Metaphors Dead and Alive, Sleeping and Waking: A Dynamic View (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780226548258)

Traditional thinking on metaphors has divided them into two camps: dead and alive. Conventional expressions from everyday language are classified as dead, while much rarer novel or poetic metaphors are alive. In the 1980s, new theories on the cognitive processes involved with the use of metaphor challenged these assumptions, but with little empirical support. Drawing on the latest research in linguistics, semiotics, philosophy, and psychology, Cornelia Müller here unveils a new approach that refutes the rigid dead/alive dichotomy, offering in its place a more dynamic model: sleeping and waking.
To build this model, Müller presents an overview of notions of metaphor from the classical period to the present; studies in detail how metaphors function in speech, text, gesture, and images; and examines the way mixed metaphors sometimes make sense and sometimes do not. This analysis leads her to conclude that metaphors may oscillate between various degrees of sleeping and waking as their status changes depending on context and intention. Bridging the gap between conceptual metaphor theory and more traditional linguistic theories, this book is a major advance for the field and will be vital to novices and initiates alike.

Author: Cornelia Müller
ISBN-10: 0226548252
ISBN-13: 9780226548258
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Language: English
Published: 10/01/2008
Pages: 290
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.10w x 1.20d

Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 11/07/2008 pg. 28
Choice 04/01/2009