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Evaluating metaphor accounts via their pragmatic effects

Abstract

A prominent pragmatic effect of metaphor is meaning enhancement (Colston, 2015). Relative to comparable non-metaphorical language, metaphors can provide stronger, richer, or more poignant delivery of a proposition, idea, attitude, emotion, schema, or other meaningful construct. Metaphor constructions also alter their component parts (e.g., source and target domains). The paper measures pragmatic effect performance when metaphors are assembled in different ways, as a means of evaluating metaphor accounts. In four experiments metaphors were altered by using; (1) weak versus strong SDs, (2) mixed versus unmixed SDs, (3) single versus double instantiations of SDs, and (4) using standard metaphor versus simile constructions. Observed differences (e.g., in meaning enhancement) support the idea that metaphor understandings arise in part due to embodied simulations.

Abstract

A prominent pragmatic effect of metaphor is meaning enhancement (Colston, 2015). Relative to comparable non-metaphorical language, metaphors can provide stronger, richer, or more poignant delivery of a proposition, idea, attitude, emotion, schema, or other meaningful construct. Metaphor constructions also alter their component parts (e.g., source and target domains). The paper measures pragmatic effect performance when metaphors are assembled in different ways, as a means of evaluating metaphor accounts. In four experiments metaphors were altered by using; (1) weak versus strong SDs, (2) mixed versus unmixed SDs, (3) single versus double instantiations of SDs, and (4) using standard metaphor versus simile constructions. Observed differences (e.g., in meaning enhancement) support the idea that metaphor understandings arise in part due to embodied simulations.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. List of contributors ix
  5. Introduction. Figurative language 1
  6. Part I. Intersubjectivity and interaction
  7. Second-order empathy, pragmatic ambiguity, and irony 19
  8. Desiderata for metaphor theory, the Motivation & Sedimentation Model and motion-emotion metaphoremes 41
  9. Evaluating metaphor accounts via their pragmatic effects 75
  10. The multimodal negotiation of irony and humor in interaction 109
  11. Part II. Mechanisms and processes
  12. Metaphor and irony 139
  13. Metonymic indeterminacy and metalepsis 175
  14. On verbal and situational irony 213
  15. On figurative ambiguity, marking, and low-salience meanings 241
  16. Part III. Usage and variation
  17. Metaphor, metonymy and polysemy 287
  18. Psycholinguistic approaches to figuration 307
  19. The fabric of metaphor in discourse 339
  20. Sources of verbal humor in the lexicon 357
  21. Measuring the impact of (non)figurativity in the cultural conceptualization of emotions in the two main national varieties of Portuguese 387
  22. Index 439
Figurative Language – Intersubjectivity and Usage
This chapter is in the book Figurative Language – Intersubjectivity and Usage
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.11.03col

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. List of contributors ix
  5. Introduction. Figurative language 1
  6. Part I. Intersubjectivity and interaction
  7. Second-order empathy, pragmatic ambiguity, and irony 19
  8. Desiderata for metaphor theory, the Motivation & Sedimentation Model and motion-emotion metaphoremes 41
  9. Evaluating metaphor accounts via their pragmatic effects 75
  10. The multimodal negotiation of irony and humor in interaction 109
  11. Part II. Mechanisms and processes
  12. Metaphor and irony 139
  13. Metonymic indeterminacy and metalepsis 175
  14. On verbal and situational irony 213
  15. On figurative ambiguity, marking, and low-salience meanings 241
  16. Part III. Usage and variation
  17. Metaphor, metonymy and polysemy 287
  18. Psycholinguistic approaches to figuration 307
  19. The fabric of metaphor in discourse 339
  20. Sources of verbal humor in the lexicon 357
  21. Measuring the impact of (non)figurativity in the cultural conceptualization of emotions in the two main national varieties of Portuguese 387
  22. Index 439
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