Metaphor and Metonymy across Time and Cultures: Perspectives on the Sociohistorical Linguistics of Figurative Language PDF
Preview Metaphor and Metonymy across Time and Cultures: Perspectives on the Sociohistorical Linguistics of Figurative Language
Javier E. Díaz-Vera (Ed.) MetaphorandMetonymyacrossTimeandCultures Cognitive Linguistics Research Editors Dirk Geeraerts John R. Taylor Honorary editors René Dirven Ronald W. Langacker Volume 52 Metaphor and Metonymy across Time and Cultures Perspectives on the Sociohistorical Linguistics of Figurative Language Edited by Javier E. Díaz-Vera DE GRUYTER MOUTON ISBN978-3-11-033543-9 e-ISBN(PDF)978-3-11-033545-3 e-ISBN(EPUB)978-3-11-039539-6 ISSN1861-4132 LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData ACIPcatalogrecordforthisbookhasbeenappliedforattheLibraryofCongress BibliographicinformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek TheDeutscheNationalbibliothekliststhispublicationintheDeutscheNationalbibliografie; detailedbibliographicdataareavailableontheInternetathttp://dnb.dnb.de. ©2015WalterdeGruyterGmbH,Berlin/Munich/Boston Typesetting:MetaSystemsPublishing&PrintservicesGmbH,Wustermark Printingandbinding:CPIbooksGmbH,Leck ♾Printedonacid-freepaper PrintedinGermany www.degruyter.com Contents Introductory chapter JavierE.Díaz-Vera Figurationandlanguagehistory:Universalityandvariation 3 Diachronic metaphor research DirkGeeraerts Fourguidelinesfordiachronicmetaphorresearch 15 Conceptual variation and change KathrynAllan Lostintransmission?Thesensedevelopmentofborrowedmetaphor 31 XavierDekeyser Lossoftheprototypicalmeaningandlexicalborrowing:Acaseofsemantic redeployment 51 RoslynM.Frank Acomplexadaptivesystemsapproachtolanguage,culturalschemasand serialmetonymy:Chartingthecognitiveinnovationsof‘fingers’and‘claws’ inBasque 65 RichardTrim Theinterfacebetweensynchronicanddiachronicconceptualmetaphor: Theroleofembodiment,cultureandsemanticfield 95 Figuration and grammaticalization AndrewD.M.SmithandStefanH.Höfler Thepivotalroleofmetaphorintheevolutionofhumanlanguage 123 Miao-HsiaChang Twocounter-expectationmarkersinChinese 141 vi Contents WolfgangSchulze TheemergenceofdiathesismarkersfromMOTIONconcepts 171 Figurative language in culture variation JavierE.Díaz-VeraandTeodoroManrique-Antón ‘Bettershamedbeforeonethanshamedbeforeall’:ShapingshameinOld EnglishandOldNorsetexts 225 DylanGlynn Theconceptualprofileofthelexemehome:Amultifactorialdiachronic analysis 265 CristóbalPagánCánovas CognitivepatternsinGreekpoeticmetaphorsofemotion:Adiachronic approach 295 JuanGabrielVázquezGonzález ‘Thoucom’stinsuchaquestionableshape’:Embodyingtheculturalmodel forghostacrossthehistoryofEnglish 319 Index 349 Introductory chapter Javier E. Díaz-Vera Figuration and language history: Universality and variation Andmaketime’sspoilsdespisedeverywhere Givemylovefamefasterthantimewasteslife; So,thouprevene’sthisscytheandcrookedknife. Shakespeare,Sonnet100(11–14) 1 Figuration and lexico-semantic change These verses by Shakespeare illustrate one instance of what literary theorists havetraditionallyreferredtoasfigurativelanguage:theattributionoftypically humanfeaturestoanabstractentity.Suchfiguresofspeechaspersonification, simile, irony, hyperbole,metaphor and metonymy have beentraditionally de- scribed as poetic devices used by writers for specific aesthetic purposes. Only after the late-twentieth century development of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (henceforthCMT;LakoffandJohnson1980,Ortony1993,Goatly2007),figura- tive languagestarted to attractthe attention of agrowing number oflinguists interestedinthestudyofthesefiguresofspeechwithintherealmofeveryday language and, much more importantly, of our ordinary conceptual system. CMT has since developed and elaborated, although not always in complete agreement. Figurationreferstoameaningthatisdependentonafigurativeextension fromanothermeaning.Figurativelanguagehasgotaninherentlysecond-order nature. Figurative expressions (such as it made my blood boil) can only be recognized as such because of their contrast with more literal expressions (as initmademeangry).Fromadiachronicperspective,figurativeexpressionsare historicallylaterthanthecorrespondingconventionalones.AsCroftandCruse (2004) put it, metaphors have their own life-cycle that normally runs from a firstcoinageasaninstanceofsemanticinnovation(anovelmetaphorrequiring aninterpretativestrategyonthesideoflanguageuser)toamorecommonplace metaphor (a conventional metaphor whose meaning has become well-estab- lished in the speakers’ mental lexicon). Eventually, the literal meaning of an expression may fall out of use, interrupting its dependency relationship with thecorrespondingfigurativemeaning(adeadmetaphor). JavierE.Díaz-Vera:UniversidaddeCastilla-LaMancha 4 JavierE.Díaz-Vera Cognitive semantics regards polysemy as involving family resemblances, stressingthesystematicrelationshipbetweenthedifferentmeanings(bothlit- eralandfigurative)ofawordandincludingpolysemyasaresultofconceptual organisation such as categorisation. This view has given rise to a variety of modelsforlexicalnetworks(Lakoff1987;Langacker1990)basedonthenotion that the different meanings of a lexeme “form a radially structured category, withacentralmemberandlinksdefinedbyimage-schematransformationand metaphors” (Lakoff 1987: 460). In other words, each instantiation of a word always retains its whole range of senses regardless of the context in which it appears, senses which are related to one another by various means. Thus, a given word belongs to a complex semantic network determined by different domainsandcognitiveprocesses,wheretheremaybesensesmorerepresenta- tive than others. Things being so, it can be argued that these polysemic net- worksareshapedbythecourseofaseriesofdiachronicprocessesofsemantic extension, through which new figurative expressions emerge and evolve. As NerlichandClarke(2001:252)putit, metaphorisapragmaticstrategyusedbyspeakerstoconveytohearerssomethingnew thatcannoteasilybesaidorunderstoodotherwiseortogiveanoldconceptanovel,witty oramusingpackage,whereasmetonymyisapragmaticstrategyusedbyspeakerstocon- vey to hearers something new about something already well known. Using metaphors speakerstellyoumorethanwhattheyactuallysay,usingmetonymstheytellyoumore whilesayingless.Fromthepointofviewofthehearer,metaphorisastrategyusedto extractnewinformationfromoldwords,whereasmetonymyisastrategyusedtoextract moreinformationfromfewerwords. For example, the progressive rise in the frequency of embodied expressions showingtheangeristheheatofafluidinacontaineremotionmetaphor inacorpusof11thto15thcenturyEnglishtextshasbeenconnectedtothepopu- larizationofhumouraldoctrineinlatermedievalEngland,accordingtowhich anger is an effect of the overproduction of yellow bile (or choler), considered awarmanddrysubstance(Gevaert2002:202).AsGevaertconvincinglyshows, the use of words and expressions directly taken from the humoural theory, suchas theverbsMEdistemperen andboilen,indicatesa completelydifferent conceptualizationofangerbyspeakersofMiddleEnglish.Asthisnewcultural modeladvanced,peoplestartedtousetheoriginalheat-relateditemsasanger expressions, which clearly differ from the old anger expressions in terms of their capacity to add new information (as encoded in the metaphor anger is theheatofafluidinacontainer,whichimpliesnotonlythatangerisa hotfluid,butalsothatthebodyisacontainer)tothealreadyexistingone. Furthermore,throughtheexpansionofthenewangerwordsoverthelanguage community, this metaphor became a dominant expression of anger in Middle
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