In the book Extended Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Zoltán Kövecses presents a holistic view of how conceptual and contextual factors influence metaphor production and comprehension, with a comprehens...

The philosophical problem of pictorial conversational implicatures can be summarized as follows: We have three propositions that are independently plausible and jointly inconsistent. -/- (Non-P) Anti-propositionalism: pictures do not have context-independent, conventionally encoded propositional content (propositional function). -/- (C) Only those representations can be used to convey conversational implicatures which have associated with them a context-independent, conventionally encoded propositional content (function). -/- (I) Pictures can be used to convey conversational implicatures. -/- There are three ways of responding to the problem: (...) affirm (Non-P) and (C) while denying (I); affirm (C) and (I) while denying (Non-P); or affirm (Non-P) and (I) while denying (C). (shrink)

The paper argues that metaphorical expressions do more than just instantiate conceptual metaphors. The main aim is to emphasize the role source and target words’ meanings play in construing generic-level metaphors. The latter are taken to act as superordinate categories for other metaphors, occurring at various levels of schematicity. Identification of lower-level metaphors takes into account source words’ metaphorical senses, not the central meanings of the categories they represent. This method brings the issue of source words’ polysemy into play, and (...) hence helps explain why metaphorical expressions relating to the same generic-level metaphor may activate different lower-level metaphors, which carry different metaphorical meanings. (shrink)

Based on the view that “The meanings that we take most for granted are those where the complexity is best hidden”, the paper attempts to describe the complex cognitive operations at work in the pro...

This article presents an exploratory analysis of the metaphoric structure of five artistic paintings within “Think aloud” protocols, in which a group of 14 English speakers with a low self-rated level of expertise in art and history of art expertise were asked to verbalize all their thoughts, ideas and impressions of the artworks. The main findings of this study can be summarized as follows: (1) multiple interpretations for the same artwork are possible, (2) the interpretations of the metaphorical structures described (...) by the participants often diverge from those advanced by the researchers. These findings challenge the methods by which metaphor identification and analysis in pictorials is currently approached. As a matter of fact, most of the research in pictorial metaphors tends to reduce stimuli such as artistic paintings to unique metaphoric interpretations generally produced by a single researcher by means of introspection. By addressing this methodological problem in metaphor research, this article contributes to the development of a theoretical and operational participant-based framework that takes into account the role of metaphoric conceptualization within the domain of art and art cognition. (shrink)

This study investigated the interconnected relationship between playful metaphors and sex jokes at the linguistic, conceptual, and discourse levels. Two ontological conceptual metaphors and two specific-level metaphors emerged. They demonstrated that variations in the form of empty metaphors and the creative invention of metaphors are still fundamentally iconic. The conceptual representation of sex acts is closely related to the cultural and ethnic specificity embedded in folk knowledge, such as food culture, the broader context of the physical environment and historical traditions, (...) and the conception of family relationships. Metaphors in sex stories showed that the shared values of Hakka people have pragmatic and socio-cultural implications. Seen as an in-between other by their blood family and their in-laws’ family, Hakka women are under dual strict cultural disciplines for their expected behaviors as women and for their expected roles as daughters-in-law. Metaphors in sex jokes serve as covert and humorous carriers to get around the uneasiness of socially tabooed and embarrassing topics regarding Hakka women and at the same time maintain relational and social harmony. (shrink)

concepts cannot be directly perceived through senses. How do people represent abstract concepts in their minds? According to the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, people tend to rely on concrete experiences to understand abstract concepts. For instance, cognitive science has shown that time is a metaphorically constituted conception, understood relative to concepts like space. Across many languages, the “past” is associated with the “back” and the “future” is associated with the “front”. However, space-time mappings in people’s spoken metaphors are not always consistent (...) with the implicit mental metaphors they are using to conceptualize time in their minds, suggesting a dissociation between temporal language and temporal thought. Beyond the influences of language, the Temporal Focus Hypothesis proposes that people’s spatial conceptions of time are shaped by their attentional focus on temporal events. In general, people conceptualize the past as being in front to the extent that their culture is past-oriented, and the future as being in front to the extent that their culture is future-oriented. Recent lines of research have provided preliminary evidence that people’s implicit space-time mappings are malleable and likely result from multiple factors related to temporal focus, ranging from those relating to contextual features, such as cultural attitudes toward time, to those more tightly tied to the individual, such as age-related differences. By building upon and extending these findings, the overall aim of this thesis is to ascertain the generalizability of the Temporal Focus Hypothesis and further investigate the range of factors that may influence people’s spatializations of time, focusing specifically on previously unexplored within-cultural differences, political ideology, religion, real life experiences, pregnancy, temporal landmarks, circadian rhythms and chronotype, and personality. Together, these studies demonstrate that people’s implicit space-time mappings may vary according to their temporal focus, which can be explained by the Temporal Focus Hypothesis. The findings of these studies also shed new light on the Temporal Focus Hypothesis by extending the range of factors that may influence people’s conceptions of time, and reveal the malleability and flexibility of time representations. (shrink)

This study proposes an operational approach to a metaphorical framing analysis using large-scale data. We conducted a case analysis of how war metaphors are framed to address various societal issues in a corpus of public speeches by Hong Kong government officials. By investigating patterns of lexical choices under the source domain of WAR and the underlying reasons for the source-target domain mappings (i.e. Mapping Principles), we found that the target domain of social issues in Hong Kong is primarily conceptualized in (...) terms of a combat frame, and governmental issues are primarily talked about in terms of a protection frame, both of which are positively evaluated. Additionally, economic issues are primarily addressed in terms of a strategy frame, which is both positively and negatively evaluated. We show that analyzing the Mapping Principles of these conceptual metaphors captures the “selection” process of framing at the dimensions of frame frequency and frame sentiment, allowing for a principled way to propose a metaphorical framing analysis in corpora-based studies. The proposed approach enriches Critical Discourse Analysis studies of metaphorical framing and bridges the link between metaphor analysis at a conceptual level and framing analysis at a communication level. (shrink)

This study describes metonymic argument alternations, in which a constructional slot can be filled by any of a set of semantic roles that index one another, and provides a diachronic corpus analysis of two such alternations in French. In the Reveal secret frame and other communication frames, the Medium can indexically replace the Speaker and the Topic can indexically replace the Information. A regression analysis shows that while topic for information metonymy is more syntactically and pragmatically restricted, medium for speaker (...) metonymy has seen an increase in usage over time across the frame. This change is related to sociocultural developments and has implications for the study of figurative language and lexical semantic change. While it is well understood that figurative mechanisms such as metonymy affect language change, here it is demonstrated that cultural shifts drive changes in metonymies themselves, with corresponding impacts for linguistic structure. (shrink)

With globalisation and neoliberalism as significant phenomena impacting the function and role of higher education institutions (Barnett, 2013), the discursive practices of such institutions as mani...

The present contribution integrates a recent, multilevel approach to metaphor advanced by Kövecses (2017 and later publications), with gestures as a mode of metaphorical expression. In doing so, the paper shows how different elements of conceptual structure, varying from the abstract, recurring image schema, through more complex conceptual domains and frames, to contextually embedded and variable metaphorical scenarios, participate in the metaphoricity of gestures. This application of gestures to the multilevel approach lends direct support to the idea that human conceptual (...) system recruits various semiotic modes – not limited to language – for expressing its content. Image schemas of object and source-path-goal have been shown to participate directly in the domain of transfer, which, when embedded in context of a given communicative situation, has become the conceptual frame of coming out. The frame, when realised via different gestural forms in a shared context across many speakers, turns into a highly context-sensitive, variable, and speech co-expressive gestural metaphorical scenario of coming out is showing an object. (shrink)