Figurative Language, Mental Imagery, and Pragmatics

Figurative language and the semantics-pragmatics distinction

This paper aims at demonstrating that the cognitive mechanisms underlying certain tropes (e.g. metaphor or metonymy) may assume variable degrees of conventionalisation, thereby giving rise to a range of phenomena along either side of the semantics/ pragmatics distinction. Examining specifically cases of metonymy, I propose a pragmatic account of creative, one-off metonymic expressions using the...

Mental simulation in literal and figurative language understanding

Suppose you ask a colleague how a class he just taught went, and he replies that "It was a great class the students were glued to their seats." There are two clearly distinct interpretations of this utterance, which might usefully be categorized as a literal and a figurative one. Which interpretation you believe is appropriate will determine your course of action; whether you congratulate your ...

Non-Native Language Processing Engages Mental Imagery

The theory of simulation semantics (Bergen & Chang 2005) posits that understanding language, in part, requires activation of mental imagery. This allows understanders to mentally recreate the scene or event to facilitate understanding and prepare for situated action (Glenberg & Kashak 2002). The idea that understanding action language relies on neural circuitry involved in action execution is s...

Figurative Language, Language Disorders, and Language(s) Evolution

Mental model theory and pragmatics

Johnson-Laird & Byrne (1991; 1993) present a theory of human deductive reasoning based on the notion of mental models. Unfortunately, the theory is incomplete. The present commentary argues that pragmatic considerations, particularly of the type discussed in Sperber and Wilson (1995), can complement the theory. Johnson-Laird & Byrne (1991) (JL&B) conclude their book by claiming that their theor...