Chapter published in:

Studies in Figurative Thought and Language
Edited by Angeliki Athanasiadou
[Human Cognitive Processing 56] 2017
► pp. 42–73

Chapter 2. Construing and constructing hyperbole

María Sandra Peña Cervel | University of La Rioja

Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez | University of La Rioja

Hyperbole has received little attention in Cognitive Linguistics, while studies within psychology and pragmatics leave aside its representational aspects. To fill this gap, this chapter looks into linguistic evidence of the cognitive operations that underlie its communicative impact. Following up on recent research on figurative thought in terms of cross-domain mappings (e.g.Ruiz de Mendoza 2014), this chapter provides further evidence for an analysis of hyperbole in such terms. It offers a critical account of existing taxonomies of this phenomenon, argues for a twofold distinction between inference-based and constructional hyperbole, and discusses the usually hyperbolicX is not Y but Zand ‘God-related’ constructions. Finally, the chapter contends that hyperbole is regulated by the joint activity of two sets of constraints.

Keywords: constraints, cognitive operations, figurative expressions of emotions, inference-based and construction-based hyperbole, cross-domain mapping

Published online: 26 April 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.56.02pen

References

Anderson, J. R.

2010 Cognitive psychology and its implications. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.

Anderson, J. R., & Lebiere, C. J.

1998 The atomic components of thought. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Bergen, B., & Binsted, K.

2003 The cognitive linguistics of scalar humor. In M. Achard, & S. Kemmer (Eds.), Language, culture, and mind (79–92). Stanford: CSLI Publications.

Bergh, G.

2005 Min(d)ing English language data on the Web: What can Google tell us? ICAME Journal , 29, 25–46.

Bergh, G., & Zanchetta, E.

2008 Web linguistics. In A. Lüdeling, & M. Kytö (Eds.), Corpus linguistics: An international handbook (309–327). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Bhaya, R.

1985 Telling lies: Some literary and other violations of Grice’s maxim of quality. Nottingham Linguistic Circular, 14, 53–71.

Bierwiaczonek, B.

2013 Metonymy in language, thought, and brain. London & Oakville: Equinox.

Byrne, R. M. J.

2007 Precis of the rational imagination: How people create alternatives to reality. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30(5–6), 439–453.

Cano, L.

2003–2004 At the risk of exaggerating: How do listeners react to hyperbole? Anglogermanica Online 2 (http://www.uv.es/anglogermanica/2003–2004/Cano.htm)

Carston, R., & Wearing, C.

2011 Metaphor, hyperbole and simile: A pragmatic approach. Language and Cognition, 3(2), 283–312.

2015 Hyperbolic language and its relation to metaphor and irony. Journal of Pragmatics, 79, 79–92.

Claridge, C.

2011 Hyperbole in English: A corpus-based study of exaggeration . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Clark, H.

1996 Psychology of language . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Colston, H. L., & O’Brien, J.

2000 Contrast of kind versus contrast of magnitude: The pragmatic accomplishments of irony and hyperbole. Discourse Processes, 30, 179–199.

Dirven, R., & Ruiz de Mendoza, F. J.

2010 Looking back at 30 years of cognitive linguistics. In E. Tabakowska, M. Choiński, & Ł. Wiraszka (Eds.), Cognitive linguistics in action: From theory to application and back (13–70). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Fillmore, C. J.

1982 Frame semantics. In Linguistic Society of Korea (Ed.), Linguistics in the Morning Calm (111–138). Seoul: Hanshin.

Gibbs, R. W.

2000 Irony in talk among friends. Metaphor and Symbol, 15(1–2), 5–27.

2011 Evaluating conceptual metaphor theory. Discourse Processes, 48(8), 529–562.

Gibbs, R. W., & Colston, H. L.

2012 Interpreting figurative meaning. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Goldberg, A.

1995 Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Goldberg, A.

2006 Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Grady, J.

1999 A typology of motivation for conceptual metaphor: Correlation vs. resemblance. In R. W. Gibbs, & G. Steen (Eds.), Metaphor in cognitive linguistics (79–100). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Grice, P. H.

1975 Logic and conversation. In P. Cole, & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics 3: Speech acts (41–58). New York: Academic.

Haverkate, H.

1990 A speech-act analysis of irony. Journal of Pragmatics, 14, 77–109.

Herrero, J.

2009 Understanding tropes: At the crossroads between pragmatics and cognition. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

Hopper, P J., & Traugott, E. C.

2003 Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Johnson, C. D.

2010 Hyperboles: The rhetoric of excess in Baroque literature and thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kilgarriff, A., & Grefenstette, G.

2003 Introduction to the special issue on the Web as corpus. Computational Linguistics, 29(3), 333–347.

Kövecses, Z.

2005 Metaphor in culture: Universality and variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2015 Where metaphors come from: Reconsidering context in metaphor. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kreuz, R., & Roberts, R.

1995 Two cues for verbal irony: Hyperbole and the ironic tone of voice. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 10(1), 21–31.

Kunneman, F., Liebrecht, C., van den Bosch, A., & van Mulken, M.

2014 Signaling sarcasm: From hyperbole to hashtag. Information Processing and Management.

Lakoff, G.

1987 Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

1993 The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (2nd ed.) (202–251). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M.

1980 Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

1999 Philosophy in the flesh. New York: Basic Books.

Lakoff, G., & Turner, M.

1989 More than cool reason: A field guide to poetic metaphor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Langacker, R. W.

1987 Foundations of cognitive grammar. Volume 1. Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

1999 Grammar and conceptualization. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Lausberg, H.

1990 Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik: Eine Grundlegung der Literaturwissenschaft. München: Hueber.

Leech, G.

1983 Principles of pragmatics. London: Longman.

Leisi, E.

1953 Der Wortinhalt: seine Struktur im Deutschen und Englischen. Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer.

Littlemore, J.

2015 Metonymy. Hidden shortcuts in language, thought, and communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McCarthy, M., & Carter, R.

2004 “There’s millions of them”: hyperbole in everyday conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 36(2), 149–184.

Norrick, N. R.

2004 Hyperbole, extreme case formulation. Journal of Pragmatics, 36, 1727–1739.

Pomerantz, A.

1986 Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims. Human Studies, 9(2–3), 219–229.

Renouf, A.

2003 WebCorp: Providing a renewable data source for corpus linguists. In S. Granger, & S. Petch-Tyson (Eds.), Extending the scope of corpus-based research: New applications, new challenges (39–58). Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Rosch, E.

1978 Principles of categorization. In E. Rosch, & B. B. Lloyd (Eds.), Cognition and categorization (27–48). Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Rubio-Fernández, P., Wearing, C., & Carston, R.

2013 How metaphor and hyperbole differ: An empirical investigation of the relevance-theoretic account of loose use. In D. Mazzarella, I. Needham-Didsbury, & K. Tang (Eds.), UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 35 (20–45).(https://www.ucl.ac.uk/pals/research/linguistics/publications/wpl/13papers/Rubio-Fernandez_et_al._UCLWPL2013.pdf).

2015 Metaphor and hyperbole: Testing the continuity hypothesis. Metaphor and Symbol, 30, 24–40.

Ruiz de Mendoza, F. J.

1998 On the nature of blending as a cognitive phenomenon. Journal of Pragmatics, 30, 259–274.

2011 Metonymy and cognitive operations. In R. Benczes, A. Barcelona, & F. J. Ruiz de Mendoza (Eds.), Defining metonymy in cognitive linguistics. Towards a consensus view (103–123). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

2013 Meaning construction, meaning interpretation, and formal expression in the Lexical Constructional Model. In B. Nolan, & E. Diedrichsen (Eds.), Linking constructions into functional linguistics: The role of constructions in grammar (231–270). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

2014 Mapping concepts. Understanding figurative thought from a cognitive-linguistic perspective. Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada, 27(1), 187–207.

Ruiz de Mendoza, F. J., & Baicchi, A.

2007 Illocutionary constructions: Cognitive motivation and linguistic realization. In I. Kecskes, & L. R. Horn (Eds.), Explorations in pragmatics: Linguistic, cognitive, and intercultural aspects (95–128). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Ruiz de Mendoza, F. J., & Galera, A.

2014 Cognitive modeling: A linguistic perspective. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Ruiz de Mendoza, F. J., & Luzondo, A.

2016 Figurative and non-figurative motion in English resultative constructions. Language and Cognition, 8, 32–58.

Ruiz de Mendoza, F. J., & Mairal, R.

2008 Levels of description and constraining factors in meaning construction: An introduction to the Lexical Constructional Model. Folia Linguistica, 42(2), 355–400.

Ruiz de Mendoza, F. J., & Peña, M. S.

2005 Conceptual interaction, cognitive operations, and projection spaces. In F. J. Ruiz de Mendoza, & M. S. Peña (Eds.), Cognitive linguistics: Internal dynamics and interdisciplinary interaction (254–280). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

2008 Grammatical metonymy within the ‘action’ frame in English and Spanish. In M. A. Gómez, J. L. Mackenzie, & E. M. González-Álvarez (Eds.), Current trends in contrastive linguistics: Functional and cognitive perspectives (251–280). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Ruiz de Mendoza, F. J., & Pérez, L.

2011 The contemporary theory of metaphor: Myths, developments and challenges. Metaphor and Symbol, 26, 161–185.

Sert, O.

2008 An interactive analysis of hyperboles in a British TV series: Implications for EFL classes. ARECLS, 5, 1–28 (http://research.ncl.ac.uk/ARECLS/volume_5/sert_vol5.pdf).

2009 Developing interactional competence by using TV series in ‘English as an additional language’ classrooms. Enletawa Journal, 2, 23–50 (http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED513115.pdf).

Sperber, D., & Wilson, D.

1995 Relevance, communication and cognition. 2nd ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Spitzbardt, H.

1963 Overstatement and understatement in British and American English. Philologica Pragensia, 6, 277–286.

Sullivan, K.

2013 Frames and constructions in metaphoric language. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Talmy, L.

2000 Toward a cognitive semantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Van der Henst, J.-B., & Sperber, D.

2012 Testing the cognitive and communicative principles of relevance. In D. Wilson, & D. Sperber (Eds.), Meaning and relevance (279–306). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tomasello, M.

2003 Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Varela, F., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E.

1991 The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Veale, T.

2012 Exploding the creativity myth. The computational foundations of linguistic creativity . London & New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

Wilson, M.

2002 Six views of embodied cognition. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 9, 625–636.

Wilson, D., & Sperber, D.

2012 Explaining irony. In D. Wilson, & D. Sperber (Eds.), Meaning and relevance (123–145). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wittgenstein, L.

1953 Philosophical investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Cited by

Cited by other publications

No author info given

2020. In Figurative Meaning Construction in Thought and Language [Figurative Thought and Language, 9],

No author info given

2020. In Producing Figurative Expression [Figurative Thought and Language, 10],

No author info given

2020. In Producing Figurative Expression [Figurative Thought and Language, 10],

No author info given

2020. The role of echoing in meaning construction and interpretation. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 18:1

Barnden, John

2018. Broadly reflexive relationships, a special type of hyperbole, and implications for metaphor and metonymy. Metaphor and Symbol 33:3 ► pp. 218 ff.

Barnden, John A.

2017. In Irony in Language Use and Communication [Figurative Thought and Language, 1], ► pp. 145 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 july 2020. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.