Metaphorical Creativity in Discourse

Zoltán Kövecses

Abstract


On the “standard” view of conceptual metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Kövecses, 2002), metaphorical creativity arises from the cognitive processes of extending, elaboration, questioning, and combining conceptual content in the source domain (Lakoff and Turner, 1989). I will propose that such cases constitute only a part of metaphorical creativity. An equally important and common set of cases is comprised by what I call “context-induced” metaphors. I will discuss five types of these: metaphors induced by 1) the immediate linguistic context itself, 2) what we know about the major entities participating in the discourse, 3) the physical setting, 4) the social setting, and 5) the immediate cultural context. Such metaphors have not been systematically investigated so far, though they seem to form a large part of our metaphorical creativity.


Keywords


conceptual metaphors; context; creativity; source domain; target domain

Full Text:

PDF

References


Aitchison, J. (1987). Words in the Mind. Oxford: Blackwell.

Benczes, R. (2010). Setting limits on creativity in the production and use of metaphorical and metonymical compounds. In S. Michel, & A. Onysko (Eds.), Cognitive Approaches to Word Formation (pp. 221–245). Berlin, New York: De Gruyter.

Boers, F. (1999). When a bodily source domain becomes prominent. In R. Gibbs, & G. Steen (Eds), Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 47–56). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Grady, J. 1999. A typology of motivation for conceptual metaphors. Correlations vs. resemblance. In Ray W. Gibbs, & G. J. Steen (Eds.), Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 79–100). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Koller, V. (2004/2008). Metaphor and Gender in Business Media Discourse: a Critical Cognitive Study. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave.

Kövecses, Z. (2000). The scope of metaphor. In A. Barcelona (Ed.), Metaphor and Metonymy at the Crossroads (pp. 79–92). Berlin: De Gruyter.

Kövecses, Z. (2002). Metaphor. A Practical Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.

Kövecses, Z. (2005). Metaphor in Culture. Universality and Variation. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lakoff, G., & Turner, M. (1989). More Than Cool Reason. A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Magyar Nemzet (1997, September 13). Retrieved September 21, 2022, from https://magyarnemzet.hu/.

San Francisco Chronicle (2003, August 17). Retrieved September 21, 2022, from https://www.sfchronicle.com/.

Semino, E. (2008). Metaphor in Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

USA TODAY (2007, September 21). Retrieved September 21, 2022, from https://eu.usatoday.com/.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2023.47.1.55-70
Date of publication: 2023-03-17 10:37:05
Date of submission: 2022-03-16 09:10:35


Statistics


Total abstract view - 1084
Downloads (from 2020-06-17) - PDF - 636

Indicators



Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2023 Zoltán Kövecses

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.