Sternberg & Cognitive Science
Uri Margolin
University of Alberta
Sternberg's article is primarily about cognitively oriented, fundamental models of verbal narrative(ity). He examines critically several such models formulated by cognitive scientists and finds them basically flawed or inadequate. He also argues that his own model is far superior as regards both its discourse component and its readerly, cognitive and affective one. The article also raises in several places, primarily section I, various questions concerning interdisciplinarity and methodology in general, and especially the relation between cognitively oriented literary narratology and cognitive narratology as practiced in other disciplines such as cognitive science in general, discourse and text processing, and discourse psychology. My comments will focus exclusively on this cluster of issues.
All cognitively oriented theories of narrative operate at the discourse/mind interface. This interface can be regarded from at least the following perspectives:
A. The very nature (ontology) of the object(s) involved
B. The concepts or theoretical languages employed to construct a model and sets of hypotheses about this object
C. The institutional or disciplinary framework in which the investigation takes place
D. The practical implications for the individual practitioner (who should know what)
Let me now discuss each in turn.
A. Sternberg firmly believes that the engagement of the reader (text pragmatics) is not an add-on feature but an inherent and essential component of narrativity and hence of any theorising about it from the very beginning. In this sense has been a committed cognitivist for more than a quarter century. His theories " aim to give a detailed account of the balance between text and mind [=the discourse/mind interface] during text processing, taking particular account of textual features often ignored by cognitive scientists" Interestingly enough, this last sentence is not about Sternberg at all. It is actually Catherine Emmott's definition of cognitive poetics as an enterprise (in Joanna Gavin ed. Cognitive Poetics in Practice, 2003, p. 158), which Sternberg's work fits to a T. Thus, in "Telling in Time" he has developed a model of the two temporal or event sequences (communication time, represented time) and of their particular interrelations or in-betweenness (including information gaps) as defining narrative as a type of discourse. But this was a structural description, providing the constitutive conditions for comprehending this type of discourse. What was needed next was a functional, dynamic and procedural (or processual) model of the reality of narrative as a human fact or event, and this reality resides in the encounter between mind and text. Narrativity resides accordingly in the on line processes of meaning construction and their affective/emotive counterparts, which occur when a mind engages with the particular discourse type defined above. Cognitive effects such as surprise, suspense and curiosity are essential components of narrative, on equal footing with the discursive ones. In other words, for Sternberg discursive, cognitive and emotivefeatures are equally prototypical for defining narrativity. A methodological corollary is that, in theorizing about narrative, one must start with a complex model including both discursive and mental features, or the exercise is doomed from the outset.
B. The utilization of cognitive concepts and theoretical terms is hence essential, not optional, according to Sternberg. Narratological, discursive and cognitive predicates are equally part of any adequate theory of narrativity. On the 1 to 7 scale of possible relations between literary narratology and cognitive reception theories formulated by Jens Eder (in Kindt and Mueller eds. What is Narratology 2003, p. 284), Sternberg's meta theoretical views as well as practice would place him at 5: the (at least partial) integration of cognitive concepts and models into narratological theory. Now what I have described so far looks like ideal interdisciplinary synthesis. Controversy arises, however, when we reach actual institutional practices, which Sternberg finds wholly unsatisfactory.
C. According to Sternberg, cognitivists working in disciplines other than literary studies tend to ignore cognitively oriented work done in literary studies or dismiss/disqualify it as not passing theoretical and methodological muster, and then proceed to duplicate it. Unfortunately, this is indeed often the case. Two examples are Judith Duchan et. al. Deixis in Narrative, and Jose Sanders' Perspective in Narrative Discourse. But why would these scholars ignore work in literary studies along their own lines to begin with? If we go to back to the root of the word 'ignore', we will sometimes find plain ignorance, the product of intellectual isolationism, which does not know that such work exists, and does not bother to check. But there are other, weightier and more controversial reasons. Scholars in discourse studies often aim to construct models which apply to all narrative, oral and written, and assume that models developed within literary narratology and having literary texts as their prime corpus are too specific, dealing with the most complex and variable forms, not with the universals of narrative. Or these scholars would claim that they start from a clear, explicitly formulated theoretical paradigm, use well defined basic terms, and proceed in a series of logical steps when building their arguments, the relation between successive claims being logically transparent. In sum, they would claim to obey strict methodological norms. Literary narratological theorizing looks to them as lacking all of the above, proceeding instead in an informal, semi- intuitive, sometimes even quasi metaphorical manner, thereby failing basic criteria of theory construction. As a result, there is nothing but scattered pre theoretical intuitions for the serious theory builder to find in this work. But is this a universal truth or rather a hasty generalization? One needs to look carefully before jumping to such sweeping conclusions.
And there are several other strong counter arguments the literary narratologist could make. To begin with, much of what literary narratologists were the first to formulate on the basis of a literary corpus turns out to be of much wider applicability. The serious scholar engaged in the study of text processing uberhaupt should, rather than dismiss this work, be aware of it and check its actual range of application. After all, if it turns out to be of general validity, he is going to augment his knowledge effortlessly, by simply incorporating the results of others' work. Moreover, it is a general phenomenon in the study of cultural objects and activities that the more comprehensive, abstract or fundamental disciplines, such as general text theory, speech act theory or discourse processing, arrive on the scene only at a late stage of scientific development. Many of the key issues they formulate in a systematic, general and interconnected way have long been studied piecemeal, often with respect to specific cases, in a variety of older, less general disciplines. And it is certainly the case that an enormous amount of work on text structures and the text/mind interface has been done in literary studies since Aristotle. Much of this traditional work is indeed not as systematic, explicit, etc as current work in cognitive science, but this does not invalidate its results. There is also a general methodological issue at stake here: does formal clarity, explicitness, systematicity etc guarantee valid results, and does lack of the above invalidate any set of claims? And is there any correlation between the semantic richness of claims and the formal rigour with which they are expressed? Furthermore, what is preferable: a theory rich in interesting claims but formally loose or the opposite: formal rigour and limited informativity? A perfect theory will score maximally on both content and logical well- formedness, but in the real world choices have to be made. On the other hand, independent duplication of results, when coming from a different approach or framework, is normally considered an excellent source of support for the original claims. One should not ignore, in addition, the crucial role of general discourse and cognition theories in enabling the literary scholar to exactify and explicate his terms, and tighten up his argument as a whole. Such broader theories also help the literary scholar place his own work in the general semiotic and cognitive landscape. Moreover, there is no denying that new general theories of text or cognition can lead to major changes in literary narratological theorizing. After all, the three phases of contemporary narratology emerged due to the influence of wider and more fundamental theoretical paradigms: structuralism, modal logic and possible worlds semantics and, of course, the cognitive revolution. While Sternberg personally embraced a cognitivist stand way before the cognitive revolution broke out, the same cannot be said of the majority of literary narratologists.
D. And how about actual practice? Students of literary narrative must constantly follow developments in wider areas such as discourse studies and text processing, since all of them are inherently relevant to their own more specific domain. They may find much of the work in these areas at a given moment to be of very little use for the goals of their own enquiry, but the need to be aware of the work done in these other disciplines is a constant of their practice. As for the general cognitivist, when discussing issues which have been the bread and butter of literary theorizing for generations, looking at what is available within literary studies is always useful, even if what he finds turns out to be a source of challenge to provide a different, alternative description or explanation. And who is better qualified to do work in cognitive poetics/narratology? The generalist or the literary naratologist? According to Sternberg, the best work to date in cognitive poetics has been done by literary scholars. But I don't think this kind of question admits of a general answer. In my view it all depends on the individual scholar, his knowledge and capabilities. What is more, a generalist may make a crucial contribution to a theory with a specific literary bent, while a literary narratologist may contribute significantly to a general theory of text processing.
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Sternberg's article suggests at least two more questions: ---Are there on offer in current cognitive science different or better theories of narrativity than those criticized in his article? I don't know the answer, but specialists could answer this question, since it is a factual one, at least in its first part.
---And are there other areas of literary narrative study where the use of imported cognitive models and theories did give rise to new, better insight and understanding? Here the answer in my opinion is a definite "yes." Two such areas I am familiar with are the operations involved in the reader's construction of character (Culpeper, Ralf Schneider), and describing mental functioning as portrayed in literary narrative (Palmer, Zunshine).
