Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics

EXTENSIONS OF MEANING

Chapter 12

Jane’s eyes nearly popped out of her head = she is surprised

(Literal and figurative use)

The reading of a word with the earliest recorded use.

The most frequently occurring reading of a word.

The default reading of a word.

The reading from which the most plausible path of change begins. P.240 (3 readings of the noun position)

The reading most closely related to basic human experience. (expire means to die)

ESSENCE OF LITERALNESS

Word is entrenched and familiar part of a language

Speakers no longer feel that a figure of speech is involved at all; such readings of a word will be said to be naturalized

E.g. He is in love

E.g. It’s hard to put into words

NATURALIZED EXTENSIONS

Readings which are well established

Presumably have entries in the mental lexicon

Are felt to be figures of speech

E.g. John is a couch potato \

E.g. She swallowed the story

ESTABLISHED EXTENSIONS

Readings are ones for which there are no entries in the mental lexicon

They cannot be `looked up‘

Have to be generated and interpreted using strategies of meaning extension such as metaphor and metonymy

NOVEL EXTENSIONS

Dictionary definition: "The use of a word or phrase to mean something different from the literal meaning" (Oxford Advance Learner's Dictionary)

Lakoff:

metaphor is all-pervasive in language

For most part effortlessly interpreted

Deserves constructive consideration

METAPHOR

Metaphors are:

an essential component of human cognition

conceptual in nature

They are “a means whereby ever more abstract and intangible areas of experience can be conceptualized in terms of the familiar and concrete”

LAKOFF

Metaphors involve

a source domain, usually concrete and familiar

a target domain, usually abstract or at least less well structured

a set of mapping relations, or correspondences

LAKOFF

The correspondences involved in metaphor are of two kinds:

Ontological-involving entities in the two domains (i)

Epistemic- involving relations of knowledge about the entities (ii) P.245

LAKOFF

Conceptual elements, schemas, involving space, motion and force

Lakoff:

Basic semantic notions such as time, quantity, state, change, cause, and category membership are also metaphorically understood as extensions of image-schemas

Categories, quantity P.248, time (iii) P. 248, causation (28)

IMAGE-SCHEMAS

Lack of context sensitivity

Alleged lack of structure in target domains

Fusion not accounted for

Emergent meaning

CRITICISMS OF LAKOFF

Neither of the components requires an extended construal

Comparison process is overtly signaled

No need for anomaly as a trigger

Different conceptions remain distinct

Fusion is not characteristic of simile

SIMILIES is an explicit comparison between two different conceptions

X (be) like Y

John is like a lion.

X (V) like Y

Tree branches cracked like guns going off.

X (be) Adj. like Y

His skin was dry like parchment.

S ‘as if‘ S2

He acts as if he thinks he's the boss.

P.254 (12.4.1,2,3) P.255

SIMILIE FORMS

Strategy for extending word-meanings

Responsible for a great proportion of the cases of so-called regular polysemy

Relies on a literal association between two components within a single domain

No restructuring involved

E.g. Room 44 wants a drink.

METONYMY

Historical processes of semantic change linked to synchronic processes of meaning extension.

Synchronic meaning extension forms an essential part of diachronic change

Meaning of a word may change along any of a range of semantic dimensions

E.g. the word “expire” P. 260

SEMANTIC CHANGE