Creativity and convention : the pragmatics of everyday figurative speech / Rosa E. Vega Moreno.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Vega Moreno, Rosa E.

Series:

Pragmatics & beyond ; new ser., v. 156.

Pragmatics & beyond, 0922-842X ; new ser., v. 156

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Psycholinguistics.

Figures of speech.

Pragmatics.

Metaphor.

Idioms.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (264 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Pub., c2007.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book offers a pragmatic account of the interpretation of everyday metaphorical and idiomatic expressions. Using the framework of Relevance Theory, it reanalyses the results of recent experimental research on figurative utterances and provides a novel account of the interplay of creativity and convention in figurative interpretation, showing how features 'emerge' during metaphor comprehension and how literal meaning contributes to idiom comprehension. The central claim is that the mind is rather selective when processing information, and that in the pragmatic interpretation of both literal and figurative utterances, this selectivity often results in the creation of new ('ad hoc') concepts or the standardization of pragmatic routines. With this approach, the comprehension of metaphors and idioms requires no special pragmatic principles or procedures not required for the interpretation of ordinary literal utterances, but follows from an automatic tendency towards selective processing which is itself a by-product of Sperber and Wilson's Cognitive Principle of Relevance.

Contents:

Creativity and Convention

Editorial page

Title page

LCC data

Dedication

Table of contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Human creative cognition and selective processing

2. Relevance Theory: communication and cognition

3. Metaphor, interaction and property attribution

4. Relevance Theory and metaphor interpretation

5. Relevance Theory and cognitive approaches to metaphor

6. Analysability in idiom comprehension

7. Idioms, transparency and pragmatic inference

8. Creativity and convention beyond figurative speech

Conclusion

References

Name index

Subject index

The series Pragmatics &amp

Beyond New Series.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [231]-243) and indexes.

ISBN:

9786612152788

9781282152786

1282152785

9789027292131

9027292132

OCLC:

191953155