Literary parables are only one
artifact of the mental process of parable. Proverbs frequently present a
condensed, implicit story to be interpreted through projection: […]. In cases
like this, the target story – the story we are to understand – is not even
mentioned overtly, but through our agile capacity to use both story and
projection, we project the overt source story onto a covert target story.
–Mark Turner
Turner argues that "parable"
is not just a literary genre (like Jesus's stories in the Bible), but a
fundamental mental process—our natural way of understanding the world by
projecting one story onto another.
Key point:
Proverbs often work as highly
compressed source stories. They don't spell out the real-life situation
they're about (the target story). Instead:
- The proverb gives you an overt
source (e.g., "A rolling stone gathers no moss").
- Through projection (mental
mapping), you unconsciously apply it to a covert target—some unstated
situation in your life or the world (e.g., the need for adaptability in a
fast-changing career).
We are so cognitively agile at this
story-to-story mapping that the actual situation being commented on doesn't
even need to be mentioned. The proverb activates the parable-like process in
our minds automatically.
In short: Proverbs and parables demonstrate how the human mind constantly understands complex realities by projecting simple, explicit little stories onto implicit bigger ones. Literary parables are just the visible tip of this everyday cognitive iceberg.
#Parable #Story #CognitiveLinguistics #Linguistics #MarkTurner #Vimarsh
Comments
Post a Comment