Metaphor
From Fixedness and Selection to Differentiation and Creation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5118400 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Benny Shanon (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1992 |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 659 |
| Publication date | 1992-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Poetics Today (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0333-5372 • E-ISSN: 1527-5507 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1773293 |
| OpenAlex | W2323575246 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 15 |
By and large, most models of metaphor entertained in contemporary cognitive literature assume that metaphor is a relationship between two given entities whose attributes are defined prior to the relationship established between them. The metaphoric sense is produced through the selection of a subset of these attributes. In this paper I take issue with this view. My discussion is couched in the consideration of four basic cognitive assumptions: (1) the fixedness assumption, (2) the selectional assumption, (3) an assumption about the primacy of constituents over wholes, and (4) an assumption about meaning and interpretation. Against these assumptions I consider metaphors taken from literary texts, the semantics of non-metaphoric linguistic expressions, judgments of similarity, synesthesia, and patterns in both child development and the evolution of culture. An outline for an alternative view of metaphor is then presented, which is couched in the broader context of nonrepresentational psychology. In addition, the functional significance of metaphor is discussed and a pluralistic perspective on metaphor is proposed. Words have a soul. Most readers, and even writers, demand only that they should have a sense. One has to find that soul, which appears in the contact of words with other words. Guy de Maupassant The poet's task [is to] dislocate words into meaning. T. S. Eliot Poetics Today 13:4 (Winter 1992). Copyright ( 1992 by The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics. CCC 0333-5372/92/$2.50. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.118 on Sun, 11 Sep 2016 05:50:08 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 660 Poetics Today 13:4
Linguistics · Metaphor · Sociology · Action Observation and Synchronization · Categorization, perception, and language · Computer Science · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Philosophy · Artificial Intelligence
Indirect speech acts
Anatomy of Criticism
Why Metaphors Are Necessary and Not Just Nice 1
Forest before trees
Methodological solipsism considered as a research strategy in cognitive psychology
Features of similarity.
Visual perception of biological motion and a model for its analysis
The non-uniqueness of semantic solutions
Context and the Development of Metaphor Comprehension
Metaphor and Reality
Cross-modal equivalence in early infancy
Metaphors do not use associations between concepts, they are used to create them
On colored-hearing synesthesia
When Nouns Surface as Verbs
The Metaphorical Process as Cognition, Imagination, and Feeling
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,24 |
| Citation span | 2005 - 2021 (17) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |