2013-05-02

Metaphors and Concepts of Metaphor: Convergence or Confusion?

Disagreements whether a particular expression -- in speech, gesture, or pictorial representation -- is metaphorical or not are often based on different if overlapping concepts of metaphor, stemming from different traditions; a related question is the nature of the cognitive processes on which those expressions are based. The aim of this seminar is to present some of these approaches and discuss whether, and to what extent, they are in conflict. Göran Sonesson will present his semiotics-based approach to metaphor, Jordan Zlatev the view from cognitive semantics, and Joel Parthemore the view from conceptual spaces theory and the unified conceptual space theory. These are mainly intended to spark an extended discussion.