This study investigates the role of figurative language, especially, metaphor and metonymy, in the formation and disambiguation of novel analogybased compounds. The focus is on surface analogy, i.e. analogy created on the model of a unique concrete form, such as bird cafeteria, after birdhouse, or mouse potato, after couch potato. The data used for the study has been selected from two online collections of neologisms as well as from a dictionary of new English words. The study adopts a Cognitive Linguistics approach to explore the nature of figurative language in the models (i.e. the source words) and the targets (i.e. the new words). The aim is to find out semantic and cognitive correspondences that may help the association of the latter to the former. As a more general aim, this study intends to show the relevance of figuration to the creation of novel analogical compounds.

Keywords: metaphor; metonymy; analogical compounds

This paper investigates the evolution of the semantic domain of the sense of taste in English, by looking at the data produced by the Mapping Metaphor Project (MMP) at the University of Glasgow. Although, for centuries, the sense of taste has been ranked as the lowest sense and received scant attention, recent studies in cognitive science and philosophy advocate a reconsideration of its importance in language and cognition. With the help of the linguistic data of the MMP, I propose an account of the role of the sense of taste in English. To do so, I identify and classify various conceptual metaphors that motivate semantic change in which the sense of taste is either Source domain or Target domain. Results show that the domain of Taste may serve alternatively as Source domain (e.g. PLEASURE IS  SWEET), but also as Target (TASTE IS THE QUALITY OF A PERSON).

Keywords: taste, conceptual metaphor, semantic change..

The study revisits the figurativity of an external body part term, the mouth in English. A synchronic Cognitive Linguistics approach to analysing mouth as a source domain is adopted, aiming to uncover what target concepts the mouth is deployed to figuratively conceptualise. In discussing the target concepts, the focus falls on the role of image schemas and metonymies in building up figurative conceptual complexes (Ruiz de Mendoza and Masegosa 2014), contrasting it with the one of metaphors in [Adj N] constructions with the same body part. A hypothesis is put forward that when used in fully lexically specified constructions in English the mouth is predominantly metonymically projected, while metaphoricity is more pronounced in other types of figurative expressions, where the mouth has a naming function and is not part of an explicitly described scene.

Keywords: body-based expressions, metonymy, image schemas.

This paper offers a preliminary diachronic investigation of 17th century conceptualisations of the ideal English gentleman. A corpus of 121 male metaphors extracted from two advice books for gentlemen published on either side of the Civil War has been analysed to uncover how and to what extent cognitive representations of gentlemanly manhood were affected by the experience of the Revolution. Continuity across a time span of about 70 years is given by the endurance of certain motives and themes, such as the exaltation of reason over passions and the emphasis on social conquest and self-mastery in the public rather than in the private sphere. Change is instead given by the types of metaphors used to conceptualise social success, by a shift in emphasis from the inner to the outer self, by a different notion of male honour, and by a great post-war concern for tolerance and social harmony.

Keywords: cognitive linguistics, male metaphors, 17th century England, diachronic change.

This paper intends to provide a description of the four main continuative verbs in English, i.e. continue, keep, proceed and resume, in terms of the cognitive operations and pragmatic implications associated with some of their most common uses. Assuming that structural differences are the reflection of various conceptualisations of occurrences, the two main cognitive processes of metonymy and metaphor appear to interact with the prototypical semantic features of aspectual verbs and their complements, licensing or blocking some of the constructions in which these verbs occur. Metonymic and metaphoric mappings also appear to co-exist, thus producing conceptual complexes which eventually result in less canonical constructions.

Keywords: metonymy, metaphor, aspectual verbs, continuative verbs.

The primary aim of this paper is to offer a Cognitive Linguistics analysis of the language used for and about children in the judicial system of England and Wales, as well as the reports of such cases in UK media. The treatment of children when questioned by the police and in court has been an ongoing issue. A number of outdated, social myths persevere in rape cases involving both adults and children. These myths generally include the ‘Rape Myth’ and the ‘Autonomous Testosterone Myth’, and for children also include other adverse, expected patterns of behaviour, such as a general expectation that children ‘lie’, ‘cannot differentiate truth from fiction’, and ‘are easily confused about other people’s intentions’. This paper offers a review of the legal process in England and Wales involving children, before illustrating how the above myths and expectations are triggered by the questions put to the witnesses. The analysis shows how these associations are networked in elaborate semantic domains that may trigger inferential information that prejudices hearers against those same young victims.

Keywords: forensic linguistics, rape and sexual assaults, frames, ICMs.

This paper aims at exploring the fruitful interface between Cognitive Linguistics and Translation Studies in the field of Metaphor in Translation. After offering an overview of the relationship between the two disciplines as for metaphor translation, I illustrate the main Cognitive Linguistics issues that may be relevant to the study of coding and recoding conceptual metaphors from a source language-culture to a target language-culture. I then investigate such an interlingual transfer in the domain of popular science discourse, through a small selection of illustrative examples taken from authentic Italian target texts and English source texts. I attempt to demonstrate how prescriptivism can be avoided and the traditional concept of translation ‘equivalence’ can be reconsidered. The centrality of the translator as a decision-making agent in the translation process is reassessed while taking a cognitive approach to an analysis of translation of metaphorical expressions.

Keywords: translation studies, cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor.

This study explores the relation between politics and morality in the American political ideology from a Cognitive Linguistics perspective. The investigation is aimed at demonstrating the extent to which Obama’s rhetoric during his first presidential election campaign is in line with Lakoff’s (1996) predictions about political morality. In particular, it concentrates on a representative sample of Obama’s 2008 election campaign speeches in order to identify the type of values he evoked and to describe how they can be related to Lakoff’s description of nurturant parent morality. The study also accounts for a potential connection between the expression of moral values and the use of metaphorical language.

Keywords: Obama, political speech, strict father vs. nurturant parent morality.

This paper explores the usage of metaphor and metonymy in a key oral business genre: earnings conference calls. These figurative features were analysed in a corpus consisting of the transcripts of twenty earnings conference calls of large multinationals, using a semantic annotation tool that automatically identifies each lexical item according to predetermined conceptual domains. Further qualitative analysis of the output revealed many of the same root metaphors and metonymies typical of written financial discourse, but with some distinctive usage that seemed to perform a cohesive function within this particular discourse community. The study also shows how a corpus-driven approach is useful to identify a wide range of figurative expressions in naturally-occurring oral financial discourse, which has been understudied from this perspective.

Keywords: corpus linguistics, financial discourse, metaphor, metonymy, semantic annotation.

One of the central tenets of Conceptual Metaphor Theory is that metaphor is pervasive in both language and thought. While lexical metaphors (non-standard uses of lexical units) have been widely studied as surface realisations of conceptual metaphors, less attention has been paid to the Systemic Functional theory of grammatical metaphor, which posits that metaphorical variation also involves grammatical structures. With the focus placed on nominalisations as grammatical metaphors in two ad hoc corpora of articles from The Financial Times and Il Sole 24 Ore, I show that: a. linguistic (lexical) realisations of conceptual metaphors and nominalisations tend to co-occur, and b. they tend to work in a cohesive fashion. I identify and discuss three main patterns of synergy on the basis of qualitative analysis through select examples.

Keywords: Metaphor: conceptual/lexical/grammatical, financial crisis.

This paper makes three main claims. First, it points out that scholars involved in metonymy research do not make it sufficiently clear whether they espouse an essentialist position, whereby metonymy is taken to be a Platonic concept. This engenders conceptual and analytical inconsistencies. Second, it argues that scholars do not distinguish clearly between general cognitive abilities (Langacker’s reference point ability) and their correlates in language. This obfuscates the importance of form in linguistic analysis. Third, adopting a radical stance akin to Croft’s (2001), this paper claims that each “metonymic” example should be analysed in its own right by relying on a variety of parameters that do not necessarily cohere into clearcut categories, not even prototype-based ones.

Keywords: metonymy, essentialism, reference point ability.

Metaphor and metonymy are key tools in communication, particularly when abstract ideas or emotions are discussed. While studies have explored the role played by metaphor and metonymy in language and images, and in the ways they are understood, few studies have investigated the combination of metaphor and metonymy in the multimodal context of advertising. Our study investigates the nature of figurative complexity (i.e., the ways metaphor and metonymy combine) in advertisements containing both words and images, and explores the relationship between figurative complexity and comprehension, accuracy of interpretation and advertising effectiveness. Through a mixed-methods approach of lab experiments and qualitative inquiry we assess the speed and depth of comprehension, the perceived appeal, and the physiological effect of advertisements on participants from three linguistic and cultural backgrounds (English, Spanish, and Chinese).

Keywords: advertising, cross-culturality, metaphor

The objective of this paper is to clarify what types of embodied linguistic mechanisms are activated when we elaborate figurative speech about COLOUR/SEEING. Embodied theories of “negativity” and “positivity” biases have been posited in relation to language. According to behavioural and evolutionary studies a ‘negativity bias’ modifies the way humans react and process surrounding events, and has been tested in different realms of cognition, including corpus linguistics. The positivity bias – the Pollyanna hypothesis – affirms that humans tend to talk about the bright side of life. Good “positive” words are more prevalent, more meaningful, more diversely used, and more readily learned than “negative” words. I discuss possible conceptual underpinnings that explain the impact of positivity and negativity biases in processing visual figurativity in linguistic tasks.

Key-words: negativity bias, Pollyanna hypothesis, COLOUR/SEEING figurativity.

The present work aims to study visual metaphors and multimodal metaphors in the political cartoons published in the British press during the Brexit campaign. The theoretical approach adopted draws upon the theories elaborated by Halliday (1985), Forceville (2008; 2009), Ruiz de Mendoza and Diez (2002), and Hart (2016), with the objective of identifying the three analytical steps that lead to the conceptual frames structuring the political event under investigation. Results show the extent to which the visual representation of the Brexit campaign proposes novel and original perspectives of interpretation, and further evidence of the relevance of metaphors and metonymies in the narration of events and in the construction of public opinion.

Keywords: Brexit, metaphor, metonymy, political discourse.