On ironic puns in Portuguese authentic oral data: how does multiple meaning make irony work?

In the present paper we focus on two Portuguese case studies (one in European Portuguese – EP and one in Brazilian Portuguese – BP) of the ironic oral discourse that result in verbal puns. In our analysis we postulate that studying multiple meanings (polysemy and homonymy) in puns can explain how irony functions on cognitive, linguistic and cultural levels given that (i) irony is a fundamental way of thinking about human experience (Gibbs & Colston, 2007, Gibbs, 2012); (ii) it is perspectivised and culturally grounded (Tobin & Israel, 2012, Dancygier & Sweetser, 2012, 2015); and (iii) linguistically explicit in verbal irony (Bryant, 2012, cf. Batoréo, 2016). The study is qualitative in character: the aim of the analysis is to exemplify cognitive and linguistic mechanisms culturally grounded that make irony work. In two case studies of authentic Portuguese discourse with ironic puns chosen out of larger corpora (cf. References) to be discussed in the present paper we shall argue that (i) polysemy and homonymy are cognitive and linguistic phenomena that trigger ironic puns; (ii) metonymy organised in metonymical chains or networks can be a complex cognitive mechanism that underlies polysemy; (iii) verbal puns are perspectivised and strongly culturally and historically grounded.FCT, no âmbito da investigação desenvolvida no CLUNL - Centro de Linguística da Universidade Nova de Lisboainfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Metaphorical competence in multilingual context of language acquisition and learning

It has been defended since Gibbs (1994) that in proper contexts people mostly use the metaphorical asset of a message rather than its literal meaning, which means that in a proper communicative context we express ourselves metaphorically and that metaphors are features of communicative interaction. In the present paper we discuss the notion of metaphorical competence (Aleshtar & Dowlatabadi 2014: 1895) in the process of multilingual acquisition and learning. This competence goes beyond other competences, such as communicative or linguistic, a speaker has to master when (s)he wants to speak a new non-native language. Thus, the importance of metaphorical competence implies that a speaker should not only be linguistically and communicatively appropriate but also conceptually appropriate. Based on previous studies by Sinha and Jansen (2004), Kövecses (2005), Palmer & Sharifian (2007), Gibbs & Colston (2012) and Sharifian (2015), among others, we defend that research in the area should be centred not exclusively on Language but on interaction in a triangle Cognition – Language – Culture. This interaction is embodied, which means the way we conceptualise the world is based on body and bodily experience mediated by culture, giving origin to physiological and/or cultural embodiment. In this study we present research from different language backgrounds both from occidental cultures (giving examples from European Portuguese, English and Polish) and oriental ones (Mandarin Chinese). We centre our analysis on conceptualization of emotions (for instance, manifested in the case of emotional expression of feeling hungry) and moral values (such as courage). This implies both physiological and cultural embodiment, giving evidence of differences that can be observed in mapping of different organs – such as heart or gallbladder – in different cultures into different emotions and values (cf. Yu 2003, 2007, 2009; Batoréo 2017a, b & c). We defend that in a multilingual context conceptual appropriateness in metaphorical competence and metaphor awareness play a fundamental role in the acquisition of figurative language (cf. Doiz & Elizari 2013). Figurative language is understood to be (at least, partially) motivated, and thus object of (partially) insightful learning (cf. Boers 2001, Boers et al. 2004, 2007).FCT, no âmbito da investigação desenvolvida no CLUNL - Centro de Linguística da Universidade Nova de Lisboainfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

AQUA-motion domain and metaphorization patterns in European Portuguese: AQUA-motion metaphor in AERO-motion and abstract domains

O artigo foi elaborado no âmbito da investigação efectuada no CLUNL - Centro de Linguística da Universidade Nova de Lisboa.The AQUA-motion verbs – as studied by Majsak & Rahilina 2003 and 2007, Lander, Majsak & Rahilina [2005] 2008, 2012 and 2013, and Divjak & Lemmens 2007, and in European Portuguese (EP) by Batoréo, 2007, 2008, 2009; Batoréo et al., 2007; Casadinho, 2007 – allow typically metaphorical uses, which we postulate can be organized in patterns. Our study shows that in European Portuguese there are two metaphorization patterns to be observed: (i) AQUA-motion metaphor in AERO-motion domain and (ii) AQUA-motion metaphor in abstract domain (e.g. abundance, arts, politics, etc.). In the first case, where the target domain of the metaphorization is the air, in EP we navigate through a crowd or we float in a waltz, whereas in the second, where it is abstract, we swim in money or in blood, and politicians navigate at sea or face floating currency in finances. In the present paper we survey the EP verbs of AQUA-motion metaphors in non-elicited data from electronically available language corpora (cf. Linguateca). In some cases comparisons are made with typologically diferent languages (as, e.g. Polish, cf. Prokofjeva’s 2007, Batoréo 2009).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Em torno da guerra e da paz : uma despedida com regresso anunciado

Livro de homenagem à professora Maria Emília Ricardo Marque

Perspective point (viewpointing) and events of motion in European Portuguese

We postulate that human cognition is not only rooted in the human body, but also inherently viewpointed in language, as defended by Dancygier & Sweetser 2012. We defend that we are dealing with a special sort of location of perspective point underlying events of motion, placing one’s “mental eye” to look out over the rest of the scene, as formalized by Talmy (2000, 1: 68, 216). In the present paper we shall discuss three different locations of perspective point (viewpointing) underlying events of motion in Portuguese: two of them are distinct motion perspectivizations in European Portuguese (EP), one physical and one fictive (both of them different from the Brazilian Portuguese (BP) usages), and the last one is the Portuguese systemic time-as-space perspectivization of the organization of a week unit of time. In the case of physical motion, and its metaphorical extention(s), we focus on some conceptual and contextual specificities underlying the EP expression ‘ao fundo’ (at/to the bottom; also: at/to the end) when used in space directions, where the prototypical vertical reference to depth gives place to (i) non-directioned, (ii) horizontal or even (iii) deictic viewpointed semantic extentions, indicating the end of the horizontal path getting as far as the speaker’s “mental eye” can reach (Batoréo and Ferrari (in press). In the case of fictive motion, we present two spatial highly polysemic expressions used currently in EP: ‘à frente’ (in front of; also: ahead, after) vs. ‘atrás’ (behind; also: back, at the back, before, above, among others) in the specific context of text construction and production (cf. Batoréo 2000, 2004, Teixeira 2001 and Silva & Batoréo 2011). In the third case, which discusses the Portuguese systemic time-as-space perspectivization, we shall show how the location of different perspective point in the chronological organization of the days of the week changes its conceptualization in Portuguese (i.e., both EP and BP) when compared with other languages.FCT, no âmbito da investigação desenvolvida no CLUNL - Centro de Linguística da Universidade Nova de Lisboa.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Cognitive and lexical characteristics of motion in liquid medium: AQUA-motion verbs in typologically different languages

In the present paper we survey the verbs speakers use most frequently to encode the movement of a non-liquid Figure in or on a liquid Ground (AQUA-motion verbs). Our main data come from European Portuguese (EP) (cf. Batoréo, 2007; Batoréo et al., 2007; Casadinho, 2007), and our results are mainly based on non-elicited data from electronically available language corpora of native EP speakers and contrasted with traditional Portuguese dictionary data (cf. Majsak, 2007). The EP results obtained are discussed within a lexical field AQUAmotion, as presented and characterized in Lander, Maisak, & Rakhilina (2005) and Majsak & Rahilina (2003, 2007) as well as discussed for some particular languages in Arad (2007) and Divjak & Lemmens (2007). They are approached also within a broader context of the typology of lexicalization patterns in the sense of Talmy 1985, 2000 (cf. Batoréo, 2000 for EP). The tri-partition proposed for the AQUA-motion field by distinguishing Sailing, Swimming and Floating verbs will be revisited. Approaching both physical and metaphorical meanings in EP, the contrasts discussed are between the Floating verbs ‘flutuar’ vs. ‘boiar’ and the swimming one ‘nadar’, as well as the rich SAILING area with its prototypical verb ‘navegar’. The basic parameters to be discussed are: (i) the nature of the moving figure, (ii) the nature of motion (passive vs. active, directed vs. non-directed, motion and containment), (iii) the nature of the metaphorical projection (e.g. AERO-motion and abstract domains), proving that languages may differ in predictable ways not only in grammar but also in lexicon.FCT, no âmbito da investigação desenvolvida no CLUNL - Centro de Linguística da Universidade Nova de Lisboa.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Was the birth of modern art psycholinguistically minded?

The history of our modern culture – and especially its formation in the very beginning of the 20th century – is full of examples of artists who (un) consciously tried to answer intuitive questions that science was sometimes able to approach only many decades later, but systematically forgetting those early artistic insights and contributions. In the present paper, we approach three of these early 20th-century forerunners who in their writings dedicated themselves to fundamental linguistic and psycholinguistic questions that still divide many scholars in the early 21st century: (i) the role of structure in language (section 2), (ii) the role of the meaning of self (section 3), and (iii) the relationship between language and memory (section 4). They are Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), Virginia Woolf (1882- 1941) and Marcel Proust (1871-1922). All three of them had some characteristics in common: they came from well-off and educated Jewish families (Stern and Proust were of Jewish origin and Woolf’s husband was a Jew); they were (financially) independent writers and significant figures in London or Paris literary societies; they were homosexual and the first European writers to treat homosexuality openly and at length. Two of them (Woolf and Proust) had serious health problems, which made them look for deep insights in order to deal with hard reality. It is also important to notice that one of the most important influences of all these artists was the science of their times: Stein was conducting psychology experiments in William James’s lab, Woolf was learning about the biology of mental illness, and Proust was attending Bergson’s lectures and reading his books; it is impossible to understand their art without taking into account its relationship to science. However, the most outstanding common denominator for all three of these artists was the fact that they were strongly linguistically minded. They explored their own language practices and experiences and expressed what no scientific experiment could see at their time but what became confirmed (at least in part) by science many decades later: Stein was looking for language structure, Wolf for expression of meaning of one’s self, and Proust for meaning of one’s memories and relation between memory and language. It was not an easy task, as they lived in times when the old dream of the Enlightenment seemed within reach: life was reduced to chemistry, and chemistry to physics; the entire universe was nothing but “a mass of vibrating molecules”. In such an organized world, art was supposed to be pretty and/or entertaining, and literature was expected to tell stories, and show the world as it was or could be, giving its readers some second-hand experience. The modernists turned against this world: they were not representing what they saw; they were searching for truth both outside and inside themselves, especially working (their) language, in order to make us see and understand ourselves better.FCT, no âmbito da investigação desenvolvida no CLUNL - Centro de Linguística da Universidade Nova de Lisboainfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Linguística cultural e o estudo do léxico da Língua Portuguesa (PE e PB): a linguagem-em-uso, os sentidos múltiplos e as operações de perspectivação conceptual

O texto foi republicado como: BATORÉO, Hanna Jakubowicz (2015). Linguística Cultural e o Estudo do Léxico da Língua Portuguesa (PE e PB): A linguagem- em-uso, os sentidos múltiplos e as operações de perspectivação conceptual. In: Almeida, Ariadne Domingues; Elisângela Santana dos Santos & Juliana Soledade (org.). Saberes Lexicais: mundos, mentes e usos. Salvador: EDUFBA, 217-254. ISBN 978-85-232-1390-9Pela Linguística Cultural entendemos um ramo da Linguística Cognitiva que se dedica ao estudo do modo como as línguas naturais reflectem e “corporizam” (cf. embodiment) as culturas que veiculam. Perspectivado deste modo, o nosso entendimento da Linguagem é cognitivo-funcional, social e culturalmente inserido, conforme defendido globalmente pela Linguística Cognitiva (cf. Silva 2009). Nele, a Linguagem surge como meio de conhecimento em ligação com a experiência humana do mundo – ou seja, a base pragmática e experiencial da linguagem-no-uso) – sendo observada e analisada ao nível de línguas particulares usadas em multiplicidade de registos, em contextos sociais e culturais diferenciados (diferentes níveis e tipos de variação linguística). A noção de Cultura aqui adoptada é definida do ponto de vista antropológico (Goodenough 1964 apud Anusiewicz 1994; cf. Hymes 1964) como um conjunto relativamente integrado de conhecimentos e de crenças, característico de uma comunidade, organizado por padrões e adquirido no seu meio através da interacção dos seus membros. Os que são abrangidos pela Cultura precisam de ter acesso a estes conhecimentos a fim de nela poderem viver e agir e se sentirem aceites por outros, desempenhando papéis determinados pela comunidade. Defende-se, por conseguinte, que não se trata de um fenómeno material, estanque, que se compõe de coisas, pessoas ou comportamentos. Pelo contrário, a Cultura é pensada, antes, na dimensão cognitiva das interacções humanas – com grande destaque para a interacção verbal –, em função dos modelos de percepção, associação e interpretação do mundo, partilhados pelos intervenientes sociais (dimensão sociolinguística) e guardados na mente (dimensão psicolinguística). O estudo da rede de ligações e interdependências entre a Linguagem e a Cultura implica um conceito da Linguagem como um sistema fortemente enraizado na Cultura e na vida social, em geral, determinando a comunicação intra e intercultural (i. e., "crosslinguistic studies", na literatura anglossaxónica), bem como o ensino e a aprendizagem das línguas. O presente estudo foca a polissemia de itens linguísticos portugueses que, nas variedades do Português Europeu e do Português do Brasil, podem corresponder a conceitos culturais diferentes, dada a sua contextualização conceptual e culturalmente diferenciada nos respectivos países.FCT, no âmbito da investigação desenvolvida no CLUNL - Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa (Projecto PEst-OE/LIN/UI3213/2014).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Tipologia do espaço e tipologia das línguas na linguística cognitiva: proposta de Leonard Talmy

Leonard Talmy é reconhecidamente um dos mais influentes e estudados linguistas cognitivos das últimas quatro décadas, sendo considerado como um dos três cientistas grandes fundadores (“Founding Fathers”) da Linguística Cognitiva, junto com George Lakoff e Ronald Langacker. No presente texto, procuramos dar conta do que se entende pela tipologia talmiana. Assim, na sequência da Introdução (primeira secção), na segunda secção fazemos uma curta caracterização da obra desenvolvida por Leonard Talmy. Na secção 3, centramo-nos nos primórdios da Linguística Cognitiva (anos setenta do século XX) e na sua ancoragem na Teoria Localista, para, na secção 4, apresentar os fundamentos da teoria talmiana e as respectivas noções fundamentais. A secção 5 é dedicada à análise do esquema da situação de Deslocação no Espaço (Talmy 1975), enquanto a secção 6 foca a tipologia da codificação do Espaço nas línguas (Talmy 1975, 1985). Na secção 7, é apresentada a proposta de padrões de lexicalização do Espaço, dando destaque a três padrões principais de lexicalização, bem como às suas extensões, focando também a abordagem holística da tipologia talmiana. Na última e oitava secção, tecemos alguns comentários finais relativos à temática da tipologia do Espaço na Linguística Cognitiva.FCT, no âmbito da investigação desenvolvida no CLUNL - Centro de Linguística da Universidade Nova de Lisboa.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio