Theoretically and empirically investigating the indeterminacy of metaphor

Authors

  • Heronides Moura UFSC
  • Mara Sophia Zanotto PUCSP

Keywords:

Metaphor. Inteterminacy. Polisemy. Reading. Paraphrase

Abstract

In this paper, it is argued that there is no per­fect paraphrase for a metaphorical statement. The metaphor is seen as indeterminate and it is observed that this aspect has not been investigated extensively by metaphor scholars. To show the me­taphor indeterminacy, an empirical investigation has been carried out, with qualitative methodology, by having students thinking aloud in group about a poem. The conclusions of the investigation are that the metaphorical statement inherits part of the literal indeterminacy of the words that are the metaphor vehicle and that metaphor is not a specific case of indeterminacy, but it behaves sometimes as a kind of indeterminacy (e.g., polysemy), sometimes as another kind of indeterminacy (e.g., ambiguity).

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Author Biographies

Heronides Moura, UFSC

Doutor em Linguística pela UNICAMP (1996), fez pós-doutorado na Sorbonne Nouvelle (2000). É professor da UFSC desde 1990 e pesquisador do CNPQ desde 1999. Foi coordenador da pós-graduação em Linguística da UFSC (2000-2004) e editor da Revista da ABRALIN. Suas áreas de interesse são semântica, pragmática e linguística cognitiva.

Mara Sophia Zanotto, PUCSP

Possui doutorado em Linguística pela Universidade de São Paulo e é pro­fessora titular da Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, atuando no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Linguística Aplicada e Estudos da Linguagem. É pesquisadora do CNPq e organizadora do livro Confronting Metaphor in Use: An Applied Linguistic Approach, com Lynne Cameron e Ma­rilda Cavalcanti, publicado pela John Benjamins, em 2008.

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Published

2009-06-30

How to Cite

Moura, H., & Zanotto, M. S. (2009). Theoretically and empirically investigating the indeterminacy of metaphor. Gragoatá, 14(26). Retrieved from https://periodicos.uff.br/gragoata/article/view/33122

Issue

Vol. 14 No. 26 (2009): Metaphor - the everyday life and the inaugural

Section

Language Articles

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