Intertextuality as Cognitive Modelling

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate a way in which the concept of cognitive modelling can be applied to studies of intertextuality. The paper suggests a fresh way of looking at intertextuality – from the perspective of the cognitive processes involved in decoding intertextual references, namely, analogical mapping across different domains. Our knowledge of cognitive processes is largely based on the study of cognitive processing of texts, but texts with intertextual references have until now been a less well-studied area of cognitive research. I define three different ways in which texts relate to each other: hard modelling, soft modelling and loose association. From a cognitive perspective, I suggest that mental processing of these texts involves different knowledge structures which I describe using Schank’s (1982, 1986, 1999) theory of dynamic memory.