Chapter published in:
Producing Figurative Expression: Theoretical, experimental and practical perspectivesEdited by John Barnden and Andrew Gargett
[Figurative Thought and Language 10] 2020
► pp. 469–510
Figurative language
Relations and constraints
Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez | University of La Rioja
The present paper discusses two aspects of
the production of figures of speech. The first one is their
relatedness, which is established on the basis of an analysis of
their cognitive configuration in terms of combinations of cognitive
operations. Such operations are applied to the creation of basic
figures of speech such as metaphor, metonymy, understatement,
overstatement, irony, paradox, and oxymoron. Other traditional
figurative uses of language are then accounted for with reference to
these more basic ones. The second aspect that this paper addresses
is the question of constraints on figurative thinking. In this
respect, it reviews previous proposals on the topic and extends
their application to other cases of figurative language use. The
resulting account links figurative language up with the notion of
embodied cognition.
Keywords: cognitive operations, constraints on figures of speech, embodied cognition, figurative language, figures of speech, pragmatic inferencing
Published online: 17 December 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.10.17rui
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.10.17rui
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