Metaphor: Its Cognitive Force and Linguistic Structure (Clarendon Library of Logic and Philosophy) - Softcover

Kittay, Eva Feder

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0198242468 ISBN 13: 9780198242468

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA, 1990

Synopsis

A detailed revision and refinement of the "semantic theory of metaphor," this book provides a comprehensive philosophical theory explicating metaphor's cognitive contribution. According to the author, metaphor effects a transference of meaning, not between two terms, but between two structured domains of content, or "semantic fields." Semantic fields, construed as necessary to a theory of word-meaning, provide the contrastive and affinitive relations that govern a term's literal use. In a metaphoric use, these relations are projected into a second domain which is thereby reordered with significant cognitive effects. Amply illustrated with sensitive and systematic analyses of metaphors found in literature, philosophy, science, and quotidian language, this book forges a new understanding of the relation between metaphoric and literal meaning.

About this title

Review

'it offers a sustained polemic for a conception of meaning, in terms of Semantic Field theory...one might think of its capacity to deal with the vexed question of metaphor as one reason why this sort of theory deserves more popularity than perhaps it presently enjoys' British Journal of Aesthetics `Detailed and sophisticated ... I regard Kittay's work on metaphor as state-of-the-art ... Philosophically oriented students of metaphor will welcome this book.' Canadian Philosophical Reviews

'Kittay's book is scholarly and enlightening.' Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Eva Feder Kittay is at State University of New York.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0198242468
• ISBN 13: 9780198242468
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 372