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Image Schemas PATH. The PATH schema can be observed through the structure of the poem. It has a starting point (when the speaker reaches the fork), a movement process – a series of points along the way (the speaker’s thoughts and decision about the two roads), and an ending point (the speaker has chosen one road and envisages the future in which he may regret his decision). BALANCE. The BALANCE schema exists in Robert Frost’s poetics. In “The Road Not Taken”, the presence of this schema can be justified with the rhythm and meter. The abaab rhythm is, at first, steady; then it is faster, reaching a climax in the third stanza (Oh, I kept the first for another day). It falls again in the final lines, expressing the control exerted by the poet. This poem is written with iambic tetrameter which helps keeping it under control. The ideas are also parts of the BALANCE schema. After the climax in the third stanza, the poet put curbs on the dynamic flow of movement in the past by creating an ending with envisioned future and the present (which is his reality space). Conceptual Metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY. In this poem, the speaker’s perspective is moved from the past (in the first three stanzas) to the future (the first two lines of the last stanza) and then the present (the last line). That point, along with the theme of the poem (making choice in life), verifies the existence of the metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME. Besides, the symbols of the two roads, the traveller, his chosen or not chosen paths and his sigh also represent our life as a journey with decisions to be made and regretted. Discussion Image Schemas PATH. In Robert Frost’s 1939 essay “The Figure a Poem Makes”, he expressed his theory of poetry in a brief way: a poem (or the figure it makes) should begin with delight, tend towards the impulse, assume direction with the first line, run a course of events, and finally, end in a clarification of life. That “clarification of life” is not necessarily a great one, “but in a momentary stay against confusion” (as cited in Freeman, 2002, p. 2). The aforementioned theory can be seen in “The Road Not Taken”. The calm opening lines introduce the time when the speaker arrives at the fork in his trip: “The roads diverged in a yellow wood And sorry I could not travel both” Then he ponders and makes the decision on which road to take: “And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that, the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black.” The speaker’s thoughts are spread over the lines, until the first complete sentence of the poem ends with “In leaves no step had trodden black.”. They are the “course of events” put along the path. The three last lines of the third stanza – also the second sentence – engender the climax: “Oh, I kept the first for another day Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back.” Eventually, the poet put an end, “a momentary stay”, to the path with a remorseful sigh: “I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” To recapitulate, the internal structure of “The Road Not Taken” is clear with a starting point, an array of elements and an ending point, which are, according to Johnson (1987), the features of the linear PATH schema.
Running head: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH ROBERT FROST’S POEM “THE ROAD NOT TAKEN” A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH Ly Truong Thanh Que Class 4A English Department HCMC University of Pedagogy Instructor: Nguyen Ngoc Vu, Ph.D THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH 30 December, 2013Abstract English literary analysis is surely a field which attracts a great deal of attention from both professionals and the literati as well So as to study a literary work, we tend to examine the literary devices, which calls for great efforts, since there is no fixed underlying theory Hence, Cognitive Linguistics, a relatively new branch of linguistics, has offered another method to investigate the issue – a method provides us with Image Schema and Conceptual Metaphor Those are not merely dry concepts, but effective ways enabling thorough investigation into the works This linguistic view, nonetheless, has not gained much recognition in the area of literature Taking that matter into consideration, this paper strives to scrutinize an analysis of a famous poem, “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, from a cognitive linguistic perspective; and hopefully, to generate changes in attitudes towards the subject Due to the finite scope, the paper will be centered on only the Image Schemas and Conceptual Metaphor appearing in the poem, concerning the fact that they are major aspects of Cognitive Linguistics Keywords: cognitive linguistics, image schema, conceptual metaphor, the road not taken THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH Introduction Robert Frost (1874 – 1963) is considered as one of America and the world’s greatest poets His poems are known for depicting the rural life and conveying convoluted social and philosophical themes through those depictions “The Road Not Taken”, published in 1916, is the epitome of his writing style: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that, the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” This poem is among the best-known, yet most-often-misunderstood works of Robert Frost, perchance due to its last stanza: Readers and critics have their own ways of deciphering the poet’s message Adopting a cognitive linguistic approach, this paper focuses on the Image Schemas (PATH and BALANCE) and Conceptual Metaphor (LIFE IS A JOURNEY) of the poem, and consequently offers some insight into the connotations hidden in Frost’s words and writing style THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH Literature Review Image Schema Definition Johnson (1987) defined an image schema as a recurring structure within the cognitive process which functions like the abstract formation of an image, thus joins together a wide range of experiences “Experience” mentioned herein should be understood in a broad sense, encompassing basic perceptual, social, linguistic, historical (and so forth) experiences Image schemas, therefore, are structures which play an important role in organising our experience and comprehension For instance, Lakoff (1987) gave us the diagram of CONTAINER schema: Interior Boundary Exterior Figure CONTAINER image schema To be more specific, consider this example of two variants of CONTAINER schema lexicalised by the word “out”: Figure John went out of the room Figure The honey spread out THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH The image schemas in Figure and Figure are more detailed than the schema in Figure 1, as they express motion as well as containment This proves that specific image schemas can be developed from fundamental ones The following is the list of image schemas discussed by both Johnson (1987) and Lakoff (1987): Table Image schemas discussed by Johnson (1987) and Lakoff (1987) No Image Schema CONTAINMENT / CONTAINER PATH / SOURCE – PATH – GOAL LINK PART – WHOLE CENTER – PERIPHERY BALANCE FORCE Image Schema in Literature Cognitive linguists contend that some poets have, consciously or unconsciously, utilized image schemas in their works For example, Freeman (2002) pointed out that Emily Dickinson used the CONTAINER schema in her poem “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers”: “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers Untouched by Morning and untouched by noon Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection, Rafter of Satin and Roof of Stone – THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH Grand go the Years, In the Crescent above them Worlds scoop their Arcs and Firmaments - row Diadems - drop And Doges surrender Soundless as Dots, On a Disk of Snow.” The CONTAINER schema of death, in the first stanza, is “untouched” by time By contrast, in the second stanza, the years go by in the cyclical swing of planetary motion The terms “Crescent”, “Arcs” and “Disk” are also closely connected with CIRCLE and CYCLE schemas, which are parts of the main CONTAINER schema Conceptual Metaphor Definition According to Lakoff and Johnson (2003), the essence of conceptual metaphor is understanding and experiencing one idea, or conceptual domain, in terms of another Conceptual metaphors exist in everyday language, as shown in the below examples of the metaphor TIME IS MONEY: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) You are wasting my time This gadget will save you hours How you spend your time these days? That flat tire cost me an hour Put aside some time for ping pong THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH In our contemporary world, time is a valuable and limited resource that we use to achieve our goals Thus we regard time as a thing that can be wasted, saved or spent, like money: this leads to the presence of the metaphor TIME IS MONEY in our daily life As for the structure of conceptual metaphor, there are three main components: Source, Target and Mapping The Source domain is the conceptual domain from which conceptual expressions can be drawn, while the Target domain is the one we try to comprehend Mapping is the systematic set of correspondences existing between the constituents of the Source domain and those of the Target domain Lakoff (1993) gave the example of the Source, Target domains and Mappings in the metaphor LOVE IS A JOURNEY: Table Source Domain, Target Domain and Mappings in the conceptual metaphor LOVE IS A JOURNEY, suggested by Lakoff (1993) Source Domain: JOURNEY travellers vehicle destination Mappings Target Domain: LOVE lovers lovers’ relationship lovers’ common goal Conceptual Metaphor in Literature The Linguistic Society of America claims that one of the most recent approaches to literature is cognitive metaphor For instance, Lakoff and Turner (1989) applied conceptual metaphor in analysing Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73: “That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, hang THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.” Their analysis indicated that in this sonnet, there are three metaphors for a lifetime: a day, a year and a fire Those metaphors come from the basic ones: Life is Light and Death is Darkness; Life is Heat and Death is Cold; and A Lifetime is a Cycle of Waxing and Waning Days, years and fires are like waxing and waning cycles: the waxing process involves light and heat, and the waning is with darkness and cold THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH 10 Methodology This paper zeroes in on a qualitative research examining the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost through the lens of Cognitive Linguistics I will analyse the poem by means of extensive reading, taking close notice of the image schemas and conceptual metaphors used; those can be in the form of literary devices, structures or ideas I will also pay attention to other analyses of the poem, synthesise the information and supplement my own analysis with them Then I can draw a conclusion from the collected data and my investigation, as well as trying to decode the message conveyed Thanks to this methodology, the paper can provide a detailed analysis of the poem, basing on both personal ideas and other critics’ opinions Nevertheless, the method also possesses a drawback Since this paper contains my own points from a cognitive linguistic view, it can be subjective, to a certain extent, in the understanding of the poem’s image schemas and metaphors THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH 11 Findings Image Schemas PATH The PATH schema can be observed through the structure of the poem It has a starting point (when the speaker reaches the fork), a movement process – a series of points along the way (the speaker’s thoughts and decision about the two roads), and an ending point (the speaker has chosen one road and envisages the future in which he may regret his decision) BALANCE The BALANCE schema exists in Robert Frost’s poetics In “The Road Not Taken”, the presence of this schema can be justified with the rhythm and meter The abaab rhythm is, at first, steady; then it is faster, reaching a climax in the third stanza (Oh, I kept the first for another day!) It falls again in the final lines, expressing the control exerted by the poet This poem is written with iambic tetrameter which helps keeping it under control The ideas are also parts of the BALANCE schema After the climax in the third stanza, the poet put curbs on the dynamic flow of movement in the past by creating an ending with envisioned future and the present (which is his reality space) Conceptual Metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY In this poem, the speaker’s perspective is moved from the past (in the first three stanzas) to the future (the first two lines of the last stanza) and then the present (the last line) That point, along with the theme of the poem (making choice in life), verifies the existence of the metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME Besides, the symbols of the two roads, the traveller, his chosen or not chosen THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH 12 paths and his sigh also represent our life as a journey with decisions to be made and regretted THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH 13 Discussion Image Schemas PATH In Robert Frost’s 1939 essay “The Figure a Poem Makes”, he expressed his theory of poetry in a brief way: a poem (or the figure it makes) should begin with delight, tend towards the impulse, assume direction with the first line, run a course of events, and finally, end in a clarification of life That “clarification of life” is not necessarily a great one, “but in a momentary stay against confusion” (as cited in Freeman, 2002, p 2) The aforementioned theory can be seen in “The Road Not Taken” The calm opening lines introduce the time when the speaker arrives at the fork in his trip: “The roads diverged in a yellow wood And sorry I could not travel both” Then he ponders and makes the decision on which road to take: “And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that, the passing there Had worn them really about the same, THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH 14 And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black.” The speaker’s thoughts are spread over the lines, until the first complete sentence of the poem ends with “In leaves no step had trodden black.” They are the “course of events” put along the path The three last lines of the third stanza – also the second sentence – engender the climax: “Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back.” Eventually, the poet put an end, “a momentary stay”, to the path with a remorseful sigh: “I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” To recapitulate, the internal structure of “The Road Not Taken” is clear with a starting point, an array of elements and an ending point, which are, according to Johnson (1987), the features of the linear PATH schema BALANCE As I have mentioned in the Findings part, the BALANCE schema is conveyed in the form of poetics The poem can maintain the balance thanks to its rhythm The constant abaab rhythm pattern in the first lines becomes stronger and stronger in the following ones, then fierce at the peak of movement: THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH 15 (6) Oh, I have kept the first for another day! (a) Yet knowing how way leads on to way (a) I doubted if I should ever come back (b) However, the poet still put some control on this dynamic flow by making the rhythm fall again in the last stanza “The Road Not Taken” is an iambic-tetrameter poem, which means that each line has eight main syllables There are four unstressed syllables, each of which is followed by one stressed syllable: (7) da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM X / X / X / X / (da (X): unstressed syllable, DUM (/): stressed syllable) Let’s apply (7) to some lines in the poem: (8) Though X as / for X that / (9) And both that morning / X X / (10) Because it was X X / / the X X grassy X passing / X there / equally lay / X / and / wanted X wear / (In (9) and (10), there are or 10 syllables in a line, yet some syllables may be elided, such as “ly” in “equally, “y” in “grassy”, and so on.) THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH 16 This type of meter helps control the poem, including the climax The abovementioned perfect abaab rhythm also serves to stabilize this meter Another testament to the existence of BALANCE schema is the speaker’s perspective: It changes from the past grounding in the first three stanzas to the future in the first two lines of the last one: “I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence:” The poem ends with the present, which is the real state of the speaker: “And that has made all the difference.” Freeman (2002) regarded this appearance of the present as the poet’s way to strike a balance between the past in which the speaker made the decision and the future which may provoke the recalling of the past decision In a nutshell, all those characteristics are parts of the poem’s parallel BALANCE schema, since they show the forces which balance off one another (Johnson, 1987, p.80) Conceptual Metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY The changing perspective is also an aspect of the metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME The past, the future and the present co-exist in the poem, creating a frame of a lifetime “The Road Not Taken” tells a story about a traveller’s choice of path during his journey, in which lies the philosophy of people’s decisions in their lives The speaker’s sigh in the envisaged future is interpreted, by most critics, as a regret The poem’s main theme, according to Eleanor Sickels, is about “the human tendency to wobble illogically THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH 17 in decision and later to assume that the decision was, after all, logical and enormously important, but forever to tell of it 'with a sigh' as depriving the speaker of who-knowswhat interesting experience." (as cited in Finger, 1978, p 479) Thus, the major metaphor in this poem is LIFE IS A JOURNEY with decisions to be made and regretted Moreover, the symbolic images of the fork, the traveller and his sigh can be analysed with the aid of Conceptual Metaphor: Table Source Domain, Target Domain and Mappings in the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY of the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost Source Domain: JOURNEY the traveller the two roads the road chosen the road not chosen the sigh Mappings Target Domain: LIFE a human being / human race in general the things from which people have to choose one the thing chosen / our final decision the thing not chosen / the thing making us regret in the future our regret in the envisioned future In conclusion, the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY is depicted in the poem “The Road Not Taken” through its theme, symbols and the speaker’s changing perspective THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH 18 Implications “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is a tricky poem which causes a lot of confusion among its readers and critics With a view to unearthing the meaning of this poem, this analysis tries to point out the Image Schemas and Conceptual Metaphor the poet might have used Through these new spectacles, I believe that the poem is about the choices people have to make in their lives and the way they may reflect on those decisions later Another message is about how human beings tend to regret their own choice even when they think that decision is not wrong, since they wonder what they could have experienced if they had chosen differently In addition, this analysis demonstrates a new way of examining literary works, using the cognitive linguistic approach Literature analysing is a challenging task, even to professionals, as it requires in-depth studies Hence, analysts usually adopts many measures in order to perceive the whole picture of the works, and one of those methods, as proved in this paper, can be Cognitive Linguistics Image Schema, Conceptual Metaphor and other facets of this linguistic view may make a great contribution to our exploration of the world’s literary masterpieces THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH 19 Conclusion Regarding the analysis of the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost above, this paper accentuates the Image Schemas and Conceptual Metaphor utilised by the poet, which aids in determining the latent purport of his work Moreover, it pinpoints the feasibility of the application of Cognitive Linguistics to literature analysing Hopefully, the paper can also assist the process of drawing attention to this issue in literary areas THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH 20 References Finger, L L (1978) Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”: A 1925 Letter Come To Light American Literature, 50(3), 478-479 Freeman, M H (2002) Momentary Stays, Exploding Forces: a Cognitive Linguistic Approach to the Poetics of Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost Journal of English Linguistics, 30(1), 73-90 Johnson, M (1987) The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press Lakoff, G (1987) Women, Fire and Dangerous Things Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press Lakoff, G (1993) Conceptual Metaphor: The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor In D Geeraerts (Ed.), Cognitive Linguistics: Basic Readings (pp.188-213) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M (2003) Metaphors we live by (2nd ed.) Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press Lakoff, G., & Turner, M (1989) More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press ... Though as for that, the passing there Had worn them really about the same, THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH 14 And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black.”... the poem The Road Not Taken through its theme, symbols and the speaker’s changing perspective THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH 18 Implications The Road Not Taken by Robert... chosen THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH 12 paths and his sigh also represent our life as a journey with decisions to be made and regretted THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC