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Abstract:
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This work analyzes the autobiographical narrative of a member of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) from a cognitive standpoint in order to show how the language of the seminal AA text, Alcoholics Anonymous, creates meaning and shapes perception for its members. By tracking the presence of a major metaphor and its extensions from the text that guides the narrative of the individual AA member, we can see how members are able to assume ownership of the AA ideology, thereby using it to create their personal AA stories and their overall identities as recovering alcoholics. The data from the metaphors in the autobiography are examined using cognitive or cultural models of understanding language that have been passed down by established members of the discourse community (Stockwell, 2002). These cognitive models are then put into the framework of conceptual blending theory to show how the metaphors guide perception (Fauconnier and Turner, 2002). |
