A Hybrid Theory of Metaphor: Relevance Theory and Cognitive Linguistics Book

List of Figures vii

List of Tables viii

Typographical Conventions ix

Acknowledgements x

1 Introduction 1

2 The Relevance-Theory Approach to Metaphor 7

2.1 Grice's theory of meaning and communication 7

2.2 The cognitive turn in pragmatics: relevance theory 13

2.2.1 The epistemology of communication: mutual knowledge, mutual manifestness and mind-reading 13

2.2.2 Relevance, ostension and inference 36

2.2.3 The principles of relevance 42

2.2.4 Relevance-theoretic utterance interpretation 43

2.3 The explicit, the implicit and metaphors 49

2.3.1 Pragmatics and the explicit/implicit distinction 49

2.3.2 The standard pragmatic approach to metaphor 68

2.3.3 The original relevance-theory approach to metaphor: descriptive and interpretive use 81

2.3.4 Recent developments in relevance theory: ad hoc concepts 84

2.3.5 The cognitive effort of processing metaphors 88

2.3.6 Interactions between cognitive effects and effort 96

2.3.7 Cognitive effects and metaphor processing: a study 101

2.4 Pragmatics and the implicit: a conclusion 110

3 Cognitive Linguistics and Metaphor 112

3.1 General assumptions of cognitive linguistics 112

3.2 Metaphor as conceptualization: conceptual metaphor theory 114

3.2.1 A modified invariance hypothesis 116

3.2.2 Why do we have the metaphoric concepts we have? 122

3.3 Metaphor and creative thinking: blending theory 130

4 Relevance Theory versus Cognitive Linguistics 138

4.1 Metaphor generality 139

4.2 Metaphor motivation 142

4.3 Representation of metaphorical meaning 144

4.4 The online processing of metaphorical utterances 149

4.5 Context-sensitivity and pragmatic effects 161

4.6Metaphor and polysemy 169

4.7 Metaphor acquisition 175

4.8 Relations to a wider theory of language use 179

4.9 Theory of mind: modularity vs. embodiment 180

4.10 New challenges 188

5 The Hybrid Theory of Metaphor 192

5.1 The foundations 192

5.2 Lexical semantics in the hybrid theory 197

5.3 Lexical pragmatics in the hybrid theory 200

5.3.1 The example tree 203

5.3.2 The example at 206

5.4 Lexical metaphoricity 210

5.4.1 Examples 211

5.4.2 The construal of metaphorical ad hoc concepts 218

5.5 The online dynamics of metaphor interpretation 220

5.5.1 An unprecedented crusade 222

5.5.2 The figurativeness of utterances 239

5.5.3 Some predictions of the hybrid theory of metaphor 242

6 Conclusion and Future Challenges 248

Notes 261

References 264

Index 275