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Producing Figurative Expression
Theoretical, experimental and practical perspectives
This collection contains a selection of recent work on people’s production of figurative language (metaphoric, ironic, metonymic, hyperbolic, ...) and similarly of figurative expression in visual media and artefact design. The articles illuminate issues such as why and under what circumstances people produce figurative expression and how it is moulded by their aims. By focusing on production, the intention is to help stimulate more academic research on it and redress historically lower levels of published work on generation than on understanding of figurative expression. The contributions stretch across various academic disciplines—mainly psychology, cognitive linguistics and applied linguistics, but with a representation also of philosophy and artificial intelligence—and across different types of endeavour—theoretical investigation and model building, experimental studies, and applications focussed work (for instance, figurative expression in product design and online support groups). There is also a wide-ranging introductory chapter that touches on areas outside the scope of the contributed articles and discusses difficult issues such as a complex interplay of production and understanding.
[Figurative Thought and Language, 10] 2020. viii, 549 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 26 November 2020
Published online on 26 November 2020
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
- Preface | pp. vii–viii
- IntroductionJohn Barnden and Andrew Gargett | pp. 1–34
- Section 1. General empirical studies, with main focus on metaphor
- Producing metaphor (and other forms of non-literal language) in the laboratory: Structural and pragmatic effects as seen from the perspective of an experimental psycholinguistAlbert N. Katz | pp. 37–54
- Metaphor and one-off pictures: Touch and visionJohn M. Kennedy | pp. 55–84
- Metaphor production and metaphor interpretationAndreas Musolff | pp. 85–104
- On the role of perceptual similarity in producing visual metaphorsAmitash Ojha and Bipin Indurkhya | pp. 105–126
- Section 2. General empirical studies – other
- On why people don’t say what they mean: Production of figurative formulaic languageHerbert L. Colston | pp. 129–174
- How nice does it sound? An argumentative approach to the affective aspects of irony productionFrancesca Ervas | pp. 175–210
- How defaultness shapes our language production: A usage-based study of discoursal resonance with default interpretations of metaphor and sarcasmRachel Giora | pp. 211–236
- Producing figurative meanings: The case of idiomsLoes Koring | pp. 237–262
- The production of verbal irony: How to be an ironistRoger J. Kreuz and Alexander A. Johnson | pp. 263–296
- Section 3. Empirical and analytical studies aimed at specific applications
- Generating metaphors in product designNazlı Cila and Paul Hekkert | pp. 299–330
- Rock bottoms, juggling balls and coalprints : Exploring the metaphors L2 speakers of English produce in face-to-face interactionFiona MacArthur | pp. 331–362
- Figurative production in a computer-mediated discussion forum: Metaphors about relationship abuseSusan Nacey | pp. 363–388
- The production of time-related metaphors by people who have experienced pregnancy lossSarah Turner, Jeannette Littlemore, Danielle Fuller, Karolina Kuberska and Sheelagh McGuinness | pp. 389–418
- Section 4. Other theoretical analysis and cognitive or computational modelling
- Metaphor generation through context sensitive distributional semanticsStephen McGregor, Matthew Purver and Geraint Wiggins | pp. 421–448
- Mind the gap: Expressing affect with hyperbole and hyperbolic figuresMihaela Popa-Wyatt | pp. 449–468
- Figurative language: Relations and constraintsFrancisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez | pp. 469–510
- Metaphor as sign and as symbolTony Veale | pp. 511–532
- Topic index | pp. 533–542
- Author index | pp. 543–549
“To conclude, this volume is a truly necessary resource for anyone interested in figurative language, and in particular, its production. Since the research on figurative expressions has been overwhelmingly focused on its comprehension, rather than on its production, this volume fills a substantial gap in the literature by uniting interdisciplinary approaches which use a wide variety of methods and suggest possible methodological obstacles in metaphor production studies. There is no doubt that this book will directly inspire impactful future research on metaphor production.”
Ana Werkmann Horvat, University of Osijek, Journal of Pragmatics 184 (2021)
“The edited volume “Producing Figurative Expression” presents research into the production of metaphor, irony, hyperbole, and other forms of figurative expressions across discourse domains, disciplines, and potentially also cultures. With this, the book sets the agenda for new lines of investigation in the study of figurative expression production.”
Britta C. Brugman, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, in Metaphor and the Social World 12:2 (2022).
Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Musolff, Andreas
2025. Figurative framing in political interaction. In Framing in Interaction [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 354], ► pp. 99 ff.
[no author supplied]
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