[A Cognitive Approach to Literary Studies (II)] The working assumption of this paper considers whether an engagement with cognitive sciences can change the ways we do and read literary studies. For both pragmatic and theoretical reasons, the new science of cognitive poetics sets out to show that literary studies have much to gain from the intersection of various cognitive disciples. On the other hand, the immediate implications of such an intellectual endeavour can be mutually profitable for both literary studies and cognitive research itself. Cognitively-informed literary theories look into our cultural artefacts for marks of commonly shared cognitive patterns and human commonalities. However, the foundations of such an approach to literature lie directly in cognitive linguistics; hence, a large part of this study is dedicated to the presentation of a series of concepts and operations shared by cognitive linguistics. What cognitive linguists propose, in essence, is an analysis of the human ability to understand and create meanings. The body of research in cognitive linguistics outlined here, though highly selective, proves its substantial results and applications in other neighbouring areas concerned with the nature of language as a product of our general cognitive abilities.
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