of Science Fiction. London: Longman .
  • Stockwell, P. (2002) Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction. London: Routledge .
  • Suvin, D. (1979) Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press .
  • Tannen, D. (1984) `What's in a Frame? Surface Evidence for Underlying Expectations', in R.O. Freedle (ed.) New Directions in Discourse Processing, pp. 137-181. Norwood, NJ: Ablex .
  • Thorndyke, P.W. (1977) `Cognitive Structures in Comprehension and Memory of Narrative Discourse' , Cognitive Psychology 9: 77-110 .[CrossRef]
  • Thorndyke, P.W. and Yekovich, F.R. (1980) `A Critique of Schema-Based Theories of Human Story Memory' , Poetics 9: 23-49 .
  • Toolan, M. (1996) Total Speech: An Intergrational Linguistic Approach to Language. Durham, NC: Duke University Press .
  • Turner, M. (1996) The Literary Mind: The Origins of Thought and Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press .
  • Turner, M. and Fauconnier, G. (1999) `A Mechanism of Creativity' , Poetics Today 20(3): 397-418 .
  • Wells, H.G. (1895) The Time Machine. London: Heinemann .
  • Wells, H.G. (1898) The War of the Worlds. London: Heinemann .
  • Werth, P. (1994) `Extended Metaphor: A Text World Account' , Language and Literature 3(2): 79-103 .
  • Werth, P. (1999) Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse. London: Longman .

Language and Literature, Vol. 12, No. 3, 252-271 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/09639470030123005
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Language and LiteratureHome page
G. Hall and J. Gavins
The year's work in stylistics 2003
Language and Literature, November 1, 2004; 13(4): 349 - 364.
[PDF]

This Article
Right arrow Abstract Freely available
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Stockwell, P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?