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53 Grounded Blend Maintenance as a Discourse Strategy Paul Dudis This chapter examines ASL discourse involving classifier predicates and constructed action. A remarkable aspect of this discourse is that information previously provided by the hands and other parts of the body continues to be present despite changes in form. Specifically, a classifier predicate may, without detrimental effect to its meaning, be reduced in form by the production of another classifier predicate. In addition, a distinct sign may be produced while only a part of the classifier predicate is maintained. In these cases, the sign is produced quite differently from its citation form. This activity is particularly striking if the sign is one that does not ordinarily use space. Fauconnier and Turner’s (1996, 1998) framework of conceptual blending is used here to analyze the above discourse possibilities. Conceptual blending is a cognitive process involving elements from two separate input mental spaces, some of which are mapped onto a third space, resulting in a blend. The types of blends described in this paper are grounded blends, which are blends that involve elements within the signers’ environment, including their own bodies (Liddell 1998, 2000). When signers are part of a grounded blend, which is commonplace in nearly every type of signed language discourse, addressees understand the signer or the signer’s hands to be physically manifesting a particular concept; this manifestation exists only when the blend is active. Signers then have a number of choices with respect to the next step in discourse construction, each of which contributes a distinct narrative effect. One choice is maintenance of the blend by keeping particular mappings intact, which allows the blend to be developed further. This This chapter is a revision of the paper “Maintenance and Development of Blended Space in ASL Narratives” presented at the 1998 Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research conference at Gallaudet University. I am indebted to Scott Liddell for his guidance on my master’s research project and ongoing related endeavors . I also wish to thank the anonymous reviewer whose comments and feedback led to a clearer description of ideas presented in this paper and Audrey Cooper for her editorial assistance. 54 : p a u l d u d i s discourse strategy enables changes to classifier predicate forms to occur while the element associated with the classifier predicate continues to be present in a meaningful way as discourse proceeds. CONCEPTUAL BLENDING Conceptual blending underlies many distinct phenomena in language and thought. Examples analyzed in other publications (Fauconnier and Turner 1996, 1998) include metaphor, riddle solving, and an otherwise impossible scenario involving individuals from different time periods who engage in a debate even though they do not speak the same language. Conceptual blending has also been shown to be a necessary device for comprehending certain jokes (Coulson 1996) and activities such as the game “trashcan basketball ,” which involves a crumpled piece of paper and a wastebasket (Coulson 2001). Instances of conceptual blending are pervasive in signed language discourse that involves indicating verbs and constructed action (Liddell 1995, 1998, 2000; Liddell and Metzger 1998). Conceptual blending is a cognitive process that involves two separate mental-space inputs. These inputs comprise particular structures and elements , some of which are mapped onto a third mental space, creating the blend (Fauconnier and Turner 1996, 1998). Before describing this process, I will describe two types of mental spaces that serve as inputs for the blends analyzed in this paper. Mental spaces can be described as “constructs distinct from linguistic structures but built up in any discourse according to guidelines provided by the linguistic expressions” (Fauconnier 1994, 16). For example, during an astronomy talk about rockets in orbit presented in a spoken English environment, audience members might have access to one mental space that is labeled “base space” because the lecture is perceived as proceeding from this mental space. The act of lecturing establishes this base space; within the given lecture topic, the frame of “orbiting” structures this mental space, indicated in caps inside the box in figure 1. Conceptual entities within this mental space are introduced or identified by noun phrases but are not themselves linguistic items (Fauconnier 1994). In this case, the noun phrase the rocket identifies element r rocket in the base space.1 Other elements may be inferred by the frame structure, as with i. The bold letters label the element, and the italicized word (the element) is provided simply to aid memory...

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