Linguistic Theories, Approaches, and Methods

Abstract

This article analyzes some aspects of the interdisciplinary convergences between cognitive sciences (psychology and neurosciences) and literary theory, with a stress on the blurring of the boundaries that separate fact from fiction in the 1990 until now. The focus falls on the misleading uses of metaphor as “transportation” and “simulation,” which led some psychologists and neuroscience specialists to overstate the powers of fiction, while also erasing the specificity of fiction. Finally, it shows how some literary theorists who embraced the simulation thesis were forced to invent a pseudo-simulation, a counter simulation or an anti-simulation to reassert the distinctive features of fiction.