By way of introduction : a contrastive perspective on figurative language

Abstract

In recent decades, linguistics has witnessed a rising interest in figurative language. The inspiration for this kind of research may be connected to the rise and development of cognitive semantics, which has made metaphor one of its key notions. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, in their seminal work titled Metaphors We Live By (1980, modified and republished in 2003), denied the conviction that figurative speech is an aberration or anomaly that speakers use only in a limited number of special contexts. Lakoff and Johnson postulated that metaphor, together with metonymy, are actually pervasive ways of thinking and common cognitive tools that motivate a remarkable amount of our language (2003/1980: 3). Their findings have been developed by numerous authors, who have contributed to the Conceptual Metaphor Theory with both empirical research into various languages, as well as elaborations on the theoretical issues. Furthermore, it has been observed that metaphors and metonymies may vary among languages: the ways speakers use non-literal language is not universal, but to a large extent it depends on the culture, including the background of the speaker, or the specific context of language use (Kövecses 2005: 292–294). The aim of this volume is to present various examples of research into figurative language from the cross-linguistic perspective. However, first, we want to focus on the notion of figurative language as such, and notice how its understanding in linguistics has changed over the past decades. Next, we will focus on the cross- linguistic research into figurative language in contemporary linguistics. Finally, the topics undertaken in the subsequent chapters of this volume will be shortly presented and discussed. [fragm. tekstu]