Cognitive Mechanisms and Pragmatic Potential of Linguistic Creativity (as exemplified in The Economist)

Abstract:

The article aims to give an insight into linguacognitive aspects of linguistic creativity and peculiarities of its functioning in English-language media. It, namely, considers cognitive mechanisms underlying the formation of linguacreative items, and their pragmatic potential. The study is novel and of acute interest in that, proceeding from linguacognitive analysis of material from 100 current media articles in quality English-language papers, like The Economist, it identifies and newly researches key cognitive mechanisms underlying linguistic creativity and its language manifestations (creative items of language and speech, or linguacreative items). Methodologically, the research is based on theoretical works in the field of linguistic creativity (V. Z. Demyankov, G. A. Kopnina, A. P. Skovorodnikov V. I. Zabotkina, I. V. Zykova, A. Koestler) and medialinguistics (G. Ya. Solganik). The study of identified cognitive mechanisms underlying linguistic creativity is implemented in two distinct directions. On the one hand, the article considers cognitive mechanisms of linguistic creativity from the author’s perspective as those which are employed while encoding information: deviation or variance (ref. V. I. Zabotkina), analogy and bisociation (ref. A. Koestler). On the other, cognitive mechanisms are viewed from the reader’s perspective as those employed by the recipient while attempting to fully and correctly decode texts with elements of linguistic creativity: inference and cognitive dissonance (ref. L. Festinger). The writing contains conclusions on the pragmatic potential of linguacreative items and the functions they might perform in the press (attracting the reader’s attention with a non-conventional form, providing the author’s assessment of events and phenomena, manipulating the reader’s opinion, creating a comic effect to exert indirect impact on the recipient).

Keywords: linguistic creativity, media discourse, cognitive mechanism, pragmatic potential, deviation, bisociation, cognitive dissonance.

Acknowledgements: The research is funded by grant № 19-18-00040 of the Russian Science Foundation and is carried out at the Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences