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 hyperbolic X is not Y but Z and ‘God-related’ constructions. Finally, the chapter contends that hyperbole is regulated by the joint activity of two sets of constraints.
2010Cognitive psychology and its implications. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
Anderson, J. R., & Lebiere, C. J.
1998The atomic components of thought. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Bergen, B., & Binsted, K.
2003The cognitive linguistics of scalar humor. In M. Achard, & S. Kemmer (Eds.), Language, culture, and mind (79–92). Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Bergh, G.
2005Min(d)ing English language data on the Web: What can Google tell us? ICAME Journal
, 29, 25–46.
Bergh, G., & Zanchetta, E.
2008Web linguistics. In A. Lüdeling, & M. Kytö (Eds.), Corpus linguistics: An international handbook (309–327). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Bhaya, R.
1985Telling lies: Some literary and other violations of Grice’s maxim of quality. Nottingham Linguistic Circular, 14, 53–71.
Bierwiaczonek, B.
2013Metonymy in language, thought, and brain. London & Oakville: Equinox.
Byrne, R. M. J.
2007Precis of the rational imagination: How people create alternatives to reality. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30(5–6), 439–453.
Cano, L.
2003–2004At the risk of exaggerating: How do listeners react to hyperbole?Anglogermanica Online 2 ([URL])
Carston, R., & Wearing, C.
2011Metaphor, hyperbole and simile: A pragmatic approach. Language and Cognition, 3(2), 283–312.
Carston, R., & Wearing, C.
2015Hyperbolic language and its relation to metaphor and irony. Journal of Pragmatics, 79, 79–92.
Claridge, C.
2011Hyperbole in English: A corpus-based study of exaggeration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Clark, H.
1996Psychology of language
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Colston, H. L., & O’Brien, J.
2000Contrast 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.
2010Looking 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.
1982Frame semantics. In Linguistic Society of Korea (Ed.), Linguistics in the Morning Calm (111–138). Seoul: Hanshin.
Gibbs, R. W.
2000Irony in talk among friends. Metaphor and Symbol, 15(1–2), 5–27.
1975Logic and conversation. In P. Cole, & J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics 3: Speech acts (41–58). New York: Academic.
Haverkate, H.
1990A speech-act analysis of irony. Journal of Pragmatics, 14, 77–109.
Herrero, J.
2009Understanding tropes: At the crossroads between pragmatics and cognition. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Hopper, P J., & Traugott, E. C.
2003Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Johnson, C. D.
2010Hyperboles: The rhetoric of excess in Baroque literature and thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kilgarriff, A., & Grefenstette, G.
2003Introduction to the special issue on the Web as corpus. Computational Linguistics, 29(3), 333–347.
Kövecses, Z.
2005Metaphor in culture: Universality and variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kövecses, Z.
2015Where metaphors come from: Reconsidering context in metaphor. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kreuz, R., & Roberts, R.
1995Two 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.
2014Signaling sarcasm: From hyperbole to hashtag. Information Processing and Management.
Lakoff, G.
1987Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G.
1993The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (2nd ed.) (202–251). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M.
1980Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M.
1999Philosophy in the flesh. New York: Basic Books.
Lakoff, G., & Turner, M.
1989More than cool reason: A field guide to poetic metaphor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Langacker, R. W.
1987Foundations of cognitive grammar. Volume 1. Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Langacker, R. W.
1999Grammar and conceptualization. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Lausberg, H.
1990Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik: Eine Grundlegung der Literaturwissenschaft. München: Hueber.
Leech, G.
1983Principles of pragmatics. London: Longman.
Leisi, E.
1953Der Wortinhalt: seine Struktur im Deutschen und Englischen. Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer.
Littlemore, J.
2015Metonymy. 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.
2004Hyperbole, extreme case formulation. Journal of Pragmatics, 36, 1727–1739.
Pomerantz, A.
1986Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims. Human Studies, 9(2–3), 219–229.
Renouf, A.
2003WebCorp: 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.
1978Principles 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.
2013How 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).([URL]).
Rubio-Fernández, P., Wearing, C., & Carston, R.
2015Metaphor and hyperbole: Testing the continuity hypothesis. Metaphor and Symbol, 30, 24–40.
Ruiz de Mendoza, F. J.
1998On the nature of blending as a cognitive phenomenon. Journal of Pragmatics, 30, 259–274.
Ruiz de Mendoza, F. J.
2011Metonymy 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.
2007Illocutionary 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.
2016Figurative and non-figurative motion in English resultative constructions. Language and Cognition, 8, 32–58.
Ruiz de Mendoza, F. J., & Mairal, R.
2008Levels 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.
2005Conceptual 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.
2000Toward a cognitive semantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Van der Henst, J.-B., & Sperber, D.
2012Testing the cognitive and communicative principles of relevance. In D. Wilson, & D. Sperber (Eds.), Meaning and relevance (279–306). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tomasello, M.
2003Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Varela, F., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E.
1991The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Veale, T.
2012Exploding the creativity myth.
The computational foundations of linguistic creativity
. London & New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Wilson, M.
2002Six views of embodied cognition. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 9, 625–636.
Wilson, D., & Sperber, D.
2012Explaining irony. In D. Wilson, & D. Sperber (Eds.), Meaning and relevance (123–145). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2023. Las locuciones hiperbólicas. Yearbook of Phraseology 14:1 ► pp. 121 ff.
Peña Cervel, Ma Sandra
2022. For Better, for Worse, for Richer, for Poorer, in Sickness and in Health: A Cognitive-Linguistic Approach to Merism. Metaphor and Symbol 37:3 ► pp. 229 ff.
2023. Irony, Affect, and Related Figures. In The Cambridge Handbook of Irony and Thought, ► pp. 235 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 april 2024. 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.