Cover not available

In:What makes a Figure: Rethinking figurativity
Edited by Herbert L. Colston
[Figurative Thought and Language 19] 2025
► pp. 14–39

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Chapter 1
The big figurative picture

What’s in a domain?

 | University of Alberta |
Published online: 28 October 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.19.01col
Abstract
This chapter provides a deconstruction of the structure and functioning of a dozen different types of figurative language (i.e., including the number of domains invoked, what those domains are, what is done with those domains, and which main pragmatic effects ensue). Several revelations made possible by such a deconstruction are then discussed (e.g., why we have the range of figures we do, why some are more prevalent than others, why a few are the most prevalent, etc.). And a new model of figurative language writ large is provided — that of a person manually manipulating individual or pairs, usually, of objects (i.e., figurative domains) in joint attention with one or more other people. How all of this domain manipulation activity gives rise to figurative meaning, and how this figurative meaning further reveals the bed-rock social functioning of figurative language (i.e., figurative language is not just leveraging additional meaning, it is more akin to gift-giving) is provided at the end of the chapter.
Article outline
  • 1.Figurative language research: Status and a way forward
  • 2.Taking apart, putting together
  • 3.Emergent patterns: Domain numbers, domain processes
  • 4.The meaning of meaning
  • Notes
  • Notes
  • References
References (38)
References
Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, H. H., & Gerrig, R. J. (1984). On the pretense theory of irony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113(1), 121–126. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Colston, H. L. (1997). “I’ve never seen anything like it”: Overstatement, understatement and irony. Metaphor and Symbol, 12(1), 43–58. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2015). Using figurative language. New York: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2017). Pragmatic effects in blended figures: The case of metaphtonymy. In A. Athanasiadou (Ed.), Studies in figurative thought and language, (pp. 273–294). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2019). How language makes meaning: embodiment and conjoined antonymy. New York: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Colston, H. L., & Katz, A. (Eds.). (2005). Figurative language comprehension: Social and cultural influences. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Colston, H. L., & Keller, S. B. (1998). You’ll never believe this: Irony and hyperbole in expressing surprise. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 27(4), 499–513. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Colston, H. L., & Rasse, C. (2022). Figurativity: Cognitive, because it’s social. In H. Colston, T. Matlock, & G. Steen (Eds.), Dynamism in Metaphor and Beyond, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dancygier, B. (2022). Experiential viewpoint, simile and dynamicity in discourse. In H. Colston, T. Matlock, & G. Steen (Eds.), Dynamism in metaphor and beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Denny, B. T., Kober, H., Wager, T. D., & Ochsner, K. N. (2012). A meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies of self and other judgments reveals a spatial gradient for mentalizing in medial prefrontal cortex. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 24(8), 1742–1752. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dunbar, R. (1998). The social brain hypothesis. Evolutionary Anthropology, 6, 178–190. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eigenberger, N. I., Lieberman, M. D., & Williams, K. D. (2003). Does rejection hurt? An fMRI study of social exclusion. Science, 302, 290–292. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eisenberger, N. I., & Cole, S. W. (2012). Social neuroscience and health: Neuropsychological mechanisms linking social ties with physical health. Nature Neuroscience, 15, 669–674. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Forceville, C. (2016). Mixing in Pictorial and Multimodal Metaphors? In R. W. Gibbs (Ed.), Mixing metaphor, (pp. 223–240). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. (1992). What do idioms really mean? Journal of Memory and Language, 31, 485–506. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1994). The poetics of mind: Figurative thought, language, and understanding. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. W. (Ed.). (2016). Mixing metaphor. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2017). Metaphor wars: Conceptual metaphor in human life. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. W., & Colston, H. L. (2012). Interpreting figurative meaning. New York: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, R., Strom, L., & Spivey-Knowlton, M. (1997). Conceptual metaphor in mental imagery for proverbs. Journal of Mental Imagery, 21, 83–110.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hamblin, J., & Gibbs, R. (1999). Why you can’t kick the bucket as you slowly die: Verbs in idiom understanding. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 39, 25–39. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hidalgo-Downing, L., Martínez, M. A., and Kraljevic Mujic, B. (2016). Multimodal metaphor, narrativity and creativity in TV cosmetics ads. In M. Romano, & M. Dolores Porto, Exploring discourse strategies in social and cognitive interaction: multimodal and cross-linguistic perspectives, (pp. 137–158). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Honeck, R. P. (1997). A proverb in mind: The cognitive science of proverbial wit and wisdom. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Katz, A. N., & Pexman, P. (1997). Processing of figurative language: Occupation of speaker turns metaphor into irony. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 12, 19–41. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lieberman, M. D. (2010). Social cognitive neuroscience. In S. T. Fiske, D. T. Gilbert, & G. Lindsey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology, 5th ed. (pp. 143–193). New York: McGraw-Hill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2013). Social: Why our brains are wired to connect. New York: Broadway Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lieberman, M. D., & Eisenberger, N. I. (2009). Pains and pleasures of social life. Science, 323, 890–891. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mckiernan, K. A., Kaufman, J. N., Kucera-Thompson, J., & Binder, J. R. (2003). A parametric manipulation of factors affecting task-induced deactivation in functional neuroimaging. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15(3), 394–408. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pexman, P., Ferretti, T., & Katz, A. (2000). Discourse factors that influence on-line reading of metaphor and irony. Discourse Processes, 29, 201–222. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pinar Sanz, M. J. (Ed). (2015). Multimodality and cognitive linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Semendeferi, K., Teffer, K., Buxhoeveden, D. Pl, Park, M. S., Bludau, S., Amunts, K. … & Buckwalter, J. (2011). Spatial organization of neurons in the frontal pole sets humans apart from great apes. Cerebral Cortex, 21(7), 1485–1497. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spunt, R. P., & Lieberman, M. D. (2012). Dissociating modality-specific and supramodal neural systems for action understanding. Journal of Neuroscience, 32, 3575–3583. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stravynski, A., & Boyer, R. (2001). Loneliness in relation to suicide ideation and parasuicide: A population-wide study. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 31(1), 32–40. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue