week 6, post 1

Gilles Fauconnier rather fittingly describes his idea of conceptual blending using many metaphors and little stories. One particularly memorable one that illustrates the concept involves a ski instructor teaching a pupil "who happens to be French" how to have proper posture while skiing down a steep slope. By telling the student to imagine that he is a waiter in Paris and must keep his tray flat so as not to spill the Champagne, he is able to teach him the proper position. The image and the situation are the two necessary inputs, but conceptual blending in this situation is the act of mentally carrying the tray while physically skiing.

These "blends," Fauconnier argues, are a common part of our thought processes, and an important part of creative thinking. More complicated than simply the combination of the inputs, it is the thing that gives rhetorical meaning and emotional content to thoughts or activities.

Though Fauconnier himself does not apply his conceptual blending idea to religion, it is very feasible to do. If you think of the French ski student metaphor in a different light- substitute a preacher for the instructor, for example, and parishoner for his student. The preacher, maybe, tells the parishoner how to live a good, moral life, using examples of stories from the scriptures. The parishoner lives his life with the stories in mind, constantly applying them to what he does, and this gives it more rhetorical meaning.