ATLAS OF LANGUAGE

AT-METZ1-0013 · ATLAS 260

Conceptual blending

Integration of selected structures from several mental spaces into a new meaning space with emergent properties.

Part of the subject path Semantics and Signs

Why is this entry in the Atlas?

A · Analytical concept R1 · Distinct contribution to understanding

Conceptual blending adds a test for emergent structure produced by integrating several mental spaces. This theoretical account must remain explicit rather than being imposed on every creative expression.

Colours and admission grounds

The rectangular label identifies the entry function: F – linguistic figure or procedure; A – analytical concept; G – foundational concept; E – selected concrete case. The rounded badge indicates the admission ground: R1 – distinctive contribution; R2 – necessary foundation; R3 – justified illustrative case. This editorial rationale explains the current selection rather than claiming an undocumented original selection history.

Explanation

Conceptual blending is the selective integration of structures from multiple mental spaces into a new blended space with emergent properties. In the thought “This atlas is a landscape,” one space supplies concepts and relations while another supplies places, paths, and maps. Within the blend, concepts become visitable locations, relations become paths, and inquiry becomes travel—consequences not fully present in either input alone. Blending theory addresses not only poetic metaphor but everyday inference, counterfactual thought, grammar, and creative problem solving. Projection and constraint are crucial: not everything enters the blend, and background input spaces remain available for interpretation. The concept presents novelty as controlled composition without reducing it to addition or unconstrained imagination.

Movement of thought

1. Several mental spaces first provide distinct roles, relations, and background assumptions for a current interpretive task. 2. Selected structures are projected across correspondences into a shared integration space rather than transferred wholesale. 3. New roles, images, and inferences emerge in the blend that were not already complete within any single input. 4. A counter-test reconstructs inputs, mappings, and emergent structure and separates integration from listing or incompatible metaphor collision. 5. The new configuration feeds back into its inputs and opens further actions, questions, and perspectives without erasing its origins.

Scientific use case

Cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis reconstruct inputs, generic correspondences, selective projection, and emergent inference. Comparative annotation tests whether blending explains more than metaphor or analogy alone.

Example

The notion of “data flow” combines abstract information processing with moving water: data can be channelled, blocked, or diverted even though it is not liquid.

Counterexample

“The atlas contains concepts and relations” lists properties within one domain. Without multiple input spaces and emergent integration, it does not require analysis as conceptual blending.

Distinction

Distinguish blending from simple feature addition, analogy as correspondence, metaphor as directed domain mapping, and incompatible mixed metaphor. Blending posits selective multi-space integration with emergence; not every creative expression requires it.

Effect on thought and perception

Conceptual blending explains how thought coordinates partial structures to produce new, actionable spaces of meaning across several domains.

Resonance

Separate imaginative spaces enter relation and form a third configuration that retains echoes of its sources while possessing new possibilities.

Cite this entry

Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Conceptual blending“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-METZ1-0013. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-METZ1-0013

https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-METZ1-0013

The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.

Historical background

Fauconnier and Turner’s 2003 account presents blending as selective projection between mental spaces. A basic integration network contains two inputs, a generic space, and a blend. The projected material can support emergent structure not available in either input alone. Composition, completion through background knowledge, and elaboration describe ways of developing that structure. The article’s opening note traces the account to earlier publications, including work on conceptual integration from 1995; this is an authorial retrospective, not a claim that the earlier original has been independently reread here. The network is an explanatory model, not evidence that every act of understanding follows a single empirically established procedure.

How conceptual history changes the analysis

Identify what is selected from each input and what new inference the blend supports. Then test the inference against the separate situations. Conceptual blending and conceptual integration name the same approach here, not rival theories invented by their separate Atlas entries.

Additional example

Original example: A runner imagines today’s run and last year’s run as one race, finding herself ahead of her earlier self at the sixth kilometre. The blend supplies a shared event that never literally occurred. Countercheck: merely listing two finish times does not yet construct that imagined race.

References for the historical section

Historical source evidence and Atlas applications remain separate; this import does not assert new first attestations or a fresh exhaustive source verification.