To uncover time-related emotions in medieval Japanese literary genres, the SNSF project uses a set of methodological tools, which comprise narratology, cognitive linguistics, and historical discourse semantics,
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Methodological Approach
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Lingustic Level
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Focus
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cognitive linguistics
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words, phrases, sentences
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time-relevant conceptual metaphors
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(cognitive) narratology
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texts, scenes, narrative segments
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temporal structure, beginnings and ends, time-specific paradigm scenarios
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historical semantics
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words, word fields
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time-relevant semantic networks, word and discourse fields, connotative features
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The design is assisted by historical grammar, a database research, and a chronographic analysis (cf. TIMEJ, Steineck 2018). A particular focus will be the close reading of beginnings and endings (cf. Richardson 2002; Friedrich/Hammer/Witthöft 2013) as well as “paradigm scenarios” (de Sousa 1979: 54-56) of the source texts, because they provide essential temporal information. To be able to adapt to the specific sources and genres under investigation, the analytical parameters will be adjusted and supplemented individually.
This methodological design allows for a systematic and encompassing survey of aesthetically objectivized temporal emotions in medieval Japanese literature which will uncover the plurality of contemporary time concepts and their social, historical, and cultural embeddedness, shedding new light on how people in medieval Japan appropriated, acculturated, and conceptually internalized the world and the time they were living in. This again helps us—in the present—to reflect on our behavior in the handling and perception of time.
