Metaphor is far more ubiquitous in language than previously believed. Whereas traditional philosophers of language like Grice took metaphorical meaning to belong to implicature, recent Contextualists, to explain this ubiquity, hold that, as well as literal language, non-literal language including metaphor, metonymy and referential use of definite description can be placed in explicit, truth-conditional content. In this paper, I will examine two Contextualist accounts for non-literal language through their analyses of metaphor. Firstly, Relevance Theorists treat metaphor as a kind of so-called loose use and assume that there is no essential difference between literal language and metaphor in terms of cognitive process. Secondly, formal or semanticist approach posits 'a richer underlying linguistic representation whose meaning will determine the truth-conditions of each metaphorical utterance in context' (Stern(2006), p. 246). After reviewing each approach in detail, I will suggest that the latter can offer a better explanation of how metaphorical meaning is derived and constrained from literal language and indicate a potential of Stern-inspired Contextualism which may treat other non-literal language like metonymy or free enrichment in the same way as metaphor.
|
