Creativity and Convention: The Pragmatics of Everyday Figurative Speech (original) (raw)
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Some Psycholinguistic Aspects of Metaphor. Technical Report No. 112
The standard dictionary definition of a metaphor--a word or phrase applied to an object or concept that it does not literally denote in order to suggest comparison with another object or,concept--is inadequate in that It does not deal with whole sentence metaphors and that it provides no way of distinguishing between a metaphor and a semantic anomaly or a falsehood. A superior, alternative definition is that a metaphor is the use of an expression that is contextually anomalous and for which-the metaphoric tension' is in principle eliminable. Tension elimination can be conveniently discussed in terms of three functions that metaphors can perform: expressing things that are literally inexpressible, conveying concepts in a compact-manner, and expressing ideas vividly. Results of experiments ,on the comprehension oi metaphors suggest that two important variables affecting the comprehension of nonliteral uses'of language in general, and of metaphors in particular, are the nature of and the amount of contextual support. Finally, it might seem that there is an important difference between metaphors and similes because, the apparent violation of conversational postulates, at least of the "Sincerity postulate, is imiediately obvious in the case of the metaphor, but much less obvious for the simile. (GW)
Recent developments in metaphor theory
Several scholars have proposed alternative views to conceptual metaphor theory (see, for example, Carston, 2006, 2008;. How are the modified, refined, and alternative theories related to each other and standard conceptual metaphor theory, and which theory provides the best account of the phenomenon of metaphor? The particular approaches I will consider in this paper include the theory of metaphor as categorization, standard conceptual metaphor theory, blending theory, the neural theory of metaphor, conceptual metaphor theory as based on the idea of main meaning focus, and relevance theory. I will present the various theories through the analysis of a single metaphorical sentence: This surgeon is a butcher. I will propose that conceptual metaphor theory as based on the idea of the main meaning focus gives us a good way of characterizing the emergence of the sentence's meaning. This characterization consists of a four-stage process. First, there exist two independent conceptual categories: BUTCHERY and SURGERY. Second, due to the similarity between the two, a metaphorical relationship is established between them. Third, the property of incompetence emerges in the concept of BUTCHERY in light of and against the background of the concept of SURGERY. Fourth, this property is projected into the blend, in which the property will now characterize the surgeon. I will point out that this approach is compatible with several other views, such as Ruiz de Mendoza's Combined Input Hypothesis and with aspects of relevance theory.
Discussion note Metaphor interpretation and motivation in relevance theory
Relevance theory has long been taken as a theory focusing on hearer's recognition of intention and her/his inference of speaker's implicatures based on explicatures. Recently, Kecskes (2010) takes a new Socio-cognitive Approach (SCA) to pragmatics based on his critique of relevance theory. In this paper, we argue that his critique is flawed on several points. First, the hearer-centered notion of relevance is not completely correct. Rather, relevance theory does not ignore speaker's role in the course of communication. We analyze the process of metaphor interpretation to show that relevance theory is a full-fledged theory taking into consideration the roles of both speaker and hearer in communication. Second, the motivation problem is not totally ignored by relevance theory, either. We argue that there have been three pressures to motivate metaphor interpretation as well as communication, namely, the pressure of being relevant, the pressure of embodiment and the pressure of context, which constitute the three primary motivations for metaphor interpretation.
Lexical pragmatics, ad hoc concepts and metaphor: A Relevance Theory perspective
Pragmatics
Ostensive communication, the paradigm case of which is verbal communication, is the domain of a dedicated cognitive system, according to Relevance Theory (RT). This 'pragmatics' module is responsible for inferring the content or meaning that the communicator intends by his/her ostensive stimulus. An important sub-process within the system is the adjustment or modulation of lexically-encoded meaning, which makes it possible for speakers to communicate a vastly greater range of concepts than those that are stably encoded in their linguistic system. This includes the meaning communicated by at least some cases of metaphorically-used language. Taking a broadly Fodorian view that lexical concepts are atomic (unstructured), this paper looks at some issues raised by the idea that addressees infer ad hoc concepts as part of the on-line comprehension process. As a cognitive-scientific theory, RT is open to evidence from a range of sources, including native speaker-hearer intuitions, recorded instances of linguistic communication (corpus data) from both communicatively typical and atypical populations, results from relevant psychological and psycholinguistic experiments, and findings in cognitive neuroscience on brain activation during both utterance production and comprehension. At the end of the paper, some tentative suggestions are made of questions arising from work in theoretical lexical pragmatics which might be amenable to investigation at the neuropragmatic level. *
Metaphor and the 'Emergent Property' Problem: A Relevance-Theoretic Approach
Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication, 2007
The interpretation of metaphorical utterances often results in the attribution of emergent properties; these are properties which are neither standardly associated with the individual constituents of the utterance in isolation nor derivable by standard rules of semantic composition. For example, an utterance of 'Robert is a bulldozer' may be understood as attributing to Robert such properties as single-mindedness, insistence on having things done in his way, insensitivity to the opinions/feelings of others, although none of these is included in the encyclopaedic information associated with bulldozers (earth-clearing machines). An adequate pragmatic account of metaphor interpretation must provide an explanation of the processes through which emergent properties are derived. In this paper, we attempt to develop an explicit account of the derivation process couched within the framework of relevance theory. The key features of our account are: (a) metaphorical language use is taken to lie on a continuum with other cases of loose use, including hyperbole; (b) metaphor interpretation is a wholly inferential process, which does not require associative mappings from one domain (e.g. machines) to another (e.g. human beings); (c) the derivation of emergent properties involves no special interpretive mechanisms not required for the interpretation of ordinary, literal utterances.
Linguagem em (Dis)curso, 2014
In this article we show the evolution of the view of metaphor in relevance theory and challenge its deflationary account of metaphor, defended from its inception, as loosening in a continuum. In current relevance theory, loose uses not only convey implicatures but also explicatures in which ad hoc concepts appear (CARSTON, 2002, 2010a; SPERBER; WILSON, 2008). These, in the case of metaphor, cause the emergent property issue which, according to them, is solved taking into account that a loose use may be included in a loose use (WILSON; CARSTON, 2008). In addition, the most creative cases have to be explained considering an interpretation route different from ad hoc concept construction (CARSTON, 2010b). These moves generate new problems and thus we argue that metaphorical interpretation can be better explained resorting to metaphorical ad hoc concepts that result from a partial mapping from one conceptual domain into another (ROMERO; SORIA, 2005).
A Cognitive Semantics Study of Metaphor (1
This article deals with metaphor from a linguistic perspective. A question arises here as to whether to which field of language study metaphor belongs. How to answer the question is subject to our understanding of metaphorical expressions. When one encounters a situation in which a metaphorical expression is used, they have a kind of construal to conceptualize the expression. Thus, the field of linguistics which is concerned with studying metaphors is cognitive linguistics since people use their cognitive abilities to conceptualize and understand the metaphorical expressions. With respect to this, George Lakoff adopted a theory under the title Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). Here I try to shed light on some aspects of this theory. What is taken into consideration in the paper is a detailed account of metaphor as a cognitive device, the three basic types of conceptual metaphor proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), namely orientational, ontological, and structural. Also, the characteristic features of conceptual metaphors like asymmetry, systematicity, and conventionality. Additionally, the relationship between conceptual metaphor and image schemas is shown in the last section. One of the conclusions of the article is that conceptual metaphor is an integral part of our everyday lives; we cannot interact normally without using conceptual metaphors.
Metaphor, ad hoc concepts and word meaning-more questions than answers
CARSTON, ROBIN, Thoughts & Utterances: The …, 2002
Recent work in relevance-theoretic pragmatics develops the idea that understanding verbal utterances involves processes of ad hoc concept construction. The resulting concepts may be narrower or looser than the lexical concepts which provide the input to the process. Two of the many issues that arise are considered in this paper: (a) the applicability of the idea to the understanding of metaphor, and (b) the extent to which lexical forms are appropriately thought of as encoding concepts.