Figurative processes in meaning interpretation: A case study of novel English compounds

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Onysko
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Figurative Meaning ◽  
Test Items ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Semantic ◽  
Nominal Compounds ◽  
Noun Compounds ◽  
Meaning Interpretation ◽  
Metaphor And Metonymy

AbstractThis article contributes to cognitive semantic research on the construal of figurative meaning in noun-noun compounds. Previous studies in this field have shown a predilection towards using conceptual blending theory in order to describe the process of meaning formation in nominal compounds. Observations have largely been based on analyses of established compounds and their conventionalized meanings. The current paper explores an alternative approach and methodology. A study was conducted in which participants were asked to interpret the meaning of a set of novel noun-noun compounds. These meaning descriptions are taken as an empirical base to investigate figurative interpretations. Since previous applications of conceptual blending theory have highlighted some limitations of describing meaning construal in compounds, and since the relation between conceptual blending and related processes of conceptual metaphor and metonymy has not been clarified yet, the analysis in the current study takes a step back and relies on conceptual metaphor and metonymy. Besides providing an overview of the amount of figurative meaning interpretations given to the different test items, the paper pays particular attention to the methodological challenges of applying conceptual metaphor and metonymy theory in the attempt to capture the figurative nature of the meaning descriptions. A close analysis of selected meaning interpretations provides a first impression on how applying conceptual metaphor and metonymy can pave the way towards a more differentiated understanding of associative complexity in figurative meaning interpretations.

An analysis of Arabic metaphorical and/or metonymical compounds

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aseel Zibin ◽  
Abdel Rahman Mitib Salim Altakhaineh
Keyword(s):  
Native Speaker ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
The Other ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Semantic Transparency ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
The One ◽  
Metaphor And Metonymy

Abstract This study provides an analysis of Arabic metaphorical and/or metonymical compounds, extracted from a 20,000-word corpus, based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Conceptual Blending Theory. The analysis focuses on the semantic transparency of these compounds, on the one hand, and their linguistic creativity, on the other. In line with Benczes (2006, 2010), we suggest that the comprehension of Arabic metaphorical and/or metonymical compounds is possibly one of degree depending on which element is affected by metaphor and metonymy. Here, it is proposed that there are compounds which are more creative than others. We argue that in addition to the degree of semantic transparency and linguistic creativity of Arabic metaphorical and/or metonymical compounds, there are other factors that can influence the comprehension of these compounds; namely, the frequency of the compound, the conventionality of the metaphors involved in the compound and whether conceptual metonymy acts on the compound. Our proposal is supported by the judgments of 12 native-speaker informants, who were asked to provide the meaning of 35 Arabic metaphorical and/or metonymical compounds. The study concludes with recommendations for further research.

Metaphor, Cognition, Culture

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltán Kövecses
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
The Other ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Culture And Cognition ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
The One ◽  
Cultural Reality ◽  
Metaphor And Metonymy

The chapter reports on work concerned with the issue of how conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) functions as a link between culture and cognition. Three large areas are investigated to this effect. First, work on the interaction between conceptual metaphors, on the one hand, and folk and expert theories of emotion, on the other, is surveyed. Second, the issue of metaphorical universality and variation is addressed, together with that of the function of embodiment in metaphor. Third, a contextualist view of conceptual metaphors is proposed. The discussion of these issues leads to a new and integrated understanding of the role of metaphor and metonymy in creating cultural reality and that of metaphorical variation across and within cultures, as well as individuals.

scholarly journals Coordinating nominal compounds: Universal vs. areal tendencies

Linguistics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (6) ◽  
pp. 1197-1243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giorgio Francesco Arcodia
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
Irian Jaya ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Nominal Compounds ◽  
Noun Compounds ◽  
The One ◽  
Referential Function

AbstractCoordinating compounds, i.e. complex word forms in which the constituent lexemes are in a coordination relation, may be divided into two classes: hyperonymic, in which the referent of the whole compound is the “sum” of the meanings of the constituent lexemes (Korowaiyumdefól‘(her) husband-wife, couple’; van Enk, Gerrit J., & Lourens de Vries. 1997.The Korowai of Irian Jaya: Their language in its cultural context. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 66), and hyponymic, where the compound designates a single referent having features of all the constituents (Englishactor-director). It has been proposed that languages choose either type as the one with the “tightest” marking pattern; whereas the crosslinguistic tendency is to have tighter hyperonymic compounds, most languages of Europe rather have tighter hyponymic compounds (Arcodia, Giorgio Francesco, Nicola Grandi, & Bernhard Wälchli 2010. Coordination in compounding. In Sergio Scalise & Irene Vogel (eds.),Cross-disciplinary issues in compounding, 177–198. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins). In this paper, we will test this assumption on noun-noun compounds in a sample of 20 Standard Average European languages and in a balanced sample of 60 non-SAE languages, arguing that the preference for hyperonymic compounds is best explained by the default referential function of nouns; in hyponymic compounds, on the other hand, nouns are used to indicate properties. We will then compare nominal and adjectival coordinating compounds, showing that for the latter the hyponymic compounding pattern is the dominant one, as adjectives are prototypical property-denoting words.

scholarly journals A marriage of convenience or an amicable divorce: Metaphorical blends in the debates on Brexit

ExELL ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Sanja Berberović ◽  
Mersina Mujagić
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Discourse Coherence ◽  
The Way

Abstract The paper investigates the interaction of conceptual blending and conceptual metaphor in producing figurative creativity in discourse. The phenomenon of figurative creativity is defined by Kövecses (2005) as creativity arising through the cognitive mechanisms of metonymy, metaphor, and blending. Specifically, the paper examines the use of creative figurative language in the British public discourse on the topic on Brexit. The aim of this paper is to show that conventional metaphors can be creatively stretched through conceptual blending, producing instances of creative figurative language. Specifically, applying blending theory, we will analyse innovative conceptual blends, motivated by the conventional marriage/divorce metaphor. In addition, the paper also examines the way in which creative figurative language produced in metaphorical blends provides discourse coherence at intertextual and intratextual levels.

CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN COGNITIVE-SEMIOTIC INTERPRETATION

2021 ◽  
pp. 47-59
Author(s):  
L.A. Kozlova ◽  
◽  
A.V. Kremneva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Theoretical Aspect ◽  
Abstract Entity ◽  
Metaphorical Thinking ◽  
Main Thesis ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Cognitive Semantic ◽  
Contextual Variability ◽  
Concrete Entity

The article presents an attempt to view the phenomenon of conceptual metaphor in the cognitive-semiotic aspect. The object of the study is the conceptual metaphor, the subject matter is its cognitive-semantic essence and the forms of its representation. The main thesis that forms the theoretical basis of the article is that the conceptual metaphor understood as the ability of our consciousness to think of one, more abstract entity in terms of another, more concrete, entity, presents a mental phenomenon that may have not only verbal, but other forms of its representation. The main objective of the article is to carry out the analysis of visual, artefact and ontological metaphors in the cognitive-semiotic aspect and the ways of their representation in the text. The main methods of analysis conditioned by the theoretical aspect chosen for analysis are introspection, or metacognition aimed at reconstructing the work of consciousness in the process of metaphorical thinking, and the inferential method aimed at reconstructing implicit metaphorical meanings. The analysis of visual (artistic), artifact and ontological metaphors reveals that they are characterized by the same qualities as verbal metaphors: dynamism, contextual variability and existence of two their varieties: trite metaphors which reflect ordinary thinking and original ones which are the product of artistic thinking. When ontological and artefact metaphors are presented in the text, their metaphorical meanings can be presented both explicitly and implicitly and, in the latter case, their metaphorical meanings must be inferred by the reader or the linguist. The participation of nonverbal codes in the expression of metaphorical meanings does not diminish the significance of the verbal code which is another proof of the leading role of language in conceptualization and interpretation of the world. The analysis undertaken enables to confirm the main thesis as well as to reveal the explanatory potential of the cognitive-semiotic approach to the study of metaphor and, most probably, other language phenomena.

Metaphor and its humorousness: The case of nominal compounds in German

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Byongchang Kang
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Construction ◽  
Structural Formation ◽  
Figurative Meaning ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
Humor Studies ◽  
Nominal Compounds

AbstractThis paper discusses the interaction between metaphor and humor by focusing on humorous metaphor-based nominal compounds in German. The paper highlights the lexical level of verbal humor, which has been largely overlooked in the linguistic humor studies. Viewing the nominal compound as one of the smallest units of verbal humor, the present study seeks to distinguish this from discussions of metaphorical humor that are concerned with specific sentence-level constructions. Nominal compounds are simple in terms of structural formation but the two constituents play a complex role in meaning construction, and the complexity increases when metaphor is involved. It is this aspect that has the potential to generate the incongruity required to induce humor. The humor in metaphor-based nominal compounds is produced by the mechanism that creates and resolves the incongruity between the literal and the figurative meaning of the whole compound, supported by a range of meaning construction types of the metaphor-based compound. This study focuses on German nominal compounds that are marked as “humorous” in the dictionary.

On constructional blocking of metonymies

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Brdar ◽  
Rita Brdar-Szabó
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
Cognitive Operations ◽  
Linguistic Inquiry ◽  
Linguistic Structures ◽  
Grammatical Structures ◽  
Metaphor And Metonymy

Abstract The interaction between metonymy and grammar is commonly understood, in keeping with the classical cognitive linguistic doctrine about cognitive operations motivating linguistic structures, as unilateral – conceptual metaphor and metonymy shaping the grammatical system. However, we argue in this article that one of the possible corollaries of the Equipollence Hypothesis (Mairal & Ruiz de Mendoza, 2009; Ruiz de Mendoza & Luzondo Oyón, 2012) covers a truly bilateral interaction between grammatical structures and cognitive processes. The Equipollence Hypothesis is shown to allow for grammatical phenomena facilitating or constraining, i.e. blocking, the application of conceptual metonymies and their expressions across domains of linguistic inquiry. Specifically, we show in four case studies that grammatical constructions may actually pre-empt lexical (and grammatical) metonymy.

Creative noun–noun compounds

2005 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 250-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Réka Benczes
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Semantic Relationship ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
Noun Compounds ◽  
Regular Patterns ◽  
Linguistic Framework

The paper makes the following novel claims: (1) the semantics of noun–noun compounds which is activated by metaphor and/or metonymy (often termed as “exocentric” compounds in linguistics and generally regarded as semantically opaque) can be accounted for within a cognitive linguistic framework, and the term “creative compound” is proposed for such linguistic phenomena; (2) there are regular patterns of creative compounds, depending on which constituent is affected by conceptual metaphor and/or metonymy. The second part of the paper presents one type of creative compounds: noun–noun combinations whose meaning is influenced by a metaphor-based semantic relationship between the two constituents. Such compounds seem to be quite frequent in English and come in all sorts of shapes and sizes: ranging from the “simpler” cases of image metaphors to the more elaborate single scope blends. The paper will give examples of the various types and will provide detailed analyses of each, within a cognitive linguistic framework.

The concept of America in the Puritan mind

2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 195-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Szilvia Csabi
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Metaphor Analysis ◽  
Mary Rowlandson ◽  
Cotton Mather ◽  
William Byrd ◽  
The Way

This article focuses on the conceptualization of America in Puritan prose works. My assumption is that, with the help of a multitextual approach, i.e. the consideration of several prose works from several authors of the Puritan era, such as William Bradford, William Byrd, John Cotton, Edward Johnson, Cotton Mather, Mary Rowlandson, Thomas Shepard, William Stoughton and John Winthrop, we can develop a detailed account of the way Puritans understood their immigration experiences. My analysis is presented within the framework of conceptual metaphor analysis as proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and Lakoff and Turner (1989), and of conceptual blending analysis as given by Fauconnier and Turner (1998). The two methods complement each other and combine our knowledge of the Puritan concept of America present in various literary texts.

scholarly journals CONSTRUCTIVE ANALYSIS OF GERMAN AND HUNGARIAN IDIOMS

2021 ◽  
pp. 58-66
Author(s):  
Ilona Lechner
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Cognitive Tools ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Mental Strain ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Figurative Meaning ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
The Subject

The subject of the study is the examination of figurative meaning in Hungarian and German. In the present study, I present the interpretation of figurative meaning within the theoretical framework of cognitive linguistics by analysing idiomatic expressions in Hungarian and German on the example of the concept of ‘time’. In this contrastive research, I primarily look for the answer to how ordinary people use cognitive tools to grasp intangible abstract concepts such as ‘time’ and what connections can be observed between literal and figurative meaning. The examined Hungarian and German idioms are the linguistic manifestations of the conceptual metaphor time is money (valuable resource). The study aims to support the assumption that in any language an abstract meaning can only be expressed with a figurative meaning. Time is an abstract concept that is present in the everyday language use of all people. The expressions time passes, the time is here, my time has come, it takes a lot of time – to mention just a few, have become so conventionalized in our language that we take their meaning literally. Nonetheless, they are based on conventional conceptual metaphors that we use to make the concept of time more tangible to ourselves. The linguistic manifestations of these conceptual metaphors are created and understood without any mental strain. In the first stage of the research, I searched for possible German equivalents of Hungarian expressions, and then I used Internet search engines and idiom and monolingual dictionaries to select the most frequently used equivalent in German. As a next step, I examined 1) the word form, 2) the literal meaning, 3) the figurative meaning, and 4) the conceptual metaphor of idioms in both languages, which were either been identical or different. Because they are different languages, the word forms are inherently different. At the end of the study, I compared the formed patterns from which I drew conclusions, which support that figurative meaning is figurative in another language as well.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document