Mind-modelling with corpus stylistics in David Copperfield

We suggest an innovative approach to literary discourse by using corpus linguistic methods to address research questions from cognitive poetics. In this article, we focus on the way that readers engage in mind-modelling in the process of characterisation. The article sets out our cognitive poetic model of characterisation that emphasises the continuity between literary characterisation and real-life human relationships. The model also aims to deal with the modelling of the author’s mind in line with the modelling of the minds of fictional characters. Crucially, our approach to mind-modelling is text-driven. Therefore we are able to employ corpus linguistic techniques systematically to identify textual patterns that function as cues triggering character information. In this article, we explore our understanding of mind-modelling through the characterisation of Mr. Dick from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Using the CLiC tool (Corpus Linguistics in Cheshire) developed for the exploration of 19th-century fiction, we investigate the textual traces in non-quotations around this character, in order to draw out the techniques of characterisation other than speech presentation. We show that Mr. Dick is a thematically and authorially significant character in the novel, and we move towards a rigorous account of the reader’s modelling of authorial intention

Representing Adolescent Fears: Theory of Mind and Fantasy Fiction

The Theory of mind is the capacity to understand other\u2019s behaviour, attributing to them mental and emotional processes. When we read fiction\u2019s works this cognitive ability comes into play, because we form mental representations of the characters, attributing them feelings, thoughts, motivations and fears. The construction of these mental models is an inductive process by which the reader \u2018fills in the blank spaces\u2019 according to his/her subjectivity. Performing this interpretive work we decode symbols, symbols that gain meaning only in the context of the mental model that the reader builds around the character. Fantasy is one of the genre in which symbols are more important, because it encourage a more interpretative reading, crush the illusion of the uniqueness of reality and can promote a critical vision of human and social multiplicity. This article will analyze two fantasy novels (Michelle Paver\u2019s Wolf Brother and Cristina Brambilla\u2019s Al primo sangue) which, through a symbolic approach, deal with two of the most frightening fears connected to growing up. The aim is to see if, under the veil of metaphorical language, these novels represent the complexity of human\u2019s mind, showing the interior dynamics of characters when they face fears deeply connected with adolescence