230554 Metaphor and Metonymy (S) (SoSe 2015)

We believe that metaphor is a means through which emotions, attitudes, beliefs and values can be expressed dynamically during talk interactions. Therefore, rather than a fixed bi-dimensional mapping between cognitive domains (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), metaphor congregates discursive and cognitive factors, such as the discourse context, linguistic constraints, cultural and bodily factors among others and from these dynamic imbrications metaphor emerges. Metonymies emerge in the discourse when a cognitive entity is connected to another due to an association by contiguity, or when an event is associated to the place in which it occurs. In many cases, metonymies and metaphors are constituted in a continuum (Goosens, 2003), so that the vehicle of a metaphor is motivated by a previous metonymical process and vice-versa. Some metaphors have a metonymic sense, such as when a social group who lives in a given physical location or certain town areas come to be connected to these places, and people adjust their views of the places to the social groups and vice-versa. The course will discuss systematically the cognitive functions of metaphors and metonymies in language, as well as their close interactions.