Table Of ContentJavier E. Díaz-Vera (Ed.)
MetaphorandMetonymyacrossTimeandCultures
Cognitive Linguistics Research
Editors
Dirk Geeraerts
John R. Taylor
Honorary editors
René Dirven
Ronald W. Langacker
Volume 52
Metaphor and
Metonymy across
Time and Cultures
Perspectives on the Sociohistorical Linguistics
of Figurative Language
Edited by
Javier E. Díaz-Vera
DE GRUYTER
MOUTON
ISBN978-3-11-033543-9
e-ISBN(PDF)978-3-11-033545-3
e-ISBN(EPUB)978-3-11-039539-6
ISSN1861-4132
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Contents
Introductory chapter
JavierE.Díaz-Vera
Figurationandlanguagehistory:Universalityandvariation 3
Diachronic metaphor research
DirkGeeraerts
Fourguidelinesfordiachronicmetaphorresearch 15
Conceptual variation and change
KathrynAllan
Lostintransmission?Thesensedevelopmentofborrowedmetaphor 31
XavierDekeyser
Lossoftheprototypicalmeaningandlexicalborrowing:Acaseofsemantic
redeployment 51
RoslynM.Frank
Acomplexadaptivesystemsapproachtolanguage,culturalschemasand
serialmetonymy:Chartingthecognitiveinnovationsof‘fingers’and‘claws’
inBasque 65
RichardTrim
Theinterfacebetweensynchronicanddiachronicconceptualmetaphor:
Theroleofembodiment,cultureandsemanticfield 95
Figuration and grammaticalization
AndrewD.M.SmithandStefanH.Höfler
Thepivotalroleofmetaphorintheevolutionofhumanlanguage 123
Miao-HsiaChang
Twocounter-expectationmarkersinChinese 141
vi Contents
WolfgangSchulze
TheemergenceofdiathesismarkersfromMOTIONconcepts 171
Figurative language in culture variation
JavierE.Díaz-VeraandTeodoroManrique-Antón
‘Bettershamedbeforeonethanshamedbeforeall’:ShapingshameinOld
EnglishandOldNorsetexts 225
DylanGlynn
Theconceptualprofileofthelexemehome:Amultifactorialdiachronic
analysis 265
CristóbalPagánCánovas
CognitivepatternsinGreekpoeticmetaphorsofemotion:Adiachronic
approach 295
JuanGabrielVázquezGonzález
‘Thoucom’stinsuchaquestionableshape’:Embodyingtheculturalmodel
forghostacrossthehistoryofEnglish 319
Index 349
Introductory chapter
Javier E. Díaz-Vera
Figuration and language history:
Universality and variation
Andmaketime’sspoilsdespisedeverywhere
Givemylovefamefasterthantimewasteslife;
So,thouprevene’sthisscytheandcrookedknife.
Shakespeare,Sonnet100(11–14)
1 Figuration and lexico-semantic change
These verses by Shakespeare illustrate one instance of what literary theorists
havetraditionallyreferredtoasfigurativelanguage:theattributionoftypically
humanfeaturestoanabstractentity.Suchfiguresofspeechaspersonification,
simile, irony, hyperbole,metaphor and metonymy have beentraditionally de-
scribed as poetic devices used by writers for specific aesthetic purposes. Only
after the late-twentieth century development of Conceptual Metaphor Theory
(henceforthCMT;LakoffandJohnson1980,Ortony1993,Goatly2007),figura-
tive languagestarted to attractthe attention of agrowing number oflinguists
interestedinthestudyofthesefiguresofspeechwithintherealmofeveryday
language and, much more importantly, of our ordinary conceptual system.
CMT has since developed and elaborated, although not always in complete
agreement.
Figurationreferstoameaningthatisdependentonafigurativeextension
fromanothermeaning.Figurativelanguagehasgotaninherentlysecond-order
nature. Figurative expressions (such as it made my blood boil) can only be
recognized as such because of their contrast with more literal expressions (as
initmademeangry).Fromadiachronicperspective,figurativeexpressionsare
historicallylaterthanthecorrespondingconventionalones.AsCroftandCruse
(2004) put it, metaphors have their own life-cycle that normally runs from a
firstcoinageasaninstanceofsemanticinnovation(anovelmetaphorrequiring
aninterpretativestrategyonthesideoflanguageuser)toamorecommonplace
metaphor (a conventional metaphor whose meaning has become well-estab-
lished in the speakers’ mental lexicon). Eventually, the literal meaning of an
expression may fall out of use, interrupting its dependency relationship with
thecorrespondingfigurativemeaning(adeadmetaphor).
JavierE.Díaz-Vera:UniversidaddeCastilla-LaMancha
4 JavierE.Díaz-Vera
Cognitive semantics regards polysemy as involving family resemblances,
stressingthesystematicrelationshipbetweenthedifferentmeanings(bothlit-
eralandfigurative)ofawordandincludingpolysemyasaresultofconceptual
organisation such as categorisation. This view has given rise to a variety of
modelsforlexicalnetworks(Lakoff1987;Langacker1990)basedonthenotion
that the different meanings of a lexeme “form a radially structured category,
withacentralmemberandlinksdefinedbyimage-schematransformationand
metaphors” (Lakoff 1987: 460). In other words, each instantiation of a word
always retains its whole range of senses regardless of the context in which it
appears, senses which are related to one another by various means. Thus, a
given word belongs to a complex semantic network determined by different
domainsandcognitiveprocesses,wheretheremaybesensesmorerepresenta-
tive than others. Things being so, it can be argued that these polysemic net-
worksareshapedbythecourseofaseriesofdiachronicprocessesofsemantic
extension, through which new figurative expressions emerge and evolve. As
NerlichandClarke(2001:252)putit,
metaphorisapragmaticstrategyusedbyspeakerstoconveytohearerssomethingnew
thatcannoteasilybesaidorunderstoodotherwiseortogiveanoldconceptanovel,witty
oramusingpackage,whereasmetonymyisapragmaticstrategyusedbyspeakerstocon-
vey to hearers something new about something already well known. Using metaphors
speakerstellyoumorethanwhattheyactuallysay,usingmetonymstheytellyoumore
whilesayingless.Fromthepointofviewofthehearer,metaphorisastrategyusedto
extractnewinformationfromoldwords,whereasmetonymyisastrategyusedtoextract
moreinformationfromfewerwords.
For example, the progressive rise in the frequency of embodied expressions
showingtheangeristheheatofafluidinacontaineremotionmetaphor
inacorpusof11thto15thcenturyEnglishtextshasbeenconnectedtothepopu-
larizationofhumouraldoctrineinlatermedievalEngland,accordingtowhich
anger is an effect of the overproduction of yellow bile (or choler), considered
awarmanddrysubstance(Gevaert2002:202).AsGevaertconvincinglyshows,
the use of words and expressions directly taken from the humoural theory,
suchas theverbsMEdistemperen andboilen,indicatesa completelydifferent
conceptualizationofangerbyspeakersofMiddleEnglish.Asthisnewcultural
modeladvanced,peoplestartedtousetheoriginalheat-relateditemsasanger
expressions, which clearly differ from the old anger expressions in terms of
their capacity to add new information (as encoded in the metaphor anger is
theheatofafluidinacontainer,whichimpliesnotonlythatangerisa
hotfluid,butalsothatthebodyisacontainer)tothealreadyexistingone.
Furthermore,throughtheexpansionofthenewangerwordsoverthelanguage
community, this metaphor became a dominant expression of anger in Middle
