Toward a cognitive model of poetic effects in figurative language

This paper proposes a cognitive model of how poetic effects are achieved by a work of literature, especially by individual figurative expressions such as metaphor and irony. According to the proposed model, poetic effects are evoked during interpretation of a figurative expression, if great processing effort caused by an incongruity involved in the figurative expression is rewarded by a rich interpretation which happens too fast to adjust to what is happening. This paper provides a comprehensive explanation of the poetic effects for metaphor and irony based on the proposed model, together with some related discussions. Finally, it suggests a possibility that the proposed model can be extended to the relevant phenomena such as humor.