Metaphor

Miriam Taverniers
Table of contents

Metaphor has been regarded as a special phenomenon of language at least since the term was coined in ancient Greece. Metaphora is derived from meta-, ‘beyond’ and phora, which is derived from pherein, ‘to carry’. In the original, etymological sense meta–phor refers to a kind of movement from one thing to another. The idea that two aspects are involved in metaphor has remained important in many subsequent theories, and is often explicitly formulated in terms of a ‘from … to…’ expression. Although it is in principle impossible to give even a quasi theory-neutral definition, metaphor can be defined in very general terms as a way of expression, in language or any other semiotic system, in which one ‘meaning’ or ‘thing’ is described as or looked upon in terms of another ‘meaning’ or ‘thing’. For instance, in the following example, the dismissal of employees is described as an action of sweeping them out:

Full-text access is restricted to subscribers. Log in to obtain additional credentials. For subscription information see Subscription & Price.

References

Barcelona, A.
2000 On the plausibility of claiming a metonymic motivation for conceptual metaphor. In A. Barcelona (ed.): 31–58.Google Scholar
(ed.) 2000 Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads. A cognitive perspective. Mouton de Gruyter.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Beardsley, M.M.
1958 Aesthetics. Harcourt, Brace & World.Google Scholar
Bickerton, D.
1969 Prolegomena to a linguistic theory of metaphor. Foundations of Language 5: 34–52.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Black, M.
1962 [1954] Metaphor. In Models and metaphors. Ithaca.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Brooke-Rose, C.
1958 A grammar of metaphor. Secker & Warburg.Google Scholar
Brugman, C.
1992 What is the Invariance Hypothesis? Cognitive Linguistics 2: 257–266. DOI logo  MetBibGoogle Scholar
Bybee, J., R. Perkins & W. Pagliuca
1994 The evolution of grammar: Tense aspect and modality in the languages of the world. University of Chicago Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Claudi, U. & B. Heine
1986 On the metaphorical base of grammar. Studies in Language 10: 297–335. DOI logo  MetBibGoogle Scholar
Crisp, P., J. Heywood & G. Steen
2002 Metaphor identification and analysis, classification and quantification. Language and Literature 11: 55–69. DOI logo  MetBibGoogle Scholar
Cytowic, R.E.
1993 The man who tasted shapes. Putnam.Google Scholar
Day, S.
1996 Synaesthesia and synaesthetic metaphors. Psyche 2(32). http://​psyche​.cs​.monash​.edu​.au​/v2​/psyche​-2​-32​-day​.html.  MetBibGoogle Scholar
Eco, U.
1983 The scandal of metaphor. Metaphorology and semiotics. Poetics Today 4: 217–257. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fauconnier, J.
1994 [1985] Mental spaces: Aspects of meaning construction in natural language. Cambridge University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fauconnier, J. & M. Turner
1996 Blending as a central process of grammar. In A. Goldberg (ed.) Conceptual structure, discourse, and language: 182–203. CSLI.  MetBibGoogle Scholar
1998 Conceptual integration networks. Cognitive Science 22: 133–87. DOI logo  MetBibGoogle Scholar
2002 The way we think: Conceptual blending and the mind’s hidden complexities. Basic Books.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Fernandez, J.W.
1990 Beyond metaphor: The theory of tropes in anthropology. Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Firth, J.R.
1957 Papers in linguistics 1934–1957. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gentner, D. & M. Jeziorski
1993 The shift from metaphor to analogy in Western science. In A. Ortony (ed.)447–480.  MetBib DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goatly, A.
1997 The language of metaphors. Routledge.  BoP DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goossens, L.
1990 Metaphtonymy: The interaction of metaphor and metonymy in expressions for linguistic action. Cognitive Linguistics 1: 323–340. (also in: Goossens et al. (1996): 159–174.) DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
1994 Metonymy in the pipeline: Another way of looking at the container metaphor. In K. Carlon, K. Davidse & B. Rudzka-Ostyn (eds.) Perspectives on English. Studies in honour of Professor Emma Vorlat: 386–394. Peeters.  MetBibGoogle Scholar
1996 From three respectable horses mouths: Metonymy and conventionalization in a diachronically differentiated data base. In Goossens et al.: 175–204.Google Scholar
2000 Patterns of meaning extension, “parallel chaining” subjectification, and modal shifts. In A. Barcelona (ed.): 149–169.Google Scholar
Goossens, L., P. Pauwels, B. Rudzka-Ostyn, A.-M. Simon-Vandenbergen & J. Vanparys
1996 By word of mouth. Metaphor metonymy and linguistic action in a cognitive perspective. John Benjamins DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Grady, J., T. Oakley & S. Coulson
1999 Blending and metaphor. In R.W. Gibbs (ed.) Metaphor in cognitive linguistics: 101–124. John Benjamins DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Grice, H.P.
1989 Studies in the way of words. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Halliday, M.A.K.
1985 An introduction to functional grammar. Arnold.Google Scholar
Heine, B., U. Claudi & F. H
1991 Grammaticalization: A conceptual framework. The University of Chicago Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Holland, D. & N. Quinn
(eds.) 1987 Cultural models in language and thought. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huddleston, R. & G.K. Pullum
2002 The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Indurkhya, B.
1992 Metaphor and cognition: An interactionist approach. Kluwer. DOI logo  MetBibGoogle Scholar
Johnson, M.
1987 The body in the mind. University of Chicago Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Kittay, E.F.
1987 Metaphor: Its cognitive force and linguistic structure. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Klein, E.
1971 A comprehensive etymological dictionary of the English language. Elsevier.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T.
1970 The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G.
1987 Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. University of Chicago Press. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
1990 The Invariance Hypothesis: Is abstract reason based on image-schema? Cognitive Linguistics 1: 39–74. DOI logo  MetBibGoogle Scholar
1993 The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (ed.): 202–251. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G. & M. Johnson
1980 Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G. & M. Turner
1989 More than cool reason: A field guide to poetic metaphor. University of Chicago Press. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Langacker, R.
1990 Subjectification. Cognitive Linguistics 1: 5–38. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Leezenberg, M.
2001 Contexts of metaphor. Elsevier.  MetBibGoogle Scholar
Levin, S.R.
1977 The semantics of metaphor. John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
1988 Metaphoric Worlds. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Loewenberg, I.
1975 Identifying metaphors. Foundations of Language 11: 315–338.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Lyons, J.
1977 Semantics, Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
1995 Linguistic semantics: An introduction. Cambridge University Press. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Maccormac, E.R.
1985 A cognitive theory of metaphor. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mack, D.
1975 Metaphoring as speech act: Some happiness conditions for implicit similes and simple metaphors. Poetics 4: 221–256. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Mackenzie, J.L.
1985 Metaphor in contemporary semantics. Dutch Quarterly Review 15: 52–72.Google Scholar
Matthews, R.J.
1971 Concerning ‘A linguistic theory of metaphor’. Foundations of Language 7: 413–425.Google Scholar
Mooij, J.J.A.
1976 A study of metaphor. North Holland.  MetBibGoogle Scholar
Morgan, N.
2002 Mondays are red. Hodder Children’s Books.Google Scholar
Ortony, A.
(ed.) 1993 Metaphor and thought. Cambridge University Press. DOI logo  MetBibGoogle Scholar
Panther, K.-U. & G. Radden
(eds.) 1999 Metonymy in cognition and language. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pepper, S.
1942 World hypotheses. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Pietrie, H.G. & R.S. Oshlag
1993 Metaphor and learning. In A. Ortony (ed.): 579–609. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Radden, G.
2000 How metonymic are metaphors? In A. Barcelona (ed.): 93–108.Google Scholar
Reddy, M.J.
1969 A semantic approach to metaphor. Chicago Linguistic Society 5: 210–251.Google Scholar
Richards, I.A.
1971 [1936] The philosophy of rhetoric. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ricœur, P.
1994 The rule of metaphor. Multi-disciplinary studies in the creation of meaning in language. Routledge.  MetBibGoogle Scholar
Ruiz De Mendoza, F.J.
2000 The role of mappings and domains in understanding metonymy. In A. Barcelona (ed.): 109–132.Google Scholar
Sanders, R.
1973 Aspects of figurative language. Linguistics 96: 56–100.Google Scholar
Spence, D.
1990 The rhetorical voice of psychoanalysis. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 38: 579–603. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sperber, D. & D. Wilson
1986 Relevance: Communication and cognition. Blackwell.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Steinhart, E.
2001 The logic of metaphor: Analogous parts of possible worlds. Kluwer. DOI logo  MetBibGoogle Scholar
Stern, J.
2000 Metaphor in context. MIT Press.  MetBibGoogle Scholar
Sweetser, E.
1990 From etymology to pragmatics: Metaphorical and cultural aspects of semantic structure. Cambridge University Press. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Taverniers, M.
2001 Metaphor and metaphorology. A selective genealogy of philosophical and linguistic conceptions of metaphor from Aristotle to the 1990s. Academia Press.Google Scholar
Turner, M. & G. Fauconnier
1999 A mechanism of creativity. Poetics Today 20: 397–418.  MetBibGoogle Scholar
Wheelwright Ph
1962 Metaphor and reality. Bloomington.Google Scholar
White, R.M.
1996 The structure of metaphor: The way the language of metaphors works. Blackwell.  MetBibGoogle Scholar