EXTENDED AND TRANSFERRED MEANING :Metaphor and Metonymy

Shelley dreamed it. Now the dream decays.

The props crumble. The familiar ways

are stale tears trodden underfoot.

The heart’s flower withers at the root.

Bury it, then, in history’s sterile dust.

The slow years shall tame your tawny lust.

(Song at the Year’s Turning by R.S Thomas, 1956 )

Group Work: Questions

Why do people continue to speak the way they do or change the way they speak?Hoffman views language as inextricably linked with identity. Explain how this is so.A language can assume a symbolic significance in what Clark Blaise refers to as individual’s “moral landscape”. Consider the ways in which language functions as symbol in the article and the video.

Cultural Meanings are transmitted by:

• The classification of words: kinship terminologies

• The focal meaning and prototypes:The best example of a word

• The processes of semantic transfer and and extension: metaphors and metonymies

Irony tries to capture the difference between opinion and truth, revealing two levels of meaning: a literal one

and a deeper one. Irony doesn't work until you see the second meaning.

Metaphors

• Unspecified comparisons between entities sharing some features: animal (lion) and human

• Metaphor: an implied comparison between entity or event and another based on their sharing certain referential attributes. Metaphors highlight features of similarity between different entities.

ANGER IS HEAT and BODY IS CONTAINER FOR EMOTIONS

• You make my blood boil.

• She got all steamed up.

• He's just blowing off steam.

• He erupted.

• He boiled over.

• He exploded

BELIEFS are POSSESSIONS and IDEAS are OBJECTS

• I hold certain beliefs.

• He has strong beliefs.

• He clings to his beliefs

• Don't give up your beliefs.

Recurring Metaphors

• Our conceptual system: metaphorical in nature

• We think and speak: conceptual metaphorical models

Metaphorical Concept: Time is Money

She spends her time unwisely.

The diversion should buy him some time.

You don’t use your time profitably.

How do you spend your time these days?

This gadget will save you hours.

Orientational opposition: “up” and “down”

• Up Down• Emotions:You’re in high spirits. He’s feeling low

today.• Consciousness: Wake up! She sank into a coma.• Health: He’s in top shape. Her heath is declining.• Control: I’m on top of the situation. He fell from power.• Status: She’ll rise to the top. He’s at the bottom of society

Lineal Metaphors

• to set the record straight

• to straighten up, etc

• “Keeping to the straight and narrow” (positive, indicates honesty)

• “Wandering from the path” (negative, indicates untruthfulness)

Container images metaphors

• transfers non-physical, non-tangible entities or processes into objects

• He’s out of his mind.

• She’s in love.

• I feel under the whether

Do metaphorical processes occur cross-culturally?

• In Navajo Many events are described with verbs that have the theme of movement as their focal meaning.

• one dresses: one moves into clothing• one lives: one moves about here and there• one is young: one moves about newly• to sing: to move words out of an

enclosed space

Metaphors of movement in English

• Less crucial for cultural meaning

• She followed in her mothers' footsteps.

• The business was about to take flight.

• His head was spinning with excitement.

Personification Metaphors

• personification (Latin persona: "character", "person").

• It occurs in many languages• Non-human entity is identified with a human one

or given human characteristics. • Cricket has been good to me.• The New Zealand dollar had a quiet month.• Life dealt him a heavy blow.

METONYMY

• A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated

• highlight one aspect of an entity while by singling out one of its attributes

• Example: We need more arms in here. (arms for people)

Metonymic entity associations• part of an object to substitute or

represent the whole: Our company needs more brains.

• Producer for the object produced: She likes to read Margaret Atwood.

• Object used or owned by someone for the user/owner: The ’54 Chevy lives around the corner.

METAPHORS OF KINSHIP

• Common in many languages

• Metaphorically refer to non-relatives

• Express intimacy

• Extended to plants and animals

• Navajo: mother extended to earth, agricultural fields, corn, sheep

Complex semantic transfers: Amma (Kannada Language in

India)• 1st any adult women: adult women assumed to be

married, assumed to be mothers• 2nd to Goddesses: like mothers can be benevolent

and punitive • 3rd Metonymically the word Amma can mean

smallpox: association of some goddesses with the cause and cure of the disease.

METAPHORS OF THE BODY

• To describe actions, states or to label inanimate objects

• Could you give me a hand with these boxes? action

• It is very important for us all to put our heads together. action

• Can you keep an eye on things here until I get back? action

Or• The backbone of society, The bowels of society. • Spies are the eyes and ears of a society:

The seat of emotions e.g. heart vs. head; Being in the midst of something

• Getting to the heart of the matter.

More rarely, as a metaphor for will e.g. • He doesn’t have the heart to go on, his heart

isn’t in it.

Summary

• symbolic content of language expressed in both metaphoric and metonymic extensions and transfer

• Metaphor is: Understanding and experiencing one kind of thing (anger or beliefs) in terms of another: Time is money

• Metonymy: A process of replacing one entity with another related entity

Why do we need to understand metaphors and metonymies?

• Learn about relationship between speaker and their physical and social environments

• Learn about cultural priorities

• Learning about cultural models

Study Question

• What is the difference between metaphor and metonymy? What are their functions in language and in culture?