Understanding Tropes

This book attempts to analyse irony, paradox, oxymoron, overstatement, understatement, euphemism, and dysphemism from the point of view of both Cognitive Linguistics and Pragmatics. In order to do so, we have regarded each trope as a cognitive model, and observed that the various ICMs that resulted from this approach had in common an essential feature: they were all constructed around the creation of contrasts. Also, we have developed a common processing model for these ICMs, which shows that these so-called figures of speech can be fully considered conceptual mechanisms of meaning creation and derivation. Apart from determining which specific pragmatic implications these models bring about and studying their underlying cognitive operations, we have argued that they should be described in terms of the contextual effects they produce. Therefore, a new classification and definition of these tropes is provided.

Autorentext

The Author: Javier Herrero Ruiz graduated in English Philology with a specialization in Linguistics at the University of La Rioja (Spain). In 2003 he started his doctoral courses. He was visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley (USA) in 2004. He received his doctoral degree from the University of La Rioja in 2008.

Inhalt

Contents : Tropes - Figures of Speech - Irony - Paradox - Oxymoron - Overstatement - Understatement - Euphemism - Dysphemism - Cognitive Linguistics - Relevance Theory - Pragmatics - ICM - Contrast - Processing model - Meaning - Pragmatic implications - Cognitive operations - Contextual effects.