Text Metaphtonymy: The interplay of metonymy and metaphor in discourse

This article starts by looking at the various ways metonymic and metaphoric thinking, as independent phenomena, organize text at discourse level. The literature on Metaphor in Discourse is classified under three broad categories, 'metaphor clusters', 'metaphor chains' and 'extended metaphor'; while the less extensive body of research on Metonymy in Discourse is analyzed into parallel categories, 'metonymy clusters', 'metonymy chains' and 'extended metonymy'. The article goes on to look at the ways in which Metonymy in Discourse and Metaphor in Discourse phenomena combine in making meaning at text level. The interplay of metonymy and metaphor in discourse referred to here as Text Metaphtonymy, is explored under headings adapted from Goossens (1990), namely, 'metaphor within metonymy' and 'metonymy within metaphor'. The ways in which metonymy and metaphor combine at discourse level are shown to be varied and intricate. This has implications for applied linguists working with text. The direction further work in this area might take is indicated

An investigation into figurative language in the ‘LOLITA' NLP system

The classical and folk theory view on metaphor and figurative language assumes that metaphor is a rare occurrence, restricted to the realms of poetry and rhetoric. Recent results have, however, unarguably shown that figurative language of various complexity exhibits great systematicity and is pervasive in everyday language and texts. If the ubiquity of figurative language cannot be disputed, however, any natural language processing (NLP) system aiming at processing text beyond a restricted scope has to be able to deal with figurative language. This is particularly true if the processing is to be based on deep techniques, where a deep analysis of the input is performed. The LOLITA NLP system employs deep techniques and, therefore, must be capable of dealing with figurative input. The task of natural language (NL) generation is affected by the naturalness of figurative language, too. For if metaphors are frequent and natural, NL generation not capable of handling figurative language will seem restricted and its output unnatural. This thesis describes the work undertaken to examine the options for extending the LOLITA system in the direction of figurative language processing and the results of this project. The work critically examines previous approaches and their contribution to the field, before outlining a solution which follows the principles of natural language engineering

Metaphor, metonymy, language learning and translation

This thesis investigates the role of metonymy in communication, in creating text, in learner communication and in translation. I make the claim that metonymy, defined here as the ability to recognize part-whole relations between things, words and concepts, is the essential mechanism behind a whole variety of linguistic phenomena, normally dealt with in linguistics as distinct topics. In the General Theory of Metonymy presented here, I suggest that metonymy is a unifying principle behind how we process language. I discuss a range of data to demonstrate metonymy at work. I show that metonymic principles are not just in play in metonymic language but also in metaphoric and literal language. I argue that metonymy not only offers alternative ways of referring to entities, but is powerful in giving nuance and spin, and is the key to understanding why language is so fit for purpose in giving us the flexibility and subtlety so important in our social dealings with others. I illustrate the role metonymy plays in our lives by examining data from social and recreational activities where metonymy is central and seems to be explored for its own sake. In the Metonymic Theory of Learner Communication I propose that learner communication relies in a number of different ways on metonymic processing; and in the Metonymic Theory of Translation I propose that translation also relies heavily on metonymic processing. The burgeoning interest in metonymy in recent years has generated an extensive literature. This thesis attempts to make sense of this body of knowledge, offers an original synthesis of it, proposes how it might be developed and suggests practical applications of it. I suggest that a new discipline of Metonymics might emerge and that this could make a valuable contribution in reframing issues of debate in a variety of different areas of practice

Enhancing the design of wine labels.

Introduction: The knowledge accrued through research in the domain of crossmodal correspondences has had a significant influence on a diverse array of disciplines, including behavioral studies, neuroscience, computational modeling, and notably, marketing, with the objective of aligning sensory experiences to help shape patterns of consumer behavior. A study is reported that explores the extension of these principles to the communication of products having a notably complex sensory profile, specifically within the context of wine. The central aim of the project is to explore the feasibility of using crossmodal communication as a strategic tool to augment the congruence between the consumers’ multisensory expectations and their sensory experiences. For consumers venturing into the realm of wine selection without the advantage of prior tasting experience, it is of paramount importance to possess a robust understanding of the mandated information. This encompasses critical elements such as the wine’s origin, grape varietal(s) used, geographical indications, producer qualifications, and the potential implications of these factors on the final wine product. This level of comprehension stands as a necessary prerequisite, enabling these consumers to make informed choices that align with their preferences, even in the absence of previous sensory encounters. Nonetheless, semiotic investigations underscore the significance attributed to symbolic components such as signs, logos, colors, gestures, and linguistic cues. Research from the field performing multisensory studies, presents a counterpoint to prevailing communication paradigms, advocating for a heightened incorporation of metaphors, analogies, symbols, metonymies, and allegories. This alternative approach aims to enhance the efficacy of communication strategies, offering a more profound and evocative means of conveying intricate messages on a more holistic level. Methods: A questionnaire was sent to a specific group of engaged wine consumers (n = 329). Besides questions regarding demographics, purchase behavior, and consumption behavior, the questionnaire included examples of multisensory communication through a selection of symbols, as well as alternative wine information. Results: The results showed significant correlations between demographics, consumption behavior, and attitudes toward the tested multisensory symbols and alternative information, thus helping to gain a better understanding of the sensory properties that should be communicated on wine labels. Discussion: The findings reported here highlight the effectiveness of visual crossmodal communication as a promising pathway capable of skillfully capturing consumer attributes, conveying multisensory experiences, and portraying the comprehensive timeline of taste evolution. As a result, it assumes a pivotal role as a communicative tool for intricate consumables, like wine, functioning at the crossroads of visual and sensory dimensions

The metaphorical brain [Research topic]

This Frontiers Special Issue will synthesize current findings on the cognitive neuroscience of metaphor, provide a forum for voicing novel perspectives, and promote new insights into the metaphorical brain

El papel de la metáfora como eje vertebrador de los cinco últimos programas electorales del Partido Conservador británico y la conceptualización de sus políticas en las ilustraciones editoriales de la prensa conservadora británica

Tesis de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Filología, leída el 11/04/2019In the last decades there has been a growing interest in multimodality applied to specific discourses within Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). The present dissertation analyses metaphorical conceptualisation used by the British Conservative Party and the editorial cartoons in the British conservative press for the general elections in 1997, 2001, 2005, 2010, 2015. This is done in an integrative approach which combines cognitive approaches, Critical Discourse Analysis (Charteris- Black’s (2014) Critical Metaphor Analysis and Musolff’s (2016) scenario-based approach) and corpus techniques. For this dissertation, two corpora were collected: (1) the manifesto corpus of 136,817 words, made up of the last five general elections; and (2) a cartoon corpus made 246 editorial cartoons published in The Daily Telegraph and The Times in the election years. Each corpus was divided into four sections according to the general election, except for the fact that the 2001 and 2005 general election belong to the same section. This study focuses on four main areas: (1) leadership; (2) economic issues; (3) British national interest; and (4) domestic issues. For the analysis of the manifesto corpus, different tools included in Antconc 4.3.3. (Anthony, 2014) were used. The analysis offers quantitative and qualitative data which reveals that metaphorical conceptualisation is an essential tool in the ideological evolution of the Conservative Party, which, under Cameron, produced a change of conceptualisation strategy on certain issues covered by the study, such as the the economy and society. However, the alleged ideological evolution is not reflected in the relationship between the UK and the EU. The results obtained in each section are contrasted to the conceptualisation made by The Times and The Daily Telegraph about the same issues, in search for synchronic patterns of similarity and differences in the source domains used to portray the same issues. This dissertation intends to serve as a starting point of multi-national contrastive studies to improve political communication and the knowledge about national and social identities.En las últimas décadas ha habido un creciente interés en estudios de multimodalidad aplicados a discursos específicos en el marco de la Teoría de la Metáfora Conceptual (Lakoff y Johnson 1980). La presente tesis analiza la conceptualización metafórica del Partido Conservador británico y las ilustraciones editoriales de la prensa conservadora inglesa en las elecciones generales de 1997, 2001, 2005, 2010 y 2015. Esto se hace mediante un enfoque integrador que combina aproximaciones que combinan enfoques cognitivos y de Análisis Crítico del Discurso (Análisis Crítico de la Metáfora de Charteris-Black, 2014 y el enfoque basado en escenarios de Musolff, 2016) junto con técnicas de corpus. En esta tesis se han creado dos corpus: (1) un corpus de programas electorales hecho con los programas electorales de las últimas cinco elecciones generales, y (2) un corpus con 246 ilustraciones editoriales del The Daily Telegraph y The Times en los años de las elecciones. Cada corpus está dividido en 4 secciones, correspondientes a cada uno de los años en los que las elecciones tuvieron lugar con la salvedad de que las secciones de los años 2001 y 2005 se analizan conjuntamente. La investigación está centrada en 4 grandes áreas: (1) liderazgo; (2) economía; (3) interés nacional británico, y (4) política interior. El corpus de programas electorales ha sido analizado utilizando distintas herramientas del paquete de Antconc 4.3.3. (Anthony, 2014). El análisis ofrece datos cuantitativos y cualitativos que demuestran que la conceptualización metafórica es una herramienta esencial en la evolución del Partido Conservador británico que, bajo el liderazgo de Cameron, realizó un cambio en la estrategia de conceptualización en las áreas estudiadas, como la economía o la sociedad. Sin embargo, esta evolución no se refleja en otros aspectos como la conceptualización de la relación del Reino Unido con la UE. Los resultados obtenidos en cada sección se contrastan con la conceptualización realizada por The Daily Telegraph y The Times, de manera que se ofrecen patrones de similitudes y diferencias en la conceptualización realizada sobre los mismos asuntos. Esta tesis pretende ser un punto de partida para la profundización de estudios contrastivos sobre comunicación política y la creación de identidades nacionales.Fac. de FilologíaTRUEunpu

“Wow! That's so cool!” The Icehotel as organizational trope

This article introduces the Icehotel, the world’s first and largest hotel to be constructed entirely of ice and snow, as a unique and generative organizational trope. As a trope (and metaphor, in particular), it both supplements and complements Morgan’s seminal book, The Images of Organization, and generates unique insights with regard to surprise, unifinality, purity, eco-coreness and rebirth. The Icehotel also serves as a lens for examining organizations through each master trope, that is, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony. Evidence of metonymy in language describing the Icehotel is presented. The case for synecdoche is made by arguing that the Icehotel is a species of two genera, that is, temporary organizations and paradoxical organizations. Also, the Icehotel is not only paradoxical (i.e. a form of irony), but also generates four other paradoxes, namely, the ways that organizations are evolutionary yet revolutionary, negative as well as positive, different yet similar and unsustainably sustainable. The Icehotel also exemplifies serious play – a particular approach for managing paradoxes. Finally, the article discusses implications for research and practice

Engleske nominalizacije izvedene sufiksima -hood i -ness u okviru kognitivne lingvistike

The aim of this paper is to give the overview and analysis of English nominalizations ending in suffixes -hood and -ness within the framework of cognitive linguistics. Cognitive approaches to word formation treat the meaning of affixes as a category with a prototype and its extensions. We have assumed that cognitive processes of metaphors and metonymies are responsible for the extensions. Our corpus consists of examples that display the central meaning (the state or quality of being A/ N) and of those showing other senses. For the suffix -hood these are: a group of people sharing the thing referred to by N; a period of time during which one is N; an instance of the quality referred to by the adjectival base; an area of the thing referred to by N; a part of the body and an action of making something A. These meanings are metonymically and metaphorically derived. DEFINING STATE OR PROPERTY OF ONE MEMBER FOR THE WHOLE CATEGORY (GROUP) metonymy creates the 'group' meaning; from this metonymy the activation of PEOPLE LIVING IN A PARTICULAR PLACE FOR PLACE metonymy produces 'area' meaning; the sense 'period of time' can be explained via THE STATE OF BEING N FOR THE PERIOD OF TIME DURING WHICH ONE IS N; the meaning of 'part of the body' is enabled by STATE OF THE WHOLE PERSON FOR PART OF THE BODY; STATE FOR ACTION metonymy is found in the example where we percieve state as an action in which one makes use of that state. This metonymy produces ACTION FOR RESULT metonymy which creates the meaning of 'an instance or example of being A'. A great number of nominalizations ending in -ness have the meaning of an instance or example of the quality or state denoted by the adjectival root. Within this meaning the following metonymies and metaphors create the following meanings: STATE OR QUALITY FOR EVENT DEMONSTRATING THAT STATE OR QUALITY metonymy produces the meaning of an act of being A; EFFECT FOR CAUSE metonymy enables us to see certain state as a cause of that state (an event, a person or a situation that brings about A + ness); GENERIC FOR SPECIFIC metonymy allows nominalizations to be used with the indefinite article and become pluralized when they denote 'a manifestation or an instance of a state in a certain time period' or 'a specific type of A + ness'; STATE FOR OBJECT EXEMPLIFYING THE STATE metonymy can even produce the meanings that can be characterized as physical objects. The suffix -ness can have 'action' reading via STATE FOR ACTION and 'a period of time' meaning via STATE OF BEING A FOR THE PERIOD OF TIME DURING WHICH ONE IS A. Metaphor STATES ARE LOCATIONS creates locative meaning of some -ness nominalizations. Finally, similar to the suffix -hood, -ness can also denote 'a collectivity', to be more precise, 'a group of animals', via DEFINING QUALITY OF ONE MEMBER FOR THE WHOLE CATEGORY OF MEMBERS WITH THE SAME QUALITY metonymy. The mentioned metonymies and metaphors operate posterior to suffixation and can serve to show that the richness of suffixal meanings is not random, but highly motivated. This paper can be used as a study of other affixes within cognitive linguistics paradigm. The better understanding of connection between word formation processes and cognitive operations such as metaphors and metonymies is also possible.Cilj je ovog rada dati prikaz i analizu nominalizacije u engleskom jeziku koje završavaju sufiksima -hood i -ness u okviru kognitivne lingvistike. Kognitivni pristupi tvorbi riječi značenja sufikasa promatraju kao kategoriju koja ima prototipno značenje i proširenja. Pretpostavili smo da su proširenja uvjetovana metaforama i metonimijama. 245 Naš se korpus sastoji od primjera koji pokazuju središnje značenje (stanje ili svojstvo) i ostala značenja. Za suffix -hood to su: skupina ljudi koja dijeli svojstvo na koje upućuje osnova; vremenski period u kojem netko posjeduje svojstvo; primjer svojstva na koje upućuje pridjevska osnova; mjesto koje se odnosi na osnovu; dio tijela i radnja. Ova su značenja izvedena metaforama i metonimijama. Metonimija STANJE ILI SVOJSTVO JEDNOG ČLANA ZA CIJELU KATEGORIJU (GRUPU) donosi značnje 'skupina'; iz ove metonimije aktivira se metonimija LJUDI KOJI ŽIVE NA ODREĐENOM MJESTU ZA MJESTO koja proizvodi značenje 'mjesto'; značenje 'vrijeme' objašnjava se metonimijom STANJE ZA VRIJEME TIJEKOM KOJEG JE NETKO U ODREĐENOM STANJU; 'dio tijela' omogućuje metonimija STANJE (SVOJSTVO) CIJELE OSOBE ZA DIO TIJELA; metonimiju STANJE ZA RADNJU nalazimo u primjeru u kojem stanje promatramo kao radnju u kojoj se koristi to stanje. Ova metonimija proizvodi metonimiju RADNJA ZA REZULTAT odgovornu za značenje 'primjer svojstva'. Veliki broj nominalizacija koje završavaju sufiksom -ness imaju značenje 'primjer svojstva ili stanja kojega označuje pridjevska osnova'. Unutar tog značenja pronalazimo sljedeće metonimije i metafore koje proizvode ova značenja: metonimija STANJE ILI SVOJSTVO ZA ČIN KOJI PRIKAZUJE TO STANJE ILI SVOJSTVO proizvodi značenje 'čin'; metonimija POSLJEDICA ZA UZROK omogućuje promatranje nekog stanja kao uzroka za to isto stanje (događaj, osoba ili situacija koja uzrokuje određeno stanje); metonimija OPĆENITO ZA SPECIFIČNO omogućuje upotrebu neodređenog člana i množine kod nominalizacija u slučajevima kada one imaju značenje 'pojava ili primjer stanja u određenom vremenskom razdoblju' ili 'specifična vrsta stanja'; metonimija STANJE ZA PREDMET KOJI SLUŽI KAO PRIMJER STANJA može proizvesti značenja koja mogu biti opisana kao fizički predmeti. Sufiks -ness može imati i 'aktivno' značenje kroz metonimiju STANJE ZA RADNJU, a može značiti i 'vremenski period' kroz STANJE ZA VREMENSKI PERIOD U KOJEM JE NETKO U ODREĐENOM STANJU. Metafora STANJE JE LOKACIJA stvara značenje mjesta kod nekih nominalizacija. Konačno, kao i sufiks -hood, sufiks -ness može imati značenje 'skupina', odnosno preciznije 'skupina životinja' uz pomoć metonimije SVOJSTVO JEDNOG ČLANA ZA CIJELU KATEGORIJU ČLANOVA S ISTIM SVOJSTVOM. Spomenute metonimije i metafore djeluju nakon sufiksacije i pokazuju da bogatsvo sufiksalnih značenja nije proizvoljno, već velikim dijelom motivirano. Ovaj rad može poslužiti u proučavanju ostalih afikasa u okviru kognitivne lingvistike. Također je moguće ostvariti bolje razumijevanje povezanosti procesa tvorbe riječi i kognitivnih operacija poput metafore i metonimije