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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.
List of contents
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.
About the author
Herbert L. Colston is Professor and Chair of Linguistics at the University of Alberta. Previously, he was a Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Parkside. Dr Colston has published widely and edited several books including Figurative Language Comprehension: Social and Cultural Influences and Irony in Language and Thought: A Cognitive Science Reader (with Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr, 2007). He co-authored Interpreting Figurative Meaning (Cambridge, 2012) with Raymond Gibbs.
Summary
Using Figurative Language is for both interdisciplinary scholars who study or are interested in figurative language such as linguists, psychologists, philosophers, communication scholars, cognitive scientists and literary scholars, as well as a broad audience of anyone who works with, is intrigued by, enjoys using or has ever used figurative language.
