In this research I aim to contribute to a better understanding of transitionality in poetic language by applying
for the first time the hypotheses recently developed by pioneers in the emerging field of cognitive poetics to a living tradition.
The benefits of working with a living tradition are tremendous: it is easy to establish the literacy level of the authors and the
mode of recording of poetic text is also easy to elicit or, when necessary, to control. I chose a living poetic tradition
originating from the Jbala (Morocco). Although it is not epic and local poets create only relatively short poetic texts,
memorisation is also used; it has been demonstrated that oral improvisation and the use of memory are not mutually exclusive. This
suggests that research on the living Jebli tradition holds promise for our understanding of oral poetry, and for revisiting the
intriguing question of formulaic language.