Literary Theory, Stylistics and Cognitive Poetics

Abstract

The desire to understand and interpret the underlying mechanisms involved in the creation and reception of literary texts, and the influence of these mechanisms on human cognition goes back at least to Aristotle’s Poetics. However, the last century has witnessed a vast variety of approaches to the understanding of literature: a plethora of theories such as feminist, post colonialist, queer and reader response theories as well as some practical ways of analysis and interpretation such as formalism, new criticism, stylistics, cognitive poetics have shown themselves at the opposite end of the continuum. Stylistics and its evolved form, cognitive poetics have been significantly influential in the understanding of the processes involved in the creation and reception of literature. Although stylistics and cognitive poetics have usually been covered under the broad heading of literary theory, it has been observed that the divergence in the ways they operate makes such claims invalid because, unlike theory, empirical evidence is at the heart of stylistics and cognitive poetics. This paper aims to provide an overview of stylistics, and cognitive poetics and illustrate how they differ from literary theory.

Keywords

• Stylistics
• cognitive poetics
• theory
• criticism
• linguistics

Edebiyat Kuramı, Biçimbilim ve Bilişsel Şiirbilim

Öz

Edebi metinlerin yaratılması ve algılanması ile ilişkili temel mekanizmaları anlama ve yorumlama arzusu ve bu mekanizmaların insan bilişi üzerindeki etkisi Aristoteles’in Poetika’sına kadar uzanır. Bununla birlikte, edebiyatı anlamaya yönelik çok çeşitli yaklaşımların ortaya çıktığı geçen yüzyılda; feminizm, sömürgecilik sonrası, queer teorisi ve okur tepkisi kuramı gibi çok sayıda teorinin yanı sıra biçimcilik, yeni eleştiri, biçimbilim, bilişsel şiirbilim, gibi bazı pratik analiz ve yorumlama yolları, bu sürecin karşıt temsilcileri olarak belirmişlerdir. Biçimbilim ve geliştirilmiş formu olan bilişsel şiirbilim, edebiyatın oluşum ve algılanma süreçlerini kavramada önemli ölçüde etkili olmuştur. Biçimbilim ve bilişsel şiirbilim genel olarak edebi teoriler başlığı altında ele alınmış olsalar da, işleme biçimlerindeki farklılığın bu varsayımları geçersiz kıldığı görülmüştür. Çünkü teoriden farklı olarak, deneysel kanıt, biçimbilim ve bilişsel şiirbilimin merkezinde yer alır. Bu makale, biçimbilim ve bilişsel şiirbilime genel bir bakış açısı sunmayı ve edebi teoriden hangi açılardan ayrıştıklarını göstermeyi amaçlamaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Biçimbilm
• bilişsel şiirbilim
• teori
• eleştiri
• dilbilim

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