The application of the attractor model to cognitive poetics, journalism, and foreign language learning.

Shubina Anna Olegovna PhD in Philology Military University of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Department No.33  (English as a Second Language), Senior Educator; Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, the Department of English Language and Professional Communication Senior Educator 125047, Russia, Moscow, Bolshaya Sadovaya, 19 anna.shubina.19@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Since the end of the twentieth century, an increasing number of scientists have applied various aspects of the theory of complex dynamic systems (SDS) in various fields of the humanities, such as cognitive linguistics, cognitive poetics, pedagogy, intellectual analysis of Internet use, and second language acquisition. Understanding language as a dynamic system where elements interact and evolve over time opens up new perspectives for analyzing the processes of cognition and communication. In 1970, in ^{[6, p. 199]}, the Soviet and Russian linguist E.S. Kubryakova defines language as a complex dynamic system, which is characterized by "an integral unity of stable and mobile, stable and changing, statics and dynamics." In 1999, the Russian linguist, Professor V.A. Pishchalnikova wrote: "... by the nature of the attractors of a speech work, one can judge not only the processes of its self-organization, but also make assumptions about the reasons for the preference of one or another organization of the text" ^{[2, p. 28]}. Psychologists Tesen and Smith wrote about the use of SDS theory in various fields of humanitarian knowledge as a system-dynamic approach to the analysis of basic psychological and social processes ^[37]. In 2005, V. Wilden stated the application of the theory of VTS in the field of linguistic research such as phonology, semantics, discourse analysis, etc. ^[43]. The application of the theory of VTS is also used in the study of the process of teaching a foreign language ^[42].

One of the central characteristics (SDS) is its constantly changing state. The theory of VTS emphasizes the importance of this temporal change and evolution, moreover, the observed change may be nonlinear. Despite the emphasis on change and constant dynamics, the VTS also recognizes stable states in behavior. It is known that VDS self-organize, as a result of which, in the process of their development, they can move into preferred states, called attractor states. Contextual factors can play an important role in pushing the system towards a certain state of the attractor or moving away from it.

Currently, many researchers use the attractor model as a methodological basis for their scientific work. In modern pedagogy, there is a growing interest in the use of complex dynamic systems in language learning. It is especially important to apply these concepts in the study of foreign languages, where complex relationships between linguistic elements require a deep understanding of the dynamics of linguistic competence. Thus, it is noted that the learning environment of a language group and the behavior of individual students, their academic performance can be influenced by various levels of contextual influences, such as the behavior of friends and classmates, restrictions on the classroom space or leadership functions performed by a teacher. The student and the environment are not independent of each other, but rather there is mutual influence, which leads to systemic variability in development ^{[42, p. 706]}. Recognition of attractor states and identification of the most frequent sources of motivation is a useful tool for teachers to increase and maintain the motivation of teachers and students in the classroom ^{[33, p. 117]}. The study of the attractor states in the development of a foreign language is of great importance, since they are related to the developing linguistic systems of students learning a foreign language and to their interaction ^{[20,p. 2]}. The student's unwillingness to communicate in the language being studied, the preservation of translation errors is the state of the attractor ^{[41, p.13]}. For example, a given student may repeatedly fall into an attractor state in which he voluntarily does not communicate in a foreign language, despite external components of the system, such as the teacher acting on the system. Finally, at the class level, the state of the attractor can be a class of students mastering a “model of supportive, inclusive and purposeful group learning behavior ^{[30, p.21]}. In general, the study of attractor states is important for the motivation of learning a foreign language from the point of view of SDS ^{[27, p.2]}. The theory of complex dynamical systems in can be used to solve problems of teaching foreign languages in the field of linguodidactics. For example, with the help of such properties of the SDS apparatus as bifurcation, attractor, fluctuation, it is possible to explain such phenomena in pedagogical practice as plateaus and threshold jumps in foreign language acquisition ^{[9, pp. 97-98]}.

The concept of an attractor is used in web education systems. The behavioral patterns of users visiting the electronic platform are characterized by certain parameters (visited pages, frequency, time spent on the site). In the case of online education systems, it is proposed ^{[38, pp. III-VI]} to distinguish three main types of attractors: educational, popular and critical.  Educational attractors should reflect the goals of the teacher and convince users to adhere to them. Browsing behavior is recorded (for example, in a series of visited pages, where the available page becomes a link to the next one). Popular attractors are those that users adhere to, although this is not explicitly provided by the design or content of the portal. This type of attractor can give important tips on how users want to see the site design. For example, the behavior of "branching" turned out to be an attractor.    Critical attractors are behavioral patterns that users adhere to in stressful situations (deadlines, publication of results). Critical attractors are usually associated with access to pages that contain either grades, or the results that students are waiting for, or some content that they copy and paste. The main pattern for an attractor of this type is a sudden visit: students stay for only a few seconds and/or refresh the allocated space to see new content.

The attractor model is proposed to be used in order to create popular areas for independent activity of students of higher educational institutions. By analyzing the wishes of students, many possible "attractors of self-realization" have been identified.  These include: an attractor of educational and cognitive, scientific and research, sports and recreation, volunteer, artistic and creative activities, etc. "The prospects of using and operating the category of attractors as practical predictors of successful self-realization and psychological well-being of students in the process of university training are shown." ^{[19, p.88]}.

In ^{[16, p. 132]}, the attractor model is used in the development of the author's algorithm for encoding mass media discourse. A method has been developed for detecting thematic discursive attractors in the titles of articles in domestic and foreign-language publications. Based on the types and frequency of the identified attractors, it is concluded that the most frequent discursive attractors include attractors-proxems, attractors -action, attractors - objects. The attraction is also used in electronic versions of news resources, in which pre-text formations can be distinguished: headlines, subheadings and annotations containing a summary of the article. To attract attention to news materials, they use the following language tools as attractors: hyperbolization, repetition, allusion, question-and-answer structures, etc. ^{[15, p. 2013]}.

The methodological and theoretical basis of this research in the field of cognitive linguistics and poetics were the works of domestic and foreign researchers (E.S. Kubryakova, V.A. Pishchalnikova, I.A., Stepanova, E.T. Boldyreva, E.Y. Malyneva, R. Stockwell, R. Tsur, J. Fitch, M. Hoey, H. Cangir, B. Henriksen).

The theory of complex dynamical systems has found application in cognitive linguistics ^{[3, p. 66]}. With the help of elements of the apparatus of the theory of dynamic systems, the evolution of the linguistic and cultural concept of the "West" is investigated. The author believes that "verbalized concepts are complex self—organizing open systems characterized by a high degree of stability and nonlinear dynamics of content." It is shown that in the process of evolution, the content of a verbalized concept can both expand and contract, and the expansion of the core and periphery occurs independently of each other.

Separately, it is necessary to highlight such a science as "cognitive poetics, which arose at the junction of cognitive linguistics, literary criticism, stylistics and cognitology. Within the boundaries of this science, an attempt is made to comprehend the cognitive mechanisms of the formation and realization of the idea of a work of art by the author, as well as the analysis of cognitive phenomena that determine the perception and interpretation of this work by another cognizing mind." ^{[8, p. 4]}.

The work of P. Stockwell initiated many studies on various types of attractors. The article ^[39] can be considered as the first step towards the theorization of the basic principles of cognitive poetics. One of the most important tools for analyzing literary works from the reader's point of view in cognitive poetics is the idea of "figures" and "background". The statement that the human brain perceives the world as a figure and background is not new, its roots are in Gestalt psychology ^{[28, p.180]}. The basic fact underlying this theory is that our brain selectively selects objects or concepts that are more relevant to our lives or different from their intended representations, and ignores the rest. It is known that there are some universally used methods in the creation of literary texts that can attract the reader's attention. Such means are attractors, foreground, images, trajectory. The changing relationship between the figure and the background, established by the semantic process in texts, is considered as the result of a strategy of dynamic manipulation of figures, which achieves the displacement of attractors. ^{[24, p.2]}

Stockwell ^{[40, p. 27]} introduced the concept of literary resonance or the ability of a text to "linger" in the reader's mind as one of the main factors in his theory of cognitive poetics (stylistics). Based on psychological studies of the phenomenon of attention, as well as on some principles of SDS, he developed a list of phenomena that readers pay attention to while reading, calling such phenomena attractors, arguing that they create attention-grabbing text objects ^{[40, p.31]}. Attention is usually attracted by movement (elements that remain static quickly fall out of focus). Taking into account these observations and other studies, it is possible to compile a list of typical features of "good" attractors: novelty, agency, relevance, empathic recognition, certainty, concreteness, activity – (verbs denoting action, violence, passion, self–will, motivation or strength), brightness, completeness - (richness, density, intensity), size – (large objects or a very long phrase used to denote), height – (objects that are higher than others, higher than the perceiver, or that dominate), noise, aesthetic distance from the norm (beautiful or ugly referents, dangerous referents, dissonance).

            Currently, other types of text attractors are known. Special attention should be paid to such a concept in cognitive poetics as a creative attractor - dominant meaning, "the zone of attraction of all elements of the text, allowing it to exist as a whole, while simultaneously allowing it to remain in a state of relative stability and transition to another state" ^{[2, p. 55.]}. In his research ^{[1, p. 10]} E.T. Boldyreva proved the existence of a creative attractor in Russian and English texts. In the field of the creative attractor, such structural grammatical markers prevail as: expressive vocabulary, noun, verb, sentence with homogeneous terms, isolated turnover, compound sentence, insertion construction, comparative degree of the adjective. "The accumulation of 72% of the markers of emotional space in the attractor area from the number of general text markers contributes to the promotion of this part of the text as a strong position and allows explicating this area of the text as the informational and emotional dominant of the whole text."

A metaphor can play the role of a creative attractor in an advertising text.  The paper ^{[10, p. 351]} considers natural, anthropomorphic, artifact, sociomorphic metaphorical attractors as metaphorical creative attractors in the advertising tourist text. Creative attractors attract, focus and retain the attention and interest of readers of the advertising text.

In the work of Ogneva E.A. ^{[11,p. 1]}, the concept of architectonics of a literary text is introduced, including such text segments as artistic space, artistic time, landscape space, emotive space, etc., in the depths of which cognitive attractors are formed that attract the reader's attention.  This direction is developed in the works ^{[12, 13],[5]}.

The article ^{[32, p. 61]} provides a cognitive-poetic analysis of Elizabeth Bowen's short story “Oh, Madam" [https://www.unz.com/print/LivingAge-1941feb-00556 /], the literary text of which includes numerous gaps in the form of dots, dashes and unfinished sentences, inviting the reader to fill them in as part of the reader's experience. The author suggests that the so-called resonance effect, part of the aesthetic experience of the reader, arises as a result of his cognitive participation in the process of filling in the gaps. In addition, the introduction of specific attractors allows the reader to capture the social relationships encoded in the text. To explain the cognitive processes associated with reading the story "Oh, Madame...", the author suggests expanding the list of "signs of good textual attractors" by P. Stockwell to include two more: absence and repetition.

It is also proposed to classify neologisms (neslov) or occasional ones that do not have a place in the mental lexicon as textual attractors. Russians Russian poet and novelist, one of the greatest figures of the Russian avant-garde, one of the founders of futurism; an experimenter in the field of word-making is the author of many neologisms created at the beginning of the twentieth century.  V. Mayakovsky's reaction to V. Khlebnikov's famous neologism "Zhelezavut" from the poem "Nemotich and Nemich..." is indicative [40https://ollam.ru/classic/rus/hlebnikov-velimir/nemotichey-i-nemichey]:  "In ... the article "War and Language" (1914), Mayakovsky analyzes the new formation of "zhelezavut" from V. Khlebnikov's word-making activity and gives it a kind of subjective interpretation: ""..."the word 'cruelty' doesn't mean anything to me, but iron does. Because the latter sounds to me like the cacophony that I imagine war to be. The clang of ‘iron’ is soldered in it,” and you hear someone being ‘called’, and you see how this person was ‘climbing' somewhere. For me, therefore, the greatest feeling emanates from such lines by V. Khlebnikov:

Zhelezavut plays a tambourine,
I put cannon noises on my fingers."

[https://www.ka2.ru/nauka/hardziev_1.html]

There is clearly a phenomenon of resonance between the reader and the text (the lexeme "zhelezovut"). Texts resonate if they remain in memory for a long time after the actual physical reading. Resonance is a feeling of the affective power of meeting with a literary work. ^{[40, p.28]}.

In cognitive linguistics, there is such a thing as a mental lexicon, which is defined as the systematic representation of words in permanent memory. It provides a way to study how words are recognized, processed and integrated into the structure of a sentence, as well as a way to study various factors that affect these processes, such as frequency, length, ambiguity and other variables ^{[23, p. 1]}. The mental lexicon has different levels of representation of lexical articles, such as semantic, syntactic, morphological and phonological, as well as different formats of information representation depending on the processes using these representations. There is a hypothesis that at first each stimulus (word or non-word) is processed at the phonological level. Experiments have shown that the lexical decision regarding phonologically illegitimate non-consonants (for example, non-consonants consisting of only consonants) was made faster than for phonologically legitimate ones ^{[35, p. 647]}. Hence, it can be concluded that phonological illegitimacy is found without an exhaustive search in the mental lexicon. In this case, neslovo is a "good attractor" according to P. Stockwell's definition, since it fits the definition of "dissonance". It is known from the literature that phonologically legitimate non–catch neologisms are processed in the mental lexicon for longer than well-known words. The decision that the analyzed lexical unit is a non-word is made more slowly than the recognition of a word in the mental lexicon ^{[34, p. 230]}. One interpretation of these results is that the lexical decision about non-catch requires many attempts to compare the mental representation of non-catch with entries from the mental lexicon. Thus, non-words will require more comparison operations before stopping the search for matches than ordinary words, and an increase in the number of potential matches with articles from the dictionary by using, for example, phonologically correct letter chains will lead to an increase in the time for making a lexical decision. That is why the phonologically legitimate non-word "zhelezavut" can be called an attractor. Thus, it can be argued that in this case, the word does not attract the reader's attention for a longer amount of time than ordinary words and, therefore, is a textual attractor. The complexities of this process are described in ^{[6, p. 138]}. When encountering an unfamiliar word, according to the results of free associations and subjective definitions identified during the associative experiment, the following supporting elements were noted, such as: prefixal morphemes, root morphemes, suffixal morphemes and endings, chains of morphemes-graphemes similar in spelling to well-known words of a foreign language, etc.

The elements of nontrivial lexical compatibility, which are not collocations, can also serve as attractors. It is known that non-trivial lexical compatibility "leads to a complication of the semantics of the text and the appearance of new pragmatic effects. Figurative meanings are considered as a result of semantic changes. One of the likely pragmatic effects resulting from a violation of lexical compatibility is irony" ^{[17, p. 64]}. It is the complication of the semantics of the text that leads to an increase in the reaction time to the phrase. Elements of nontrivial collocation can serve as attractors.

In cognitive linguistics, there is such a thing as lexical priming. Words that are not related semantically, morphologically, or phonologically, but tend to occur frequently in written and spoken speech, are usually defined as collocations. The famous phrase "you shall know a word by the company it keeps" ^{[26, p. 11]} has been adopted by many linguists, and the philosophy underlying this concept has been discussed and developed in many aspects over the years. The theory of lexical priming ^{[31, p.5]} sheds light on the problem of processing collocations in the mental lexicon from a cognitive and psycholinguistic point of view.   It is argued that every time native speakers encounter a word in a language, they assimilate the accompanying context, including words and grammatical structures. As a result, they get used to recognizing certain words that occur together, which is called collocation. For example, a language user is more likely to recognize the word "attract" faster if he has already seen that it occurs together with the word "attention". Despite the fact that a language user can offer several alternatives that occur together with the word "attract", his linguistic experience may lead to the fact that the word "attention" in his mental representation will sound more natural compared to other alternative ways of expressing the same concept ^{[22, p.223]}. In this case, we are dealing with lexical priming. Research on lexical priming is closely related to corpus linguistics and uses statistical methods to study the frequency of co-occurrence of certain phrases ^{[36, p. 106]}. The rationale for the frequency approach is based on the idea that the more often phrases exist together in written or oral speech, the more likely they are to become fixed in the mental lexicon and can be considered as collocations. Priming theory assumes that phrases are preserved as separate units in the mental lexicon, which leads to the spread of activation after the launch of the component part and, more importantly, in the light of the results of research on frequency intuition, it is assumed that if the components of the phrase are strongly related (i.e. more often used in each other's company), what can be judged according to representative corpora, they will be more stable in the mental lexicon (i.e., hypothetically, they are more likely to stimulate each other). The activation propagation model takes into account the strength of the association to a greater extent than the hierarchy ^{[25, p.409]}. Evidence of the spread of activation is provided by priming experiments, in which participants are presented with incentives and their ability to make lexical decisions is evaluated in order to study the priming effect. It is shown that more time is spent on considering a non-trivial phrase than on collocation, for example, the subject recognizes the collocation "sound sleep" more quickly than the non-trivial phrase "secret dream" ^{[21, p. 473]}. Thus, it can be concluded that a non-trivial phrase plays the role of an attractor and attracts the reader's attention when reading the text.

The study of the structure and methods of producing individual author's occasional phrases and non-trivial phrases that play the role of attractors in V. Pelevin's dystopian work S.N.U.F.F ^[14]. Previously, the style, semantics and occasionalisms of this work were considered in ^{[4, 18]} and others.  An occasional nomination is a characteristic phenomenon of dystopia. In the work of Pelevin Neslov, associations with objects of the real world are evoked, attracting the reader's attention, causing a resonance effect and forcing them to come up with their own interpretation. In our study, various types of attractors of non-trivial and non-trivial phrases are considered.

It is shown that word composition, concatenation, alternation and transliteration are the main ways of producing non–word attractors, with the help of which fictional textual worlds are modeled. The novel mainly uses neslova – personal nouns, neslova – names of states, neslova – abstract and concrete nouns. All non-phrases are phonologically legitimate, therefore they are processed in the mental lexicon for additional time, attracting the attention of readers. Examples of non-titles and their translation are given below, the methods of their formation are indicated in parentheses.

Neslova - personal nouns:

discoursmonger – political strategist (word composition, transliteration);

The despiser is the president (suffixation);

ganjuberserk – bodyguard (word composition);

litter – garbage (alternation - replacement of letters);

procurator – prosecutor (suffixation);

a homeworker pilot is a pilot who controls an online device (vocabulary);

Orc is a human living in the land country of Orkland;

babuvian – baboon+bonvian (contamination);

impatient – oppositionist (prefix);

Manitou – deity (transliteration);

Manitou –money, video, computer equipment (transliteration);

Neslova, nominating States:

Euraich – Europe, the European Union (contamination);

Yamoto is the ancient name of the Japanese state;

Brazil – Brazil;

Urkaina – Ukraine (alternation);

The Kingdom of Shen – China;

Siberian Republic – Siberia;

Bizantium or Big Biz – Byzantium (alternation);

Orkland is the land of the Orcs (word structure, transliteration;)

offshore – offshore (alterations).

Neslova – abstract nouns:

democracy – democracy +dictatorship (contamination);

Spastika – swastika (alternation);

The Holocaust is the Holocaust (suffixation).

Neslova – specific nouns:

Snuff – video, screen (transliteration: snuff, snuff out – kill);

kvasola – kvass+cola (contamination);

psambots – spam bots (alternation, word composition);

dumidrol – medicine (alternation);

microcolysey – social ring (affixation);

mandalaika – mandolin + balalaika (contamination).

The work uses 6 types of non-trivial phrases according to scheme A (adjective) + N (noun) and N (noun) + N (noun):

N(word)+N(word), A(word)+N(word), A(non-word)+N(word), A(word)+N(non-tin), A(non-tin)+N(non-tin), N(non-tin)+N(not a word). The following are examples of the author's non-trivial phrases by V. Pelevin.

N(word)+N(word):

cubes of words;

The Era of Saturation;

bangs of wisdom;

patterns of sounds;

a buyer of children.

A(word)+N(word):

Holy views – images of Manitou;

temple celluloid is an information carrier;

flying cities;

land-based countries;

temple film;

top people;

salty freshness;

funeral cart;

Operational tablets;

accretion halo;

an ephemeral console.

A(non-tin)+ N:

Church English – (word composition);

Upper Russian language – (word composition);

Upper-Middle Siberian language – (word composition);

semi–civilian medal - (affixation);

manitual demarchy – (contamination).

A+ N(non-tin):

cyclopean offshore – (alternation);

equestrian ganjuberserki – (word composition);

green sarifan – (contamination);

Geranthophilic snaps – (transliteration);

percussive discoursmonger – (word composition, transliteration);

The Manitou Witnesses – (transliteration).

A(non-tin)+ N(non-tin):

liberal conservative – (alterations);

 liberal democracy – (alteration, contamination);

 N(non-tin)+ N(non-tin):

offshore Euraich;

Yamoto Offshore;

Urkain's moped.

Text attractors - non-verbal and non-trivial phrases are used in the novel SNUFF to create a fictional absurd post-apocalyptic text world and actualize the author's idea, forcing the reader to hold attention to certain elements of the text and creating the effect of cognitive participation.

The relevance of the research is due to the need to identify trends in the production of occasional non-original and non-trivial combinations in literary works.

In conclusion, it can be concluded that in all the studied areas, such as foreign language teaching, Internet usage analysis, cognitive poetics, journalism, the use of the attractor model is justified, often used and has prospects for development. In learning a foreign language, the involvement of elements of the theory of VTS activates the motivation of both the student and the teacher, helping to explain periods of regression, plateaus and sudden progress in learning a foreign language. Using the attractor concept in web education systems, you can get a more detailed understanding of how students use the WEB platform and how it can be modified to better serve the needs of students and avoid the appearance of branching. In mass media discourse, the concept of discursive attractors has made it possible to codify the process of identifying ways to attract readers' attention to the titles of articles. In cognitive poetics, the attractor model has provided an opportunity to formalize the search for elements of a literary text that can attract the reader's attention. The main contribution of the author to the study of the topic can be called the presentation of two types of new textual attractors, namely non-verbal and non-trivial phrase. It is proved that these lexical units are able to attract the reader's attention by increasing the time of lexical decision and the ability to introduce an element of dissonance into the text. The main methods of formation of attractors – non-cycles and the most common schemes of attractors - non-trivial phrases in V. Pelevin's novel S.N.U.F.F. are revealed. This study contributes to the development of principles and approaches to studying the effects of occasionalisms on the reader, as well as understanding the mechanism of their production.

Further research can be directed to a comparative analysis of the production of non-original and non-trivial combinations in foreign and Russian literary works.

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