Publications

Publication details [#9009]

Purcell, William M. 1990. Tropes, 'transsumptio', 'assumptio', and the redirection of studies in metaphor. Bakhtiniana: Revista de Estudos do Discurso 5 (1) : 35–53. 19 pp.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English

Abstract

The study of tropical language and its cognitive functions is severely hampered by the general characterization of a variety of linguistic phenomena as metaphor. This article first distinguishes between metaphor and other types of tropical operations. More important, it utilizes the 13th-century doctrines of 'transsumptio' and 'assumptio' to account for the cognitive operations involved in seven tropes: metaphor, antonomasia, synecdoche, metonymy, allegory, catachresis, and onomatopoeia. It then demonstrates that the identification of a trope independent of its context and function is meaningless. The discussion concludes by calling for a study of tropes that emphasizes their various functions rather than traditional names. (William Purcell)