This innovative volume provides a comprehensive integrated account of the study of conceptual figures, demonstrating the ways in which figures and in particular, conflictual figures, encapsulate linguistic expression in the fullest sense and in turn, how insights gleaned from their study can contribute to the wider body of linguistic research. With a specific focus on metaphor and metonymy, the book offers a unified and systematic typology of linguistic figures, drawing on a number of different approaches, including both traditional and emerging frameworks within cognitive linguistics as well as syntactic theory, while also providing an exhaustive look at the unique features of a variety of conceptual figures, including metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron, and synecdoche. In its aim of reconciling historically opposed theoretical approaches to the study of conflictual figures while also incorporating a thorough account of its distinctive varieties, this volume will be essential reading for researchers and scholars in cognitive linguistics, theoretical linguistics, philosophy of language, and literary studies.

The study of metaphor is now firmly established as a central topic within cognitive science and the humanities. This book explores the critical role that conceptual metaphors play in language, thought, cultural and expressive actions. It evaluates the arguments and evidence for and against conceptual metaphors across academic disciplines.

The now-classic Metaphors We Live By changed our understanding of metaphor and its role in language and the mind. Metaphor, the authors explain, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are "metaphors we live by"—metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them. In this updated edition of Lakoff and Johnson's influential book, the authors supply an afterword surveying how their theory of metaphor has developed within the cognitive sciences to become central to the contemporary understanding of how we think and how we express our thoughts in language.

Metaphor is a fascinating and, at the same time, complex phenomenon. It can be approached from a multitude of perspectives, and the linguistic realizations of metaphors vary not only across languages, but also across text genres, cultures, and time. This book reflects such complexity and variability by gathering a collection of studies that adopt different theoretical views and explore the actual uses of metaphors in different text types (literary, folkloric, journalistic, and scientific) and languages (Hungarian, Chinese, French, English, Italian, Latin, and Ancient Greek). By providing the reader with a view of metaphor and current metaphor research which is both diversified and coherent, this volume will provide insights for cognitive linguists, scholars involved in metaphor studies, and more generally readers interested in linguistic variation.

This collection advocates for a more holistic picture of metaphor, extending the field’s focus beyond the cognitive paradigm and conventional metaphorical concepts to illustrate the possibilities afforded by the study of living metaphors. The volume brings together a diverse range of researchers in the discipline towards critically examining the presuppositions of the cognitive approach. The book shines a light on living metaphors – creative interpretations of conflictual meaning specific to a text or communicative act with their own unique functions – to throw into relief long-held tenets in existing metaphor research. Chapters reflect on the notion that creative metaphors spring from independent sources, not merely from metaphorical concepts, and the subsequent implications for our understanding of the relationship between linguistic forms and conceptual structures and the role of creative metaphors in organizing thought and action. Taken together, the book offers a complementary vision of languages and figures which integrates disparate lines of study within the cognitive paradigm with alternative perspectives for a more comprehensive portrait of metaphors. This book will be of interest to students and scholars interested in the study of metaphor, including such disciplines as theoretical linguistics, cognitive linguistics, semantics, literary studies, and philosophy of language.

This book investigates the origins of figurative language in literary discourse within a cognitive framework. It represents an interface between linguistics and literature and develops a 6-tier theoretical model which analyses the different factors contributing to the creation of figurative words and expressions. By examining features ranging from language structure to figurative thought, cultural history, reference, narrative and the personal experience of authors, it develops a global overview of the processes involved. Due to its particularly innovative characteristics in literature, the theme of death is explored in relation to universal concepts such as love and time. These aspects are discussed in the light of well-known authors in comparative literature such as D.H. Lawrence, Simone De Beauvoir, Hermann Hesse and Jorge Luis Borges. The origins can involve complex conceptual mappings in figures of speech such as metaphor and symbolism. They are often at the roots of an author’s personal desires or represent the search for answers to human existence. This approach offers a wide variety of new ideas and research possibilities for postgraduate and research students in modern languages, linguistics and literature. It would also be of interest to academic researchers in these disciplines as well as the general public who would like to delve deeper into the relevant fields.