Language and World Creation in Poems and Other Texts

Elena Semino is a lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and Modern English Language at Lancaster University. She has published extensively in the field of stylistics, and was awarded the 1995 Poetics and Linguistics Association Prize for the best article published by a young academic.

• 1. IntroductionPart I: Poetic text worlds as discourse situations2. Definiteness, indefiniteness and context creation3. Deixis and context creationPart II: Poetic text worlds as possible worlds4. Possible-world theory, fiction and literature5. Possible-world theory and the analysis of poetic text worldsPart III: Poetic text worlds as cognitive constructs6. Schema theory and literature7. Schema theory and the analysis of poetic text worlds8. Metaphor, schema refreshment and text worlds9. Conclusion: the world of Sylvia Plath's 'The Applicant'ReferencesIndex