Attributing minds to vampires in Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend
For Palmer (2004, 2010), and other proponents of a cognitive narratology, research into real-world minds in the cognitive sciences provides insights into readers’ experiences of fictional minds. In this article, I explore the application of such research to the minds constructed for the vampire char...
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| Format: | Article |
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SAGE Publications
2015
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28744/ |
| _version_ | 1848793635034759168 |
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| author | Nuttall, Louise |
| author_facet | Nuttall, Louise |
| author_sort | Nuttall, Louise |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | For Palmer (2004, 2010), and other proponents of a cognitive narratology, research into real-world minds in the cognitive sciences provides insights into readers’ experiences of fictional minds. In this article, I explore the application of such research to the minds constructed for the vampire characters in Richard Matheson’s (1954) science fiction/horror novel I Am Legend. I draw upon empirical research into ‘mind attribution’ in social psychology, and apply Cognitive Grammar (Langacker, 2008), and its notion of ‘construal’, as a framework for the application of such findings to narrative. In my analysis, I suggest that readers’ attribution of mental-states to the vampires in Matheson’s novel is strategically limited through a number of choices in their linguistic construal. Drawing on online reader responses to the novel, I argue that readers’ understanding of these other minds plays an important role in their empathetic experience and their ethical judgement of the novel’s main character and focaliser, Robert Neville. Finally, I suggest that the limited mind attribution for the vampires invited through their construal contributes to the presentation of a ‘mind style’ (Fowler, 1977) for this character. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:03:25Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-28744 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:03:25Z |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publisher | SAGE Publications |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-287442020-05-04T17:02:54Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28744/ Attributing minds to vampires in Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend Nuttall, Louise For Palmer (2004, 2010), and other proponents of a cognitive narratology, research into real-world minds in the cognitive sciences provides insights into readers’ experiences of fictional minds. In this article, I explore the application of such research to the minds constructed for the vampire characters in Richard Matheson’s (1954) science fiction/horror novel I Am Legend. I draw upon empirical research into ‘mind attribution’ in social psychology, and apply Cognitive Grammar (Langacker, 2008), and its notion of ‘construal’, as a framework for the application of such findings to narrative. In my analysis, I suggest that readers’ attribution of mental-states to the vampires in Matheson’s novel is strategically limited through a number of choices in their linguistic construal. Drawing on online reader responses to the novel, I argue that readers’ understanding of these other minds plays an important role in their empathetic experience and their ethical judgement of the novel’s main character and focaliser, Robert Neville. Finally, I suggest that the limited mind attribution for the vampires invited through their construal contributes to the presentation of a ‘mind style’ (Fowler, 1977) for this character. SAGE Publications 2015-02-09 Article PeerReviewed Nuttall, Louise (2015) Attributing minds to vampires in Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend. Language and Literature, 24 (1). pp. 23-39. ISSN 0963-9470 Fictional minds mind attribution Cognitive Grammar construal empathy ethics intermentality mind style I Am Legend Matheson. http://lal.sagepub.com/content/24/1/23 doi:10.1177/0963947014561834 doi:10.1177/0963947014561834 |
| spellingShingle | Fictional minds mind attribution Cognitive Grammar construal empathy ethics intermentality mind style I Am Legend Matheson. Nuttall, Louise Attributing minds to vampires in Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend |
| title | Attributing minds to vampires in Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend |
| title_full | Attributing minds to vampires in Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend |
| title_fullStr | Attributing minds to vampires in Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend |
| title_full_unstemmed | Attributing minds to vampires in Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend |
| title_short | Attributing minds to vampires in Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend |
| title_sort | attributing minds to vampires in richard matheson’s i am legend |
| topic | Fictional minds mind attribution Cognitive Grammar construal empathy ethics intermentality mind style I Am Legend Matheson. |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28744/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28744/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28744/ |