A narrativa que nos guia, o discurso que emerge: um estudo cognitivo acerca do processamento semântico em fábulas

Abstract

This study investigates the meaning construction processes in narratives based on theoretical assumptions of Cognitive Linguistics (CL), which supports the principle that the relationship between language and the world is mediated by cognition. It discusses, therefore, the idea that language is formed on the interaction between the human biological apparatus and cultural experience, basic components in the process of construction of meaning, as studied by Lakoff and Johnson (1999); Johnson (2007), and Damasio (2011). We argue specifically that human communicative interaction arises from the cognitive ability to construct narratives (TURNER, 1996, 2006; LAKOFF, 2008; LAKOFF and NARAYANAN, 2010) and to activate speech frames. These frames arise from the match between conceptual domains, structured by abstract descriptive schemes of space and movement (scheme-I and X-schemes) and communicative frames (dimensions of frames). This work also proposes a constructional analysis model of narrative and discourse, based on the description of the cognitive mechanisms that participate in the process of meaning construction in fabulous narratives. The research is qualitative and the method employed is introspective, which is guided by the views of the researcher (TALMY, 2005), but anchored in the theoretical premises of CL and compared to data collected in corpora. The corpora, in turn, consisted of a set of fables drawn from the works of Aesop (2006), Phaedrus (2001), La Fontaine ([2008?]), Monteiro Lobato (2008) and Sergio Caparrelli, and Marcia Schmaltz (2012). The analyses of these fables pointed to the centrality of frames (FILLMORE, 1977) and to the process of mental simulation (BARSALOU, 1999) in the meaning construction process in narratives. They also suggest that the social cognitive role of speech in social acculturation process (VAN DIJK, 2012) is basically structured in the combination of descriptive schemes and by the confrontation of discursive frames. Therefore, we consider, in this work, that storytelling is one of the most important cognitive mechanisms in the construction process and in the projection of real or fictitious experiences; and that the action of storytelling seems to lead us, as cognitive beings, to simulate attitudes, causes, effects and intentions of the ones involved in the story. We believe that this work can contribute to cognitive studies about the comprehension of texts, speeches and embodied grammar.