engleski

Construing meaning through conceptual mappings

This paper is an attempt to account for the role of conceptual mappings in meaning derivation processes. I have done so by considering metaphor and metonymy as cover terms for two sets of cognitive mechanisms operating within the structure of a general inferential system which constrains their meaning-generating power. This system, which has been described in some detail in Ruiz de Mendoza & Peñ a (2002) and Ruiz de Mendoza & Santibá ñ ez (2004), makes a crucial distinction between high-level and low-level cognitive operations: the former are of a formal nature, i.e. they are an inherent part of the meaning derivation machinery, while the latter are local content operations. Metonymy, although a pervasive phenomenon in conceptualization and language use (cf. Barcelona, 2000 ; Panther & Thornburg, 2004 ; Ruiz de Mendoza & Otal, 2002), is discussed in terms of two low-level cognitive operations, domain expansion and domain reduction. Postulating the existence of these operations is the result of previous work on the nature of metonymy carried out by Ruiz de Mendoza (2000). Metaphor, in its turn, is treated as consisting of two other operations, correlation and contrast. These two operations are related to a distinction made by Grady (1999) between correlational and resemblance metaphors, but the scope of Grady’ s description is broadened to make it fully compatible with our analysis, which also considers hyperbole and counterfactual conditionals as partially explainable in connection to these operations. The relevance of the proposed framework may be assessed - at least partially - in terms of its integrative ability. In Cognitive Linguistics, following Lakoff’ s work (e.g. Lakoff, 1993 ; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999), metaphor and metonymy are treated as cognitive phenomena that give rise to more or less entrenched cognitive models. The differences between metaphor and metonymy have been the object of some controversy (cf. Lakoff & Turner, 1989 ; Croft, 1993 ; Ruiz de Mendoza, 2000 ; Dirven, 2002), but it is generally taken for granted that both phenomena are mappings (or sets of correspondences) between two conceptual domains. In the case of metonymy, the mapping is taken to be internal to a domain ; in metaphor the mapping takes place between two separate domains. However, Cognitive Linguistics has made no attempt to consider other so-called tropes from the traditional literature on figurative language in the light of findings related to metaphor and metonymy. Our framework will precisely allow us to cast light on these connections.

metaphor; metonymy; construal; cognitive linguistics; cognitive processes; mappings

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