Abstract
This paper focuses on metaphor and the interpretation of metaphor in a discourse setting. There have been several accounts put forward by eminent philosophers of language---Black (1962), Hesse (1966) and Searle (1979), among others---but none of them are satisfactory. They offer a few rules for metaphoric interpretation, but many of them are redundant, and they form a list without much coherence.
Many have thought that the principles of metaphorical interpretation cannot be formally specified (e.g., Davidson, 1984). We'll attack this position with two claims. The first is that we support the view taken by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), that some aspects of metaphor are productive. We enrich this position, by demonstrating that this productivity can be captured effectively by encoding generalisations that limit metaphorical interpretation in a constraint-based framework for defining lexical semantics. Indeed from a methodological perspective, we would claim that the productive aspects of metaphor can give the linguist clues about how to represent semantic information in lexical entries.
Moreover, it is well known that domain knowledge and the way people structure fundamental concepts such as time and orientation influence metaphorical interpretation (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, and others). Our second claim takes this further, and we argue that rhetorical relations---such as Elaboration, Contrast, and Parallel, among others---that connect the meanings of segments of text together, also influence the meaning of metaphor. Through studying these cases, we learn how to link lexical processing to discourse processing in a formal framework, and we give some preliminary accounts of how the link between words and discourse determine metaphor.
Many have thought that the principles of metaphorical interpretation cannot be formally specified (e.g., Davidson, 1984). We'll attack this position with two claims. The first is that we support the view taken by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), that some aspects of metaphor are productive. We enrich this position, by demonstrating that this productivity can be captured effectively by encoding generalisations that limit metaphorical interpretation in a constraint-based framework for defining lexical semantics. Indeed from a methodological perspective, we would claim that the productive aspects of metaphor can give the linguist clues about how to represent semantic information in lexical entries.
Moreover, it is well known that domain knowledge and the way people structure fundamental concepts such as time and orientation influence metaphorical interpretation (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, and others). Our second claim takes this further, and we argue that rhetorical relations---such as Elaboration, Contrast, and Parallel, among others---that connect the meanings of segments of text together, also influence the meaning of metaphor. Through studying these cases, we learn how to link lexical processing to discourse processing in a formal framework, and we give some preliminary accounts of how the link between words and discourse determine metaphor.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | The Language of Word Meaning |
| Editors | P. Bouillon, F. Busa |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Pages | 262-289 |
| Number of pages | 28 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9780521780483 |
| Publication status | Published - 2001 |