Figurative language

Figurative language

1. Metaphor

   • metaphorical interpretation is somewhat similar to deixis

2. Four kinds of figurative usage

   • irony, metonymy, metaphor and simile

3. Literal and figurative usage

   • Literal interpretation
     • If the only word meanings used in the explicature are literal meanings.
   • Figurative interpretation
     • It is an explicature that involves treating one or more words as if they had meanings different from their literal ones.

4. Irony

   • Verbal irony consists in echoing a tacitly attributed thought or utterance with a tacitly dissociative attitude.

5. Presuppositions

   • The preconceptions and relevant information that we can bring to the comprehension task are taken for granted by the speaker or writer and are expected to be used for interpreting the message
   • Intertextuality
     • It is a term from literary criticism that covers the way in which texts connect with, allude to, depend upon and comment on the ideas and form of other texts

6. Reference

   • It is founded on presuppositions about addressees’ acquaintance – or unfamiliarity – with people, things, places, events

7. Metonymy

   • define it in terms of a person or object being referred to using as the vehicle a word whose literal denotation is somehow pertinently related.
     • metonym vehicles must be distinctive properties of the people or objects referred to