On The Gradability of Metaphor

My purpose in this paper is to demonstrate that metaphor should be viewed as a gradable conceptual phenomenon, and to elucidate further the notion of minimal metaphoric mapping between subordinate level concepts dominated by the same basic level category, which I called “syntaphor” in my previous st...

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Main Author: Bierwiaczonek Bogusław
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Sciendo 2024-12-01
Series:Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.2478/slgr-2024-0011
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author Bierwiaczonek Bogusław
author_facet Bierwiaczonek Bogusław
author_sort Bierwiaczonek Bogusław
collection DOAJ
description My purpose in this paper is to demonstrate that metaphor should be viewed as a gradable conceptual phenomenon, and to elucidate further the notion of minimal metaphoric mapping between subordinate level concepts dominated by the same basic level category, which I called “syntaphor” in my previous studies. Since the concepts involved in metaphor represent different conceptual distances, metaphor appears to be gradable, starting from the lowest level of syntaphors through the level of close metaphors, to the level of distant and maximally distant metaphors, which have been the focus of interest in most cognitive studies of metaphor so far. In Section 1 I describe briefly an approach to metaphor from the point of view of the theory of categorization, whereby metaphor is defined in terms of mappings between concepts rather than domains. Section 2 presents the notion and four degrees of conceptual distance between the concepts involved in metaphor based on the subordinate, basic and superordinate levels of categorization. In Section 3 four kinds of metaphor are distinguished depending on three degrees of conceptual distance between the source and the target concepts: distant metaphors, close metaphors and syntaphors. The role of syntaphors is further discussed in polysemy and novel metaphors. Some of the crucial aspects of syntaphors are highlighted when they are compared with image metaphors. The most important implications of the study for the theory of metaphor are presented in Conclusions.
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spelling doaj-art-d9cf77f6471a43bba17b1d102a6ae8cf2025-01-20T11:10:12ZengSciendoStudies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric2199-60592024-12-01691315610.2478/slgr-2024-0011On The Gradability of MetaphorBierwiaczonek Bogusław0Uniwersytet Humanistyczno-Przyrodniczy im. Jana Długosza w Częstochowie, Częstochowa, PolandMy purpose in this paper is to demonstrate that metaphor should be viewed as a gradable conceptual phenomenon, and to elucidate further the notion of minimal metaphoric mapping between subordinate level concepts dominated by the same basic level category, which I called “syntaphor” in my previous studies. Since the concepts involved in metaphor represent different conceptual distances, metaphor appears to be gradable, starting from the lowest level of syntaphors through the level of close metaphors, to the level of distant and maximally distant metaphors, which have been the focus of interest in most cognitive studies of metaphor so far. In Section 1 I describe briefly an approach to metaphor from the point of view of the theory of categorization, whereby metaphor is defined in terms of mappings between concepts rather than domains. Section 2 presents the notion and four degrees of conceptual distance between the concepts involved in metaphor based on the subordinate, basic and superordinate levels of categorization. In Section 3 four kinds of metaphor are distinguished depending on three degrees of conceptual distance between the source and the target concepts: distant metaphors, close metaphors and syntaphors. The role of syntaphors is further discussed in polysemy and novel metaphors. Some of the crucial aspects of syntaphors are highlighted when they are compared with image metaphors. The most important implications of the study for the theory of metaphor are presented in Conclusions.https://doi.org/10.2478/slgr-2024-0011metaphorcategorizationconceptpolysemyfigurativitysyntaphor
spellingShingle Bierwiaczonek Bogusław
On The Gradability of Metaphor
Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric
metaphor
categorization
concept
polysemy
figurativity
syntaphor
title On The Gradability of Metaphor
title_full On The Gradability of Metaphor
title_fullStr On The Gradability of Metaphor
title_full_unstemmed On The Gradability of Metaphor
title_short On The Gradability of Metaphor
title_sort on the gradability of metaphor
topic metaphor
categorization
concept
polysemy
figurativity
syntaphor
url https://doi.org/10.2478/slgr-2024-0011
work_keys_str_mv AT bierwiaczonekbogusław onthegradabilityofmetaphor