News & Events
1) Follow current online discussions now! Click on "Mental space community".
2) IPrA panel on mental space approaches to interaction and discourse.
3) Panel on conceptual projection at First UK Conference in Cognitive Linguistics
Statement
The theory of mental spaces and conceptual integration, elaborated by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner (see "Links"), is a decade-old enterprise that presently unfolds in academia on many levels of reflection and research.
This website aims at further developing it and critically examining it in various dimensions, among which the following four may be the more important:
- mental space theory (MST) and its relation to current empirical research on meaning in texts and communication, from pragmatics to aesthetics;
- MST and its relation to cognitive linguistics, in particular to general theories of grammar;
- MST and its relation to theories and assumptions in cognitive semantics and cognitive neuroscience at large;
- MST and its philosophical foundation, its stance in the anti-cartesian ’embodiment’ trend, its connection to analytical philosophy and possible phenomenological refoundation.
Mental Spaces Community
At the moment the website’s primary attraction is a mental spaces community (click on "Mental spaces community" in the menu to the left for information on the mailing list, subscription, and the community archive). The mental spaces community is a web-forum dedicated to discussions, postings, and announcements that have relevance to mental space and conceptual integration research.
Online Journal: The Mental Space Lab
In 2004 an online journal (The Mental Space Lab) will be added to the website. As can be seen, preparations for this have already been made on the website. We welcome contributions on the issues listed above, as well as comments on the papers we present on these issues, and on current works published elsewhere. For information about submitting contributions, click on "Contributor's guide"
Contact the website administrators and moderators:
mentalspaces@language.sdu.dk