Open Collections

Jackson, Bradley

University of British Columbia

The dissertation offers a novel theoretical framework for the investigation of cognitive poetics in cinema. Drawing from cognitive linguistic tools and concepts, the project offers film analysts a methodology for analyzing the conceptual structure of cinematic expression and narrative discourse. To expose the unique conceptual structure of cinematic expression and more rigorously define the properties of conceptual and narrative meaning in cinema, I examine cinematic artifacts that use cinematic techniques, such as cinematography and editing, to convey viewpoint, narrative distortions, and character affective experience. The project begins with the observation that language is a product of cognition, and with that understanding we can apply cognitive linguistic theories to multimodal film analysis. Moreover, analyzing the conceptual structure of cinematic representation can show how we understand meaning in dynamic and multimodal narratives. Taking the conceptual structure of cinematic expression as the starting point of my assessment, I suggest that a cognitive poetics approach can reveal the paths of conceptualization in dynamic and multimodal artforms. Developing on recent cognitive linguistic examinations of film, I further demonstrate that by analyzing the conceptual structure of cinematic expression we can see how multimodal affordances evoke perceptual, narrative, and affective meaning. I then offer a method for analyzing complex representations of character experience, especially in films that depict experiences that no one has ever had. I draw upon theories of embodied cognition and film analysis to develop a framework for understanding cinematic viewpoint networks, narrative spaces, and embodied affective cues in cinema. These three major contributions serve as a guiding framework for the analysis of character’s subjective experience. Thus, the majority of examples used through the dissertation look at depictions of characters’ subjective states. Ultimately, the project contributes to the fields of cognitive poetics, cognitive linguistics, cognitive film analysis, and multimodal discourse analysis by demonstrating the various ways in which conceptual structure can emerge to inform our knowledge of a film.

Text

2024-10-21

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/89454

English

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/