Using Figurative Language

Gathers decades of research on figurative language cognition to answer the question, 'Why don't people just say what they mean?'

Herbert L. Colston (Author)

9781107513488, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 May 2019

282 pages
15.5 x 23 x 1.5 cm, 0.4 kg

'An honourable credo towards the study of figurative language.' Günter Schmale, Lexis

Using Figurative Language presents results from a multidisciplinary decades-long study of figurative language that addresses the question, 'Why don't people just say what they mean?' This research empirically investigates goals speakers or writers have when speaking (writing) figuratively, and concomitantly, meaning effects wrought by figurative language usage. These 'pragmatic effects' arise from many kinds of figurative language including metaphors (e.g. 'This computer is a dinosaur'), verbal irony (e.g. 'Nice place you got here'), idioms (e.g. 'Bite the bullet'), proverbs (e.g. 'Don't put all your eggs in one basket') and others. Reviewed studies explore mechanisms - linguistic, psychological, social and others - underlying pragmatic effects, some traced to basic processes embedded in human sensory, perceptual, embodied, cognitive, social and schematic functioning. The book should interest readers, researchers and scholars in fields beyond psychology, linguistics and philosophy that share interests in figurative language - including language studies, communication, literary criticism, neuroscience, semiotics, rhetoric and anthropology.

1. Introduction: why don't people say what they mean?
2. What is a pragmatic effect?
3. What are the pragmatic effects?
4. How is figurative language used?
5. What is figurative language use?
6. Conclusion: meaning happens.

Subject Areas: Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR], Communication studies [GTC], Psycholinguistics [CFD], Philosophy of language [CFA]