Real world risk in speculative fiction: how can cognitive poetics be applied to the design of sound-led text games which incorporate difficult information?

Bown, A (2021) Real world risk in speculative fiction: how can cognitive poetics be applied to the design of sound-led text games which incorporate difficult information? PhD thesis, Bath Spa University. doi: 10.17870/bathspa.00014355

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Abstract

This thesis documents a research project that applies cognitive poetics to the writing, design and build of three playable prototypes that combine text with spatial sound. Each prototype tells a different part of one original work of speculative fiction, the theme of which is species extinction. In order to focus the research on how texts can incorporate difficult information, the prototypes are designed with reference to narrative transportation theory. Narrative transportation is a psychological framework for measuring how involvement in a story can cause persuasive information to be absorbed and beliefs to be changed. Throughout the thesis, three main lines of enquiry are pursued; how cognitive poetics can be used to develop an understanding of the psychological processes involved in reading, how this understanding can be used to create a user-centred writing approach, and how cognitive poetics can be synthesised with sound design theory and practice to create narrative transportation. In part one of the thesis, the psychological processes involved in narrative transportation are researched through the application of cognitive poetics to readings of multiple texts. A specific aspect of cognitive poetics - cognitive grammar - is explored in detail, allowing for a synthesis of theories of linguistic grammar with musical grammar and cinematic sound design practice. The second part of the thesis documents the iterative design process used to make the prototypes. During this process, design questions are addressed through the application of cognitive poetics, cinematic sound theory and musical grammar to the practice of multimodal writing. The user interaction designed into these prototypes is also informed by research into narrative transportation.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Note:	The document attached to this record is the contextualizing research section of the thesis only. It does not include the creative component, which is the three playable prototypes. This research was funded by the South-West & Wales Doctoral Training Partnership.
Keywords:	PhD by Practice, creative writing, digital writing, multimodal writing, speculative fiction, sound theory, musical grammar, extinction, environmental activism, narrative transportation, cognitive poetics
Divisions:	School of Writing, Publishing and the Humanities
Date Deposited:	06 Oct 2021 12:53
Last Modified:	19 Feb 2024 18:41
URI / Page ID:	https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/14355

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