Abstracts - Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa

ELISSA ASP, SAINT MARY´S UNIVERSITYA MODEL FOR METAPHOR COMPREHENSION IN NEUROCOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVEThe purpose of this paper is to present a revised working model of metaphorcomprehension that (a) is descriptively adequate insofar as it can be used toaccount for linguistic and contextual contributions to interpretations of novel andconventional metaphors that occur in discourse and (b) is neurologically plausible.To do this, I will revisit the model for metaphor comprehension presented in Asp(1992 and elsewhere). That model was grounded in one of the developments (ormutations) of systemic-functional linguistics, the sociocognitive frameworkdeveloped by Michael Gregory and others (e.g. deVilliers and Stainton 2001, 2010).There, I proposed that lexical metaphors (whether novel or conventional) involvecontrast between the features of participant and/or circumstantial roles and thefeatures of the lexical items that fill these roles in syntagmatic constructions. Whenwe understand an utterance as metaphorical, the contrastive features of roles andlexis are inherited (or integrated) in the syntagmatic instance. Faced with a (novel)lexical metaphor, failure to integrate contrastive properties leads either to a literalbut contextually inappropriate meaning (if one is available), or to nonsense.Context (whether textual or extratextual) beyond the syntagm in which a metaphoroccurs may make particular features of roles or lexis more or less salient, but doesnot in itself ´erase´ features. The model will be illustrated in a selection ofconventional and novel lexical metaphors. I will then explore current empiricalresearch into the neural bases of metaphor comprehension and outline theattendant “models of metaphor” that are recruited to explain the observationsderived from such studies and use this review as an inferential base to propose arevised neurologically plausible working model of metaphor comprehension.ReferencesAsp, E. 1992. Natural language and human semiosis: a sociocognitive account of metaphor.York University, Ph.D.de Villiers, J., Stainton, R. 2001, 2010. Michael Gregory´s Proposals for a CommunicationLinguistics: Communication in Linguistics, Vol 1 and 2. Toronto: Editions du GREF.PAPER SESSION 9D - ROOM 4 - FRIDAY, 28 JULYISFC38 Book of Abstracts Page 62 Lisbon, July 2011