ABSTRACT

This innovative volume provides a comprehensive integrated account of the study of conceptual figures, demonstrating the ways in which figures and in particular, conflictual figures, encapsulate linguistic expression in the fullest sense and in turn, how insights gleaned from their study can contribute to the wider body of linguistic research. With a specific focus on metaphor and metonymy, the book offers a unified and systematic typology of linguistic figures, drawing on a number of different approaches, including both traditional and emerging frameworks within cognitive linguistics as well as syntactic theory, while also providing an exhaustive look at the unique features of a variety of conceptual figures, including metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron, and synecdoche. In its aim of reconciling historically opposed theoretical approaches to the study of conflictual figures while also incorporating a thorough account of its distinctive varieties, this volume will be essential reading for researchers and scholars in cognitive linguistics, theoretical linguistics, philosophy of language, and literary studies.

chapter |13 pages

Introduction

Figures between Valorization and Functions

chapter 1|8 pages

The Figures of the Plane of Expression

chapter 2|24 pages

The Plane of Content

Figures and Conceptual Conflict

chapter 3|29 pages

A Typology of Conflicts

Formal, Conceptual, and Textual Conflicts

chapter 4|16 pages

The Figure of Contradiction

Oxymoron

chapter 5|41 pages

Figures of Conceptual Conflict

Metaphor, Metonymy, and Synecdoche

chapter 6|46 pages

Metaphor

chapter 8|15 pages

Figures of Textual Conflict

chapter 9|38 pages

Figures, Meanings, and Messages

chapter 10|10 pages

Functions, Instrumentality, and Creativity

The Challenge of Figures to a Functional Linguistic Description