Metaphor and Cognition

The papers in this volume discuss pivotal issues pertaining to the linguistic approaches to metaphors from theoretical and applied points of view. Some contributions utilize the framework of cognitive linguists to validate their descriptive models, showing that the figurative language is present in the everyday lives of people. Some present the opinion that metaphors may be useful for educational purposes explaining the nature of directly inapproachable objects. There are, however, studies that provide evidence for the reverse processes where the formation of conceptual metaphors reflects personal experiences stipulated by education. Metaphors also used to be studied as persuasive tools which take part in the creative molding of political identities. Furthermore, there are experimental studies in which the figurative thought model is revised by doubting whether conceptual metaphors indeed become automatically activated in the course of processing figurative language, or which suggest that the frequency count of literal senses of dictionary words may serve as a guide for labeling the source domains of conceptual metaphors in the processing of linguistic expression.

Autorentext

The Editors: Zdzislaw Wasik is Professor of Linguistics at the Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan (Poland) and Rector of Philological School of Higher Education in Wroclaw. He has published numerous articles and books in the area of general linguistics, semiotics, ecology of languages, and the history of linguistic thought in Poland, among them Epistemological Perspectives on Linguistic Semiotics (Peter Lang, 2003).
Tomasz Komendzinski is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Nicolaus University in Torun (Poland). He is the author of one book and articles on the American philosophy, the philosophy of humanistic sciences, pragmatism, semiotics, and the cognitive studies of language.

Inhalt

Contents: Aleksander Szwedek: Ontological sources of structural and orientational metaphors - Boguslaw Bierwiaczonek: On metaphors that lead astray - Roman Kalisz: Metaphors, blends and predicate-argument structure - Olga Sokolowska: Metaphor and the schematicity of concepts - Iwona Nowakowska-Kempna: Towards an action-oriented theory of metaphor - Waldemar Skrzypczak: Metaphor as a dynamic asymmetry (a poster presentation) - Danuta Stanulewicz: On some metalinguistic metaphors from a cognitive perspective - Elzbieta Wasik: On the use and cognitive value of metaphors in the sociology of language - Zdzislaw Wasik: Metaphors of form and substance in the academic discourse on language - Anna Cieslicka: Are conceptual metaphors activated on-line during the processing of figurative expressions? - Ariadna Strugielska/Teresa Siek-Piskozub: Conceptual metaphors as a reflection of personal experience in education - Camelia Cmeciu/Zdzislaw Wasik: Metaphors as a semiotic means in the molding of political identities - Malgorzata Fabiszak: Corpus frequency as a guide to metaphor labeling.