Under pressure norms, rules, and coercion in linguistic analyses and literary readings

Abstract

This chapter investigates the role and nature of coercion (defined as the resolution of formal mismatch) in linguistic analyses, in literary readings, and in cognitive neuroscience. It begins with an extensive discussion of coercion in functional and formal linguistics and then puts this into the perspective of literary readings. On the basis of some exemplary analyses of both poetry and prose texts from the 18th to the 20th century, it is argued that some elementary principles of literary practice (such as foregrounding, deviation, and metaphor) can also be interpreted as coercive linguistic activities. This idea can even be expanded to higher levels of linguistic analyses, such as texts, where mismatches between form and function can also call for interpretive coercion. The role of coercion in linguistics and literature is particularly interesting insofar as coercion itself might prove to be a universal mechanism of human cognition. This chapter offers an extensive discussion of the neurocognitive underpinnings of coercion. It is shown that while there is some disagreement between different neurocognitive perspectives about the precise location and mechanism of coercion, they also suggest that coercion is probably a gradient, rather than a binary activity, and that there is a fundamental difference in processing between formal mismatches, which allow or even require coercion, and so-called anomalies, which do not allow coercion. © Oxford University Press 2017. All rights reserved.