What is it about?
The book presents a broad and inclusive approach to understanding figures of speech as cognitive processes and how they are connected to the way we communicate, bridging the fields of pragmatics (how language is used in context) and cognition (how our minds work).
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Why is it important?
The authors provide new definitions for different figures of speech and show how they are related to each other. For example, they group certain figures of speech like hypallage, antonomasia, anthimeria, and merism together as variations of metonymy. And they group others like analogy, paragon, and allegory as variations of metaphor. The framework presented in this monograph is also beneficial in sorting out which tropes can be combined into conceptually more complex configurations, offering a broad integrative framework for the analysis of figurative language.
Perspectives
I was impressed with the novel perspectives regarding the unified yet distinct nature of figurative language and its diverse manifestations. Those interested in metaphor and metonymy may find it relevant to broaden their research to encompass other related figures and gain a better understanding of cognitive phenomena. On the other hand, those who would nonetheless choose to focus solely on metaphor and metonymy after reading this book, may still encounter fresh and captivating insights into the phenomena.
Špela Antloga
University of Maribor
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Review of Peña-Cervel & Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez (2022): Figuring out Figuration: A Cognitive Linguistic Account, Metaphor and the Social World, October 2023, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/msw.00036.ant.
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