Blending of Mental Spaces in Discourse and a Communication Model: Nominal Grounding in Czech, English and Spanish
Abstract
This paper presents an integration of mental spaces theory and the notion of grounding. The aim is to present a communication model based on the idea of blending of mental spaces that can be used to analyse an ongoing discourse and represent the functions of grounding elements in speaker - hearer interaction.
The objective is to emphasise the intersubjective and dynamic nature of human communication and to integrate grammar and discourse analysis within one universal represen-tation. Consequently, the proposed model is used to analyse nominal grounding in authentic texts with variants in English, Spanish and Czech, thus representing the Germanic, Romance and Slavonic families.
The communication model is presented as a polyfunctional tool for an abstract representation of communication in general, for an in-depth analysis of grounding in a concrete text and for a contrastive study involving various languages.