My research project analyses metaphors comprehension. Considering the idea that some metaphors are perceived as being more metaphorical than others, the project looks at the novelty in metaphorical instances and what exactly it is about metaphors than many are treated as instances of meaning which stand out. Furthermore, several important theories of metaphor rely heavily on the conceptual structure and treat emotional content as perimetric. This project brings forth the idea that metaphors do not only give rise to mental images which can be freely explored for their emotive content, but they also open a world of experience, both physical and imaginative, as a way of capturing the vividness of the metaphorical meaning in the novel instances. The project relies on secondary sources and reviews data from several theoretical accounts of metaphors (Black 1995, Richards 1936, Lakoff and Johnson 1980), philosophical conversations (Ricoeur 1975, Merleau-Ponty 2012) and enactivist accounts of cognition (Hutto and Myin 2012).
Supervisors: Professor Paul Gibbs and Dr Victoria de Rijke