| Título | The impact of metonymy on complex tropes: a cognitive-pragmatic study |
|---|---|
| Autores |
Javier Herrero Ruiz |
| Keywords | Metonymy, tropes, Cognitive Linguistics, meaning, operations. |
Abstract Since Lakoff (1987/1990, 1989) introduced the concept, the notion of idealised cognitive models (ICMs) has become central in Cognitive Linguistics, as mental structures whereby reality is depicted from a certain angle, i.e. they lead to a process of idealisation of reality. Interestingly, although Lakoff’s ICMs are governed by four structuring principles (namely: propositional structure, image-schematic structure, metaphoric and metonymic mappings), their meaning can be refined in such a way that other different sense effects show up (e.g. ironic or hyperbolic meaning). This is accomplished by means of different operations (e.g. reversion, integration, accommodation, strengthening, and mitigation), and leads to distinguishing (cf. Herrero, 2009) between pure ICMs (i.e. bare models: propositions, image-schemas, metaphor and metonymy) and the so-called tropes (i.e. cognitive whose meaning can be extended to generate contextual effects which are beyond the meaning of the ICM as such). Tropes may be further divided into (a) simple (the generation of additional meanings is built upon propositional ICMs; e.g. This suitcase weighs a ton, accomplished by means of a reinforcement operation on the part of the speaker and by a mitigation operation on the part of the listener) and (b) complex (the creation of extra meanings is carried out upon a representational model). Our aim here is to examine the role that metonymy plays in generating the extra meanings conveyed by some complex tropes, not only as regards the cognitive operations fulfilled but also in terms of its pragmatic implications. For the sake of illustration, imagine that there is a man eating a sirloin in a restaurant and he exclaims I’m so hungry I could eat the entire cow. This case can be analysed on the basis of a strengthening operation built upon a representational model which in itself includes another operation (a metonymy with a correlation operation). Moreover, we have spotted cases of high-level metonymies underlying complex tropes, as in the expression I was just window shopping in which a person understates the fact that she has acquired many items by mentioning only the ‘before’ part of the ‘going shopping’ scenario. Keywords: metonymy, tropes, Cognitive Linguistics, meaning, operations. References Lakoff, G. 1987/1990. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Lakoff, G. 1989. “Some empirical results about the nature of concepts”. Mind & Language 4, 1-2: 103-129.Herrero, J. 2009. Understanding Tropes. At the Crossroads between Pragmatics and Cognition. Duisburg Papers on Research in Language and Culture 75. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
