Abstract
Throughout this chapter the concept of metaphor is a constant theme, although the reader will find many diversions into discussion of related cognitive processes. In this first section, though, we look at the fundamental nature of metaphor, and the way this relates to the typically human classification systems and ontologies. Metaphor is possibly the most fundamental concept in the understanding of language and its acquisition, but is seldom regarded as more than a literary “device” used for illustrative or poetic ends. The common view is that some similarity between the present situation and something foreign to it is used to convey a “truth” about the situation. We hesitate to use the word “artificial” here, since the measure of a metaphor or analogy is its “aptness” or “naturalness”. But these explicatory or literary “devices” or “artifices” imply conscious and deliberate construction.
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Powers, D.M.W., Turk, C.C.R. (1989). Metaphor as a Cognitive Process. In: Machine Learning of Natural Language. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1697-4_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1697-4_2
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