'Subject-Object Contrast' and 'Subject- Object Merger' in 'Thinking for Speaking': A Typology of Cognitive Processing in Linguistic Encoding and its Homologues in Pictorial Encoding

In: Chinese Semiotic Studies, Band 10, Heft 2, S. 215-228

Abstract

Abstract
Language users are known to have the ability to construe a given situation in several alternate ways. It is also known that being faced with one and the same situation, a speaker of one language may prefer to construe it in one way, while a speaker of another language may chose to construe it in another way. The present paper addresses this variability specifically with regard to speaker preference for either the 'subject-object contrast' type of construal or the 'subject-object merger' type of construal. It further suggests that there can be a parallelism (or 'homology') between a speaker's stance in linguistic encoding and a painter's stance in pictorial encoding, as can be observed in Japanese cultural artifacts.