La citazione come atto cognitivo

Abstract

In this article I examine the cognitive aspects of quotation; this contribution should be considered as a part  of a project raising the issue of intertextuality in a new way. The questions to which cognitive applications  may give response are the following:  

1. What happens in our mind when we quote?  
2. What happens when we listen to or read a quotation?  
3. What happens when we look for a quotation?  
4. What kind of memory is activated?  
5. What is the cognitive function of a quotation?  
6. Can a quotation influence the form and method of reasoning?  
7. If this is the case, what areas of argumentation are involved?  

The fields of cognitive psychology to which it is necessary to refer in order to answer these questions are  those of knowledge representation and information processing (particularly the process of transformation  of declarative knowledge into procedural knowledge), the theories about the models and structures of  memory (procedural, episodic, semantic), the memory processes (especially its recovery), the theory of reasoning.