Contenido

Fauconnier (1985: 16) defines space builders as ‘expressions that may establish a new space or refer back to one already introduced in the discourse’. Werth (1999: 75) defines them as expressions that ‘construct the mental spaces within which the speaker is

conceptually operating, and in terms of which the listener will optimally be able to interpret’. The actual space builder will always be a linguistic prompt, which cues a particular schematic interaction between discourse contents. During infancy, the

CONTAINER schema is in use as early as three months (Mandler and Cánovas 2014). This

fundamental schema goes on to remain infinitely productive in constraining inferences during reading comprehension (Núñez-Perucha 2011). Based on these findings, I theorise

that a scene in mental space is most often evoked by the presence of thespatial image

schema ofCONTAINER. If this schema is not explicitly evoked by the text, the reader must

then infer its presence based on an unacknowledged change of setting (time, location) or circumstance (conditions, participants). As a new mental space is built, it will take on a

CONTAINER as the base space upon which all other image schemas are superimposed

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Image Schema Part of Speech Lexical Cues Topological

Depiction CONTAINER Preposition in within into in terms of US workers enslaved masses within US borders

in considering every force every empire is in the long run channel labor into the US

Table 5.1 CONTAINER schema.

The CONTAINER schema, shown in Table 5.1, possesses three main gestalt elements

including an interior, boundary and exterior, from which emerges the basic logic that any particular discourse entity can be either inside or outside a container. Because of these

unchanging elements, the CONTAINER schema is able to consistently project a number of

entailments during discourse processing. Based on our physical experience, we understand that ‘in-out orientation involves separation, differentiation, and enclosure, which implies restriction and limitation’ (Johnson 1987: 22). In the Weatherman

manifesto, the CONTAINER schema is evoked by prepositions (e.g. ‘in’, ‘within’ or ‘into’).

These prepositions are involved in the construal of various internal scenes and external

scenarios. During model creation, topological properties of the CONTAINER schema are

projected around concrete discourse contents (e.g. humans and geographical areas). For instance, at times Weatherman construe the boundedness of a situation by encoding the

image-schematic form of a CONTAINER around the discourse content PEOPLE GROUP, which

creates the topological fusion of PEOPLE GROUP AS A CONTAINER. In one instance, this

occurs when Weatherman negatively comment on the stance of their ideological rivals (Progressive Labour), because they conceived of socialist revolution strictly ‘in terms of

the working people of the US’. More often, Weatherman construe GEOGRAPHICAL AREAS

AS CONTAINERS. This topological fusion of a land mass with a CONTAINER enable the

manifesto writers to apply the inference constraints of the schema. For instance, a phrase like ‘people in this country’ gives the reader a sense of fixity for the identity ‘people’ as constrained to the interior of the nation. People groups and geographical areas fused with a CONTAINER schema is quite common in political discourse, and are considered

conventional metaphors (Núñez-Perucha 2011).20 The writer can also draw attention to

different gestalt elements within the overall structure of the CONTAINER. For instance, the

phrase ‘enslaved masses within the US borders’ directs the reader’s attention to the

boundary portion of the structure.21 The CONTAINER schema is also utilized in conjunction

with more abstract content like states-of-being. With a STATES-OF-BEING AS CONTAINERS

topological projection, Weatherman are able to invoke internal consideration spaces like

20 Núñez-Perucha (2011:102) uses a cognitive discourse approach in showing how gender inequality is understood in spatial terms, as men and women occupy different positions in society. The unequal social position of the genders ‘can be interpreted on the basis of the metaphor SOCIETY IS A CONTAINER’. Applying this logic of the CONTAINER schema one gets a sense of the entailments of the gestalt structure. For instance, some people are inside and some excluded, there are social norms providing limits to those inside the container and people are placed in different locations within the container. Núñez-Perucha (2011:113) concludes that ‘the propositional content of the ideological categories of position, which describe the in-group’s representation of gender inequality, is basically grounded in the image schema of CONTAINER’.

21 Croft and Cruse (2004: 15) term this conceptual phenomena ‘profiling’ saying, ‘The profile refers to the concept symbolized by the word in question. The base is that knowledge or conceptual structure that is presupposed in the profiled concept’. For instance, one can understand the concept radius only against the background of understanding the concept circle. So the concept of radius profiles a particular line segment in the circle as base.

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a decision space (e.g. ‘in answering these questions’), a definition space (e.g. ‘in defining political matters’) or an empathetic space (e.g. ‘in the interests of the vast majority’).

Image Schema Part of Speech Lexical Cues Topological

Depiction PART-WHOLE Preposition of Noun everyone part Adjective whole piecemeal Determiner every

people of the whole world primary task of rev. struggle everyone

vital part of this process part of the movement whole world

being defeated piecemeal

every other

Table 5.2 PART-WHOLE schema.

I consider the PART-WHOLE schema as a space builder as well because it is able to add to a

space, making it more complex and articulated (Table 5.2). The PART-WHOLE schema is

involved in mental space construction, but is prompted by linguistic cues in discourse.In

the Weatherman text, lexical cues evoking the PART-WHOLE schema include prepositions

(e.g. ‘of’), nouns (e.g. ‘everyone’, ‘part’), adjectives (e.g. ‘whole’, ‘piecemeal’) and a determiner (e.g. ‘every’). With this schema, discourse contents are conceptualised as being parts of a larger whole or as the whole in its entirety. Concerning most instances in the Weatherman manifesto, this schema is invoked to conceptualise some people group

as being PART of the WHOLE of a much larger group (e.g. ‘people of the whole world’).

However, this schema can also be used more abstractly as in ‘primary task of

revolutionary struggle’, which construes ‘revolutionary struggle’ as the WHOLE and

‘primary task’ as PART of a larger political strategy. The noun ‘everyone’, adjective

‘whole’ and determiner ‘every’ construe discourse contents as a WHOLE in its entirety. In

contrast, the noun ‘part’ and adjective ‘piecemeal’ construe discourse contents as PART of

some larger phenomenon.