Book of Abstracts

II International Workshop

Metaphor and Discourse

Where Cognition and Communication Meet

February 2-3, 2006

Universitat Jaume I
Castelló de la Plana
 Textlinguistics and Cognitive Linguistics: A Blind Date?

Enrique Bernárdez
ebernard@filol.ucm.es
Universidad Complutense de Madrid

The cognitive study of language, in the frame of “2nd generation Cognitive Science” as
defined by Lakoff & Johnson (1999), has as one of its most direct predecessors and
practitioners the discipline of textlinguistics (TL), as practised mainly in continental Europe
since, at least, the late 1970’s (cf. Bernárdez 1999). A significant difference, however, lies
in the essential social component of TL study, which is still absent from “mainstream”
cognitive linguistics. As for cognitive linguistics (CL), its analyses are usually restricted to
words, sentences and small group of sentences, with reference to the general knowledge
needed for its cognitive processing but not, in most cases, to any particular context or
communicative scene. In recent times, some proposals of application of well-known CL
methods to the study of texts have been realised, particularly the Cognitive Theory of
Metaphor (CTM) and Blending Theory (BT).
The present paper provides first a very brief analysis of the similarities and
differences between TL and CL and then proceeds to the applicability of the results of CL
research to the text and, especially, its possible advantages for TL. Brief textual analyses in
terms of CTM and BT will be presented and the following questions will then be raised and
–if possible- answered: (a) Do such analyses tell us anything about the text -as language in
use- that was not previously known to textlinguists (and others)? (b) Are there any
significant drawbacks in the CL, as opposed to the traditional TL types of analysis (or vice-
versa)? (c) What has to be changed in TL as a consequence of CL analysis (and perhaps
vice-versa)? (d) What advantages for our view of language and cognition can be gained by
focusing on texts?
 Embodiment, Synaesthesia and Metaphor in Discourse

Carmen Mª Bretones Callejas

cbreton@ual.es
cbretones@hotmail.com
Universidad de Almería

Synaesthesia is a natural association of our mind that takes place when ordinary stimuli
elicit extraordinary experiences (Bretones 2005). Through synaesthesia we can not only
conceptualise and express an idea, but also let others guess a further impression that a
concept provokes on us. For some individuals certain stimuli cause physical conscious
synaesthetic responses or synaesthetic perception (Ramachandran & Hubbard 2001,
Robertson & Sagiv 2005, inter alia) and, for centuries, synaethesia has been consigned to
metaphor in the language. It has been considered a rhetorical figure, consisting on giving a
thing a quality that in fact it cannot have because the thing and the quality are perceived by
different senses (e.g. white voices, sweat melody). However, synaesthesia is used to
organize bodily experiences cognitively, specially affects, because it is rooted in the body. A
key factor to state this is that according to metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson 1999) the
‘projections’ from source to target domain are not arbitrary, and that they can be studied
empirically and stated precisely. They are not arbitrary because they are normally motivated
by our bodily grounded experience, which is biologically constrained (Gibbs 2005). For
instance, in expressions such as ‘She greeted me warmly” or “Send her warm hellos”, there
is an underlying conceptual metaphor that allows us to conceptualize affection in terms of
bodily grounded thermic experiences, -in this case, Warmth. This is not a mere arbitrary
social convention. It is based on a human invariant which is the shared experience of the
correlation between the bodily sensation of warmth and affection from the most early days
of our life (Núñez 1999: 49). The basic metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson 1999) for the example
would be the following: Emotions are Heat in a Container. But many of the very basic
conceptual correlations are sensory-based, that is, they are based in either sensorial or cross-
modal projections, and they are synaesthetically motivated. Take, for instance, the
following:

Basic metaphor: Anger is Heat in a Container

Domains: Emotion Temperature Shape

Senses: Touch Vision

Projection takes place originally from touch and vision to the domain of emotions.
Traditionally such projections had not been classified as synaesthetic but named under the
general label of metaphor. But this paper intends to find the border line between both, and to
highlight the importance of synaesthesia in the study of discourse, body and emotions.
 Metaphors of Passion in Wine Advertising Discourse

Rosario Caballero and Raquel Segovia

MRosario.Caballero@uclm.es
Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha and Universitat Jaume I

The discourse around wine is intrinsically metaphorical. In fact, wine experts (winemakers,
retailers, oenologists, etc.) make abundant use of diverse metaphors to conceptualize and
verbalize both the processes and products of winemaking. Consider, for instance, terms such
as “buttressed”, “tightly-knit”, or broad-shouldered” used in the description of wines, and
suggesting the presence of architectural, textile or anthropomorphic metaphorical schemas
in the description of the various sensory experiences of wine during and after its elaboration.
However, although figurative language appears to be indispensable for disseminating
knowledge about wines –as this is mostly articulated in the genre of the tasting note– the
quantity and quality of the metaphors used to discuss wine in written texts differ from their
use in the genre of wine advertising –also aimed at promoting this product.
Conceiving wine as a cultural artefact, this paper is one of a series of team
exploratory investigations into the metaphors of wine (the research project “Traduciendo los
sentidos: metáfora en la retórica del vino” financed by the Universidad de Castilla-La
Mancha). Indeed, metaphors are also culture bound: they provide insight into how different
cultures view the world. Since metaphors can be used to understand cultural differences, we
present an analysis of Spanish wine advertisements as they appear in printed media in an
attempt to explore how the Spanish culture symbolically represents itself. For this
endeavour we will use a selected corpus of samples taken from both specialized and non-
specialized publications. Nonetheless, other cultural wine traditions will also be taken into
consideration –i.e., Spanish wine metaphors will be also compared to those used by other
European traditions. The theoretical foundations that form the basis of this analysis come
from cognitive approaches to metaphor as well as research made in critical discourse
analysis and in intercultural communication studies.
Our discussion will particularly focus on a salient feature in Spanish adverts,
namely the concept of ‘passion’ as this can be variously found in the adverts analyzed. For
although wines are often described as “assertive”, “rational”, “serious” and the like, it is the
passion component that appears to be granted the lion’s share in Spanish advertising.
Indeed, ‘passion versus reason’ is a dominant dichotomy which pivots on a complex
imaginary built upon anthropomorphic, religious, and gender issues. This dichotomy is
realized both in images and words to the extent that verbal and visual language reinforce
each other.
The paper is organized as follows: first, we provide a survey of the metaphors used
in wine advertising; second, we describe how the topic of ‘passion’ is exploited to sell
Spanish wines; third, we discuss the cultural and ideological implications of passion
metaphors in wine promotion.
 The Appropriation of Metaphor in the Dynamics of Discourse

Lynne Cameron
l.j.cameron@leeds.ac.uk
University of Leeds

This paper describes the phenomenon of ‘metaphor appropriation’ in talk between

perpetrator and victim in a context of post-conflict conciliation. Metaphor appropriation
occurs when a Vehicle term introduced by one speaker is taken up and used by the other. In
this process, the Topic of the metaphor is shifted to fit the other speaker’s goals and
attitudes.

The data for the study is a series of conversations between a man who planted a bomb on
behalf of the Irish Republican Army and the daughter of a victim of the bomb. The
recordings have been transcribed and analysed using techniques from conversation analysis
and discourse analysis, in a theoretical framework that combines complex dynamics systems
theory with a socio-cognitive theory of social interaction (Cameron, 2003). This discourse
dynamics approach to metaphor connects what happens minute-by-minute in talk with
longer term changes in the understandings of speakers. Metaphor in discourse is seen as
dialogic, as well as dynamic (Bakhtin, 1981); metaphor is constructed for the Other, taking
account of the Other, and is responded to by the Other. In order to understand how change
on the ‘local’ timescale of utterances and turns can contribute to change on the more
‘global’ timescales of hours and months, we need to examine what happens to metaphors as
they enter the flow of talk, how they are challenged, negotiated or adapted. The micro-level
analysis is connected to a more macro-level, using the speakers’ descriptions of how their
views of the Other have changed over a period of two and a half years.

Appropriation of metaphor is one of the dialogic outcomes of the local dynamics of

metaphor identified in the study. Appropriation allows both parties to use the same words –
as metaphor Vehicle – and it is argued that, in the conciliation context, it makes an
important contribution to the reduction of alterity, or Otherness, and to an increase in shared
understanding.

Moreover, by examining how metaphor is shifted in the dynamics of discourse, we come to

understand more about the nature of metaphor as both, and at the same time, linguistic and
cognitive.
 Metonymic Nets in Discourse

Georgeta Cislaru
cislaru@clipper.ens.fr
Université Paris 3 - Sorbonne Nouvelle

The aim of this paper is to show that metonymy may support text coherence and cohesion
by virtue of its cognitive support flexibility. The demonstration is based on news discourse
analysis.
In the frame of cognitive linguistics metonymy is defined as a conceptual phenomenon
operating within an idealized cognitive model and assuming referential and comprehension
functions. Thus, for instance, the use of proper names in Washington negotiates with Paris
or Russia is protesting is expected to reflect a general principle by which place may stand
for an institution located in this place. The qualitative and quantitative study of such
metonymies in discourse context provides some supplementary data. Firstly, it confirms that
the metonymic use of place/institution/person names, very frequent, is a natural cognitive-
linguistic mechanism. Moreover, so as pronominalisation of these names in discourse
preserves part, or even whole, of the metonymic value, one may assume that no a priori
distinction or negotiation concerning literal and metaphorical meaning is necessary to
interpretation. This enables a single-level treatment of metonymy. Secondly, this study
shows that the general principle ‘place for institution’ narrows interpretation; it thus points
out the genuine cognitive complexity of these metonymies, which map place, institution,
leaders-controllers, etc. In this respect, a broader coordinative model, ‘place-and-agent’, is
best adapted for news discourse analysis.
On the one side, I noted that, since referring to event agents, names of countries, capital-
cities, institutions and political leaders play an important role in discourse event
construction. On the other side, due to cognitive complexity, metonymic names and their
anaphors are referentially ambiguous, as in Iraq closing borders (title) or Iraq's government
announced it will close its borders. Cognitive complexity seems to generate cognitive
flexibility. Consequently, metonymy is highly “convertible”: country-names, names of
capital-cities, institutions, headquarters, and political leaders may designate the same
referents: the Soviet Union/Moscow/the Kremlin withdrew its troops from Afghanistan.
However, each name preserves part of its individual referential value in news discourse and,
corollary, its place in discourse coherence. Referential chains like France-Paris-l’Elysée-
Jacques Chirac, Italy-Squadra Azzura-the Italians lay out metonymic nets that outline
discourse sites. Thus, metonymies set both a relevant support for text interpretation and a
flexible ground for text progression.
A Corpus-Based French-English Contrastive Study of Live Metaphors in Oral
Discourse Using Latent Semantic Analysis and Prosodic Data

Gilles Cloiseau
gilles.cloiseau@cegetel.net
University of Orleans

The research followed a preliminary internet-based study of metaphorical uses in

journalistic discourse on contemporary popular music, whose results established coherence
in the cognitive models used in the metaphors produced, e.g:

Music is a pointed object, projectile, pierces the body barrier

Listening to /playing music is a journey.

Encouraged by the results, an oral corpus-based contrastive study was then launched. The
corpus consists of scripted interviews carried out with both French and English speakers.
Interviewees are aged 18-35 and are either professional or amateur pop and jazz musicians.
Nine are American, nine French, and two British.

The corpus was then XML formatted and tagged with lsa (latent semantic analysis)
coefficients representing the semantic distance of each term with the overall topic (general
topic) of the interviews: music. Other labels such as lemma, morpho-syntax (pos tagging),
were also added thus enabling a variety of searches by xslt stylesheets. Searches included
trawling for potential metaphors at every morphosyntactic level by using lsa tags.

This paper concentrates on the use of prosodic characteristics of metaphorical heads, which
go hand in hand with the informational structure they appear in.
Whereas the morpho-syntactic and semantic distributions of metaphors in both French and
English corpora are very similar in the oral discourse on music, there are differences as to
what is dead and alive in both languages. It gradually became clear that those differences
may be assessed by the close scrutiny of intonation contours and prosodic patterns in both
languages. There seems to lie in its pattern the opinion of the speaker as to whether he
considers his metaphorical use original, innovative or not.
The segment for the last syllable in French features characteristics for F0max—its bell
shape and location with relation to the intensity peak. In English, typical patterns are similar
but are to be observed on the primarily stressed syllable.

Reference pitch pattern obtained for metaphors within spontaneous oral discourse extracted
from radio recordings in both languages are used as a gauge.
The typical pitch patterns (pitch pattern templates) drawn out and defined thanks to the
Praat software seem to be an essential tool for purifying live metaphors from an oral text
and helps the establishment of metaphorical mappings for both languages.
Since the metaphorical mappings involved in the area of music are manifold, this paper will
concentrate on a particular tenor/vehicle vector:
Music is a topos (or a landmark), and the musician is a trajectory (or a vehicle).

The aim here is both to contribute to the contrastive mapping-out of metaphorical uses and
to lay the grounds for a contrastive prosodic grammar of metaphors in oral discourse, in an
effort to use optimally a corpus of interviews collected to that effect.
The Metaphorical Contagion: the Spread of Conceptual Mappings in One and
Two-Person Discourse

Daniel P. Corts
pscorts@augustana.edu
Augustana College, Illinois

Several recent works have shown that novel, explanatory figures of speech and metaphoric
gestures are likely to be produced in clusters during monologues such as lectures or other
public speeches; in fact, some measures indicate that as much as 1/3 of the figurative
language may occur in as little as 10% of the discourse (Corts & Pollio, 1999; Corts &
Myers, 2002; Corts, in press). These clusters of figurative language seem to arise when an
apt conceptual metaphor is introduced and then explained and/or presented in contrast to
alternative conceptual metaphors. Figurative clusters do not seem to follow the introduction
of an idiomatic phrase, or phrases that do little to explain the topic.
These results have been observed across a number of speakers in various settings, but what
happens when two speakers are contributing to the discourse? Initial research has shown
that figurative language may facilitate transitions between topics (e.g. Drew & Holt, 1998,
2005). Additional research suggests that when idioms are introduced, they may be difficult
for others to ignore (Kitzinger, 2000). Our research interests are focused on what we call
contagious metaphor; that is, a conceptual metaphor that is introduced by one speaker and
quickly incorporated into another’s language and/or gesture.
To extend our research on one to two-person discourse, we drew from our earlier research
model applied to monologues. Current investigations involve discourse transcribed from
psychological interviews, exchanges between teachers and students, and a number of other
settings. We will present descriptive data indicating that situations in which metaphors
spread from one person to another usually involve a particularly apt figurative expression.
The most typical instances of a spreading metaphor include attempts to clarify and/or extend
conceptual mappings, and are quite often used for humor (i.e. discovering incongruent
mappings). Finally, we will present results of several brief experiments illustrate that
figurative expressions can spread from one person’s speech to another’s gesture.
 La manipulación eufemística a través del lenguaje figurado

Eliecer Crespo Fernández

eliecer.crespo@ua.es
Universidad de Alicante

El objetivo del presente trabajo es mostrar, a través de ejemplos tomados del ámbito sexual,
el funcionamiento del lenguaje figurado en la manipulación eufemística del referente tabú.
Esta manipulación consiste en una traslación semántica por la cual un término con valores
emocionales distintos al vocablo interdicto se aleja de su significado literal con el objeto de
lograr la neutralización léxica del tabú. En este maquillaje conceptual del referente
interdicto, la metáfora se erige en una herramienta clave del proceso de ingeniería semántica
que supone el eufemismo como manifestación lingüística del fenómeno de la interdicción.

En la atenuación a través del lenguaje figurado, la capacidad mitigadora de la metáfora

eufemística depende de tres factores: de la existencia de un contraste entre el significado de
primer orden y el figurado de la proferencia metafórica, de la ambigüedad en la designación
del tabú de ese significado adquirido y de la impropiedad del signo con respecto a su
referente. Sin embargo, los sustitutos metafóricos de conceptos interdictos no siempre
cumplen estas tres características. De hecho, la capacidad mitigadora del lenguaje figurado
depende de la naturaleza de la metáfora que origina la alternativa eufemística y, con ello, del
grado de vinculación del sustituto con respecto al referente tabú. Así, basándonos en la
distinción entre metáforas lexicalizadas, semilexicalizadas y creativas propuesta por
Chamizo Domínguez (1998) distinguimos distintas modalidades de atenuación verbal
metafórica que dan lugar a cuatro tipos de eufemismos: explícitos, convencionales,
novedosos y estéticos. Se trata de sustituciones mitigadoras producto de posiciones distintas
ante la metáfora eufemística, con distintos vínculos asociativos entre el signo y el tabú y
diferente grado de ambigüedad y de capacidad de mitigación del concepto interdicto.

Asimismo, y adoptando el clásico enfoque cognoscitivo defendido por Lakoff y Johnson

(1980), demostramos que la capacidad de la metáfora para crear redes conceptuales y, con
ello, estructurar nuestro sistema conceptual no es ajena al eufemismo, ya que la
conceptualización de una metáfora eufemística incide decisivamente en la percepción de los
ámbitos interdictivos y en la actualización de la función ilocutiva del eufemismo y, con ello,
determina su comportamiento como fenómeno discursivo.
 Both Sides of the Coin

Mª Teresa de Cuadra
mtdecuadra@hotmail.com
Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha

Being a multidisciplinar subject, wine tasting, is a rather complex topic from a lexical point
of view since it is built up with specialized terms from other scientific subjects such as
botany, chemistry, edaphology, oenology, wine making process, etc. Indeed, the way we
think and talk about wine differs across communities given their different perspectives of
the wine world which show up in the different terms used to talk about it.
In this paper I will contrast two of these approaches: the one of wine chemists and the one of
wine experts, which implies analysing two kinds of language use although these are, in fact,
the two sides of the same coin. Thus, what most wine tasting notes normally do is to
describe a wine according to the organoleptic sensations they produce. These sensations are
mainly described using comparisons and frameworks of reference closely related to our
experience of the world and cultural roots. This is the reason why the experience of tasting
wine is communicated very frequently by images and metaphors. On the contrary, the
chemical analysis of wine requires spectroscopic analysis or gas chromatography. For
instance, a young, dry white wine would have the following chemical description:

PARAMETERS

Residual Sugar
≤ 4 g/l

Total Acidity (Tartaric Ac.)

Mín. 4,50 g/l

Volatile Acidity ( Acetic Ac)

Máx. 0,50 g/l (8,33 meq/l)

Colouring Intensity (∑ A a 420, 520, 620)

Mín. 7 u.a.

Total SO2
< 130 mg/l

Whereas its corresponding wine tasting note would be:

“An unbelievable marriage of coiled power and refinement, the 2002 Riesling Auslese
Graacher Domprobst A.P. #1403 is a slate and mineral-scented wine of massive breadth,
concentration, purity, and harmony. It’s all here, the detail, richness, elegance, muscle,
depth, and stunning length. The lucky few who will encounter this jewel will be wowed by
its intense minerality, shocking complexity, and graceful dance across the palate. Projected
maturity: 2009-2038.†Wine Advocate #151 (Feb 2004) (Robert Parker).
What really matters here is that both descriptions are meant to characterize the same wine
and both would be easily understood by wine tasters as corresponding one to the other.
However, a wine tasting session is not just a physical “organoleptical” experience the wine
taster shares with the audience. The taster needs to go beyond that and share the emotions
and perceptions the wine arouses with his/her audience. That’s why the chemical description
is reformulated and the wine becomes a “jewel”. In this paper I will show how metaphors
are used to communicate those experiences that go from physical to non-physical and
emotional sensations.
 La metáfora en la novela de Patrick Süskind El Perfume

Mª Victoria Gaspar Verdú

gaspar@fil.uji.es
Universitat Jaume I

El artículo trata las relaciones entre literatura y metáfora dentro del género Bildungsroman
o novela de educación, género clásico de la literatura alemana e iniciado por C.M. Wieland
en 1766.

Nos centramos en la obra Das Parfüm de Patrick Süskind, que recupera dicho género en los
años 80 del s.XX y establece en su argumento múltiples metáforas para transmitir al lector
el desarrollo interno del personaje. El autor comparte con Aristóteles la concepción de
literatura desde el deleite y con este fin aplica la metáfora en esta obra. Mediante el empleo
de la metáfora comprende y muestra al lector el desarrollo y la introspección psicológica del
protagonista Grenouille es decir, el ámbito de lo humano.

Respecto al momento histórico, parece que Süskind escogió al azar esta época para ubicar a
su personaje pero no es así. La selección del momento histórico ha sido escogida
deliberadamente por el autor ya que la novela de educación o Bildungsroman se inicia como
género literario justo en los años en que se desarrolla el argumento de esta novela.
 Is this a metaphor?
On the Difficult Task of Identifying Metaphors in Discourse

Juliana Goschler
juliana.goschler@alumni.hu-berlin.de
Technical University Darmstadt

Since Lakoff & Johnson (1980) claimed that metaphors are ubiquitous in language AND
thought, metaphors are of great interest for Cognitive Linguistics. Lakoff & Johnson’s work,
however, relies on linguistic examples that have been made up or more or less
coincidentally collected. The importance of empirical work has been pointed out since more
than a decade by various scholars. A lot of work has already been done. The methodologies
that have been used differ considerably. What has often been left out is the question how to
decide exactly what is a metaphor and what is not.
The problem is that within Conceptual Metaphor Theory metaphors are located on the
conceptual level. Linguistic metaphors in this perspective are a mere secondary
phenomenon which supports the claim of the existence of conceptual metaphor. Because a
genuine linguistic definition of metaphor is not provided in many cases, problems occur
when identifying metaphor in discourse. This has already been pointed out by Steen (2002).
He and the “Pragglejaz”-group offer a methodology to deal with these problems. The
method has been succesfully used in analyzing a poem.
But depending on the discourse, there can still remain two serious problems: Truth and/or
meaning. These two criteria have been used, mostly implicitly, to identify metaphors in
language.
The first approach marks expressions as metaphorical which are not actually true. It is easy
to ridicule this approach with minimal philosophical skills. But in many cases this approach
works not so bad: A marriage is not really on the rocks, nobody is actually shooting down
someone else’s arguments, and Christmas is not in fact moving towards me. For these
prominent examples and thousands of other expressions used in everyday language this
approach works just fine. And in some cases it is the only possibility to distinguish a
metaphor from a literal statement. The practical problems arise especially in two certain
discourses: Science and religion, because the concept of “truth” is problematic in these
contexts, while it can be rather trivial in everyday life.
Thus, it is necessary to use a second possible approach to metaphor identification:
This second approach to identify a metaphor on the linguistic level is to take “meaning” into
account. But here other problems arise: What is the meaning of a word? This is an old
question of linguistics and philosophy of language. Which definition of “meaning” and
especially of “core” or “primary” meaning one accepts seriously influences the outcome of
the empirical research on metaphor.
In my talk, I will argue that there are different kinds of metaphors. Depending on the
discourse one is focussing on, different identification strategies are required. Based on this
observation I will give some suggestion for future research.
 Communication, Cognition and Ideology.
A Critical Analysis of Metaphor in UK Immigration Discourse

Christopher Hart
christopher.hart@uea.ac.uk
University of East Anglia

Following van Dijk’s characterization of ideology as shared social cognitions, where social
cognition is defined as ‘the system of mental representations and processes of group
members’ (van Dijk 1995: 18), we may conjecture that conventionalised conceptual
metaphors are, in some contexts, precisely ideologies.

A crucial notion at the intersection between communication and cognition in the political
context is the dialectical relationship between elite discourse and public representation,
where, for example, metaphor in elite discourse is both constructed by and constitutive of
conventionalised conceptual projections. This paper will investigate anti-immigration
ideologies, then, as a function of metaphorical structures in elite discourse. Party political
manifestos and keynote speeches during the UK 2005 General Election campaign will
provide a corpus of data.

With a focus on discourse, analysis will be carried out not with the Lakoffian account
standard in Critical Metaphor Analysis, but with conceptual blending theory (Fauconnier
and Turner 2002), a more appropriate model representative of cognitive operations
performed on discourse. In conceptual blending theory, since further processing arises from
the blended space, metaphors are significant structures in the discourse process. Metaphors
in elite discourse are ideologically significant for they prompt for discourse processors to
entertain particular representations and the inferences yielded by them where the linguistic
embedding of metaphor in discourse ‘can contribute to a situation where they privilege one
understanding of reality over others’ (Chilton 1996: 74).

The state-as-container metaphor will be identified as the most prominent in immigration

discourse. Consider by way of example the following reproduced verbatim from the official
website of the UK Independence Party (www.ukip.org):

The trouble is the UK is already full up. The average population density of England is
twice that of Germany, four times that of the France, and twelve times that of the United
States. We are bursting at the seams. [my emphasis]

The state-as-container metaphor is realised in a variety of linguistic expressions which will

be illustrated in this paper. Common across each case, though, is the container schema in
the generic space. At a second stage of enquiry, a cognitive explanation will be offered as
to the potency of this metaphor in immigration discourse. As a function of the inherent
‘logic’ of the container schema, the state-as-container metaphor signals group boundaries
denoting ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. Here it will be postulated that the state-as-container
metaphor in immigration discourse is so affective because it connects with an innate ‘fear of
outsiders’ module, reinforcing anti-immigration attitudes.

Metaphor in discourse, then, truly intersects between communication, cognition and

ideology with consequences in the social and political sphere.
 Political Ideology via Contradictory Metaphors

María Hellín-García
hell0214@umn.edu
majohellingarcia@yahoo.com
University of Minnesota

In this paper I examine the apparent contradiction of using fight metaphors to promote an
anti-violent political ideology in the speeches of the current Spanish president-Jose Luis
Rodriguez Zapatero. Zapatero is widely believed to have come to power because of his anti-
war agenda and his priority can be aptly summarized with the conceptual metaphor:
terrorism is the enemy. However in presidential speeches against terrorism, Zapatero uses
metaphors that draw heavily from the domain of fight and are connotative of violence in
contrast with his peace ideology.

It has been claimed that fight metaphors have been used before in presidential speeches to
justify a pro-war political strategy. Charteris-Black (2004), points out how metaphors in
political speeches are used to provide social direction and how contextual factors influence
the stylistic choices of particular metaphors. Van Dijk (2004) describes the rhetoric used in
political speeches to justify the case for war by the previous Spanish president José María
Aznar. I use the approach of critical metaphor analysis (Charteris-Black, 2004) to describe
and classify these fight metaphors into four broad source domains: cognition, moral values,
democracy, and anti-violence. The cognition metaphors evoke visual images of historical
circumstances such as the Madrid bombing (March 11th 2004) and apathy against the
terrorists responsible for them. Lakoff (2001) demonstrated the power of images evoked
through such metaphors. The metaphors for moral values reflect human emotions such as
hope, encouragement, boldness etc. and are used also to empathize with the victims of
previous terrorist attacks. The metaphors for democracy highlight values such as liberty,
unity, human rights, legality etc, and are used to promote a strong democratic society. The
anti-violence metaphors are used to reflect an ideology for promoting political dialogue and
diplomacy in contrast with unjustified physical action.

I show how the fight metaphors in the four source domains are used as part of a political
strategy to connect with the public. I analyze their usage in context of historical events,
public emotion, and the geo-political scenario in Spain. I interpret how the fight metaphors
are used to have a greater psychological impact than peace metaphors would have. The
peace metaphors would not appease the public especially with the devastation of the Madrid
bombing fresh in the minds of the people. I show how fight metaphors help to bridge the
gap between the subconscious emotions of the public and Zapatero’s intended political
ideology. I finally show the implicit goal of using fight metaphors to polarize a smooth
transition of political ideology from the previous pro-war one (Aznar) to an anti-war one.

The analysis is based on a corpus of six political speeches from April to December (2004)
by Zapatero focused on terrorism.
 Death Metaphors in Fairy Tales. At The Crossroads between Literature,
Culture, Linguistics, and Cognition1

Javier Herrero Ruiz

jaherrer5@hotmail.com
Universidad de La Rioja

This paper studies how several death metaphors (e.g. DEATH IS DEPARTURE, DEATH
IS COLD, DEATH IS SLEEP, etc.) are able to account for the basic meaning and
interpretation of more than thirty popular tales and myths. Besides, we offer the possibility
of classifying tales according either to the basic metaphor they contain or to the combination
of metaphors that may comprise them (for example, whereas The Sleeping Beauty in the
Wood is characterised by the metaphor DEATH IS SLEEP, The Flower Queen’s daughter
makes use of various metaphors such as DEATH IS RENEWAL and DEATH IS
UNDERGROUND). Additionally, the paper explores in what ways the metaphors under
scrutiny allow us to explain some of the uncanny elements of tales. Finally, we suggest that
these metaphors, because of their strong experiential grounding, may have contributed to an
easier transmission of many fairy tales (as it would be easier to memorise their basic
patterns), and also to make tales alike in different socio-cultural settings.
In order to substantiate these points, we have worked with a computerized corpus of
analysis containing 386 fairy tales written by Andrew Lang (1844-1912). The tales, which
are representative of various cultures, have been entirely downloaded from the Project
Gutenberg online library. The work of identification of underlying metaphors has been
carried out with the help of the (encyclopedic) information provided in the Berkeley
Framenet Project. This information has allowed us to make an exhaustive and systematic
analysis of the lexical patterns of the metaphors. Then, we have made use of WordSmith
and its tool Concord in order to find examples of key words and phrases that we expected to
underlie metaphorical usage in the texts. This has allowed us to observe if a given metaphor
applies in a given tale or not. Also, we have made use of complementary Google searches in
order to further substantiate our analysis of the metaphors in every day usage.

1
Financial support for this research has been provided by the DGI, Spanish Ministry of Education
and Science, grant no. HUM2004-05947-C02-01/FILO. The research has been co-financed through
FEDER funds.
 Biotech as Bio-Threat? – Metaphorical Constructions in Discourse

Lise-Lotte Holmgreen
holmgreen@hum.aau.dk
Aalborg University

For many years, the European public debate on biotechnology has been marked by
widespread scepticism. This scepticism has led to a wide range of research into the basis and
diffusion of knowledge, the role of the media, audience reception, etc. (e.g. Bredahl 2000,
Bauer & Gaskell 2002). Although focusing on aspects of communication and mediation,
such studies have not focused on the role played by discourse and metaphor in determining
public attitudes. Nonetheless, some of the findings provide an interesting background for
further studies into metaphor use in (media) discourse.
In a study from 2002, Hviid Nielsen et al. demonstrated that European scepticism towards
biotechnology can be divided into two camps, promoting a Mephistophelean or a
Frankensteinian argument, respectively. In the present paper, this finding provides the
background for analysing how the debate on biotechnology is metaphorically constructed in
the Danish printed media.
The basic assumption is that in media discourse metaphors perform the two important
functions of explaining and persuading – functions that are equally influenced by public
opinion and knowledge as well as the ideological stance of the media itself. Hence,
metaphor use in the Danish media debate on biotechnology is likely to be influenced by the
way the public perceive the subject, while at the same time reflecting the particular
viewpoints of the media. In other words, being constituent parts of discourse metaphors may
become points of consensus or contestation between the social groups that act as
participants in the debate.
On this background, the expected result of the present analysis is the uncovering of
metaphors that will respond to the above division in public opinion, either through uses that
will support one or both of the arguments, or through alternative constructions that will
reject them.
The approach used in the analysis is one that draws on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT)
and van Dijkean, socio-cognitive CDA. The adoption of such a combined strategy has
proven valuable for understanding the function of metaphor in discourse and social
interaction (Holmgreen 2005). The claims of this approach are supported by data from
various Danish newspapers from 2005.
Who Is to Believe when You Bet: On Cognitive Motivations of Metaphoric and
Metonymic Uses of the Pronoun You in English

Katherine Hrisonopulo
katherine.hrisonopulo@gmail.com
Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, Vyborg Branch

This paper aims to reveal the cognitive mechanisms enabling the use of the second person
pronoun you as an alternative of the first person pronoun I in English. The uses in question
are to be found in the following three types of utterances: (1) predictions: You (vs. I) bet
they are going to win; (2) judgments: You would think (vs. I think) they are working; (3)
generalizations: [I have often been subject to boredom.] You (vs. I) feel you (vs. I) can’t
ignore it, can’t take your (vs. my) eyes off it.
The possibility of using you in (1) – (3) is considered with reference to the context of
communicative interaction in which ‘I’- and ‘you’-participants share the same perceptual
and communicative domain. In this context, the pronoun you can supposedly be associated
with certain cognitive and communicative experiences of the ‘I’-participant of
communication. This supposition leads to the hypothesis about the possibility of using you
as a sign which – due to the perceptual salience of its referent in a communicative situation
– can stand for, and thus be metonymically linked to, the above mentioned experiences of
the referent of I. The paper further argues that the hypothesized ‘You – I’ metonymy in
cases like (1) – (3) results from specific mappings across source and target domains.
In (1) – (3), target domains are supposed to arise in discourse from the abstract mental
processes of (1) predicting, (2) making judgments, and (3) making generalizations. Source
domains, in turn, are presumably those which originate from cognitive experiences of the
speaker (I) throughout his/her communicative interactions with the addressee (you). Such
experiences are largely predetermined by the speaker’s position within a viewing scene, as
schematically represented in Langacker (2000). Conceptually relevant features of the
viewing scene appear to be (a) the speaker’s “offstage” vantage point, (b) a viewing
relationship linking the speaker to the addressee, (c) a spatial distance separating the speaker
from the addressee.
With reference to examples drawn from English-language fiction it is shown that the
mentioned features of the viewing scene are mapped onto the respective abstract mental
processes conveyed in discourse. In (1), the mapping is based on metonymy VIEWING IS
PREDICTING, which explains the modality of prediction as naturally arising from the
commitment (betting) of the one who is viewed (You bet) rather than the one who actually
takes this commitment (I bet). On the other hand, the uses of you in (2) and (3) are shown to
be dependent on metaphoric mappings, the respective metaphors being JUDGING IS
TAKING A STANDPOINT and GENERALIZING IS VIEWING FROM A DISTANCE.
The results of the proposed study suggest that metaphoric and/or metonymic reasoning is
all pervasive finding its expression both in the sphere of abstract vocabulary, as shown in
Lakoff and Johnson (1980), and deictic words, such as personal pronouns.
 Metaphor, Discourse and Music Theory:
James Weldon Johnson’s Sence you went away

Rubén Jarazo Álvarez

rjarazo@udc.es
Universidade da Coruña

As African American poets have always tried to reflect in their writings the typical concerns
of their culture in the context of a larger American civilization, they created part of their
poetical compositions by recalling the folkloric values of their ancestors. In fact, they
conceptualised poetry as a participatory activity, an active mean of expression by creating
an aesthetic tradition shaped with communal values, the primacy of musicality and stylish
improvisation.
As a matter of fact, critics such as Sterling Brown, who explored the unlimited possibilities
of the folk tradition, found out that black songs and tales may well represent the originality
and complexity of the black race and its literature whereas, the nineteenth century white
culture was still basing their traditional music on feigned stereotypes and bald
sentimentalism. Consequently, the progress of the African American poetic tradition
paralleled the development of an important musical practice that covered every single part
of the black existence.
However, the close linkage between literature and musical expression will be more palpable
during the early twentieth century, especially throughout the period known as the Harlem
Renaissance. Within this literary movement, African American poetry began to bloom
because of a greater exploration of the black voice. That is to say, poets tried to embark on
new cultural expectations based on their realm of experiences by turning away from the
western world. In so doing, they chose culture in preference for expressing their past and
present reality as representative of their race as well as their individuals.
 The Metaphoric, Metonymic, and Image-Schematic Basis of Fictive Motion
Events

Noelia Jiménez Martínez-Losa

noelia.jimenez@dfm.unirioja.es
Universidad de La Rioja

Fictive motion is the subtype of motion which has received greater attention within the
framework of Cognitive Linguistics (e.g. Talmy, 2000; Slobin 1996, 2000; Ibarretxe, 2003;
or Matlock, 2004a, 2004b). In our account of fictive motion our aim is to depart from the
previous assumptions, and to argue that metaphor (more specifically the MOTION
metaphor), in combination with metonymy and image-schemas, underlies the semantic
configuration of fictive motion events.
In our analysis of utterances like This road goes from Capitola to Aptos we argue that a set
of metaphorical correspondences is mapped from factive motion (the source domain) onto
fictive motion (the target domain). Some of the structural elements of the factive motion
event are present in the linguistic utterance that expresses fictive motion (e.g. the source and
destination of motion), and some others are conceptually activated in order to derive the
semantic representation of the utterance (e.g. the trajector). This process of
conceptualization of a fictive motion event in terms of a factive motion event serves a
specific purpose: the focalization of the path element of the motion event.
The study also shows that metonymy plays a crucial role in the metaphorical operation
mentioned above. The metonymies MOTION ALONG A PATH FOR PATH and ACTION
FOR RESULT (Kövecses and Radden, 1998; Panther and Thornburg, 2000; Ruiz de
Mendoza and Pérez, 2001) account for the reduction of one of the correspondences of the
target domain. In this metonymic operation, by mentioning one domain (the motion along a
path element as a matrix domain) we have access to one of its subdomains (the path of
motion). One of the conclusions of our study of fictive motion is the discovery of the role of
the ACTION FOR RESULT high-level metonymy in the semantic configuration of the
mentioned motion event. This metonymy may thus be regarded as a case of what Ruiz de
Mendoza and Pérez (2001) have called grammatical metonymy due to its impact on the
grammatical organization of the clause. It licenses the grammatical phenomenon by means
of which a factive landmark is conceptualized as a trajector and grammatically expressed as
a subject in fictive motion sentences.
Our analysis also argues that the semantic make-up of fictive motion events is sensitive to
interaction patterns between image-schemas. We may thus have case of interaction of
image-schemas which are subsidiary to the PATH schema (e.g. VERTICALITY,
REMOVAL OF RESTRAINT, ENABLEMENT, or NEAR-FAR schemas). We may also
find instances of interaction, for example, between the SURFACE and CONTAINER
schemas, which are different from the previous one because these schemas are not
subsidiary to the PATH schema, and the image-schematic interaction is licensed by the
conceptual operation known as conceptual integration by enrichment (a high-level
conceptual operation; Fornés and Ruiz de Mendoza, 1998; Ruiz de Mendoza and
Santibáñez, 2003, Peña, 2003).
Advertising Genre across Cultures: Some Reflections on the Use of Metaphors
as a Persuasive Tool

Jolanta Kowalska
jkowalska375d@cv.gva.es
Escuela Oficial de Idiomas, Valencia

Our everyday communicative exchanges are filled with figurative speech, in other words,
use of language in which the speaker’s proposed meaning does not concur with the literal
meaning of the words uttered. Hence, knowledge of reality, whether occasioned by
perception, language, or memory, needs going beyond the information given. It occurs
through the relations of that information with the context in which it is accessible and with
the speaker’s pre-existing knowledge. In this view, language, perception and knowledge are
inextricably tangled.
This has not remain ignored by advertising creators, who have discovered in figurative
meaning a powerful device to communicate more successfully with their target audiences.
Following Wierzbicka (2002) who said that “Human communication depends on
metaphors”, in this paper we analyse the explanatory and emotional potential of metaphors
used as a persuasive tool in the advertising genre. For the purpose of our study, we have
chosen some advertisements in three different languages (Polish, Spanish and English) but
related to the same product.
 Metaphors in Design Critiques

Barbara Lasserre
barbara.lasserre@uts.edu.au
University of Technology, Sydney

My paper reports on a project which explores the use of metaphor in the context of
university level design education, drawing on both the literature of design and cognitive
theories of metaphor. In particular the research focuses on the sorts of metaphors that are
used by university lecturers when they give oral feedback in the form of critiques ('crits') to
design students.

The research reported on here is part of larger ongoing study of metaphors used by design
theorists and by teachers of design in relation to considerations of the recontextualisation of
theoretical design knowledge into pedagogic practice. The crit is a central place for students
to learn the traditions and discourse of their field, and to acquire tacit knowledge of
ontological metaphorical concepts (following Lakoff); for example SPACE IS A FLUID
informs the feedback in this discourse. Metaphor is often used as a cognitive strategy in
responding to design problems (Casakin 2004). Furthermore, within the field of design
theory and education, there is a body of literature that frequently employs as part of its
metadiscourse ‘DESIGN AS..’ as a way of using analogy to describe the design process:
DESIGN AS EVOLUTION, PROBLEM SOLVING, , PLAY, SERVICE, BRICOLAGE, or
DESIGN AS DEVICE (see for example Morton and O'Brien 2005; Swales, Barks,
Osterman, and Simpson 2001, in Dannels 2005; Buchanan 1996; Dorst 2003; Nelson and
Stolterman 2003). The question I am exploring is whether these metaphors in the
metadiscourse of the design theorists are reflected in the discourse of the crits. In this paper
I will examine the discourse of one crit wherein two lecturers in Architecture are speaking
to a student about her project. At the same time I will look at the discourse of Sidney
Newton in his article “Designing as Disclosure”.
 Using Corpora to Explore the Figurative Potential of the Target Language

Jeannette Littlemore and Fiona MacArthur

j.m.littlemore@bham.ac.uk
University of Birmingham and Universidad de Extremadura

In all languages, the senses of words can be figuratively extended, but languages vary
considerably in terms of the extensions they allow. For example, in English, the word ‘cup’
can be can be figuratively extended to refer to a part of a bra, a part of an acorn, and a hip
joint. None of these senses exist for the word ‘taza’ in Spanish. Moreover, when words are
used figuratively in this way, they are often accompanied by fairly fixed phraseological
patterns that differ from those surrounding the more basic senses of the words (Deignan,
2005). All of this presents a significant challenge to language learners.
To date there has been little research into the ways in which language learners acquire these
figurative senses and the phraseological patterns that accompany them. A potentially
powerful learning tool that could be used for this purpose is the language corpus. Corpora
provide useful information on both usage and phraseological patterning.
In this paper, we describe an exploratory study looking at the ways in which language
learners used corpora to explore the figurative extensions of target language words. The
participants were a group of university-level Spanish-speaking learners of English, and a
group of university-level, English-speaking learners of Spanish. The students in each group
were given a list of nouns in the target language, and asked to make predictions about the
possible figurative meanings of the derived adjective and verb forms. For example, the
students of Spanish were given words such as ‘cuadra’, which gives figurative ‘cuadrar’,
and ‘caldo’, which gives figurative ‘caldear’. The students of English were given a similar
list of words (including animal names like “dog” or “worm”), which can be used
figuratively as verbs. They were then given access to a target language corpus (CREA and
the BNC) and asked to explore and discuss their predictions. The discussions between the
students and teachers were recorded and transcribed. They were then tested on their
retention of the items, and again their discussions were recorded and transcribed.
In the teaching sessions, for most items, the learners tended to make predictions based on
evidence of an A=B metaphorical expression in their L1. They also tended to predict that
verbal meaning would relate to the behaviour of humans. Interestingly, the students made
significant use of gesture in these sessions.
In the testing sessions, there was considerable variation between the items in terms of
retention. In general, the animal terms were remembered better than the other terms. There
was also variation between learners in their ability to recall the words and their
phraseological patterns. At times, expressions were retained as lexical chunks, and at times,
the students resorted to the basic senses of the words, extrapolating from these senses. We
discuss the implications of these findings for language teachers and metaphor theorists.
 The Dynamics of Multi-Discursive Processing of Metaphors

Marzenna Mioduszewska
marzenna.mioduszewska@urjc.es
Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

The rapid spread of ideas and concepts from everyday discourse to all kinds of other
discourses (and back) is a common feature of our modern society. These ideas and concepts
(metaphors) travel across many different contexts of meaning and assume different
functions.

Taking into consideration the most common aspects of a metaphor, i.e., its transferability as
well as its linkage function, this paper proposes the analysis of metaphor transfers into a
variety of discourses.

My strategy here is to present a case study (based on selected terms or concepts from new
technologies area), following the appearance and use of certain metaphors, analysing at the
same time the interactions in which they are likely to engage.
The procedure will include the frequency of occurrence of a chosen concept over a certain
period of time as well as its presence in analysed “importing” discourses.
The final phase will focus on the local and specific interactions with a certain metaphor
creating specific shades of meaning. It is to be noted that the above mentioned aspects of a
metaphor, namely, its transferability and linkage function, contribute largely to the
emergence of its global meaning.

Thus, the thorough study of metaphor transfers and its discourse interactions can,
eventually, help us to understand how discourses are transformed and scientific paradigms
or world views changed (Bono 1990, Fauconnier and Turner 1998).

As it has been observed by many authors, the transfer of metaphors among various
discourses is a very complex issue because it involves the interaction of more discourses
with an ever-more faceted metaphor. The newly created meanings and different usages not
only add up new cases but also compete with each other. A “successful” metaphor, which
has found its place in a discourse and, gradually, unfolds its meaning, affects that discourse
retroactively.

Finally, by presenting this tentative suggestion, I would like to study the meanings attributed
to certain metaphors (chosen for my case study) as they engage in different discursive
interactions. Secondly, I should be able to account for certain functional relationships
between metaphors and their discursive environments.
 The Effects of the Cognitive Turn on the Study of Literary Metaphor

Mariángeles Navarrete López

manavar@ling.ed.ac.uk
University of Edimburgh

Following Steen (Steen, 1994: 3), this paper focuses on the cognitive or rhetorical turn. It
took place in metaphorology and symbolises the departure from the study of metaphor
traditionally carried out by literary critics towards the acknowledgement of metaphor as the
deepest process of the human mind. The aim is to show that it provides a practical
framework for the study of the literary metaphor.
Within the paradigm of the cognitive revolution, experts in the area claim that the view of
metaphor as a cognitive tool is not totally new: for Eco (1984: 99-100), Semino (1997: 198-
199), Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 190), and Turner (Turner, 1987: 3), among others, it can be
traced back to Aristotle. This paper will examine the idea that the cognitive function of
metaphor has been present in metaphorology since the ancient rhetorics, for more than 2,500
years, to trigger the cognitive revolution.
The aim is to arrive at some of the most relevant changes undergone by metaphor following
the emergence of the conceptual status of metaphor in the twentieth century e.g. ‘the
undermining of the metaphor-as-lie thesis’, ‘the death of dead metaphor’, and ‘the erasure of
dichotomies such as metaphor and metonymy’ as described by Fludernik, Freeman, and
Freeman (Fludernik, Freeman, and Freeman, 1999: 383-386).
Next, the consequences of these changes are revisited with attention to the effect on the
study of the literary metaphor. The erasure of the above mentioned dichotomies shows how
the traditional dichotomy between similes and metaphors has been replaced by the idea that
both simile and metaphor can be considered members of the same cognitive category.
Another example concerns the adjustments in terminology, from Richards’s (1936)
influential nomenclature ‘vehicle, tenor and ground’ to ‘schema, source domain, target
domain and mapping’ (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) and later on, ‘blending’ (Fauconnier and
Turner, 2002). The rhetorical or discursive turn presents a consistent practical framework
for the study of the literary metaphor. It constitutes a mode of analysis that is possible
because “audiences share many things- conceptual systems, social practices, commonplace
knowledge, discourse genres, and every aspect of a common language including syntax,
semantics, morphology, and phonology” (Turner, 1987: 4).
 Metaphor and Persuasion in Political Debates

Anabella-Gloria Niculescu-Gorpin
anabella_nic@hotmail.com
University of Manchester

Politicians want to persuade, that is they try to change their hearers’ beliefs and knowledge,
and then their behaviour. Candidates to presidency attempt to persuade their audience,
making them believe that they represent the perfect solution for the problems of the country
and its citizens; they use language to achieve their final goal, that is getting elected.

Nowadays, persuasion can be achieved through different media, such as TV or radio ads or
shows, posters, but political speeches remain a preferred choice especially in presidential
campaigns.

In an attempt to prove and explain the metaphorical relationships or mappings existing

between two conceptual domains, Lakoff and colleagues’ theory of metaphor defines
conventionalized metaphors as constructions belonging to everyday language that are no
longer felt as metaphorical by either speakers or hearers. In this framework, metaphors are
not mainly linguistic phenomena, but a result of the mappings between two semantic
domains. Yet, the theory says less about the way in which metaphors appear and why they
are used.

My analytical framework is mainly represented by Relevance Theory and its approach to

metaphor seen as a particular case of broadening that gives rise not to mappings between
two domains in the sense described by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), but to ad hoc concepts
(Barsalou 1983, 1987).

My main hypothesis is that the politicians’ use of metaphors contributes to the relevance of
their speeches and thus to persuasion, since persuasion can be geared by relevance: hearers
tend to process information that will yield positive cognitive effects without requiring a
greater processing effort. If the debates are not relevant to the audience, then they may not
process it at all.

This paper is an analysis of the metaphors identified in the three American presidential
debates of 2004. I have analyzed what has been termed in the literature as “conventional”
and “novel” metaphors (“to bring people to the table”, “we’ve upheld the doctrine”, “a
colossal error of judgement”, “to build a true alliance”, “the free world would act in
concert” etc.) in order to prove that politicians use them to categorize or frame the reality
they talk about in such a way as to make hearers perceive their speeches as real arguments
and solutions for their current problems, thus increasing the persuasive effect. I have
analyzed how G. W. Bush and J. Kerry used metaphors to create different images or
scenarios of the same realities in their attempt to achieve persuasion.
 Discourse, Semantics and Metonymy

José Luis Otal Campo

otal@ang.uji.es
Universitat Jaume I

There are many ways of doing semantics. We have formal semantics, which makes use of
principles of logic in looking at concepts in terms of classes of items subject to logical
operations and definable in terms of intensional and extensional meaning. We have
interpretive semantics, in which lexical items can be arranged according to their capability
to combine with one another on the basis of selection restrictions (e.g. such atomic concepts
as +/- human, +/-living, etc.). There are also paradigmatic approaches like Coseriu's
lexematics whereby lexical items are arranged onomasiologically according to their inherent
semasiological structure. Other approaches, like Wierzbicka's analysis and the cognitive
semantics approach come closer to providing rich semantic characterizations for each
lexical item or for the conceptual constructs associated with them. Wierzbicka believes that
the essentials of world knowledge can be captured in definitions by means of a set of
universal, atomic concepts that she calls "semantic primitives" (e.g. small, big, kind, good,
do, etc.). Cognitive semantics has taken two forms: idealized cognitive models theory
(Lakoff, 1987), and frame semantics (Fillmore & Atkins, 1992, 1994). In cognitive
semantics concepts are complex structures consisting of a number of elements and their
associated roles (e.g. in a buying frame, we have a buyer, a seller, a market, merchandise,
and money).
It is possible to divide all these different ways of dealing with semantics into two basic
approaches: one, we will call the minimalist view, and the other the maximalist view. Only
cognitive semantics fits the latter category, since it tries to capture all the complexities of
conceptual organization. I will argue that, precisely because of these ambitious goals, only a
maximalist approach can be productively used to account for discourse activity.
 Independent Complement Constructions in German and the “Ethical Dative”:
A Cognitive-Linguistic and Pragmatic Analysis

Klaus-Uwe Panther
KUPanther@t-online.de
Hamburg University

In this talk I analyze constructions that exemplify an apparent “mismatch” between syntactic
structure and conceptual-pragmatic function. They formally exhibit the structure of
subordinate, i.e. dependent clauses, but they are used to convey independent speech acts.
However, an important aim of the talk will be to show that these constructions are
nevertheless partially motivated by their conceptual content and pragmatic function. These
constructions show up in a variety of languages but I restrict myself here to data from
German:2
(1) Dass du ja pünktlich bist! (order, request)
comp you prt on time are
(2) Dass doch die drei Tag[e] schon um wären! (wish)
comp prt the three days already gone were-subj
(3) Dass das ausgerechnet mir passieren muss! (expression of
frustration)
comp that of-all-people to-me happen must
(4) Dass ich das noch erleben darf! (expression of happiness, joy)
comp I that still experience may
The focus of this talk is on German complement clause constructions of the type
exemplified by (1) – (4). These examples are actually distinct as to their conceptual content
and pragmatic function. (1) has a directive force, (2) expresses an intentional state or
propositional attitude of wishing, whereas (3) and (4) express emotional states such as joy
and frustration, respectively. The directive speech act construction exemplified by (1),
contrary to the other constructions, allows an additional first person dative personal pronoun
traditionally known as the “ethical dative” as in (5):
(5) Dass du mir ja pünktlich bist!
comp you me.dat prt on time are
The grammatical and conceptual status of the ethical dative mir will be discussed in some
detail. It will be argued that mir in such constructions as (5) is neither an argument of the
construction nor a participant (argument) of the predicate pünktlich sein ‘be on time’. Still,
mir has an important conceptual and communicative function: it metonymically elaborates a
beneficiary source meaning to a target meaning that emphatically conveys the sincerity
condition for directive speech acts.
As to the constructions exemplified in (3) and (4), it will be shown that they exhibit rich
cognitive models with frame elements such as ‘emotional involvement’, ‘counter-to-
expectation situations’, and even metaphysical background assumptions about ‘what the
world is like’. I maintain that these knowledge structures are adequately modeled by a
“convergent” or integrated theory of meaning encompassing contemporary cognitive
linguistic approaches to metaphor, metonymy, conceptual blending, and pragmatic
inferencing (conversational implicature).

2
Abbreviations: COMP: complementizer; PRT: modal particle; DAT: dative.
 La batalla perdida frente al tiempo y la elección del camino equivocado: una
aplicación práctica de la lingüística cognitiva al discurso literario

Mª Sandra Peña Cervel

spena@flog.uned.es
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia

Varios autores han analizado en profundidad la utilidad de las herramientas proporcionadas

por la Lingüística Cognitiva para el análisis del discurso literario (por ej. Freeman 2000,
Gavins y Steen 2003). Asimismo diversos estudiosos se han centrado en determinadas obras
literarias para mostrar que dicho discurso hace uso extensivo de los diferentes modelos
cognitivos idealizados propuestos por Lakoff para dar unidad y coherencia al citado discurso
(por ej. Deane 1995, Crane 2001). En esta propuesta analizamos Macbeth desde un punto de
vista cognitivo. Pretendemos ir más allá del análisis ofrecido por Freeman (1995) arrojando
más luz sobre la caracterización de los personajes y desarrollo de la obra e incorporando los
últimos avances en cuanto a teoría cognitiva se refiere (por ejemplo, tomaremos como
puntos de partida la teoría de la metonimia de Ruiz de Mendoza y Otal (2002) y el estudio
realizado por Peña (2003) sobre esquemas de imagen). Con tal fin, aportamos las inferencias
derivadas de la aplicación de los esquemas de imagen de BLOQUEO, ELIMINACIÓN DE
BARRERAS y VÍNCULO. Además, caracterizaremos el personaje de Macbeth en términos
de la metáfora del YO DIVIDIDO. La combinación de varios esquemas de imagen
(CONTENEDOR, CAMINO y VERTICALIDAD) nos hará considerar a Macbeth como una
víctima atrapada en un espacio confinado del que no puede salir. De este modo, Macbeth
inevitablemente tomará un rumbo que le llevará al más rotundo fracaso debido a su elección
del camino equivocado. La interacción de estos esquemas subyace a la famosa escena de la
caldera donde las brujas predicen el destino de Macbeth. Otro tema recurrente en esta obra
es el tiempo. El esquema de imagen de CAMINO junto con la idea del tiempo nos harán ver
que Macbeth ha ignorado los pasos intermedios del camino para conseguir su objetivo (ser
rey), ya que el tiempo le apremia. Finalmente el tiempo le gana la partida y se conceptualiza
metafóricamente como un ganador. Existen otras metáforas cuyo dominio meta es el tiempo
que contribuyen al pesimismo desgarrador de la obra. Otro tipo de modelo cognitivo
idealizado que aporta significado a esta tragedia es la metonimia. Por ejemplo, la sangre que
Macbeth quiere lavar de sus manos representa la culpa que le corroe tras cometer varios
horribles crímenes para conseguir ser rey. En resumen, los esquemas de imagen, la metáfora
y la metonimia contribuyen a perfilar el significado y coherencia de esta tragedia.
 The Embodied and Social Grounds for Figurative Meanings: Colour Terms in
EFL

Ana Mª Piquer Píriz

anapiriz@unex.es
Universidad de Extremadura

Colour terminology has been used as a testing ground for first defending and later rejecting
the principle of arbitrariness of language. Empirical work carried out from the late sixties
(Berlin and Kay 1969; Heider 1971; Kay, Berlin, Maffi and Merrifield 1997; Davidoff,
Davies and Roberson 1999) has supported the idea that colour terms show the influence of
underlying perceptual and cognitive factors on the formation and reference of linguistic
categories rather than being a prime evidence for the arbitrariness of linguistic categories, as
structuralists held. Taylor (2003) adds a third element to the perceptual and cognitive,
namely, the environmental factor. Most of this research has mainly focused on the literal
meanings of colours and the differences across languages but as is well known, colour terms
are also highly metaphorical (e.g. ‘the Green movement’ or ‘a blue joke’). Furthermore,
colours themselves can be metaphorically perceived as ‘warm’ or ‘cold’. Exploring this
latter aspect from the perspective of cognitive linguistics may shed new light on the issue of
colour terminology and further develop the notion of the influence of underlying perceptual,
cognitive and social factors in our understanding of the literal and figurative meanings of
colour terms.
This paper reports on a study carried out with young EFL learners on their perception of six
colours as ‘cold’ or ‘warm’. As is well-known, one of the main tenets of cognitive linguistic
is that human abstract reasoning is grounded in our concrete bodily experiences and our
interaction with the environment that surrounds us. Research on children’s understanding of
some semantic extensions of body part terms has shown that they extensively resort to
metonymy and metaphor when attempting to understanding the figurative meanings
presented to them and that their bodily and social experiences also play an important role
(Piquer Píriz 2005). In the study reported here, it is explored whether the same cognitive and
environmental factors are present in their understanding of colours as ‘warm’ or ‘cold’.
 Cognitive Metaphor as a Structuring Device in Scientific Discourse:
The Case of “Climatology”

Diane Ponterotto
dpontero@yahoo.com
ponterotto@cc.univaq.it
University of L’Aquila, Italy

In the wake of the development of cognitive linguistics and the discovery of the role of
cognitive metaphor in human conceptualization and its linguistic representation, interest has
begun to grow in the relationship between metaphor and discourse. Some research has been
dedicated to demonstrating the form and function of the presence of cognitive metaphor in
discourse and text. In many studies, cognitive metaphor emerges as a primary, structuring
device of text and discourse organization (see, for example, Caballero 2003, Charteris-Black
2005, Ponterotto 2000).

This paper will analyze a series of texts belonging to a small corpus constructed from the
American magazine Scientific American, which disseminates scientific discourse among
non-specialist readers. The study will attempt to uncover the metaphorical underpinnings of
a specific geographical topic, that of “climatology”, in this text-type. Although it will
quantify the cognitive metaphors in discourse on climatology in this corpus, it will also
attempt to describe their semantic quality and determine their cohesive role in textual
development.
 The Internet is a Place Metaphor. Does the Language Shape the Concept?

Mª Dolores Porto Requejo

mdolores.porto@uah.es
Universidad de Alcalá

The way in which we usually talk about the Internet (sites, visitors, virtual tours…) seems
to evidence that the metaphor the internet is a place is the way in which we commonly
conceptualize the Internet. The idea of a large amount of networks of computers
interconnected all around the world in order to exchange information in “real time” can
make most of us dizzy. It is so technical and, for those of us who are not experts, so
impressive that we prefer to put aside that idea, even if we know it is the real thing, and
make use of a metaphor so as to manage the concept in more familiar terms.
However, this is still a high level metaphor and it needs to be further elaborated in more
concrete terms in order to make it possible to understand the different aspects of the
Internet, as much as the different purposes it can be used for. Thus, we can conceive the
Internet as a working place, a relaxing place or a meeting place, for instance. Also, the
source domain of the metaphor can be specified in several more concrete locations: a room,
a city, a world… and each of these specifications will provide slightly different
metaphorical models for the Internet. Expressions like surfing the net, visiting a site, or
hacking into a network… reveal the various ways in which the place metaphor is usually
elaborated.
Yet, the reverse direction can also be considered, i.e. the expressions that we hear and read
and by which we learn about the Internet would affect the way in which speakers construct
the concept. This paper will contrast the English and Spanish metaphorical expressions for
the Internet in order to examine the diverse specifications of the place metaphor in either
language. This will raise the question of how much the language affects the concept and
subsequently if English- and Spanish-speaking users experience the Internet differently.
 Metonymic Blending and the Construction of Meaning

Günter Radden
fs2a501@rrz.uni-hamburg.de
University of Hamburg

The paper argues that metonymy, like metaphor, is essentially a phenomenon of conceptual
blending. Grady, Oakley and Coulson (1999) have analyzed metaphor in terms of
conceptual blending, Coulson and Oakley (2003, 2005) have applied blending theory to
selected metonymies. The blending approach to metonymy proposed here is based on the
well-known cognitive-linguistic insight that metonymy is not a matter of substitution, which
is tantamount to saying that the metonymic source is not erased but is still present and
interacts with the metonymic target. This is exactly the kind of situation blending theory is
concerned with. In terms of conceptual blending, the metonymic source, or reference point,
represents one input space, the metonymic target represents the other input space. As in all
cases of conceptual blending, the information derived from both input spaces gives rise to
the construction of emergent meanings in the blended space. It will be shown that this
applies to metonymic blending as well.
As a first step, the paper illustrates the important role the metonymic source plays in
contributing to the meaning of metonymy. In a second step, a number of lexical and
grammatical metonymies are reanalyzed within the blending approach. Particular emphasis
is placed on the construction of meaning in the metonymic blend. Finally, a definition of
metonymy based on the results of this study is proposed.
 La dona objecte i altres metàfores

Montserrat Ribas and Júlia Todolí

montserrat.ribas@upf.edu , julia.todoli@uv.es
Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Universitat de València

Una de les metàfores que ha explicat millor com les societats patriarcals construeixen el
concepte de “dona” és la reiterada metàfora de la dona objecte. La conceptualització de la
“dona” com un “objecte”, com alguna cosa que es pot posseir, ens permet explicar per què
comportaments socials tan abjectes, com la violència de gènere, la prostitució, els
matrimonis convinguts de nenes, etc.. són acceptats, per una gran part de la població
mundial, com a conductes perfectament “normals”.

Altres imatges de la feminitat que són també a la base dels imaginaris socials i culturals
emergeixen de la “naturalització” de comportaments relacionats amb la morfologia dels
cossos. Així, de la maternitat potencial que caracteritza la biologia femenina, se’n desprèn
una especial capacitat per tenir cura dels infants i, per extensió, de la gent gran, dels
discapacitats i dels malalts. De la qual cosa s’infereix que la “naturalesa” femenina està més
preparada que la masculina per a dur a terme activitats relacionades amb la llar, l’educació i
l’assistència sanitària.

Sortosament, els models de “dona” que aquestes conceptualitzacions han produït s’han anat
qüestionant des de posicions feministes i, amb el temps, s’ha aconseguit incidir en les
formes de representació i d’acció social que n’emergeixen. Quines són les noves
conceptualitzacions de la feminitat que el discurs dominant ha incorporat en aquests darrers
anys? En quines metàfores i analogies es basen? Aquestes són dues de les preguntes que ens
formulem i que volem analitzar en aquesta comunicació.

Per a dur a terme l’anàlisi, ens fixarem en els relats que els telenotícies de les diferents
cadenes de les televisions estatals i de la Televisió de Catalunya van fer del 8 de març (Dia
Internacional de les Dones) de 2005. Atès que es tracta d’un format audiovisual, i partint de
la consideració que els processos de conceptualització són en general complexos, no ens
limitarem a treballar les expressions verbals, sinó que orientarem l’estudi envers una
dimensió multimodal de les metàfores i analogies a l’entorn de les quals el discurs dominant
articula la categorització del gènere. Des del punt de vista teòric i metodològic, adoptarem
postulats de la lingüística cognitiva, dels estudis culturals de gènere i de l’anàlisi crítica del
discurs.
 Colours We Live By?: Everyday Colour Metaphors in English and Spanish

Ana Laura Rodríguez Redondo y Silvia Molina Plaza

analaura@filol.ucm.es, silvia.molina@uclm.es
Universidad Complutense de Madrid y Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha

The goal of this paper is to study metaphors of colours in English and Spanish. Most studies
on colour metaphors are related either to emotions (Kövecses, 1990), to the influence of
synaesthesia (Ramachandran and Hubbard, 2003) or studied in literary texts (Cazeaux,
2002; Cacciari et al. 2004) . Our study, on the contrary, aims at the analysis of colour
metaphors in relation to concepts different from those of emotions, where synaesthesia is
not the only motivation, and in contexts which are non-literary texts. The colours to be
studied are central colours such as black, white, red, green and brown. Idioms and
expressions in everyday language in which these colours appear are analyzed, both when the
colour name is the nucleus, and in collocations where the colour names contribute to the
essential meaning of the collocation. Moreover, the experiential motivation of the metaphors
(Lakoff, 1990 [1987]) developed from colours is clear, so the degree in which these
metaphors are within the metonymy to metaphor continuum is observed (Radden, 2000).
The English examples of this contrastive study are taken from the British National Corpus
and the Spanish corpus is extracted from the CREA.
Universal Metaphors in Sign Languages – Evidence from 15 Sign Languages

Rachel Rosenstock
rachel_rosenstock@yahoo.com

Taub's (2001) groundbreaking work investigating metaphors in American Sign Languages

has demonstrated the extensive use of such mappings in sign language. Very few empirical
studies have applied her work to other researched sign languages (Brennan 1990, Grosso
1993) and none to non-European sign languages. This study draws on data collected from
fifteen native signers of a variety of linguistic backgrounds and compares different lexical
items that make use of metaphoric mappings in their form-meaning pairs. In particular,
signs relating to mental processes, feelings and growth or positivity were compared in terms
of their source and target domains. The results show clearly that all included sign languages
use the same source domains for these three areas and that the lexical items in these vastly
different sign languages are consequently very similar. This research shows the importance
of considering iconicity and metaphor in the cross-linguistic study of sign language and
cautions researchers to be aware of the universal sources for metaphoric constructions in
compiling word lists for testing family relationships between sign languages.
 Grounding Constructional Meaning

Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez

francisco.ruiz@dfm.unirioja.es
Universidad de La Rioja

The notion of idealized cognitive model (or ICM), as originally put forward by Lakoff
(1987), is one of the distinctive features of Cognitive Semantics. Lakoff distinguished four
kinds of ICM: frames, metaphor, metonymy, and image schemas. Over the last twenty-five
years, the amount of literature on cognitive models has grown to impressive proportions.
Consider in this respect seminal pieces like Lakoff & Johnson (1980, 1999), Lakoff (1987),
Lakoff & Turner (1989), and other more specific developments and applications, such as
Kövecses (2005), Al-Sharafi (2004), or the contributions to Barcelona (2000), and Dirven &
Pörings (2002), plus the vast amount of references therein. In recent years, one of the areas
of somewhat productive development of the notion is found in generic or high-level
metonymy, as originally discussed in Kövecses & Radden (1998). The implications of the
notion for some areas of grammatical enquiry has been explored in some more detail by
other scholars, notably Panther & Thornburg (1999), Ruiz de Mendoza & Pérez (2001), and
Brdar-Szabó & Brdar (2003), who have argued that many grammatical constructions and
phenomena such as categorial and subcategorial conversion, valency extension and
reduction, enriched composition, and deontic modality shifts are grounded in high-level
metonymy. In connection to these developments, Ruiz de Mendoza (2005) has noted that
some grammatical phenomena are motivated by high-level metaphorical mappings. A case
in point is the caused-motion construction (cf. Goldberg, 1995), as in Peter laughed John
out of the room. In this sentence, the predicate ‘laugh’ undergoes necessary subcategorial
conversion from the pseudo-transitive structure (i.e. actor-predicate-goal/experiencer)
corresponding to laugh at to the transitive structure (i.e. actor-predicate-goal/undergoer) of
the V+O (+PP) type required by the caused-motion construction. Michaelis (2003, 2004)
has discussed a host of cases of lexical adaptation to constructional requirements in terms of
the notion of coercion and the related Override Principle, according to which the meaning
of a lexical item conforms to the meaning of the structure in which it is embedded. In the
case of ‘laugh’ above, this principle predicts that the arguments of the verb have to be re-
construed according to semantic coherence constraints. However, this explanation misses
the important fact that the adaptation process is grounded in a high-level metaphor whereby
we understand one form of being affected by an action (as an experiencer) in terms another
such form (as a undergoer). The importance of postulating this kind of cognitive grounding
in high-level metaphor can hardly be overstated. First, high-level metaphor licenses the
subcategorial conversion process (i.e. it allows for a conceptually feasible use of ‘laugh’).
Second, since we have a metaphorical mapping, the conversion process needs to abide by all
constraints associated with metaphor. One of them is the Correlation Principle (Ruiz de
Mendoza & Santibáñez, 2003), according to which for a metaphoric source element to
qualify as the counterpart of a target domain element, the source element needs to share the
relevant implicational structure of the target element. In the case of the incorporation of
‘laugh’ into the caused-motion construction, the Correlation Principle ensures that the role
instrument from the source is discarded (cf. *Peter laughed John out of the room with
laughter/a big smile), since ‘laughing’ is treated as instrumental to caused motion (cf. Peter
caused John to go out of the room by laughing at him). In much the same vein, the
presentation explores the cognitive grounding of other constructions in high-level mappings.
Metaphorical Mappings in Discourse: The Case of Homonymic Compounds in
Japanese

Reijirou Shibasaki
reijiro@okiu.ac.jp
Okinawa International University

This study presents that discourse serves as a crucial factor for a precise understanding of
Japanese puns i.e. a word play with homonym, and argues that the double meaning in a pun
can be developed in two ways, metaphorically and metonymically associated with other
words in discourse. The theoretical contribution of this study is that such a bi-directional
mapping in thought is facilitated in immediate discourse and can be accounted for by
Blending Theory (Fauconnier 1997).
Japanese words consist of syllables which usually include a consonant and a vowel;
compound expressions are often found to serve an effective unit for puns, because they are
not so influenced by changes in pitch and accent. Due to such a simple phonological
structure, homonymic compounds abound in the history of Japanese. In order to precisely
understand the double meaning of a pun, the expression should be used in a stretch of
discourse, at least in a clause. Otherwise, the double meaning in the expression cannot fully
be understood. Consider the following example.

(1)

In (1), the word ‘hinsoo’ consists of ‘hin’ and ‘soo’; the former is the same sound as the
neighing of horses and the adjective 貧 [hin] ‘poor’; the sound of the latter corresponds to
僧 [soo] ‘a priest’ and 相 [soo] ‘a countenance’; therefore, [hinsoo] implies both ‘a poor-
looking priest’ and ‘a horse-looking priest’. Despite their same pronunciations, homonymic
compounds can derive two distinct but related meanings in immediate discourse, and
Blending Theory can handle with such conceptual mappings in Japanese puns. (A full
representation of mapping is to be presented at the conference.)
In Japanese, speakers are required to have some knowledge about effective use of
puns, especially in poetry. Either poetic or ordinary puns, the mechanism for conceptual
mapping is the same, and Blending Theory gives a unified account of it.
 Metonymy and Anaphoric Reference in Dude, Where’ My Country, Stupid
White Men, The Da Vinci Code and Deception Point

Antonio José Silvestre López

asilvest@ang.uji.es
Universitat Jaume I

This paper constitutes an Analysis of the Cases of Anaphoric Reference to a Metonymic

Antecedent in Dude, Where’ My Country, Stupid White Men, The Da Vinci Code and
Deception Point. It departs from the postulates of Ruiz de Mendoza and his collaborators on
metonymic anaphora (Ruiz de Mendoza 1997, 1999; Ruiz de Mendoza & Otal 2002; Ruiz
de Mendoza & Díez 2004). Different cases of anaphoric reference to a metonymic
antecedent and to elements of frames or scenarios activated by the use of certain terms are
analysed, and the functioning of the principles underlying the selection of the anaphoric
referents in each case (CMA, DAP, DCP, DPP) are examined and illustrated by means of a
series of commented examples. A distinction between simple and double metonymic
mappings is drawn and illustrated with examples. Ruiz de Mendoza’s account on
metonymic anaphora proves a highly comprehensive approach, capable of accounting for all
the examples analysed in this paper.
 Finding Metaphor in Discourse:
Pragglejaz and Beyond

Gerard Steen
gj.steen@let.vu.nl
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

This is a methodological paper which addresses the ways in which metaphor can be found in
discourse. I will begin by presenting a brief overview of the various methodological issues
which play a role in metaphor identification. Then I will continue by reporting on the state
of development of the Pragglejaz method for finding metaphorically used words. Finally I
will talk about a number of metaphorical phenomena which are excluded by the Pragglejaz
method, but which also need to be addressed.
All of these issues will be broached from the perspective of empirical research done in two
five-year research programmes launched in September 2005. The first is “Metaphor in
discourse: linguistic forms, conceptual structures, cognitive representations”, a programme
supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). It involves the
study of the structure, distribution, functions, and processes of metaphor in a ten percent
sample of the BNC-Baby, in collaboration with Ewa Biernacka, Lettie Dorst, Anna Kaal,
and Irene Lopéz-Rodríguez. The second is a study of metaphor within the programme
“Conversationalization in discourse”, with the collaboration of Tryntje Pasma. This is a
programme participating in the interdisciplinary VU-Ster research initiative “Text, cognition
and communication” and involves a joint project between the faculties of Psychology,
Social Science, and the Arts on mechanisms of rhetoric in public discourse.
 Do ‘Real’ Pictures Really Facilitate the Mnemonics of Mental Imagery?

Hélène Stengers, Frank Boers, and June Eyckmans

helene.stengers@vub.ac.be
frank.boers@docent.ehb.be
june.eyckmans@docent.ehb.be
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Universiteit Antwerpen & Erasmushogeschool Brussel,
Erasmushogeschool Brussel

The figurative meaning of a considerable number of idioms can be motivated by

resuscitating their original, literal usage. This association of a figurative idiom with a
concrete scene is likely to involve mental imagery and such an imagistic approach to idioms
has been shown to be highly effective as a mnemonic technique in the context of FLT
(Boers, 2000, 2001, Boers, et. al., 2004). These mnemonic effects are in accordance with
Dual Coding Theory (Clark and Paivio, 1991; Paivio, 1986) and Levels-of-Processing
Theory (Cermak and Craik, 1979; Craik and Lockhart, 1972). Because of cognitive style
variables, however, the inclination for mental imagery may not be equally present in all
learners. This presentation explores two hypotheses: (i) learners who incline towards the
imager end of the imager-verbaliser cognitive style continuum (so-called high imagers)
benefit more from the mnemonic effect mental imagery than low imagers and (ii) learners’
imagistic processing of idioms can be enhanced through the addition of ‘real’ images
illustrating the origins of the idioms. Both hypotheses were put to the test in controlled
(CALL) experiments using Idiom Teacher, a pedagogical tool promoting insightful learning
of idioms which was developed by the authors. The participants were students of English at
a tertiary education college offering four years of training in modern languages. The results
offer corroboration of the first hypothesis. With regard to the second hypothesis, the
experiment revealed that the addition of pictures resulted in an equally successful
performance by both low and high imagers in comprehending and remembering the idioms.
Comparative data analysis with former experiments (in which the idioms were presented
without pictures) show that, overall, the presence of the images contributed to an increased
facility to identify the meaning of the idiom, but did not promote the retention of the form of
the expression. Subsequent item analysis confirmed that the images acted as a distraction
from the focus on the form of the expression. Participants however expressed their
preference for exercises containing pictures.
 Sharing Sensorial Experience, Conceptualizing Wine

Ernesto Suárez Toste

ernestojesus.suarez@uclm.es
Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha

Because there is no single lexicon with the expressive potential to cover all the range of
sensorial impressions, the intellectualization of sensorial experience is inextricably linked to
the figurative uses of language. The inherent subjectivity of sensorial experience represents
innumerable difficulties when technical discourse is under scrutiny.
The many discourses around the world of wine offer incredible expressive richness derived,
no doubt, from sheer necessity. Much sophisticated wit has been put into this little universe,
and indeed naming farfetched aromas may be an ingenious little game, but there are too
many other aspects of wine that demand a reliable and standardized jargon. Spotting “apple”
and “slate” in a wine is one thing, but a description of its tactile impression on our palate, its
“size,” or its “length” are totally different tasks that almost always demand the use of
different metaphors.
The description and evaluation (i.e., critique or review) of wines is realised in the tasting
note. Rather than being a mere private record of a sensorial experience, the genre is an
extremely useful consumer tool in today’s ever-expanding fine wine market. For these
communicative efforts to be efficient, both ends must accept the possibilities and limitations
of winespeak. This specialised discourse points to various figurative phenomena
(synaesthesia, metonymy, metaphor), all of which are indispensable tools for articulating
what is an intrinsically sensorial experience. A wine, therefore, must become a living
creature, a jewel, a building, or a tissue, to name but a few of the metaphorical schemas
underlying lexis used to discuss it. In this context anthropomorphic metaphor is possibly the
most interesting. (I use a concept and formalization of metaphor taken from Lakoff and
Johnson’s 1980 Metaphors We Live By, and Lakoff and Turner’s 1989 More than Cool
Reason.)
In accordance with this theoretical framework, metaphor is not seen as a linguistic ornament
but, rather, as an essential heuristic tool that fulfils our cognitive and communicative needs.
In the case of wine discourse, metaphor not only reveals the way wine specialists
conceptualise the subject at issue - i.e., wine - but also works as an indispensable tool to
communicate the complex sensorial experience of tasting wine to others, making it not only
graspable or intelligible, but also, and most importantly, something susceptible to being
transmitted and learnt.
 Metaphoric Extension and Invited Inferencing in Semantic Change

Karen Sullivan
ksull@berkeley.edu
University of California at Berkeley

In recent years, debate has raged over how to describe semantic extensions like the sense of
see meaning ‘understand’, as in (1).

(1) OK, now I see what you mean.

(forums.rpghost.com/showthread.php?p=343390)

Some argue that all semantic extensions between conceptual domains (such as from
SEEING to KNOWING in [1]) are metaphoric extensions. The change ‘see’ > ‘understand’,
for example, is attributed to the well-documented conceptual metaphor KNOWING IS
SEEING (cf. Sweetser 1990). Others propose that examples like see ‘understand’ should be
explained as generalized invited inferences (GIIN) (Traugott and Dasher 2002). On the
GIIN account, see ‘understand’ arose from the reanalysis of see in contexts which are
ambiguous between seeing and knowing, such as (2). The speaker’s command in (2) to ‘see
where it is’ invites the addressee to also ‘find out/learn where it is’. These contexts abound
in OE and ME corpora, and continue to arise in NE.

(2) Nou wend and seh wher hit be.

(c1310, Marina, anon.)

I argue that either GIIN or metaphor can explain see in (1), but neither model can account
for all cross-domain semantic extension. Both models are therefore necessary in a thorough
model of semantic change.

The GIIN explanation breaks down when it comes to examples like brilliant as in (3). My
survey of OE and ME corpora revealed no contexts which are ambiguous between literal
light sources and ideas: light-emission and inspiration do not literally co-occur as often as
seeing and knowing. On the other hand, the metaphor model has no problem with brilliant
in (3), attributing it to KNOWING IS SEEING and the mapping IDEAS ARE LIGHT
SOURCES.

(3) I had a brilliant idea.

(bncp=13=642=1)

Conversely, the metaphoric extension model fails when it comes to examples such as seeing
meaning ‘dating’, as in (4a). No recognized conceptual metaphor maps SEEING onto
DATING. Observe, too, that simple-present see in (4b) cannot refer to DATING; which
suggests that ‘seeing’ > ‘dating’ does not reflect a prelinguistic cognitive process like
metaphor, but rather a discourse-based extension like GIIN.

(4) a. I know you’re not married, but are you seeing anyone right now?
(elektronicsurveillance.homestead.com/interviews_RazinBlack.html)

b. #I know you’re not married, but do you see anyone right now?
The GIIN model attributes seeing ‘dating’ to ambiguous contexts like (5), in which the
addressee could interpret seeing as referring either to visual contact or romantic meetings
(which typically involve visual contact).

(5) She has forbid me seeing her...

(1682, The city-heiress, Aphra Behn)

While the metaphoric extension and GIIN models overlap in their explanatory utility, as in
see ‘understand’, each model can handle examples which the other cannot. I suggest that we
should not choose between the metaphor and GIIN models, but should rather consider how
the two can be integrated into a unified theory of semantic extension.
 Variation in Conceptual Metaphor: A Study of “CAUSES ARE FORCES”

Dennis Tay Zhiming

dennis.tay@gmail.com
National University of Singapore

This paper explores the idea of variation in conceptual metaphor, focusing on CAUSES
ARE FORCES (Lakoff and Johnson 1999), and demonstrates that metaphorical
conceptualizations of causal relations are varied to achieve different discourse objectives.
In philosophical discussions, causal agency is deemed to lie between the opposite ends of
determinism and freewill. Likewise, causal relations may be conceived of as either being
more deterministic, implying a greater sense of inevitability, or as more “free-willed”,
implying the opposite. This can be achieved in discourse by varying the depiction of causal
forces (the source domain). I propose a brief typology of forces, which differentiates forces
along the dimensions of agency (whether human agency is involved) and resistibility (how
resistible the forces are). This conjures up four main classes of forces (+agency +resistible,
–agency –resistible, +agency –resistible, –agency +resistible), with –agency –resistible
being the most deterministic. I then use this to classify causal metaphors from various texts
discussing political issues, mostly in an Asian context. From this, I suggest that texts that
aim to convey a more deterministic outlook tend to employ causal metaphors on the
deterministic side of the typology (i.e. towards the –agency –resistible end), with the
converse being true. The findings are hoped to not only raise awareness about the idea of
variation in conceptual metaphor (see Kovecses 2005), amidst considerable consensus about
their universal aspects, but also the fact that such variation can be motivated by specific
discourse purposes. This should shed further light on the interrelatedness of cognition,
ideology and language.
 Cognitive Metaphor as a Means of Building Linguistic Concepts

Raisa Tazetdinova
adremr@rambler.ru
Bashkir State University

Treated as a means of interrelation between language, thought and culture, the word
represents itself a certain structure which reflects different kind of human knowledge. Every
meaning constituent shows categorial features which in their turn comprise the contents of
the correspondent linguistic concept. In this article we will deal with linguistic concepts of
human abode. The meaning structure of lexical elements denoting types of dwelling looks
like a particular combination of semes reflecting their various features. Thus one part of a
word conceptual structure can be explicated by means of component analysis of its
definition.
The other part of conceptual structure includes epistemological knowledge about typical
human dwelling which is contracted in such meta-words as house, flat etc. Russian linguists
E. Vereshagin and V. Kostomarov single out 5 components which a priori exist in the
meaning structure of every unit denoting names of dwelling: the roof, the wall, the window,
the door, the threshold [Верещагин, Костомаров 2000: 19]. The combination of these 5
epistemological components is called in this article the basic cognitive model of the
conceptual sphere ABODE. Conceptual features explicated from the dictionary definition of
the corresponding word are treated here as qualifying, specifying the basic cognitive model
and are called modifiers. For example the word studio means: an apartment consisting of
one main room, a kitchen or kitchenette, and a bedroom 2) a one-room apartment having a
high ceiling and large windows (WEUDEL); when property prices were rising, “studio”
flats – single rooms with modest facilities – became popular [McKay: 21]. The cognitive
model of studio is represented in the following table:
The basic cognitive model
The roof, the wall, the window, the door, the threshold

Modifiers:

size
small

number of rooms
3

interior layout
having a high ceiling and large windows

degree of comfort
modest facilities

cultural and historic factor

when property prices were rising, “studio” flats became popular

The cognitive model structure reflects not only various types of human experience
but also a way of concept forming in our mind. The idea of a typical house/flat as a unity
arranged by 5 components is the result of a cognitive process managed by the conceptual
metaphor CONTAINER. This basic cognitive process works as follows: man mentally treats
different phenomena, events, actions, emotions applying to their comprehension the terms of
his physical body such as realizing them as a container whose volume is limited. The
authors of a cognitive metaphor theory J. Lakoff and M. Johnson consider the process of
analogy plays the main role in the transfer of knowledge from one objective sphere to
another [Lakoff, Johnson 1980]. In this case this quality is transferred to the objects that
surround him - houses and buildings. Thus the cognitive metaphor being a universal means
of classification of perception, thought and action stipulates the lexical coding specificity in
different languages: the basic cognitive model + modifying conceptual features.
 Metaphor and Borrowing

Alexander Tokar
tokar@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de
Heinrich-Heine-University

The problem to be addressed in my paper is a role of metaphor as a factor of choice between

borrowings and loan-translations when dealing with foreign word material. In a recent
dissertation on French and Spanish terminology of the World Wide Web (Jansen 2005) it
has been claimed that those English expressions which have a metaphoric status are in
general rendered by loan-translations. Homepage, for example, corresponds to page perso in
French and página principal in Spanish (ibid.p.408). Loanwords, on the contrary, are used
only when translation is impossible for semantic reasons. The term spam, for instance, was
integrated into French and Spanish Internet vocabulary because the basis for its metaphoric
extension in English – a popular sketch of the comic group Monty Python set in a restaurant
in which SPAM (a name of a canned pork product) is included in every item on the menu –
is simply not known to the majority of speakers of French and Spanish (ibid.pp.291-292).
In the first part of my paper, I will try to analyse whether Jansen’s claim can be treated as a
universal tendency. For this purpose, I will compare how the same metaphorical concepts
(page, site, cookie, etc.) are verbalized by speakers of other languages such as German and
Russian. My belief is that the metaphorical status of a source language expression is not a
sufficient criterion to predict how it will be dealt with in a target language. Both German
and Russian borrowed a number of metaphoric expressions which could have been easily
translated. The term (web)site, for example, is traditionally associated with (perhaps the
most basic) INTERNET IS SPACE conceptual metaphor and, consequently, could have
been easily rendered by a German Ort and a Russian mesto. Since speakers of both these
languages, however, decided in favour of a loanword, I suggest that a more differentiated
approach should be elaborated.
In the second part, I will outline the possibility of a cognitive treatment of the phenomenon
described. What has been completely left out of consideration in Jansen’s thesis is a
question how speakers of a target language understand metaphorical concepts which are
verbalized by loanwords. In other words, if speakers of a target language fail to find an
adequate translation for site (even though there is a clear understanding why this term is
metaphorically used in English), does the expression lose its metaphorical status once it
penetrates the lexicon of a target language as a loanword? My position is that in target
languages German and Russian as well in English the concept of a website is understood
metaphorically in terms of the same SPACE metaphor. Loan-translation, however, is
impossible because the meaning of site as constructed by speakers of these languages does
not result from the interaction (in the sense of Max Black) of a primary and a secondary
subject (geographical and Internet sites) which is typical of English.
 Lexical Networks and Metaphorical Conceptualization in Specialized
Languages : The Case of Biomedicine

Sylvie Vandaele
sylvie.vandaele@umontreal.ca
sylvvan@ca.inter.net
Université de Montréal

Our work relies on the hypothesis that metaphorical conceptualization (MC), as defined by
Lakoff (1980/2003; 1993), is an important driving force behind conceptual creativity in
biomedicine, that is reflected at the terminological and phraseological levels. In our previous
work (e.g. Vandaele and Lubin, 2005), we have proposed that some predicative lexical
units, which we call conceptualization indicators (CIs), are the central elements in linguistic
expressions and lexical networks reflecting MC. In order to systematically describe and
analyse the lexical networks involved, and to produce a dynamic representation of their
structure and interconnections, we implemented a strategy of semantic annotation in
multilingual parallel corpuses of structured documents using XML (Extensible Markup
Language). For the purpose of the analysis, we have concentrated our efforts on the field of
cell and molecular biology. We thus developed an original method for systematically
analyzing metaphorical conceptualizations, which allows us to combine (1) conceptual
tagging of metaphorical conceptualizations as expressed by conceptualization indicators,
and (2) lexical tagging of the surface expressions involved. This latter focuses on linguistic
elements expressing the actants of predicative conceptualization indicators as well as on
specific collocations. The conceptual tagging is inspired by the theorical frameworks of
Lakoff (metaphorical conceptualization), Talmy (2001; principles of factivity/fictivity) and
Fauconnier and Turner (1998; blending, or conceptual integration). The lexical analyses is
realized with the help of the Explanatory and Combinatorial Lexicology component of the
Meaning-Text Theory (e.g. Mel’čuk et al., 1995), namely actantial analysis and Lexical
Functions. Apart from the main methodological features, we will present a number of
metaphorical conceptualizations that are prominent in molecular and cellular biology with
the lexical networks involved, namely metaphorical naming of concepts (terms) and
associated phraseologisms, with examples in English, French and Spanish. We will also
show how conceptual integration occurs within the scientific discourse. Finally, we will
discuss the importance of metaphorical conceptualization in the understanding of scientific
concepts as well as in technical and popularized scientific writing and translation.
 Relevance Theory and the Pragmatics of Metaphor: Some Implications

Deirdre Wilson
deirdre@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk
Department of Linguistics, UCL

Relevance theory offers a different view of metaphor from the standard Gricean one. For
Grice (as for most philosophers of language) metaphor is a departure from a norm of literal
truthfulness; for relevance theorists (as for most cognitive linguists), metaphor is entirely
normal and pervasive in language use. While cognitive linguists see metaphor as originating
primarily in thought, relevance theorists have been developing an account of how metaphors
arise in the process of verbal communication. The two approaches are not incompatible,
since there may be distinct (though related) metaphorical phenomena at the level of thought,
on the one hand, and language, on the other. Recent attempts to explore the common ground
between them (e.g. Ruiz de Mendoza, 2005; Gibbs & Tendahl, forthcoming) are likely to be
of benefit to both.

Apart from the claim that metaphor is wholly normal and violates no pragmatic maxim or
principle, the relevance-theoretic account of metaphor makes two main points: (a) metaphor
is not a distinct pragmatic category but part of a continuum of cases, from literal use,
through approximation, to hyperbole and metaphor, with no clear cut off point between
them; (b) the interpretation of metaphor is properly inferential, with the audience’s
conclusion about the speaker’s meaning being properly warranted by the fact that the
speaker has uttered a sentence with a certain linguistic meaning, together with appropriate
contextual assumptions (e.g. Carston, 2002; Sperber & Wilson, 2002; Carston & Wilson,
forthcoming; Sperber & Wilson, forthcoming). After illustrating the relevance-theoretic
approach with emphasis on these two points, I will consider its implications for attempts to
combine relevance theory and cognitive linguistics, and for accounts of linguistic or
conceptual metaphor as a ‘mapping’ between distinct domains.