Cover not available

Article published In: Review of Cognitive Linguistics
Vol. 15:1 (2017) ► pp.154–182

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Premonitory urges and Touretting volcanoes

Force construal in personal narratives on Tourette Syndrome

 | Lund University
Published online: 4 September 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.15.1.07har
Abstract
Causative meaning including, but not limited to, causation, prevention, and enabling is realized in language use through force construal. Force is explored in this article through consideration of narratives on Tourette Syndrome, a disorder that is largely characterized by its constitutive actions (vocal and motor tics). To account for force construal, the article proposes a merger of a vector model for the description of force in language and cognition and a lexical semantic model of ontologies and construals. Force is accounted for in terms of a number of configurations (cause, enable, prevent, withstand, and despite) that are realized through construal operations. This merger of explanatory models allows nuanced and flexible description of forceful meaning in actual language use.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Tourette Syndrome
  • 2.Ontologies and construals
    • 2.1Force in language and cognition: The dynamics model
  • 3.Data and method
    • 3.1Written accounts of Tourette Syndrome
    • 3.2Expressions of force
    • 3.3Psychological force
  • 4.Communicative coordination: Painting a forceful picture of Tourette
    • 4.1 Like God’s own sneeze: Comparative construal
    • 4.2 A Touretting volcano: Force as a basis for metaphorization
    • 4.3 Police always make my tics worse: cause
      • 4.3.1 I had to obey the pattern: cause through modals
    • 4.4 I managed to suppress that tic: withstand
    • 4.5 Let the tic out: enable
    • 4.6 I can’t stop myself: prevent and despite
  • 5.Implications for understanding TS experiences
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (42)
References
Buckser, A. (2006). The empty gesture: Tourette Syndrome and the semantic dimension of illness. Anthropology, 45(4), 255–274.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2008). Before your very eyes: Illness, agency, and the management of Tourette Syndrome. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 22(2), 167–192. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chilton, P. (2010). From mind to grammar: Coordinate systems, prepositions, constructions. In V. Evans & P. Chilton (Eds.), Language, cognition and space: The state of the art and new directions (pp. 499–514). London: Equinox.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2014). Language, space and mind: The conceptual geometry of linguistic meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Croft, W., & Cruse, D. A. (2004). Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Evans, V., & Chilton, P. (Eds.). (2010). Language, cognition, and space: The state of the art and new directions. London: Equinox.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fauconnier, G., & Turner, M. (2002). The way we think: Conceptual blending and the mind’s hidden complexities. New York: Basic books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gentner, D., & Smith, L. A. (2013). Analogical learning and reasoning. In D. Reisberg (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of Cognitive Psychology (pp. 668–681). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. (2010). Verbs, construction and semantic frames. In M. Rappaport Hovav, E. Doron, & I. Sichel (Eds.), Syntax, lexical semantics, and event structure (pp. 39–58). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gärdenfors, P. (2014). The geometry of meaning: Semantics based on conceptual spaces. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harvey, K., & Koteyko, N. (2013). Exploring health communication: Language in action. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hofstadter, D. R. (2001). Epilogue: Analogy as the core of cognition. In D. Gentner, K. J. Holyoak, & B. N. Kokinov (Eds.), The analogical mind: Perspectives from cognitive science (pp. 1–19). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hofstadter, D. R., & Sander, E. (2013). Surfaces and essences: Analogy as the fuel and fire of cognition. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, M. (1987). The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kilgariff, A., Baisa, V., Bušta, J., Kovář, V., Michelfeit, J., Rychlý, P., & Suchomel, V. (2014). The Sketch Engine: Ten years on. Lexicography ASIALEX, 11, 7–36. ([URL])
Kövecses, Z. (2000). Metaphor and emotion: Language, culture, and body in human feeling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Langacker, R. W. (1987). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume 1: Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2008). Cognitive Grammar: Aa basic introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leckman, J. F. (2002). Tourette’s syndrome. The Lancet, 3601, 1577–86. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
O’Connor, K. P., Janelle, C., Coutu, M. F., Rouleau, A., Lessard, M. J., Kirouac, C., Marchand, A., Dupuis, G., Turgeon, L., & Bélanger, M. P. (2009). ‘I’m cured but …’: Perceptions of illness following treatment. Journal of Health Psychology, 14(2), 278–287. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paradis, C. (2005). Ontologies and construals in lexical semantics. Axiomathes, 151, 541–573. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2008). Configurations, construals and change: Expressions of degree . English Language and Linguistics, 12(2), 317–343. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paradis, C., & Willners, C. (2011). Antonymy: From convention to meaning-making. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 9(2), 367–391. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Singer, H. S. (2005). Tourette’s syndrome: From behaviour to biology. The Lancet Neurology, 41, 149–59. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Soares da Silva, A. (2007). Verbs of letting: Some cognitive and historical aspects. In N. Delbecque & B. Cornille (Eds.), On interpreting construction schemas: From action and motion to transitivity and causality (pp. 171–200). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stukker, N., Sanders, T., & Verhagen, A. (2008). Causality in verbs and in discourse connectives: Converging evidence of cross-level parallels in Dutch linguistic categorization. Journal of Pragmatics, 401, 1296–1322. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sweetser, E. (1990). From etymology to pragmatics: Metaphorical and cultural aspects of semantic structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Talmy, L. (1988). Force dynamics in language and cognition. Cognitive Science, 121, 49–100. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Volume I: Concept structuring systems. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Verhagen, A. (2005). Constructions of intersubjectivity: Discourse, syntax, and cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2012). Construal and stylistics: Within a language, across contexts, across languages. Stylistics across disciplines: Conference proceedings. CD-ROM. Leiden.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Verhagen, A., & Kemmer, S. (1997). Interaction and causation: Causative constructions in modern Standard Dutch. Journal of Pragmatics, 271, 611–82. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Winter, S., & Gärdenfors, P. (1995). Linguistic modality as expressions of social power. Nordic Journal of Linguistics, 181, 137–166. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wolff, P. (2007). Representing causation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 1361, 82–111. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2012). Representing verbs with force vectors. Theoretical linguistics, 38(3/4), 237–248.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wolff, P., & Song, G. (2003). Models of causation and the semantics of causal verbs. Cognitive Psychology, 471, 276–332. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wolff, P., Song, G., & Driscoll, D. (2002). Models of causation and causal verbs. In M. Andronis, C. Ball, H. Elston, & S. Neuval (Eds.), Papers from the 37th meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society, Main session, vol. 11 (pp. 607–622). Chicago: Chicago Linguistics Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wolff, P., & Zettergren, M. (2002). A vector model of causal meaning. In W. D. Gray & C. D. Schunn (Eds.), Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 944–949). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zwarts, J. (2005). Prepositional aspect and the algebra of paths. Linguistics and Philosophy, 281, 739–779. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2010). Forceful prepositions. In V. Evans & P. Chilton (Eds.), Language, cognition, and space: The state of the art and new directions (pp. 193–214). London: Equinox.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Schieble, Melissa & David J. Connor
2025. Applying a Critical Disability Studies Lens to Young Adult Literature: Disrupting Ableism in Depictions of Tourette Syndrome. Research in the Teaching of English 59:4 ► pp. 496 ff. DOI logo
HARTMAN, JENNY
2018. Constructions of contrast in spoken testimonials on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Language and Cognition 10:1 ► pp. 83 ff. DOI logo
Hartman, Jenny & Carita Paradis
2018. Emotive and sensory simulation through comparative construal. Metaphor and Symbol 33:2 ► pp. 123 ff. DOI logo
HARTMAN, JENNY & CARITA PARADIS
2021. Figurative meaning in multimodal work by an autistic artist: a cognitive semantic approach. Language and Cognition 13:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue