32.2757, Confs: Semantics/Poland

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-32-2757. Thu Aug 26 2021. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 32.2757, Confs: Semantics/Poland

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Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 09:36:43
From: Angeliki Athanasiadou [angath at enl.auth.gr]
Subject: On the Margins of Figurative Thought and Language

 
On the Margins of Figurative Thought and Language 

Date: 20-Apr-2022 - 24-Apr-2022 
Location: Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland 
Contact: Angeliki Athanasiadou 
Contact Email: angath at enl.auth.gr 

Linguistic Field(s): Semantics 

Meeting Description: 

Oxymoron, paradox, paragon, meiosis, litotes, hyperbole, overstatement,
understatement, simile, idioms, proverbs, antithesis, antonomasia,
antiphrasis, tautology, euphemism, hypallage, and perhaps many others, are
considered rhetorical devices, as years ago scholars had been thinking of
metaphor, metonymy, irony as stylistic and ornamental devices and not
cognitive mechanisms. The aim of the theme session is to discuss the use of
such figures and attempt to draw attention to them, and perhaps transfer them
from the periphery to the center of figurative thought and language. 
If we agree that we need such forms of language use, it should be good to
highlight them somehow, and carry out an analysis based on conceptual aspects
and not (or together with) purely pragmatic ones.

As is known, figurative mechanisms, like metaphor, metonymy, and irony (to a
lesser degree compared to the former two) have enjoyed attention as they have
been largely investigated. However, the aforementioned group of figures has
been rather neglected so far. There are some sporadic publications, for
instance on tautology (Giora), more on hyperbole (Barnden, Brdar &
Brdar-Szabo, Ruiz de Mendoza, Popa-Wyatt), and simile (Barnden,…), a lot less
on allegory (Gibbs & Okonski 2017), oxymoron (Barnden presentation in FTL 5,
Gibbs 1993), meiosis (Walton 2015). We also find combinations of central
figures and one or two of the marginal ones (Colston 2019,…).
The edited volume Tropical Truth(s) by A. Burkhardt and B. Nerlich, (2010),
which explores the link between figures and truth, devotes one section in
“other noble members of the trope family” (the first section is on metaphor,
“the queen of tropes”, the second to “its sisters”, metonymy and synecdoche).
Ruiz de Mendoza’s paper (2020) discusses many marginal figures each one on its
own first and then interrelating them, also grouping them under the central
figures of metaphor, metonymy, irony or assigning the role of operations to
them. The two publications can form a basis for such a discussion which may
start the investigation of peripheral figures. Thus, we can talk for instance,
about the category of a particular central figure like irony comprising
sarcasm, parody, satire,… or the category of metonymy comprising synecdoche or
hypallage,… . Still, each one of the marginal figures deserves to be studied,
on its own, and not only in combination with others, in order to underline not
only the pragmatic/sociocultural perspective but especially the cognitive
linguistics aspects that license it.
 
Some questions that arise can be:  

Do these marginal figures center around the central ones? Are they just
satellites of the central ones or independent figures?

What are the conceptual tools that participate in their conceptualization and
expression? Can they be discussed in terms of domains, frames or mental
spaces?

Could we be informed both on the way they are produced but also on the way
they are received?

Are these marginal figures responsible for a new understanding of a situation?
Do they reinforce certain meanings at the expense of others?

Is it possible that research in the periphery of figuration provides some
answers for the central figures as well?

Where could such figures be placed on a continuum ranging from idiomaticity to
schematicity (productivity)?

References

Burkhardt, A. and B. Nerlich (2010). Tropical Truth(s). The Epistemology of
Metaphor and other Tropes. De Gruyter.

Ruiz de Mendoza (2020). Figurative language: Relations and constraints. In
Barnden, J. & A. Gargett (Eds.) Producing Figurative Expression. J. Benjamins
Publishing Company. FTL 10.
 






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