FIGURE

&
GROUND
BY GOOGLE IMAGES
BY GOOGLE IMAGES
 COGNITIVE STYLISTICS
Cognitive linguistics aligns the study
of language with the study of the mind
and brain (the word ‘cognitive’
indicates this focus on mental faculties
such as perception and knowledge, as
part of the study of language) (Gibbons
& Whitely, 2018 p. 149).
 COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS
1. Language is dependent upon the cognitive
mechanisms which are used in other areas of
human experience: such as the way we perceive,
categorize, and imagine/represent the world.
2. Human minds work in fundamentally similar
ways because they possess these cognitive
mechanisms.
3. An account of language should accord with what
is generally known about the mind and brain in
other scientific and psychologicalGibbons
disciplines.
& Whitely (2018, p. 149)
Figure are the things we pay most
attention to.
Ground is everything else we
perceive but pay less attention to.

Gibbons & Whitely (2018, p. 150)

 FIGURES GRAB OUR ATTENTION
BECAUSE…
1.They have form or shape;
2.They move;
3.They precede the ground in time or
space;
4.They are more detailed or brighter than
the ground;
5.They are an object or entity weGibbons
might & Whitely (2018)

interact with.
Objects and entities
that attract attention,
and are therefore
figures, are known as
attractors.
Gibbons & Whitely (2018, p. 152)
STOCKWELL’S LIST OF
FEATURES OF GOOD
TEXTUAL ATTRACTORS
(BASED ON STOCKWELL, 2009 AS CITED IN GIBBONS & WHITELY, 2018)
FEATURES OF GOOD EXPLANATION
TEXTUAL
ATTRACTORS
Newness Currency: the present
moment of reading is
more attractive than
the previous moment.
A reader’s attention is
continually shifting as
they move through a
(BASED ON STOCKWELL, 2009 AS CITED IN GIBBONS & WHITELY, 2018, P. 153)

text.
wheelchair, a nurse by her side. With all the strength
she had left, Jamie stood shakily as her father
supported her. Then Hegbert slowly made their way
down the aisle, while everyone in the church sat
silently in wonder. Halfway down the aisle, Jaime
suddenly seemed to tire, and they stopped while she
caught her breath. Her eyes closed, and for a moment
I didn’t think she could go on. I know that no more
than ten or twelve seconds elapsed, but it seemed
much longer, and finally she nodded slightly. With
that, Jamie and Hegbert started moving again and I
felt my heart surge with pride. It was, I remembered
thinking, the most difficult walk anyone had to make.
In every way, a walk to remember.
FEATURES OF GOOD EXPLANATION
TEXTUAL ATTRACTORS
Agency Noun phrases in active
position are better
attractors than in passive
position. Compare: (a)
‘Herbert broke the door
handle’/ (b) The door
handle was broken by
Herbert’. In (a) the noun
phrase ‘Herbert’ attracts
more attention than in (b),
where the passive
(BASED ON STOCKWELL, 2009 AS CITED IN GIBBONS & WHITELY, 2018, P. 153)
FEATURES OF GOOD EXPLANATION
TEXTUAL ATTRACTORS
Topicality In a sentence, grammatical
subject position confers more
attraction over object
position. In: ‘The man shot
the boy’, the man is a better
attractor than the boy,
because he appears in
subject position of the
sentence (featured, and
performing the action of
shooting); the boy (the
recipient of the action in the
object position) is less
(BASED ON STOCKWELL, 2009 AS CITED IN GIBBONS & WHITELY, 2018, P. 153)
FEATURES OF GOOD EXPLANATION
TEXTUAL
ATTRACTORS
Emphatic Animate entities attract
recognizability more attention than
objects or abstractions.
There is a scale of
attraction, as follows:
human speaker >
human hearer >
animal > object >
(BASED ON STOCKWELL, 2009 AS CITED IN GIBBONS & WHITELY, 2018, P. 153)
FEATURES OF EXPLANATION
GOOD TEXTUAL
ATTRACTORS
Definiteness Definite nouns attract
more attention than
indefinites. There is a
cline, as follows:
definite (‘the man’) >
specific indefinite (‘a
certain man’) >
(BASED ON STOCKWELL, 2009 AS CITED IN GIBBONS & WHITELY, 2018, P. 153)
FEATURES OF EXPLANATION
GOOD TEXTUAL
ATTRACTORS
Activeness Verbs denoting
action, violence,
passion,
willfulness,
motivation, or
(BASED ON STOCKWELL, 2009 AS CITED IN GIBBONS & WHITELY, 2018, P. 153)
FEATURES OF EXPLANATION
GOOD TEXTUAL
ATTRACTORS
Brightness Lightness or
vivid colors
being denoted
over dimness or
drabness
(BASED ON STOCKWELL, 2009 AS CITED IN GIBBONS & WHITELY, 2018, P. 153)
FEATURES OF EXPLANATION
GOOD
TEXTUAL
ATTRACTORS
Fullness Richness,
density,
intensity, or
(BASED ON STOCKWELL, 2009 AS CITED IN GIBBONS & WHITELY, 2018, P. 153)
FEATURES OF EXPLANATION
GOOD TEXTUAL
ATTRACTORS
Largeness Large objects
being denoted or
very long
elaborated noun
phrase used to
(BASED ON STOCKWELL, 2009 AS CITED IN GIBBONS & WHITELY, 2018, P. 153)
FEATURES OF EXPLANATION
GOOD TEXTUAL
ATTRACTORS
Height Objects that are
above others, are
higher than the
perceiver, or
which dominate.
(BASED ON STOCKWELL, 2009 AS CITED IN GIBBONS & WHITELY, 2018, P. 153)
FEATURES OF EXPLANATION
GOOD TEXTUAL
ATTRACTORS
Noisiness Denoted
phenomenon
which are
audibly
(BASED ON STOCKWELL, 2009 AS CITED IN GIBBONS & WHITELY, 2018, P. 153)

voluminous.
‘Arms bending and stretching!’
she rapped out. ‘Take
your time by me. ONE, two,
three, four! ONE, two, three,
four! Come on, comrades, put a
little bit of life into it! ONE, two,
three four! ONE two, three,
four!’
- George Orwell’s 1984 (1949)
FEATURES OF EXPLANATION
GOOD TEXTUAL
ATTRACTORS
Aesthetic distance Referents attract
from the norm attention if they are
denoted as beautiful
or ugly, dangerous
or alien, and the
creation of
(BASED ON STOCKWELL, 2009 AS CITED IN GIBBONS & WHITELY, 2018, P. 153)

dissonance.
In Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein, Dr.
Frankenstein calls
the monster a
“demonical corpse”,
“miserable monster”,
and “ugly wretch”.
THE HOUSE IS NOT THE SAME SINCE
YOU LEFT
BY HENRY NORMAL (1993)
The house is not the same since you left
The cooker is angry—it blames me
The TV tries desperately to stay busy
But occasionally I catch it starting out of the
window
The washing-up’s feeling sorry for itself again
It just sits there saying ‘what’s the point,
what’s the
point?’
The curtains count the days
Nothing in the house will talk to me
I think the armchair’s dead
The kettle tried to comfort me at first
But you know what its attention span’s
like
I’ve not told the plants yet
They think you’re on a holiday
The bathroom misses you
I hardly see it these days
It still can’t believe you didn’t take it with you
The bedroom won’t even look at me
Since you left it keeps its eyes closed
All it wants to do is sleep, remembering better times
Trying to lose itself in dreams
It seems like it’s taken the easy way out
But at night I hear the pillows
Weeping into the sheets