by Mark Turner
CREATIVE BLENDS Q. 83
and go, or shift into one another, the actual room that contains the sleeping narrator changes to match the memory. As a memory of one room becomes the memory of another, the wall before his eyes shifts direction and grows longer. The physical space around him takes on the aspectual nature and powers of his memory. This is an impossible blending, of the kind commonly recognized in dreams, memory, cartoons, and literature.
Blending is a dynamic activity. It connects input spaces; it projects partial structure from input spaces to the blend, creati_ng an imaginative blended space that, however odd or even impossible, is nonetheless connected to its inputs and can illuminate those inputs. A blend can produce knowledge. It is not constructed by union or intersection of the inputs. It is not a skeletal or static mock~up of a few elements from the inputs but has a life of its own, in the sense that it con- tains structure that is not calculable from the inputs and that can be developed, once constructed, on its own. The blend counts as a unit that can be manipu~ lated efficiently as a unit, providing full access to the input structures without requiring continual recourse to them.
Blending in parable has the following general principles:
' The blend exploits and develops counterpart connections between input spaces.
' Counterparts may or may not both be brought into the blend, and may or may not be fused in the blend.
' The projection from the input spaces is selective.
' Blends recruit a great range of conceptual structure and knowledge without our recognizing it.
' What has been recruited to the blend can be difficult to discover.
' A blend may have many input spaces.
' Blending is a process that can be applied repeatedly, and blends themselves can be inputs to other blends.
' Blends develop structure not provided by the inputs.
' Blends can combine elements on the basis of metonymic relation.
' The recruitment of a conventional metaphor to the blend is in general partial, selective, and transforming.
° Inferences, arguments, ideas, and emotions developed in the blend can lead us to modify the initial input spaces and change our views of the knowledge used to build those input spaces.
Now let us consider two final related questions:
' How does structure develop in the blend? ' How does structure in the blend lead us to reconsider input spaces?
Blends develop by three mechanisms: composition, completion, and eloooration.
84 .8 THE LITERARY MIND
In blending, we project partial structure from input stories and compose that structure in a blended story. We are guided in doing so by counterpart connec- tions between the input spaces. For example, the riddle of the mountain-climbing Buddhist monk has elaborate counterpart connections between the two input spaces. Some of those counterparts, like the paths and the dates, are brought into the blend and fused. Others, like the two monks, are brought into the blend as separate entities.
In other blends, only one counterpart is brought into the blend, as in the blend for “If I were you, I would have done it,” which brings into the blend the judgment of the man but not the counterpart judgment of the woman. Partial composition provides a working space for further composition.
Completion provides additional structure not provided by composition. Given a minimal composition of two boats on a course in the example from Latitude 38, we can complete the blend with a large amount of structure from our conceptual frame of a race. Given a minimal composition of two monks traversing a path during the same day starting from opposite ends, we can complete that structure by recog- nizing it as an instance of a familiar frame that contains an encounter. Completion provides the structure in the blend that gives us the solution to the riddle.
Elaboration develops the blend through imaginative mental simulation accord- ing to the principles and internal logic of the blend. Some of these principles will have been brought to the blend by completion. Continued dynamic completion can recruit new principles and logic during elaboration. But new principles and logic may also arise through elaboration itself. Blended spaces can become extremely elaborated, as in literary fantasies.
Composition and completion often draw together conceptual structures pre- viously kept apart. As a consequence, the blend can reveal latent contradictions and coherences between previously separated elements. It can show us problems and lacunae in what we had previously taken for granted. It can equally show us unrecognized strengths and complementarity. In this way, blends yield insight into the conceptual structures from which they arise.
A9 6 (L MANY SPACES
Nima’ Dds (an Indian painter): You wish me to be less Indian?
Flora Crewe (an English poet): I did say that butI think what I meant was for you to be more Indian, or at any rate Indian, not Englished—up and all over me like a
labrador and knocking things off tables with your tail. . . .
Actually, I do know what I mean, I want you to be with me as you would be if I were Indian.
Dds: An Indian Miss Crewe! Oh dear, that is a mental construction which has no counterpart in the material world.
Flora: So is a unicorn, but you can imagine it.
Dan You can imagine it but you cannot mount it.
F/om: Imagining it was all I was asking in my case.
Dds (terribly discomfited): Oh, Oh, my gracious! I had no intention—I assure you . . .
Tom Stopparafl Indian Ink
ARABLE DISTRIBUTE s M EANIN G across atleast two stories. But nowwe have seen that a third story—a blended story—typica1ly plays a role. We have also seen that a blend can have more than two inputs, and that blending can hap- pen recursively—-a blend can be blended with other inputs to create yet another blend.
In fact, parable typically distributes meaning over many spaces. The aggre- gate meaning resides in no one of them, but rather in the array of spaces and in their connections. We know each of the spaces, and how it relates to the others,
85
86 .8 THE LITERARY MIND
and what each is good for. None of them replaces another. Meanings, in this way, are not mental objects bounded in conceptual places but rather complex operations of projecting, blending, and integrating over multiple spaces.
GENERIC SPACES
We have often seen that an element in one input story can have a counterpart in the other. The donkey and Shahrazad are counterparts. So are Greatflmerita II and Northern Light, the two Buddhist monks, the two paths they travel, the rain and the message, and the reaper and Death. It is not possible to blend two sto— rieswithout some counterpart connections between them to guide the blending.
Input stories have counterparts because they share abstract structure. Con— sider the boat race. There is a frame for a voyage by boat. It contains a boat, a path, a departure point, a destination, and so on. Each of the input stories for the boat-race blend has this frame structure, which provides counterpart rela~ tions between them. Different kinds of abstract structure can be shared by two stories: category structure, frame structure, role structure, image-schematic struc- ture, and so on. Sometimes, two inputs will share abstract structure because a conventional metaphor has established that shared structure. Sometimes, two inputswill share more than one kind of abstract structure. For example, the inputs for the riddle of the Buddhist monk share frame structure (a person walking along a path)just as the inputs for the boat-race share frame structure (a boat voyage), but there is also identity structure shared in both cases: The monk in one space counts as “identical” to the monk in the other space, and San Francisco in one space counts as “identical” to San Francisco in the other space.
Now consider the expression “If I were you, I would have done it,” said by a man to a woman who declined earlier to become pregnant. The two input spaces share structure: In each there is a human being, with human intentionality, pos~ sibility, and standard relations between intentionality
and action. This shared structure gives counterparts: The man and the woman are counterpart human beings, even though they have different identities; their preferences are counter- parts, even though those preferences are not identical; their actions are counter- parts, even though their actions are not identical. In short, there is a frame struc- ture shared by the two input spaces, and it provides counterpart relations between them.
Iwill say that the abstract structure shared by input spaces resides in a ge— neric space. The generic space indicates the counterpart connections between the input spaces.
The central question is, is this generic space just a name for structure shared by the input spaces, or does it have an actual conceptual existence of its own? Can this abstract structure be manipulated and used in a way that does not entail
MANY SPACES Q. 87
manipulating the input space in which it resides? George Lakoff and I have given one argument for the existence of generic spaces, as follows.
When we read a proverb in a book of proverbs, and so have no reason to connect the meaning of the proverb to any specific target, we arrive at a generic reading. For example, “Look before you leap,” found in a book of proverbs (or in a fortune cookie), will be interpreted generically. Similarly, “VVhen the cat’s away, the mice will play” presents a source story of mice who behave in a restricted fashion when the cat is around but who behave with fewer restrictions when the cat is gone. The generic-level information in this story can be projected to a generic space with an abstract story: One agent or group of agents constrains another agent or group of agents, and when the governing agent is inattentive, the otherwise constrained agent or agents behave more freely. We can reach this generic interpretation even if we have no specific target onto which we wish to project it. So the generic space has a conceptual existence.
Lakoff and I have called this kind of projection from a source story to a generic story GENERIC IS SPECIFIC: generic information, often image—schematic, is projected from a specific space to give structure to a generic space. Of course, this generic space “applies” to the specific space from which it came. Once the generic space is established, we may project it onto a range of specific target spaces. The generic space constructed out of “When the cat’s away, the mice will play" can be projected onto stories of the office, the classroom, infidelity, congressional oversight committees, computer antivirus utilities, and so on, over an unlimited range.
Blends can be constructed if two stories can be construed as sharing abstract structure. The abstract structure they share is contained in the generic space that connects them. Consider, for example, the riddle of the Buddhist monk. Its generic space has a singlejourneyer taking a single journey from dawn to sunset, over a single distance along a single path. The generic space does not specify the direction of the journey (up or down), the date of the journey, or the internal form ofthe ourney (starting and stopping, moving slower or faster). This degree of inspecificity allows the generic structure to be projected equally well onto the space of the ascent on the first day, the space of the descent on the second day, and the blended space where both journeys occur on an unspecified day. The riddle of the Buddhist monk involves two input spaces, a generic space, and a blended space.
It often takes work to find a generic space that fits two input spaces; there are often alternative generic spaces that might connect two input spaces. But in some cases, a generic space has been constructed repeatedly between two spaces. It has come to structure the two input spaces and to establish what seem to be fixed counterparts. The generic space has become fully available from each of the input spaces. In that case, the generic space becomes invisible to us. If the
88 .6 THE LITERARY MIND
blend between the two spaces is conventional or minimal, the blend may also be invisible to us. In that situation, we are likely to detect only two input spaces, without a generic space or a blended space. We are also likely to detect what seems to be a direct projection between them, involving a set offixed counterparts. This situation arises in basic metaphors like LIFE Is A JOURNEY. In basic metaphors, it looks (at first) as if the projection goes directly from one space (the source) to another (the target), without involving a generic space or a blended space. The projection seems to be one-way and entirely positive. It seems to have fixed parts: For example, the traveler projects to the person living the life; the beginning of the journey projects to birth; the end of the journey projects to death; the dis- tance traveled projects to the amount of time lived; obstacles project to difficul- ties; guides project to counselors; fellow-travelers project to people with whom life is shared; and so on. These are the projections of basic metaphor analyzed insightfully by George Lakoff and Markjohnson in Meta}?/Jars We Live By. The invisibility of the generic space and the blended space (except, of course, on analy- sis) produces a minimal phenomenon that looks like direct projection from one conceptual domain to another.
When a deeply entrenched projection is expressed in deeply entrenched vocabulary, especially vocabulary so entrenched as to seem to be the natural way to discuss the target, then we do not notice the projection consciously and have no need to notice the generic space or the blended space. For example, the phrase “intellectual progress” (from THE MIND IS A BODY MOVING IN SPACE) takes its noun from the source and its adjective from the target and can be thought of as evoking a blend, the way “fossil poetry" evokes a blend. But “intellectual progress” seems normal and “fossil poetry” seems imaginative. For “intellectual progress,” the underlying genetic space is absolutely established; the vocabulary of the source (JOURNEY) has been effectively shifted to this generic space during the previous history of the language and is available to all speakers now to be applied linguis- tically wherever the generic space is applied conceptually; the conception of the target (MIND) by projection from this generic space is very deeply entrenched; and the phrase “intellectual progress” is a conventional phrase for the target con- ceived in this fashion. It is accordingly difficult in this case even to notice the generic space.
By contrast, the expression “mental journey," which shares its linguistic construction (noun from source, adjective from target) and its conceptual pro- jection with “intellectual progress," is less conventional as language, and so in this case it may be easier to see the projection and to recognize the generic space. “Ethnic cleansing," yet another example of the same linguistic construction, is not at all conventional as an expression. True, the generic projection of the sce- nario of cleansing is highly conventional; the resulting generic space has been
MANY SPACES Q. 89
applied to many specific targets and the source vocabulary has been thoroughly shifted from the source to the generic space to be applied linguistically wherever the generic space is applied conceptually to a target space. But the projection of the generic space of cleansing to the particular target of wholesale killing of unwanted ethnic groups is not yet conventional, and the use of its vocabulary for this target is not yet the natural way to refer to the target. It follows that we are more likely in the case of “ethnic cleansing” to notice the projection and the generic space, and may even recognize the blended space.
Often, the blended space is forced into view. “VValking steam—engine” refers to a human being of great mechanical vitality, industry, direction, power, and seriousness. Many things underlying this phrase are entrenched: the projection of the space of mechanical devices to a generic space; the shift of vocabulary to that generic space; the wide application of that generic space to many targets; the consequent wide application of its vocabulary to those targets; and the con- ventional linguistic construction used for indicating that the target input space has a human story but the source input space has a nonhuman story, as in “walking encyclopedia” and “walking time-bomb.” Nonetheless, “walking steam~engine” evokes vivid specifics from the input spaces, impossibly blended. It is also an unconventional phrase. Accordingly, we notice the blended spa
ce.
In general, generic and blended spaces become more noticeable as the pro- jection is less conventional, the expression is less conventional, or the projection and the expression combine noticeably what are still regarded as incompatible specifics. These circumstances are closely related: As the projection becomes conventional, so does the vocabulary it carries; and in the case of source and tar- get input spaces, as the projection and the vocabulary become conventional, so the source category becomes extended, making the blend look less like a blend and more like an enlarged category. For example, the conceptual projections underlying “intellectual progress” extend the category of progress and journey to include mental events. Because this extension of the category is by now deeply entrenched, “intellectual” can be viewed as compatible with “progress,” and “intellectual progress" can be taken as referring to an extended part of the cat- egory rather than to an aggressive blend.
Even when the projection and its expression are most deeply entrenched and least likely to be noticed, generic and blended spaces are still available. Habit has simply made us take them for granted, rendering them invisible. The generic space projected from journey has its own existence independent of its embed— ding in the target story of the course of a lifiefi-om éirtly to death. It can be projected to a different target altogether. We can project it onto a particular span of life, mental activity like problem solving, or the “wandering” characteristic of day~ dreams. We can project it onto marriage or artwork or the building of a book—