Metaphor and Metonymy in Language and Thought: A Cognitive Linguistic Approach

Cognitive Linguistics (CL) is a cover term for some functionalist and cognitivist approaches to the study of language that emerged in the 1970s and share basic theoretical and methodological tenets, most of which are incompatible with Noam Chomsky's theory of Generative Grammar and its more recent offshoots. CL diverges from generative grammar among other things (i) in rejecting the Chomskyan claim that the language faculty is innate, (ii) in emphasizing the semiotic character not only of words but also of grammatical constructions as meaningful units of language, (iii) in attributing an important cognitive and linguistic role to metaphor and metonymy, and (iv) in contending that language structure and use are (relatively) motivated by conceptual and pragmatic factors. The article focuses on points (ii), (iii), and (iv), which are supported empirically by authentic English language data.