Using Figurative Language

Abstract

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.

Figurative Language, Mental Imagery, and Pragmatics

“…Of course, utterances may result in information transmission and other kinds of cognitive impact that go well beyond anything communicatively intended by the speaker/writer; for instance, they may reveal information about a speaker's social class or sex or political affiliations or state of health; they may (unintentionally) cause the audience to feel uneasy, envious, superior, sympathetic, and so on. As Colston (2015) points out, there is a wide range of 'pragmatic effects' (on his use of this term) beyond those communicatively intended by a speaker/writer, including what he calls sociocognitive effects, multimodal effects, and cognitive side-effects. Of particular interest to this paper is the category of cognitive side-effects, which Colston characterises as effects that arise from perceptual and cognitive processes that are running in parallel with language processing proper but can 'leak into and affect meaning' (ibid, p. 217); below I will suggest that mental imagery may be such a case.…”

“Holy Cow, My Irony Detector Just Exploded!” Calling Out Irony During The Coronavirus Pandemic

“…Telling others that some person's actions reflect a blatant irony is also an important rhetorical tool in suggesting that the person is untrustworthy. People experience additional esthetic and emotional pleasures given the realization that they too share ironic perceptions with others (Colston, 2015;Gibbs & Izett, 2005). As is the case with metaphor, calling out irony can create a sense of intimacy between those who recognize it and those who subsequently learn about its presence.…”

Pragmatics Always Matters: An Expanded Vision of Experimental Pragmatics

“…Our concern here is that there is still an overwhelming tendency in the literature for scholars to make generalizations from their task-specific studies to larger, comprehensive theories of pragmatics. A vast number of studies on figurative language use employs an extensive range of experimental methods in which participants are instructed to engage in different tasks, such as fast, word-by-word reading, full phrase or sentence reading, making quick judgments on whether a particular figurative utterance makes sense, or fits into the previously read story context, or determine if an utterance conveys literal or some kind of figurative meaning (e.g., metaphorical and ironic), and whether a figurative utterance is apt or creative (Gibbs and Colston, 2012;Colston, 2015). Each of these dependent measures may affect participants' "understanding" performances in experimental situations given the different forms of attention they must pay to the stimulus materials.…”