Conceptual blending
The subject of this chapter is the theory known either as Conceptual Integration or Conceptual Blending Theory. This approach, which we will call Blending Theory, derives from two traditions within cognitive semantics: Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Mental Spaces Theory, which we introduced in Chapters 9 and 11, respectively. In terms of its architecture and in terms of its central concerns, Blending Theory is most closely related to Mental Spaces Theory, and some cognitive semanticists explicitly refer to it as an extension of this approach. This is due to its central concern with dynamic aspects of meaning construction and its dependence upon mental spaces and mental space construction as part of its architecture. However, Blending Theory is a distinct theory that has been developed to account for phenomena that Mental Spaces Theory and Conceptual Metaphor Theory cannot adequately account for. Moreover, Blending Theory adds significant theoretical sophistication of its own. The crucial insight of Blending Theory is that meaning construction typically involves integration of structure that gives rise to more than the sum of its parts. Blending theorists argue that this process of conceptual integration or blending is a general and basic cognitive operation which is central to the way we think. For example, as we saw in Chapter 8, the category PET FISH is not simply the intersection of the categories PET and FISH (Fodor and Lepore 1996). Instead, the category PET FISH selectively integrates aspects of each of the source categories in order to produce a new cate gory with its own distinct internal structure. This is achieved by conceptual blending.
One of the key claims of cognitive semantics, particularly as developed by conceptual metaphor theorists, is that human imagination plays a crucial role in cognitive processes and in what it is to be human. This theme is further developed by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner, the pioneers of Blending Theory. Blending Theory was originally developed in order to account for linguistic structure and for the role of language in meaning construction, particularly ‘creative’ aspects of meaning construction like novel metaphors, counterfactuals and so on. However, recent research carried out by a large international community of academics with an interest in Blending Theory has given rise to the view that conceptual blending is central to human thought and imagination, and that evidence for this can be found not only in human language, but also in a wide range of other areas of human activity, such as art, religious thought and practice, and scientific endeavour, to name but a few. Blending Theory has been applied by researchers to phenomena from disciplines as diverse as literary studies, mathematics, music theory, religious studies, the study of the occult, linguistics, cognitive psychology, social psychology, anthropology, computer science and genetics. In their (2002) book, The Way We Think, Fauconnier and Turner argue that our ability to perform conceptual integration or blending may have been the key mechanism in facilitating the development of advanced human behaviours that rely on complex symbolic abilities. These behaviours include rituals, art, tool manufacture and use, and language.
