Figurative Language: Cross-cultural and Cross-linguistic Perspectives

by Dmitrij Dobrovol'skij

The aim of this study is to discover basic principles underlying linguistic figurativeness and to develop a theory that is capable of capturing conventional figurative language (referred to as CFLT, i.e. Conventional Figurative Language Theory). The rich empirical data analysed for this publication include, among other things, idioms, proverbs, lexicalised metaphors, and figurative compounds, drawn from ten standard languages with widely different genetic relationships and/or cultural backgrounds (English, German, Dutch, Swedish, French, Russian, Lithuanian, Greek, Finnish, Japanese) and one Low German dialect.
The main topic of this work is the relationship between the figurative meaning of a lexical unit and the mental images that form its conceptual basis. Using a cognitive approach, the study deals with the central question of what types of knowledge are involved in creating motivating links between these two conceptual levels of figurative units. Of all the possible types of knowledge relevant to conventional figurative language, so-called "cultural knowledge" can be shown to be crucial. As a consequence, CFLT has to include elements of cultural semiotics and other culture-related disciplines.

432 pages, Hardcover

First published April 8, 2005

Reviews

[Bryn Hammond]

It may have been over-ambitious of me to get this. I have no linguistics background (my sister studied linguistics -- can I borrow her brain?), I’m only a novelist grappling with another culture’s figurative language, and I became intrigued with the subject of idioms. So far I’ve only managed the parts Animal Metaphors and Animal Symbols: Case Studies – as my target culture is rich in animal metaphors – and Idioms of Fear: A Cognitive Approach, which I think examines how the idioms and the mental experience of fear act on each other. It does talk about translation from one culture into another: “While translating idioms of fear (and other emotions), one has to take into account not only their actual figurative meaning but also the conceptual structures behind them.” From these parts, I haven’t altogether shaken the suspicion that it tells me in very involved language what is commonsensical – but that’s probably because I’m only grasping what’s most obvious. I did have my eye on the empirical parts of the book, which are large, although maybe what I needed was a cross-cultural thesaurus of idiomatic language.

Idioms seem to cross cultures more easily than I might have thought: Finnish ‘not even a wolf would go there’ is self-explanatory to me; Finnish ‘the wolf has eaten the food for the journey’ expresses my ‘gone to the dogs’. For what it’s worth, I have been taken aback by the amount of Mongol idioms that cross cultures and make direct sense in English.