COGNITIVE APPROACH TO METAPHORS
Keywords:
metaphor, cognitive approach, traditional metaphors, general-level metaphors, image metaphors.Abstract
Metaphors are no different from what can be done with literal speech. But this does not make the metaphor theoretically ineradicable or irrelevant. In some cases, I argue, metaphors allow speakers to convey content that cannot be fully and clearly expressed in words. As such, these cases serve as counterexamples to the "Principle of Expressivity," the idea that anything can be said. In fact, I would argue, the point is about perception as well as communication: metaphors sometimes provide us with a single cognitive input that has certain properties. Ultimately, I think that thinking about metaphor is useful because it draws our attention to patterns and processes of thought that play a pervasive role in our ordinary thinking and speech and can stretch our basic communicative and cognitive resources.
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