Review published In: Review of Cognitive Linguistics
Vol. 8:1 (2010) ► pp.207–221
Book review
The contribution of Herrero Ruiz’s Understanding Tropes to the interplay between Cognitive Linguistics and Pragmatics
A critical review
Reviewed by
Published online: 2 June 2010
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.8.1.08fue
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.8.1.08fue
This article attempts to give a critical review of Javier Herrero Ruiz’s Understanding Tropes. At a Crossroads between Pragmatics and Cognition. It evaluates the book in view of the available literature dealing with the trend towards empiricism adopted by Cognitive Linguistics. It also focuses on the main hypothesis put forward, i.e., tropes such as irony, paradox, oxymoron, overstatement, understatement, euphemism, and dysphemism can be considered idealised cognitive models, and discusses the main contributions and arguments of the book, especially his idea that these idealised cognitive models are all constructed around the creation of contrast. A few concerns are also raised, mainly regarding corpus methodology. While these may have a negative impact on the reader, they are not severe enough to discredit the rigour with which the book was conceived.
References (28)
Biber, D., Conrad, S., Reppen, R., Byrd, P., Helt, M., Clark, V., Cortes, V., Csomay, E. & Urzua, A. (2004). Representing Language Use in the University. Analysis of the TOEFL 2000 Spoken and Written Academic Language Corpus. Princeton, NJ: ETS.
Carston, R. (2002). Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Connor, U., Precht, K. & Upton, T. A. (2002). Business English: learner data from Belgium, Finland and the US. In S. Granger, J. Hung & S. Petch-Tyson (eds.), Computer Learner Corpora, Second Language Acquisition and Foreign Language Teaching (pp. 175–194). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Deignan, A. (2005). Metaphor and Corpus Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
(2007). ‘Image’ metaphors and connotations in everyday language. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 51, 173–192.
Fauconnier, G. & Turner, M. (1996). Blending as a central process of grammar. In A. Goldberg (ed.), Conceptual Structure, Discourse and Language (pp. 113–129). Standford: Center for the Study of Language and Information.
Flowerdew, L. (2004). The argument for using English specialized corpora to understand academic and professional language. In U. Connor & T. A. Upton (eds.), Discourse in the Professions. Perspectives from Corpus Linguistics (pp. 11–33). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
(2005). An integration of corpus-based and genre-based approaches to text analysis in EAP/ESP: countering criticisms against corpus-based methodologies. English for Specific Purposes, 24(4), 321–332.
Fuertes-Olivera, P. A. (2007). A corpus-based view of lexical gender in written business English. English for Specific Purposes, 26(4), 219–234.
Gonzalez-Marquez, M., Mittelberg, I., Coulson, S. & Spivey, M. J. (eds.). (2007). Methods in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Grady, J. (1999). A typology of motivation for conceptual metaphor: correlation vs. resemblance.” In R. Gibbs & G. Steen (eds.), Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 79–100). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Gries, S. Th. (2006). Introduction. In S. Th. Gries & A. Stefanowitsch (eds.), Corpora in Cognitive Linguistics. Corpora-based Approaches to Syntax and Lexis (pp. 1–17). Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Gries, S. Th. & Stefanowitsch, A. (eds.). (2006). Corpora in Cognitive Linguistics. Corpora-based Approaches to Syntax and Lexis. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Grondelaers, S., Geeraerts, D. & Speelman, D. (2007). A case for cognitive corpus linguistics. In M. González-Márquez, I. Mittelberg, S. Coulson & M. J. Spivey (eds.), Methods in Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 149–170). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Herrero Ruiz, J. (2009). Understanding Tropes. At the Crossroads between Pragmatics and Cognition. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago/London: The Chicago University Press.
Oswald, S. (2007). Argumentation and cognition: Can Pragma-Dialectics interplay with Pragma-Semantics? Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines, 1(1), 48–165. Also in [URL] [Last accesed: September, 15, 2009]
Panther, K. & Thornburg, L. (2003). Metonymy and Pragmatic Inferencing. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Ruiz de Mendoza, F. J. & Peña, S. (2005). Conceptual interaction, cognitive operations and proyectes spaces. In F. J. Ruiz de Mendoza & S. Peña (eds.), Cognitive Linguistics: Internal Dynamics and Interdisciplinary Interaction. Cognitive Linguistic Research (pp. 254–280). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. (1985/6). Loose talk. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 861, 153–171.
(1986). On defining relevance. In R. Grady & R. Warner (eds.), Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, Ends (pp. 143–158). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thompson, P. (2000). Citation practices in PhD theses. In L. Burnard & T. McEnery (eds), Rethinking Language Pedagogy from a Corpus Perspective (pp. 91–101). Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Turner, M. & Fauconnier, G. (1994). Conceptual projection and middle spaces. Cognitive Science Report 94011, UCSD.
Valenzuela, J. (2008). Review of Gonzalez-Marquez, M., Mittelberg, I., Coulson, S. & Spivey, M. J. (eds.). (2007). Methods in Cognitive Linguistics. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 61, 302–310.