Mental Spaces in Discourse and Interaction Todd Oakley
Mental Spaces in Discourse and Interaction Todd Oakley
Mental Spaces in Discourse and Interaction Todd Oakley
Mental Spaces in Discourse and Interaction Todd Oakley
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5. Mental Spaces in Discourse and Interaction Todd Oakley
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Todd Oakley, Anders Hougaard
ISBN(s): 9789027254146, 9027254141
Edition: Kindle
File Details: PDF, 2.47 MB
Year: 2008
Language: english
8. Volume 170
Mental Spaces in Discourse and Interaction
Edited by Todd Oakley and Anders Hougaard
Editor
Andreas H. Jucker
University of Zurich, English Department
Plattenstrasse 47, CH-8032 Zurich, Switzerland
e-mail: ahjucker@es.uzh.ch
Editorial Board
Shoshana Blum-Kulka
Hebrew University of
Jerusalem
Jean Caron
Université de Poitiers
Robyn Carston
University College London
Bruce Fraser
Boston University
Thorstein Fretheim
University of Trondheim
John C. Heritage
University of California at Los
Angeles
Susan C. Herring
Indiana University
Masako K. Hiraga
St.Paul’s (Rikkyo) University
David Holdcroft
University of Leeds
Sachiko Ide
Japan Women’s University
Catherine Kerbrat-
Orecchioni
University of Lyon 2
Claudia de Lemos
University of Campinas, Brazil
Marina Sbisà
University of Trieste
Associate Editors
Jacob L. Mey
University of Southern
Denmark
Herman Parret
Belgian National Science
Foundation, Universities of
Louvain and Antwerp
Jef Verschueren
Belgian National Science
Foundation,
University of Antwerp
Emanuel A. Schegloff
University of California at Los
Angeles
Deborah Schiffrin
Georgetown University
Paul Osamu Takahara
Kobe City University of
Foreign Studies
Sandra A. Thompson
University of California at
Santa Barbara
Teun A. van Dijk
Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona
Richard J.Watts
University of Berne
Pragmatics & Beyond New Series is a continuation of Pragmatics & Beyond and
its Companion Series. The New Series offers a selection of high quality work
covering the full richness of Pragmatics as an interdisciplinary field, within
language sciences.
Pragmatics & Beyond New Series (P&BNS)
9. Mental Spaces
in Discourse and Interaction
Edited by
Todd Oakley
Case Western Reserve University
Anders Hougaard
University of Southern Denmark
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam/Philadelphia
11. TSL[v.20020404] Prn:30/01/2008; 12:12 F: PB170CO.tex / p.1 (v)
Table of contents
introduction
Mental spaces and discourse analysis 1
Anders Hougaard and Todd Oakley
chapter 1
Connecting the dots: Mental spaces and metaphoric language in discourse 27
Todd Oakley and Seana Coulson
chapter 2
The text and the story: Levels of blending in fictional narratives 51
Barbara Dancygier
chapter 3
Fictive interaction blends in everyday life and courtroom settings 79
Esther Pascual
chapter 4
A semiotic approach to fictive interaction as a representational strategy
in communicative meaning construction 109
Line Brandt
chapter 5
Designing clinical experiences with words: Three layers of analysis
in clinical case studies 149
Todd Oakley and David Kaufer
chapter 6
Compression in interaction 179
Anders Hougaard
chapter 7
Guided conceptualization: Mental spaces in instructional discourse 209
Robert F. Williams
12. TSL[v.20020404] Prn:30/01/2008; 12:12 F: PB170CO.tex / p.2 (vi)
Mental Spaces in Discourse and Interaction
chapter 8
Looking at analyses of mental spaces and blending /
Looking at and experiencing discourse in interaction 235
Alan Cienki
chapter 9
“Mental spaces” and “blending” in discourse and interaction:
A response 247
Gitte R. Hougaard
chapter 10
Reflections on blends and discourse 251
Paul Chilton
Author index 257
Subject index 259
13. TSL[v.20020404] Prn:25/01/2008; 8:03 F: PB170IN.tex / p.1 (1)
Mental spaces and discourse analysis
Anders Hougaard and Todd Oakley
Since their inceptions, mental spaces theory (Fauconnier 1994, 1997) and concep-
tual integration theory, better known as blending theory (Fauconnier Turner
1994, 1998, 2002), have developed rapidly from being semantic theories of (mainly
textual) discourse meaning to general cognitive1
theories of human sense making
across diverse domains of human activity. These activities range from text and
discourse comprehension to the construction of meaning in religious rituals and
meaning in music. This developmenthas been endorsed by the elaboration of Fau-
connier’s (1994 [1985]) early work on mental spaces in discourse into a larger
theoretical machinery which has the general cognitive capacity of blending (and
accompanying processes) as its central object of inquiry. Despite this expansive
development, however, discourse, in its many variants (from poetry to face-to-
face interaction), remains a vibrant area of research within the mental spaces and
conceptual integration framework (hereafter MSCI).
Two major developments can be observed in the discursive application, elabo-
ration and rethinking of MSCI. One is that increasingly more attention is being
paid to the way contextual or situational factors determine mental spaces and
blending operations, under which or in accordance with which discourse par-
ticipants construct meaning. And here we use both terms – “context” and “sit-
uation” – in the broadest conceivable fashion as any micro, mezzo or macro,
textual or non-textual set of circumstances. The other major development, already
indicated in the latter, is an increasing multiplicity of particular theoretic and em-
pirical notions on which researchers study discourse. A great number of major
approaches to discourse from the fields of pragmatics, text linguistics, discourse
studies and interactional studies are represented in discursive MSCI research. This
diversity of approaches presents the joint cognitive enterprise with a great chal-
lenge: either 1) to attempt to reconcile these diverse theoretic and empirical bases
into a joint enterprise that produces comparable results without violating the the-
. For a discussion of mental space as a cognitive theory, see below.
14. TSL[v.20020404] Prn:25/01/2008; 8:03 F: PB170IN.tex / p.2 (2)
Anders Hougaard and Todd Oakley
oretic and methodological bases of these results or 2) to consider an appropriate
division of labor between them, which involves considering which theories and
methods do what best and what results are incompatible with which theories
and methods.
It was in the interest of the two challenges that Hougaard and Oakley or-
ganized a panel session at the International Pragmatics Organization’s biannual
conference at Riva del Garda, Italy, in 2005. The present volume presents both
written and extended versions of papers given on that occasion and additional in-
vited papers by other researchers within the “branch” of discursive MSCI. The
volume has two major purposes: One is to stimulate discussions within MSCI
as well as cognitive linguistics in general of a joint discursive enterprise or of
complementary discursive enterprises, including a thorough exchange of philo-
sophical, theoretical and methodological viewpoints. The other is to provide other
researchers who work with discourse and/or interaction and who take an interest
in cognitive issues with a palette of different ways in which blending theorists have
made discourse and interaction an object of inquiry. Additionally, to initiate the
discussion of a general discursive and interactional MSCI enterprise – including
both its prospects and problems – we have invited three relevantexperts to respond
to the contributions made in the present volume: discourse analyst Paul Chilton,
cognitive linguist Alan Cienki, and conversation analyst Gitte R. Hougaard. Below
we will give a short overview of the contributions to this volume. But first, for
readers who are not familiar with MSCI, we offer a short introduction to MSCI
and discourse, and then we discuss MSCI in relation to traditions of discourse
analysis, with particular focus on some seemingly antithetical major “schools”:
Ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis and Discursive Psychology.
We have chosen to focus on these because they are dealt with explicitly in sev-
eral contributors and because they present novel and very different perspectives
from those commonly found in cognitive linguistics. MSCI is commonly accepted
as a tool for analysis of individuals’ interpretations of sequences of spoken and
written language. Such studies have been a part of the cognitive linguistics en-
deavor at least since the first version of Fauconnier’s Mental Spaces (1985). Yet,
the sociological methods employed by these schools introduce a new concern:
meaning construction as a shared or public phenomenon.Many cognitive linguists
would perhaps consider this issue as being beyond the concerns of cognitive lin-
guistics proper, as being a sociological not a cognitive or linguistics concern. But in
truth cognitive linguistics in general and MSCI in particular are starting to address
explicitly the issue of socially shared and constructed meaning. For instance, Croft
(to appear) argues explicitly for a “social” extension of cognitive linguistics, and in
their 2002 book Fauconnier and Turner provide blending analyses of phenomena
that are distinctly social and can only be achieved in and through social processes.
These include the concept of ‘money’, Japanese image clubs (where sexual fantasies
15. TSL[v.20020404] Prn:25/01/2008; 8:03 F: PB170IN.tex / p.3 (3)
Introduction: Mental spaces and discourse analysis
are enacted collaboratively by prostitutes and customers) and religious rituals.
Furthermore, Turner (2001) dedicates a whole book to arguing for a fusion be-
tween cognitive science and social science using blending theory as a platform for
bringing the two together. If MSCI makes social aspects of meaning construction
a principal concern, then a sociological viewpoint may as a consequence change
some of the theoretical premises. As several of this volume’s contributors and com-
mentators make clear, these sociological viewpoints need to be incorporated in
future iterations of MSCI theory.
Introducing mental spaces and blending: Achilles sees a tortoise
In this section we discuss the technical application of mental spaces and in the
following section we address some definitional issues with respect to the status of
mental spaces. Consider then first the following piece of text, originally analyzed
in Fauconnier (1997:44):
Achilles sees a tortoise. He chases it. He thinks that the tortoise is slow and that he
will catch it. But it is fast. If the tortoise had been slow, Achilles would have caught
it. Maybe the tortoise is really a hare.
This little slice of discourse consisting mostly of simple sentences requires of its
reader an almost acrobatic mastering of information chunks which emerge and
get connected in all sorts of ways during the very brief time span it takes to read
and understand the text. Fauconnier analyses the reader’s cognitive take on the
unfolding text in terms of a proliferating network of interconnected mental spaces.
Let us follow Fauconnier’s analysis step-by-step.
Base space
According to Fauconnier, all discourse networks of mental spaces grow from a
so-called Base space which represents the discourse starting point of a meaning
construction. It is important to notice that this space need not be true or real or
actual in any way outside the cognizer’s (or cognizers’) understanding. Only as
an interpreter’s understanding of something is it claimed to be very real. It thus
simply marks the point from which the meaning construction extends. Truth is
not an issue – people’s understanding is. People understand the sentence Achilles
sees a tortoise whether or not Achilles is real, has been real, could be real or only
exists in imagination. MSCI seeks to model how people keep track of currents of
information and make sense of them however bizarre, fantastic, imaginary, fictive
or real they may be. The Base space is thus a here-and-now space with respect to
the unfolding discourse, not with respect to any real or possible world situation.
This is also a major reason why mental spaces are cognitive. We need judgement
16. TSL[v.20020404] Prn:25/01/2008; 8:03 F: PB170IN.tex / p.4 (4)
Anders Hougaard and Todd Oakley
a
b
a name Achilles
b tortoise
SEE a b
Figure 1.
to distinguish between truths, falsities, fictions, imaginations, etc.; but technical
cognitive principles of meaning assembly do not make that distinction. Hence one
might argue that MSCI follows a trend already set by speech act theory (Austin
1962) in relocating the issue of meaning from being an issue of truth or falsity to
being an issue of understanding.
Mental spaces analysis
The first sentence in the discourse is then,
(1) Achilles sees a tortoise.
In mental space terms, the name Achilles is linked to an element, a, already in-
troduced into the Base space prior to the present excerpt (this must be so due to
the definite reference). The element b(tortoise), which is set up by the indefinite
noun phrase a tortoise, gets introduced as a new element in the Base space; and
finally sees evokes a SEEING frame (a structured domain of knowledge pertaining
to seeing, Fillmore 1982, 1985) which takes a and b in the roles of seer and seen
respectively (figure 1).
Notice here that, mental spaces are only partial conceptual structures. They do
not contain entire domains of knowledge, concepts or categories. They “recruit”
exactly what is required by the discourse. Hence not all knowledge that is related
to seeing is brought to bear on Achilles and the tortoise, only that Achilles is a seer
who has caught sight of the tortoise which is a visible object. Yet, frames are con-
sidered to be activated and hence available in the background for further mental
space construction.
Background information telling us that Achilles is a man and that the tortoise
is an animal makes it possible in the next sentence,
(2) He chases it,
to reference them anaphorically. Otherwise the next elements only add the addi-
tional relation CHASE through the verb chases. A frame for chasing is activated
and Achilles is cast in the role as chaser and the tortoise in the role as chased
(figure 2).
17. TSL[v.20020404] Prn:25/01/2008; 8:03 F: PB170IN.tex / p.5 (5)
Introduction: Mental spaces and discourse analysis
a
b
a name Achilles
b tortoise
SEE a b
CHASE a b
Figure 2.
Notice thus how one space comes to contain a short narrative and thus a tem-
poral and dynamic dimension: Achilles sees a tortoise and then he chases it. Mental
spaces are not just frozen images, states or relations; they can have extension in
time and change over time.
The third sentence,
(3) He thinks it is slow and that he will catch it,
sets up new spaces with new structure (figure 3).
He thinks is called a ‘space builder’ because it marks a new (or “discontinu-
ous”) chunk, or seam, of information with respect to the previous seams. We are
no longer talking about what Achilles and the tortoise do in their shared world
but about what Achilles thinks about that shared world and this is not the same –
hence the partitioning into new spaces.2
Thus in the diagramming, Fauconnier
represents Achilles’ thinking as two new spaces. The first part of sentence (3) sets
up a belief space, M, with an internal structure where the tortoise, b’, is slow. No-
tice that a’, Achilles, appears in this space too even though this element has not
been explicitly referred to. This is one way in which mental space theory is differ-
ent form formal semantics. Language implies more than it explicitly states. It is
claimed to be understood that Achilles himself is of course a part of that scenario
in which the tortoise is slow since it must be slow for him in his belief. The second
. The issue of when a new mental space is needed is a contested issue. Harder (2003), proposes
that a new space is needed when chunks of information contrast. However, consider an example
like: The sun is shining and that is actually how Achilles sees it too. Here there is a full match
between what is the state of affairs in the world and what Achilles thinks is the state of affairs
in the world. But we must of course acknowledge the distinction that is made between what
is reported to be the objective state of affairs in the world and what is reported to be Achilles’
subjective impression of the world. Hence instead of having “contrast” as a criterion for mental
space assignment, one might argue that “discontinuity” is a better candidate. Hence partitioned
chunks of information may indeed be compatible although they are discontinues in time, space,
ontology, modality, etc. and thus should be treated as separate chunks.
18. TSL[v.20020404] Prn:25/01/2008; 8:03 F: PB170IN.tex / p.6 (6)
Anders Hougaard and Todd Oakley
Future
space
Belief
space M
Base
space B
.a
.b
a name Achilles
b tortoise
SEE a b
CHASE a b
.a’
.b’
.a’’
.b’’
SLOW b’
CATCH a’’ b’’
Figure 3.
part of sentence (3) sets up a space which is in the future of space B and M. In that
space, Achilles, a”, catches the tortoise, b”.
One might perhaps argue that what Achilles thinks should rightfully be placed
with Achilles in the space already set up (the Base space), because just as Achilles
SEES and CHASES, he THINKS in that space. Yet, this would risk confusions and
make the modelling unnecessarily complicated. The hierarchical relationship be-
tween the spaces is captured in the progression of the network from the Base space
and downwards. And placing spaces within spaces might risk confusing a repre-
sentation of the situation as it is presented with a progressive representation of
the chunks of information as they appear, the latter and not the former being the
object of Fauconnier’s mental space theory.
The fourth sentence,
(4) But it is fast,
takes us back to the Base space and sets up the attribute FAST for b, the tortoise.
Notice how the word But explicitly marks a contrast between FAST in space B and
SLOW in space M. We are now manipulating – simultaneously – incompatible
scenarios where the same tortoise is respectively FAST and SLOW (figure 4).
The fifth sentence
(5) If the tortoise had been slow, Achilles would have caught it,
19. TSL[v.20020404] Prn:25/01/2008; 8:03 F: PB170IN.tex / p.7 (7)
Introduction: Mental spaces and discourse analysis
Future
space
Belief
space M
Base
space B
.a
.b
a name Achilles
b tortoise
SEE a b
CHASE a b
FAST b
.a’
.b’
.a’’
.b’’
SLOW b’
CATCH a’ b’
Figure 4.
sets up an interesting structure which must clearly belong in a space that is differ-
ent from the Base space (figure 5). The conjunction If sets up a mental space H
with hypothetical content (that is, it has a hypothetical relation to the bases space).
And as Fauconnier (Ibid.:46) observes, the distal past perfect form indicates that
the space is counterfactually related to the discourse’s factual state of affairs in
space B. In this hypothetical space the novel structures SLOWb1 and CATCHa1b1
appear. For the sake of simplicity and brevity, we skip the more elaborate discus-
sion and detailed analysis of conditionals and matching conditions and instead
direct the reader to Chapters 4 and 5 of Fauconnier’s Mappings in Thought and
Language (1997). For now we simply observe that the mood of the discourse has
now shifted from indicative to conditional. However, below we will elaborate the
analysis of sentence 5 in another way, demonstrating how it can be conceived of as
a conceptual blend.
The last sentence,
(6) Maybe the tortoise is really a hare,
sets up an epistemic situation in which the tortoise is a hare (figure 6). The result-
ing configuration between spaces B and P allows the so-called Access Principle to
work: through the naming of an element in one space one may get access to that
element’s counterpart in another space. So when talking about the tortoise in this
latter case, we are not talking about the Base space tortoise; rather we use the name
20. TSL[v.20020404] Prn:25/01/2008; 8:03 F: PB170IN.tex / p.8 (8)
Anders Hougaard and Todd Oakley
Base
space B
Future
space
Belief
space M
.a
.b
a name Achilles
b tortoise
SEE a b
CHASE a b
FAST b
.a’
.b’
.a’’
.b’’
SLOW b’
CATCH a’ b’
.b1
.a1
SLOW b1
CATCH a1 b1
Figure 5.
given in the Base space to gain mental access to the new entity, of which we now
predicate that it is a hare.
Discourse management: Base, viewpoint, and focus
The latter point about mental access shows us that grammar does not just indicate
the introduction of new mental spaces and their content; it also guides a variety
of other mental tasks in the treatment of the incoming information such as the
management of viewpoint, focus and base structure in the constructed network.
We have already seen how phrases like He thinks, If and Maybe can partition in-
formation away from the Base space, that is the state of affairs in the space that the
discourse departs from. Consider now the notion of viewpoint. “At any point in the
construction [of mental spaces],” Fauconnier (1997:49) writes, “one space is dis-
tinguished as Viewpoint, the space from which others are accessed and structured
or set up.” Consider again sentence (5):
(5) If the tortoise had been slow, Achilles would have caught it.
In the Base space the tortoise is fast, but from the point of view of that space
we look to a hypothetical space in which the tortoise is slow. Consider next the
notion of Focus. As we saw, sentence (5) prompts a hypothetical mental space
21. TSL[v.20020404] Prn:25/01/2008; 8:03 F: PB170IN.tex / p.9 (9)
Introduction: Mental spaces and discourse analysis
Possibility space P
Base
space B
Future
space
Belief
space M
.a
.b
a name Achilles
b tortoise
SEE a b
CHASE a b
FAST b
.a’
.b’
.a’’
.b’’
SLOW b’
CATCH a’ b’
.b1
.a1
SLOW b1
CATCH a1 b1
.b2
Counterfactual
space H
Figure 6.
which is counterfactually related to the Base space. However, attention is on the
hypothetical space, not the Base space.
Though catching the discursive development of meaning management, the
five-space network depicted above is far from the whole story of what is required
of the interpreter of sentence (1) through (6). For instance, sentence (5) – If the
tortoise had been slow, Achilles would have caught it– not only requires the par-
titioning of mental space structure to a counterfactual space, it also requires the
integration of incompatible mental spaces in order to create a mental space of
the counterfactual situation. Even though, the discourse base tortoise is not slow,
we can still imagine it being slow, and we can further think of the consequences
of it being – contrary to discourse facts – slow. Such discoveries led Fauconnier
and Turner to propose the theory of conceptual blending. Above, sentence (5) was
analysed in terms of two mental spaces. For the sake of simplicity, we will here
treat the counterfactual situation as one blended space. In one input space – which
would be the Base space from above, we have the fast tortoise and Achilles. In
this space, Achilles cannot catch the tortoise. Yet, under normal circumstance we
might expect a tortoise to be slow, so slow at least that a human can easily catch
22. TSL[v.20020404] Prn:25/01/2008; 8:03 F: PB170IN.tex / p.10 (10)
Anders Hougaard and Todd Oakley
Generic space
Input space 1
Blended space
Input space 2
Achilles a
Tortoise b
FAST b
a’ Achilles
b’ Tortoise
b’ SL OW
a’b’ CA TC H
Human
Tortoise
h Human
t Tortoise
t SLOW
h t CA TC H
Figure 7.
it.3
We have knowledge of such situations which can be used to imagine a situation
in which this particular tortoise is slow – though it is not – and consequently that
Achilles can catch it – though he cannot. The knowledge we have of normal tor-
toises constitutes another input space. And the imagined situation in which this
particular tortoise is slow and gets caught is technically described as the blended
space. Finally, the mapping of the two incompatible inputs gives rise to a generic
structure supporting the entire blending work (figure 7).
There are mappings between all the spaces in the blending space network. The
mappings between the inputs are called vital relations (historically the notion of
connectors from mental space theory prior to blending). Achilles and the tortoise
in input 1 are connected to the human and the tortoise in input 2 by ROLE rela-
tions. There is also DISANALOGY between FAST in input 1 and SLOW in input
2. DISANALOGY is a central relation in the construction of counterfactual spaces.
Achilles a and tortoise b map onto Achilles a’ and tortoise b’ in the blended space.
This mapping has been established by the projection of Achilles (a’) and tortoise
(b’) from input 1. The relations SLOW and CATCH have been projected from in-
put 2 which establishes mappings between these relations in the input and the
blend. Finally, Fauconnier and Turner posit a generic space that projects common
structure to the other spaces in the network.
. Whether Achilles is really human or not is of course debatable if seen from the point of
view of mythology (given that only his heels could be wounded), but we abstain from such
considerations here and instead observe that whether human or not, one would expect Achilles
to be able to catch a tortoise!
23. TSL[v.20020404] Prn:25/01/2008; 8:03 F: PB170IN.tex / p.11 (11)
Introduction: Mental spaces and discourse analysis
The basic elements of a technical description of blending are thus a minimum
of four spaces (two inputs, generic space and blended space), mappings and se-
lective projections (only selected parts of the inputs get projected). (Further basic
elements are discussed in Fauconnier and Turner (2002)). As a key aspect of the
blending, the blended space has emergent structure: The tortoise which is really fast
is slow and Achilles who cannot catch the tortoise can now catch it. All blends have
emergent structure, not only counterfactuals but also metaphors (He had smoke
coming out of his ears), X is the Y of Z constructions (John is the President of the
Company), certain caused motion constructions (They clapped the band back on
stage), fictive motion (This highway goes to Copenhagen), NN compositions (money
problems), AN compositions (false alarm) and many others.
Another key component of blending is “compression.” This component may
better be understood in the following example
(7) At this World Cup, Ronaldo is fighting against his own former performances.
One understanding of this complex utterance has Ronaldo fighting a personi-
fication of his earlier performances. Yet, Ronaldo at the present World Cup is
separated in time from his earlier performances. But the blending allows the in-
terpreter to put present-day Ronaldo directly – at the same point in time and at
the same place – up against his earlier performances. This blend then involves the
compression of time that separates Ronaldo today from his earlier performances.
This makes blending a phenomenal cognitive tool for bringing together in thought
what cannot be brought together in the real world. Fauconnier and Turner (2002)
emphasize the great importance and omnipresence of this capacity throughout
human activities.
Blending, though, has developed into much more than a theory of seman-
tics and pragmatics. Fauconnier (1997) introduces blending as an elaboration
of mental spaces theory in connection to discourse and sentence semantics. In
Turner (1996), however, blending is further elaborated into a more general theory
of imagination. And in Fauconnier and Turner (2002), which sums up nearly a
decade of explosively spreading and growing blending research around the globe,
blending has become a general theory of the singular nature of human thinking.
Such domains as religion, semiotics, art, music, social science, politics, rhetoric,
interaction, mathematics, anthropology and much more have been included in
applications and elaborations of blending theory. For an overview of work done in
blending and mental space theory we direct the reader to Mark Turner’s blending
website:http://www.markturner.org/blending.html. Besides containing references
and links to papers and events the webpage also links up to further reference sites.
24. TSL[v.20020404] Prn:25/01/2008; 8:03 F: PB170IN.tex / p.12 (12)
Anders Hougaard and Todd Oakley
What is a mental space?
Above we have discussed technical aspects of the application of mental spaces, in-
cluding when a new space is needed (at least theoretically speaking). However,
thus far we can hardly postulate that we have much more than a useful model. The
claim by Fauconnier and Turner that mental spaces are human cognition at work
still fails to be supported by definitions and empirical investigations which concern
themselves with what mental spaces really are (that is, what they are meant to rep-
resent), what their statuses really are. This issue has left the field completely open.
Most MSCI researchers do not address the issue explicitly in their work, while oth-
ers have turned it into a central question (for instance Brandt 2005 and Hougaard
2004). We will not attempt to provide a solution to this issue for a very important
reason: the answer to the question of what mental spaces really are seems to go
hand-in-hand with the directions that current research, including the papers in
the present volume, takes. Often, mental spaces seem to be applied as a sort of “in-
ner” representations of or ideas about the world or possible or imaginary worlds.
In such works, mental spaces are not a far cry from earlier representationalism and
the disembodied, dualist thinking (Cf. Descartes and Spinoza) that characterises
much of cognitive science. However, none of the contributions to the present
volume explicitly take on a representationalist view. MSCI’s representationalist rel-
atives, when applied in this vein, include such theories as Johnson Laird’s (1983)
Mental Models, which also focus on the way that representationsof the world form
a basis for reasoning and expectations and Situation Semantics (Barwise Perry
1981), which also emphasizes the partial nature of represented situations. Others
emphasize the embodied nature of the knowledge on which mental space building
relies and thus distance themselves from representationalism. But too rarely do
MSCI researchers explicitly address the issues of the relation of mental spaces to
other cognitive representation theories, asking themselves, in what sense they are
cognitive and what are the possible limitations for their application? This volume
addresses such questions in connection to discourse.
Mental spaces and discourse studies
The role cognition and cognitive science can or should play in discourse stud-
ies and vice versa is hotly contested, and one’s stand on the issue depends almost
entirely on how one conceives of cognition and discourse in the first place. Is cog-
nition something that resides entirely inside individual persons? Is it synonymous
with knowledge or epistemic states, and is it antonymous with social action and
emotional or passionate states? And if so, are these epistemic states manifestations
of innate dispositions of which social action is merely an epiphenomenon? Alter-
25. TSL[v.20020404] Prn:25/01/2008; 8:03 F: PB170IN.tex / p.13 (13)
Introduction: Mental spaces and discourse analysis
natively, is cognition distributed between or emergent among co-participants? Is
cognition so dependent on embodied, social, and emotional experience that the
very ideas of knowledge, reasoning, understanding, remembering and experienc-
ing have to be understood in terms of how they arise in and from richly perceptual,
affective, motor and interpersonal situations?
Researchers in MSCI are far more likely to deny the first set of questions and
affirm the second, thereby in principle aligning themselves with some of the tenets
of major contemporary perspectives in discourse studies. However, MSCI is not
itself a theory of discourse; rather, it is a theory of human cognition and con-
ceptualization that is supposed to suggest ways to theorize about and model the
“mental work” of discourse in its broadest sense.
As pointed out in the commentary by Gitte R. Hougaard, the volume presents
two major aims. The first aim is to show how discourse functions as a vehicle of
particular cognitive processes of conceptual integration. The second complemen-
tary aim is to show how particular cognitive processes of conceptual integration
arise from interaction between interlocutors in discourse. Thinking about dis-
course in terms of cognition is the primary focus of the contributions by Todd
Oakley and Seana Coulson, Barbara Dancygier, Todd Oakley and David Kaufer,
Line Brandt, and Ester Pascual. Thinking about cognition in terms of interac-
tion is the primary focus of the contributions by Anders Hougaard and Robert
Williams in their attempts to reveal what MSCI researchers can learn from micro-
analytic studies of interaction. Given the “chicken-and-egg” nature of these two
aims, it is instructive to take stock of some common divergences and conver-
gences with mainstream discourse studies and see what prospects they leave us
with. We will focus in particular on ethnomethodology, conversation analysis and
their daughter discipline discursive psychology.
Discourse analysis often emphasizes the social and contextual aspects of lan-
guage use as well as the need to look at actual, naturally occurring language use.
As will be addressed in greater detail shortly, arguments about the status of evi-
dence strike a chord among recent researchers in cognitive linguistics, especially
those who defend a “usage based approach” to language structure and acquisi-
tion (Langacker 1988; Fauconnier 1999; Tomasello 2000). Such approaches take
as their starting point descriptions of real situations of language use as and thus
avoid isolating “language” as rules for generating sentences. In principle, the areas
of cognitive linguistics which go beyond the boundaries of the sentence can be seen
as inherently carrying a discourse analysis agenda. Yet, despite this general accord,
significant differences and major challenges appear when trying to integrate cog-
nitive linguistics with these other frameworks. The alternative frameworks allow
for the complementary mode of investigation in which cognitive processes are to
be understood from a social science perspective.
31. This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
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ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
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you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The French and British at Three Rivers
Creator: Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County
Release date: March 15, 2021 [eBook #64828]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FRENCH
AND BRITISH AT THREE RIVERS ***
32. The French and British
at Three Rivers
Prepared by the staff of the
Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County
1953
One of a historical series, this pamphlet is published under the
direction of the governing Boards of the Public Library of Fort Wayne
and Allen County.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE SCHOOL CITY OF FORT WAYNE
B. F. Geyer, President
Joseph E. Kramer, Secretary
William C. Gerding, Treasurer
Willard Shambaugh
Mrs. Sadie Fulk Roehrs
PUBLIC LIBRARY BOARD FOR ALLEN COUNTY
The members of this Board include the members of the Board of
Trustees of the School City of Fort Wayne (with the same officers),
together with the following citizens chosen from Allen County
outside the corporate city of Fort Wayne.
James E. Graham
Arthur Niemeier
Mrs. Glenn Henderson
33. 1
2
Mrs. Charles Reynolds
After the discovery of America, four European states, England,
France, Holland, and Spain, laid claim to various portions of the
North American continent. The French claims were largely based
upon the discovery of the St. Lawrence by Cartier in 1521, and
subsequent exploration of the interior of the Continent by
Champlain, La Salle, and other Frenchmen. Ultimately, the territory
which the French pre-empted included the St. Lawrence Valley, the
Great Lakes region, the territory extending southward to the Ohio
River, the territory immediately west of the Mississippi River, and that
part of the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico adjacent to the mouth of
the Mississippi River. The French exploited the fur-trading and fur-
producing possibilities of this vast empire; French priests sought the
conversion of the Indian inhabitants to the Catholic faith; French
military forces established a chain of forts or posts extending along
the Great Lakes, down the Wabash River, and along the Mississippi
River to the Gulf. Numerous Frenchmen came to this interior region,
but few Frenchwomen accompanied them; consequently, French
settlements were relatively few and weak. Many Frenchmen formed
temporary or permanent unions with Indian women, and in the next
generation a considerable number of half-breeds were born of these
unions. Important French posts in the area were Presque Isle,
Mackinac, Detroit, Post Miami, Vincennes, New Orleans, Kaskaskia,
and St. Louis.
The environs of the Indian village of Kekionga, located in the
present Lakeside section of Fort Wayne, were selected by the
French for the location of Post Miami, because of combined
strategic, economic, and geographic significance. The village was
located at the confluence of the St. Joseph and St. Mary’s Rivers. It
was, therefore, on water highways connecting with Lake Erie and
tapping the interior of Michigan and Ohio. Kekionga was only a few
miles from the Wabash River with the St. Lawrence-Mississippi
34. 3
watershed lying between the two. A shallow lake, since drained out
of existence, extended southwest from Kekionga to present-day
Waynedale, and was navigable by canoe during part of the year.
These factors inevitably made the confluence of the rivers a portage
for east and west traffic between the Great Lakes and the
Mississippi. Pelts and trade goods, passing back and forth from the
East to the Southwest, and in reverse, could travel by canoe all the
way between Lake Erie and New Orleans with the exception of a few
miles at Kekionga. This short break in navigation made the portage
necessary; the geography of the rivers made it possible. Here men
were forced to carry canoe and cargo from the navigable waters at
the confluence of the rivers to the headwaters of the Wabash River.
The portage at Kekionga brought relative prosperity to the Indian
rulers of this region, because a tribute for portage was levied upon
every canoeload of pelts and trade goods. Possession of this
valuable location afforded the Miami Indians at Kekionga political
importance, too, because economic advantage always makes for
political interest. The political power controlling the portage,
therefore, dominated the commercial intercourse of the area.
The French immediately sensed the importance of Kekionga and
located their post nearby at a very early date. The date of the
coming of the first white man to this area is unknown; some believe
that Champlain saw Three Rivers as early as 1614 or 1615. The
earliest extant map, dated 1632, indicates that the Maumee River
was then known to French cartographers. Other maps drawn in
1654, 1656 and 1674 chart the rather thorough exploration of the
territory by the French. There is a possibility that La Salle was on
these rivers during the period between 1679 and 1681, for he
seemed to have known about the Wabash-Maumee Portage.
The Frenchman came on a peaceful mission. He sought trade with
the Indians and brought valuable commercial articles, which were
strange, new and desirable to the red man. The Frenchman was
usually willing to live with the Indian on terms of equality, and to
35. 4
take an Indian woman in marriage. He wanted no occupation of the
land; he did not seek to dispossess the Indian; his missionaries
sought no material advantage. At first, these practices won the
friendship and confidence of the simple child of the forest, and the
relations between Frenchman and Indian were usually amicable.
French influence, then, in the interior of America and in the region
known today as the great Middle West, was paramount in the
beginning because of primacy of arrival. Meanwhile, the land-hungry
English on the Atlantic Coast rapidly expanded over the entire
seaboard driving out the Indians. The Appalachian Mountains
long proved a barrier to English expansion westward. Not until
the English could acquire a suitable beast of burden for conveying
freight and merchandise across the mountains would French
influence in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys be jeopardized.
The date of establishment of the first French Post at the confluence
of the Rivers is veiled in the mists of the past. We only know, as
these mists lifted, that the French were located here in a small fort,
block house, or trading post which was named Post Miami. Probably
of greater commercial and religious, rather than political importance,
it was situated on the St. Mary’s River near the present crossing of
the Nickel Plate Railroad. The French Officer Bissot may have been
stationed here as commandant in charge of French interests as early
as 1697. Cadillac passed through the portage on his way southward
from Detroit in 1707; already English influence was beginning to be
felt in the area. The Miami Indian population in and about the village
approximated 400 persons. They subsisted from their plantings
along the Maumee River, from forest products and hunting, and from
their trade with the French.
Francois Margane succeeded Sieur Bissot as commandant at Post
Miami. He extended French influence and power by establishing,
first, Post Ouiatenon at the present location of Wabash, Indiana, and
later, Post Vincennes on the present site of the city of Vincennes.
During the first quarter of the eighteenth century the English began
36. 5
6
seriously to undermine French influence with the Indians. This rivalry
became more bitter and culminated in an Indian uprising against the
French who were not destined to dominate the portage much
longer. Soon they learned that the English had erected a
stronghold on Laramie Creek, a few miles from the present site of
Sidney, Ohio.
Chief Sanosket, known also as Chief Nicolas of the Hurons, fell under
British control; he made war against the French, and attacked a
number of French posts on the frontier. In alliance with the Miamis,
the Ottawas attacked Post Miami and partially burned the buildings.
Ensign Douville, the commandant, was absent in Detroit. The eight
men forming the garrison were captured, although two of them later
escaped to Detroit. To a certain extent, the French and Miamis soon
adjusted their relations because of mutual need for trade. However,
the relationship thereafter was never sincerely friendly. The ruined
fort was partially restored but gave much evidence of neglect. Father
Jean de Bonnecamps recorded his observations of the fort made in
1749. Griswold’s Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, vol. 1, p. 46 quotes
the priest as follows:
“The fort of the Miamis was in a very bad condition when we
reached it. Most of the palisades were decayed and fallen into ruin.
There were eight houses, or, to speak more correctly, eight
miserable huts which only the desire of making money could make
endurable. The French there number twenty-two; all of them
including the commandant, had the fever. Monsieur Raimond did not
approve the situation of the fort and maintained that it should be
placed on the bank of the St. Joseph a scant league from the
present site. He wished to show me the spot, but the hindrances of
our departure prevented me from going hither. All I could do for him
was to trace the plan for his new fort. The latitude of the old
one is 41 degrees and 29 minutes.”
Captain Raimond lost little time in relocating his fort. The site he
chose is the high ground near the present intersection of St. Joe
37. 7
Boulevard and Delaware Avenue. The old buildings of the original
French fort served as a nucleus for a settlement and were now
occupied by the few Miami Indians who still remained on friendly
terms with the French. The little village came to be known as
Coldfoot’s village, in honor of Miami Chief Coldfoot.
In the face of waning prestige, the French made one spirited
attempt to check the English. Under the leadership of Charles
Langlade, a few Frenchmen and two hundred Chippewas and
Ottawas moved down from Detroit to attack Fort Pickawillany.
Assembling their forces at the portage near Kekionga, they turned
into the St. Mary’s River, and thence marched overland unheralded
toward Pickawillany. After a surprise attack the fort was reduced. In
celebration of the victory, and in vengeance for his friendship with
the British, the Indians enjoyed a cannibal feast on the body of La
Demoiselle, chief of the Piankeshaws. This victory temporarily
restored the prestige of France with the Miamis at the portage. The
defeat of Braddock in 1755 still further diminished the influence of
the English among the Indians. Thus, the battle of propaganda and
bribery for the favor of the Indian tribes seesawed back and forth.
The pendulum, however, was swinging in favor of the British.
During the next few years British political emissaries and traders
made ever-increasing trouble for the French; these
machinations foreshadowed the destruction of French power in
the Ohio Valley. The small French garrison, and French half-breed
families living in the present Spy Run Avenue neighborhood, led a
precarious existence. The local Indians, aided and abetted by the
English, and well-fortified with whiskey (hitherto denied them by the
French) now liberally dispensed by the British, increasingly harassed
their former French allies.
In 1756, the Seven Years’ War, known in American history as the
French and Indian War, broke out between France and England. One
of the prizes at stake in the contest was the domination of the North
American continent. After the fall of Quebec, concomitant with the
38. 8
defeat of General Montcalm by General Wolfe on the Plains of
Abraham, French authority in North America passed to the English.
Shortly thereafter, the garrison at Detroit surrendered to the English.
In December, 1760, Lieutenant Butler, commanding a detachment of
twenty English soldiers, received the surrender of Fort Miami.
Thereafter, the Union Jack flew over the Maumee portage.
During the period beginning in 1760 and ending with the termination
of the Revolutionary War, British policy seems to have emphasized
commerce and conciliation with the local Indians. British military
forces were never strong in the area, and now that the French were
vanquished, the stockade no longer possessed military value. Fort
Miami fell into decay.
A brief era of good feeling between the Indians and the British
followed. Soon, however, there were stirrings among the red men.
The great Pontiac, chief of the Ottawas, a man of superior
intelligence and great skill in statecraft, began inciting the
Indians to expel the British from the entire western country. For a
long time the conspiracy and war preparations continued in secret;
not until 1763 were they revealed. Soon the Indians attacked and
laid siege to all the British forts on the entire frontier; they captured
Forts Sandusky, St. Joseph, Michilmackinac, Ouiatanon and Miami.
At least one romantic but tragic incident occurred in connection with
the attack on Post Miami. Ensign Holmes, English Commandant at
the isolated British fort on the St. Joseph River, was a young and
very lonely man. Rumor has it that he shared few common interests
with the men of his garrison. He sought feminine companionship and
found favor in the eyes of an Indian maiden who reciprocated his
affections.
Let Parkman tell the story:
“On the 27th day of May, a young Indian girl, who lived with the
commandant, came to tell him that a squaw lay dangerously ill in a
39. 9
wigwam near the fort, and urged him to come to her relief. Having
confidence in the girl, Holmes forgot his caution and followed her
out of the fort. Pitched on the edge of a meadow (in present-day
Lakeside), hidden from view by an intervening spur of woodland,
stood a great number of Indian wigwams. When Holmes came in
sight of them his treacherous conductress pointed out that in which
the sick woman lay. He walked on without suspicion, but, as he drew
near, two guns flashed from behind the hut and stretched him
lifeless on the grass. The shots were heard at the fort and the
sergeant rashly went out to learn the cause. He was immediately
taken prisoner, amid exulting yells and whoopings. The soldiers in
the fort climbed upon the palisades to look out, when Godefroy, a
Canadian, and two other white men, made their appearance and
summoned them to surrender, promising that if they did so their
lives would be spared.”
40. BURNING OF THE FRENCH POST MIAMI (SITE OF
FORT WAYNE) 1747.
During the period of the Chief Nicolas conspiracy, in 1747, while the
commandant, Ensign Douville, was absent at Detroit, the savages attacked
the post situated on the St. Mary’s river in the present city of Fort Wayne and
partially destroyed it with fire. The post was rebuilt, and later, in 1750 a new
41. 10
11
fort was established on the left bank of the St. Joseph river. The drawing is
after an old woodcut.
From Griswold’s Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Indiana
Ultimately Pontiac’s Conspiracy was quelled and uneasy peace
was restored on the frontier. At the beginning of the American
Revolution the British were confronted with the problem of retaining
the Indians as allies against the Americans. The savages realized the
need of British subsidies and soon became genuinely attached to the
redcoats.
In October, 1778, Governor Hamilton’s army, advancing from Detroit
against the forces of George Rogers Clark in southern Indiana,
passed over the portage. The only military action, however, which
occurred here during the Revolutionary War is known as La Balme’s
Massacre.
Augustus La Balme, one of the volunteer French officers who had
accompanied the Marquis de LaFayette to America, was
commissioned a colonel in General Washington’s army. In October he
appeared at Kaskaskia, then under American domination since its
capture by George Rogers Clark. He gathered a considerable force of
Frenchmen and Indians and advanced northward, his objective being
the expulsion of the British from Detroit. Arriving at the Indian
settlement at Three Rivers, La Balme and his men plundered the
village and destroyed a great deal of property. At close of day he
retired with his 103 men and camped on the Aboite River. In the
dead of night an Indian force under the leadership of Little Turtle
attacked the invader, destroyed nearly a half of the little force
and compelled the remainder to flee. The incident has little
significance except as the initial engagement in a series of bloody
victories won by Little Turtle and the Miami Indians against the
Americans.
42. 12
The Treaty of Paris in 1783 made the United States nominally
paramount in the Ohio Valley. However, the British, on the pretext of
bad faith on the part of the American Government, continued to
occupy forts in the area which they had contracted to evacuate
under terms of the treaty. Among the forts they still held illegally
were Presque Isle, Mackinac, Detroit, and Fort Miami near Toledo.
From the vantage point of these forts, British military officers and
diplomatic representatives continued friendly relations with the local
Indians. By moral suasion the Indian was influenced to believe that
his friends were British rather than American. Through gifts of food,
equipment and arms, the Indian was relieved of problems of logistics
which might place him at a disadvantage with any American military
force. The Indians massacred hundreds of American settlers on the
western frontier, and burned and pillaged their homes. Under the
leadership of Little Turtle and others in 1790 and 1791, Indian
warriors inflicted overwhelming defeats upon the armies of American
Generals Harmar and St. Clair.
44. 13
Chief Little Turtle (Me-she-kin-no-quah)
The above likeness was made from a cut out of a very old book which had
been reproduced from a painting made for him while in Philadelphia. This
painting was destroyed when the Capitol building at Washington was burned
by the British in the war of 1812. Head dress on the forehead, contains three
rattles from at least three rattlesnakes; has always been considered a splendid
likeness of the famous Chief.
American influence and prestige were at a low ebb, indeed,
and it appeared that the Ohio Valley with the portage at Three
Rivers might fall by default to the British after all. In order to prevent
this calamity, General Wayne undertook his campaign westward into
the Indian country from Pittsburgh. He soundly defeated the Indians
at Fallen Timbers in 1794. Wayne’s expedition culminated in the
building of the fort which bears his name and in the formal
occupation under the American flag in September and October,
1794.
45. Transcriber’s Notes
Silently corrected a few typos.
Retained publication information from the printed edition: this
eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.
In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.
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