Cognitive Linguistic Studies - Current Issue

Abstract

Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) departed from tradition in metaphor studies by treating this phenomenon as an ordinary one used in everyday reasoning. From its inception, this theory made emphasis on the role of experiential correlation in accounting for metaphorical thought to the detriment of its long-standing treatment in terms of similarity. This experientialist thesis was later strengthened by making it part of a broader theoretical framework that treated correlation metaphor as an embodied phenomenon where an essential part of its role in reasoning was due to its ability to give rise to conceptual conflation. Against the background provided by this theoretical context, this article reexamines the role of correlation, conflation, and embodiment in terms of two distinctions: low and high-level similarity, on the one hand, and structural and non-structural similarity, on the other hand. The analytical categories that support these distinctions are used to provide an improved understanding of the nature of metaphorical thought, including correlation metaphor, structural metaphor, several forms of analogy, synesthetic metaphor, and metaphorical amalgams.

Abstract

It is generally agreed that literary metaphors are produced and interpreted by using the same strategies as more conventional, ordinary metaphorical expressions (George Lakoff & Mark Turner 1989; Zoltán Kövecses 2010). However, the aesthetic experience of reading metaphors in literature is a complex phenomenon that remains only partially explained. This paper aims at contributing to the study of the cognitive mechanisms that allow the aesthetic experience when reading poetic metaphors. For this purpose, after a short review of previous research on literary metaphors in the Cognitive Linguistic framework, the main tenets of Neuroaesthetics (Semir Zeki 2001; Vilayanur Ramachandran 2003), an emerging empirical discipline, are presented as referred to the study of visual art. Then, the insights from both fields are compared and applied to the study of metaphors. Results show significant coincidences as empirical research in neuroscience seem to confirm the theories and hypotheses posed by cognitive linguists, as for the way in which the emotional response to poetic metaphors is elicited.

Abstract

This article is a brief introduction to the theory of conceptual metonymy and a brief survey of research on this area. The first section presents the cognitive-linguistic notion of metonymy, including a discussion of the various problematic aspects of this notion. This is followed by a longer section illustrating some of the main types of metonymies. The section devoted to the ubiquity of metonymy surveys research on its involvement in cognition, grammatical meaning and form, pragmatic inferencing and discourse, linguistic change, and non-linguistic areas like art and gesture; it ends with a brief note on metonymic triggers and chains, and on its multilevel operation. The chapter ends with a reflection on future directions.

Abstract

This article discusses the ironist, the interpreter, and the target as structural elements of irony from a cognitive-linguistic standpoint. It builds on the scenario-based approach to irony, where ironic meaning is taken as a contextually adjustable inference that results from a clash between epistemic and attested conceptual scenarios. The article provides a classification of ironist, interpreter, and target types, and then it discusses the functions of irony (i.e., attacking, mocking, being playful, showing off, and persuading) and the solidarity component involved in ironic production and interpretation. It further explains the factors involved in the identification of the epistemic and the attested scenarios, and those involved in the interpretation of irony. The resulting analysis of the structural elements of irony endows the study of irony with greater descriptive delicacy and explanatory adequacy.

Abstract

The new and shocking situation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic stimulated the analysis of its impact in discourse. Discourse analysts have concentrated on the use of metaphor to create specific conceptualizations of the disease aimed at communicating the events and developments while influencing public opinion. Similes have been given less attention but are equally telling when it comes to the conceptualization of the pandemic. In this paper we analyze a corpus of English and Spanish similes (about 100 examples from each language) where (corona)virus is the target. The examples were searched for on the Internet and cover a two-year period, from March 2020 to February 2022. The sources, mappings, and conceptual domains of the Covid-19 similes are analyzed in order to describe how the pandemic is conceptualized through the use of ‘(corona)virus is like X’ similes. The coronavirus similes are classified according to three main domains, namely, natural forces and disasters, confrontation (including war), and arts and entertainment (including sports). Each domain conceptualizes the situation in different ways (so that citizens are presented as victims, fighters, experiencers, members of a team, etc.). Interestingly, there are many creative similes that cannot be classified into any general well-established domains and can only be accounted for by considering less conventional and more creative, culture-specific frames. The paper also analyzes the use of similes diachronically trying to uncover any evolution patterns in terms of frequency or domains in the two-year period analyzed.

Abstract

This paper offers a study of the foodstuffs used by speakers of Peninsular Spanish when referring to an attractive individual. Two online forums were scanned to automatically search for linguistic realizations of the metaphor an attractive individual is appetizing food. A corpus of 860 short texts was compiled, which contains the food terms used in context. The frequency distribution of the type of food and the variable of gender was measured. Results indicate a preference to exploit the metaphor through salty food products and that the foodstuffs used are highly dependent on the variable of gender. Contrary to previous studies (e.g., Caitlin Hines 2000; Irene López Rodríguez 2007, 2008), the frequency of sweets and desserts is not higher with female referents. The findings do not agree with prior assumptions about the foodstuffs used in Peninsular Spanish to conceptualize attractive people and the cultural stereotypes associated with them.

Abstract

The Roman author Lucius Anneus Seneca (4 BC–65 AC), the main representative of Stoic philosophy in Latin literature, wrote several tragedies in verse in which the Latin noun manus ‘hand’ has a remarkable incidence, almost doubling the occurrence of other terms more related to tragic themes, such as scelus ‘crime’ or mors ‘death’. This paper is based on the hypothesis that this high frequency is linked to the concept of embodiment as well as on the metonymies and metaphors used in Seneca’s figurative language to encode abstract concepts. The occurrences of the term manus in a corpus composed of Seneca’s dramatic and philosophical texts have been analysed, paying attention to the metonymic and metaphorical contexts where it appears. As a result, it has been observed that this word can refer to multiple realities such as individuals, actions, identity, control, or power.

Abstract

Lects constitute prototype categories (Gitte Kristiansen 2003). This implies that central/prototypical speakers are more easily identified as members of a specific lect (Kristiansen et al. 2018). The prototypicality of elements within natural categories have generally been measured through direct questions, indirect questions, or reaction time. Nonetheless, abstract categories (e.g., foreign accents) may be difficult to examine via questions. Following previous research that analyzed the use of the Levenshtein Distance (LD) (Vladimir I. Levenshtein 1965) to predict foreign-accentedness (Martijn Benjamin Wieling et al. 2014) or the intelligibility of foreign accents (Jurado-Bravo 2021), this study explores the use of LD as a predictor of prototypicality of Spanish-accented English. The LD between 50 Spanish speakers of English and different prototype benchmarks were calculated. These recordings were used as speech stimuli in an accent identification test. Reaction time measures were collected and correlated to the calculated LD. Results suggest that the LD to the stereotypical prototype can partly predict the prototypicality of Spanish-accented English.

Abstract

This paper proposes an explanatory model for the lexical representation of the native speakers’ lexical knowledge of English prepositions. Lexical knowledge of prepositions as relational predicates includes argument structure (trajector-landmark) as in Cognitive Grammar, situation types (position vs state) as in Functional Grammar, lexical hierarchies (spatial subdomains) based on semantic primitives, as in Natural Semantic Metalanguage, and embodied perceptual parameters configured in four dimensions, namely, geometry, topology, force-dynamics and function (from Cognitive Linguistics). This model is illustrated here by expounding three lexical templates compatible with constructional templates in the Lexical Constructional Model, representing the semantic decomposition of English prepositions at, on and in.

This article reviews Analogy and Contrast in Language: Perspectives from Cognitive Linguistics978-9-02721-154-5978-9-02725-745-1£ 99

This article reviews Negative Emotions in the Reception of Fictional Narratives: A Cognitive Approach978-3-95743-266-7978-3-96975-266-1€ 95.10