Double-scope networks
We turn finally to double-scope networks, in which both inputs also contain distinct frames but the blend is organised by structure taken from each frame, hence the term ‘double-scope’ as opposed to ‘single-scope’. One consequence of this is that the blend can sometimes include structure from inputs that is incompatible and therefore clashes. It is this aspect of double-scope networks that makes them particularly important, because integration networks of this kind are highly innovative and can lead to novel inferences.
An example of a double-scope blend that we have already encountered, which does not involve clashes, is the COMPUTER DESKTOP blend. Fauconnier and Turner (2002) describe this blend in the following way:
The Computer Desktop interface is a double-scope network. The two principle inputs have different organizing frames: the frames of office work with folders, files, trashcans, on the one hand, and the frame of traditional computer commands, on the other. The frame in the blend draws from the frame of office work – throwing trash away, opening files– as well as from the frame of traditional computer commands–‘find’, ‘replace’, ‘save’, ‘print’. Part of the imaginative achievement here is finding frames that, however different, can both contribute to the blended activity in ways that are compatible. ‘Throwing things in the trash’ and ‘printing’ do not clash, although they do not belong in the same frame. (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 131)
We can compare this example with a double-scope blend in which the two organising frames do clash. Consider example (18).
This idiomatic expression relates to a situation in which someone is doing something foolish that will result in unwitting failure of some kind. For instance, a businessman, who is considering taking out a loan that stretches his business excessively, might be warned by his accountant that the business risks collapse. At this point, the accountant might say:
This double-scope blend has two inputs: one in which the BUSINESSMAN takes out a LOAN his company can ill afford and another relating to GRAVE DIGGING. In the blend, the loan proves to be excessive and the company fails: the BUSI NESSMAN and his BUSINESS end up in a FINANCIAL GRAVE. In this example, the inputs clash in a number of ways. For example, they clash in terms of causality. While in the BUSINESS input, the excessive loan is causally related to failure, in the GRAVE DIGGING input, digging a grave does not cause death; typically it is a response to death. Despite this, in the blend, digging the grave causes DEATH-AS-BUSINESS FAILURE. This is an imaginative feat that blends inputs from clashing frames. The reason the blend is successful, despite the clash, is that it integrates structure in a way that achieves human scale. Because the accountant’s utterance gives rise to the DEATH-AS-BUSINESS FAILURE interpretation, the businessman is able to understand that the loan is excessive and will cause the business to fail. Hence the causal structure of the blend (the idea that digging the grave causes the failure) can be projected back to the first input space in order to modify it. In the BUSINESS input, the businessman can decide to decline the loan and thus save his business. In this way, the blend provides global insight, and thereby provides a forum for the construction and development of scenarios that can be used for reasoning about aspects of the world. According to Fauconnier and Turner, this enables us to predict outcomes, draw inferences and apply these insights back in the input spaces before the events constructed in the blend come about. For this reason, Fauconnier and Turner argue that blending, and double-scope blending in particular, is an indispensable tool for human thought. Table 12.5 summarises the properties of the four types of blend we have discussed in this section.
