On a metaphorical scale in Expressive Dialogue (original) (raw)
2012
When people make conversation they use all kinds of devices to convey their messages, including metaphor. Although metaphor is often associated with creative, complex and rhetorical texts (such as fiction, poetry, or speeches), metaphors are actually a characteristic feature of everyday discourse. The type of metaphor used varies per register, from extensive analogies to a single word and from novel comparisons to conventional expressions. Which type of metaphor is typical of conversation can only be established in comparison to other registers. This thesis provides a unique register-specific description of metaphor use in conversation that results from a corpus-based, cross-register comparison between conversation, fiction, academic writing and news texts. It shows how metaphors in conversation can be identified by using an explicit and reliable tool for metaphor identification (MIPVU) and adopts a three-dimensional perspective on metaphor analysis that distinguishes between metaphor in language, metaphor in thought and metaphor in communication. The quantitative analysis takes into account the frequencies, distribution, form, variation and communicative function of metaphorical expressions in casual conversation. Moreover, an experiment focuses on the multimodal nature of conversations by exploring the effect of tone of voice on metaphor processing. The thesis stresses the need for a clear distinction between different areas of metaphor analysis as well as the need for an explicit method for metaphor identification and shows how interdisciplinary, corpus-based and comparative research can lead to valid, new, register-specific insights.
The Pragmatic Functions of Metaphorical Language
A Life in Cognition, Language, Cognition, and Mind 11, 2022
Figures of speech have been suggested to play important pragmatic roles in language. Yet the nature of these pragmatic functions has not been specified in detail, and it is not clear what particular social-communicative purposes metaphors fulfill. I propose that metaphors are utilized in two distinct ways in communication. First, similarly to indirect speech, they can be utilized in social bargaining: by expressing intentions, beliefs and desires in a veiled manner, they put the burden of interpretation on the hearer, which makes them revocable and thus a great tool for negotiations. Secondly, metaphors can be used to transform the literal meaning of words to describe phenomena and refer to concepts that do not have a lexical entry, by transferring some abstract sense figuratively. This latter use is not only a tool of verbal creativity but a means of linguistic change as it adds novel senses to words. Metaphor does not seem to be a mere example of loose language use, but a sophisticated communicational tool, either to deliberately create ambiguity in a deniable manner, or to extend word meaning beyond the public lexicon, which puts some fundamental mechanisms of abstract thought to figurative use.
Talking Metaphors: Metaphors and the Philosophy of Language
PhD Dissertation – University of Nottingham, 2013
In this dissertation I defend a non-indexicalist contextualist account of metaphorical interpretation. This theory, which works within Kaplan's double-index semantic framework, claims that context does not have the only role of determining the content expressed by an utterance, but also the function of fixing the appropriate circumstance of evaluation relative to which that content is evaluated. My claim is that the metaphorical dimension of an utterance can be found in the circumstance of evaluation, and not in the content which is expressed by the utterance. To that effect,
Part I Metaphor in Discourse: Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives
In the current climate, it is taken for granted that metaphor is important and ubiquitous in language. Metaphor is no longer discussed as a 'violation'of normal verbal meaning (eg, Levin, 1977), but rather as one form of normal verbal meaning. But of course if metaphor were all that 'normal', it would not stimulate the interest that it does.
Notes towards the analysis of metaphor (2000)
Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: …, 2000
G. LAKOFF and M. JOHNSON's theory of cognitive linguistics and their definition of metaphor and metaphorical concepts have led to a variety of qualitative approaches whose common aim is to reconstruct metaphorical concepts and metaphorical reasoning in everyday language. Targets of these approaches were cross-cultural, cultural, subcultural, individual matters and metaphoric interaction. To illustrate this, two different strategies for a systematic procedure are briefly outlined.
Journal of Pragmatics, 2000
Goatly's book The language of metaphors is an extensive description of the linguistic appearances of metaphors and their functions and purposes. New insights into the analysis of metaphorical interpretation are provided. Many corpus examples (from literature and common use) are analyzed, with respect to the different grammatical forms in which Vehicle, Topic, Ground, or marker of metaphorical interpretation each may occur in discourse. This review will not provide the most pleasant reading experience you ever had. Apart from the capabilities of the reviewer, there are three reasons why encapsulating The language of metaphors does not lead to a neat review. The first is that Goatly discusses many different approaches to the subject of metaphor, introducing a lot of terminology. Secondly, his way of analyzing metaphor consists of categorizing many different appearances of metaphors, which leads to mentioning a lot of category names. The last reason is that Goatly uses capital letters to indicate terminology and categorizing terms. Frankly, it does not make the book itself a pleasure to read. With respect to the use of capital letters, I have chosen to keep a term capitalized (e.g. Topic), whenever I cite one. When I use similar terminology myself, explaining aspects of Goatly's work, I do not capitalize (e.g. topicalize). So, a capitalized word in this review is always taken from Goatly's book. Terms that are not capitalized in the review, but obviously stem from the book, did not have capitals in the book either. The term 'metaphor', for instance, is not capitalized in The language of metaphors. The chapters of the book can be divided into three groups: the first four chapters are involved with various linguistic approaches to the analysis of metaphorical meaning. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 are dedicated to an analysis of how the linguistic appearance of a metaphor or one of its constituting parts influences its interpretation. Chapters 5 and lO treat the communicative functions of metaphors.
Essays on metaphor in language and thought
DELTA: Documentação de Estudos em Lingüística Teórica e Aplicada, 2006
for the Conference on Metaphor in Language and Thought, promoted by the Programa de Pós-Graduação em Lingüística Aplicada e Estudos da Linguagem (Post-Graduate Programme in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies) and by GEIM Grupo de Estudos da Indeterminação e da Metáfora (Group of Studies on Indeterminacy and Metaphor). 1 The essays in this book are revised versions of papers presented in the conference which resulted in two other publications under preparation. The first, entitled Confronting Metaphor in Use: An Applied Linguistic Approach, is being organized by Mara Sophia Zanotto (PUC-SP), Lynne Cameron (Univ. of Leeds) and Marilda Cavalcanti (UNICAMP), and the second, entitled Metaphor in Applied Linguistics(provisional title), is being organized by Mara Sophia Zanotto (PUC-SP), Solange Coelho Vereza (UFF) and Maria Isabel Asperti Nardi (UNESP-Marília), the same editors of the present volume. The five-day conference 2 consisted of non-simultaneous activities: plenary talks, round tables, workshops and individual papers. This resulted in an intense and productive interaction among the participants.
The Production of Metaphoric Expressions in Spontaneous Speech: A Controlled-Setting Experiment
Metaphor and Symbol, 2005
We introduce a novel experimental paradigm for eliciting metaphoric expressions in spontaneous speech, under controlled conditions. Participants were presented with a pair of words on a PC monitor and were asked to provide a verbal response describing a conceptual relation between the stimuli. The proportion of metaphoric responses depended on the stimuli in a predictable manner. A large proportion of metaphoric responses was obtained for stimuli that were derived from existing metaphors. The chronometric study of metaphor production in this paradigm produced 3 major findings: (a) a figurative-literal difference: responses that included metaphorical expressions showed greater reaction times (RTs) than responses with only literal expressions; (b) familiarity effect: responses that included more-familiar metaphorical expressions showed smaller RTs than responses that included less-familiar metaphorical expressions; (c) degree of metaphoricity effect: responses that included highly metaphorical expressions showed greater RTs than responses that included less metaphorical expressions. We discuss the processing implications of these results.
Preface: essays on metaphor in language and thought
DELTA: Documentação de Estudos em Lingüística Teórica e Aplicada, 2010
The phenomenon of metaphor, in terms of its cognitive role, has drawn the attention of an ever-increasing number of Brazilian scholars since the early 90s, but it was only in 2002 that Mara Sophia Zanotto from PUC (Pontífica Universidade Católica), organized the first conference in São Paulo, in plenary sessions, which attracted an audience of around 80 researchers. Since then many Brazilian scholars have taken part in important discussions on metaphor in language and thought around the world, increasing the interest in the topic in the country. Three years after the First International Conference on Metaphor in Language and Thought (ICMLP), the second conference, organized by Solange Vereza at UFF (Universidade Federal Fluminense), Rio de Janeiro, reached the dimension of a large meeting, offering a number of round tables, individual paper sessions, workshops and plenaries, with much more participants and massive presence of students.