The Conceptual Blender

The Conceptual Blender

The findings shown from the theory of conceptual blending, also known as the blending theory, described in The Way We Think, by Giles Fauconnier and Mark Turner, allows students and researches an opportunity to better understand both the general and comprehensive organization of linguistic and conceptual occurrences. What is conceptual blending? Conceptual blending is a theory of cognition or the way we think. Conceptual blending, also called conceptual integration, can easily be defined as the combination of two or more concepts. Blending of concepts includes any designs or patterns in the thought process created by the arrangement of two or more forms of previous knowledge that make up the "blend". Blends can help an individual to express or understand the simplest forms of thought, but can also involve highly imaginative and evolved processes of thought (Fauconnier and Turner, 18). The generality of conceptual blending theory derives in part from the fact that humans have a strong ability to create various forms of conceptual integration within their processes of thought. This essay will illustrate a general example of a common conceptual blend, the frames and spaces which make up its network, the difference between constitutive and governing principles applied, and last, how the example's translation differs under the classical theory of semantics and the new blending theory.

Many concepts used in the blending theory must be understood metaphorically. For one to fully understand the true implication of conceptual blends, that individual must realize that many of the most basic forms of thought used in our conceptual systems must also be comprehended normally via metaphorical-concepts (Lakoff, 9). A simple illustration commonly used throughout The Way We Think is thoughtfully referred to as the riddle of the Buddhist monk, introduced by Arthur Koestler in The Act of Creation. A Buddhist monk begins walking up a mountain at dawn and reaches the top at sunset. He meditates for several days, until one dawn he walks back to the foot of the mountain, returning at sunset. Making no assumptions about his starting or stopping or about his pace during the trips, declare that there is a place on the path occupied at the same hour of the day on the two separate journeys (Fauconnier and Turner, 36).

In figuring out an answer to the riddle we use the given situation and create a picture in our minds of the path walked upon by the monk. In this example of conceptual integration, the network model would consist of two input spaces, the generic space, and the blend space. These are also known as mental spaces, which contain individual elements that factor in with the blend. On paper, mental spaces are symbolized by circles, elements are represented by points within the circles, and the connections made between the elements in different spaces are represented by lines (cross-space mappings). There are background frames employed to build each of these mental spaces, such as the background frame in our mind of the path walked upon by the monk. This is a minimal network. Networks in other cases of conceptual integration may still have more input spaces and even multiple blended spaces (Turner, 11).

The blend is formed by two input spaces, a monk going up the mountain and a monk going down the mountain, and in combination with the generic space (what the inputs have in common). This is what Fauconnier and Turner call composition. The composed structure of the network model is then completed by the minds ability to form background frames. The framing between the mental spaces allows the monk to occupy the same place on the path at the same hour of day on the two separate journeys. This operation of the blending theory is called completion. Once the blend is complete in our minds, all is left up to our imagination. This is the last operation, elaboration, in which the blended space, composed of the two original input spaces and the generic space, is formed. Within elaboration we can see that the blend is true and the monk does occupy the same place on the path at the same hour of day on the two separate journeys (Fauconnier and Turner, 39-50).

There are constitutive and governing principles applied to conceptual integration that must be mentioned briefly. Constitutive principles consist of the structural and dynamic principles involved within the network model. The cross-space mappings in the blend would be an example of a constitutive principle. This applies to the monk illustration because of all the elements involved, such as the mountain, the moving individual, the day of travel, and the motion in one space to the mountain, the moving individual, the day, and the motion in the other space. Governing principles are stricter on the blend than constitutive principles. Without governing principles there would not be an optimal level of elaboration, thus creating a modified blend and a different emergent structure. The governing principles are "rules" for optimizing emergent structure (Fauconnier and Turner, 311).

The goal driving all of the principles is for the blend to achieve human-scale (Fauconnier and Turner, 312). Constitutive and governing principles help to create pictures or images for