2 International Symposium on Figurative Thought and Language
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DEPARTMENT of HUMANITIES - UNIVERSITY of PAVIA 2nd International Symposium on Figurative Thought and Language Plenary Speakers Angeliki ATHANASIADOU, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Mario BRDAR, Osijek University, Croatia, & Rita SZABÓ, ELTE University, Hungary Herbert L. COLSTON, University of Alberta, Canada Zóltan KÖVECSES, Eötvös-Loránd University, Hungary Günter RADDEN, University of Hamburg, Germany Francisco José RUIZ DE MENDOZA IBÁNÉZ, University of La Rioja, Spain Luca VANZAGO, University of Pavia, Italy AIA contact: ASSOCIAZIONE ITALIANA Annalisa Baicchi (Symposium Chair) DI ANGLISTICA [email protected] BOOK OF ABSTRACTS Table of contents Senior Consultant Committee Scientific Committee Symposium Chair Organizing Committee Abstracts 2 Senior Consultant Committee Angeliki ATHANASIADOU (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece) Annalisa BAICCHI (University of Pavia, Italy) Mario BRDAR (Osijek University, Croatia) Herbert COLSTON (University of Alberta, Canada) Ad FOOLEN (Rabdoub University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands) Klaus-Uwe PANTHER (University of Hamburg, Germany) Günter RADDEN (University of Hamburg, Germany) Francisco RUIZ DE MENDOZA (University of La Rioja, Spain) Gerard STEEN (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Scientific Committee Stefano ARDUINI (Urbino); Angeliki ATHANASIADOU (Thessaloniki); Annalisa BAICCHI (Pavia); Valentina BAMBINI (IUSS, Pavia); Antonio BARCELONA (Cordoba); Carla BAZZANELLA (Torino); Marcella BERTUCCELLI PAPI (Pisa); Réka BENCZEK (Budapest); Boguslaw BIERWIACZONEK (Czestochowa); Marina BONDI (Modena and Reggio Emilia); Silvana BORUTTI (Pavia); Gabriella BOTTINI (Pavia); Roberto BOTTINI (Milan-Bicocca); Mario BRDAR (Osijek); Cristiano BROCCIAS (Genova); Silvia CACCHIANI (Modena and Reggio Emilia); Cristina CACCIARI (Modena and Reggio Emilia); Bert CAPPELLE (Lille 3); Herbert COLSTON (Alberta); Seana COULSON (California, San Diego); Lilla CRISAFULLI (Bologna); Sonia CRISTOFARO (Pavia); Sabine DE KNOP (Saint-Louis, Bruxelles); Paolo DELLA PUTTA (Modena and Reggio Emilia); Guillaume DESAGULIER (Paris 8); Umberto ECO (Bologna); Vito EVOLA (Lisboa); Malgorzata FABISZAK (Poznan); Elisabetta FAVA (Ferrara); Roberta FACCHINETTI (Verona); Ad FOOLEN (Nijmegen); Francisco GONZÁLVES- GARCÍA (Almeria); Stefan GRIES (Santa Barbara); Marlene JOHANSSON FALK (Umeå); Zoltan KÖVECSES (Budapest); Marcin KUCZOK (Silesia); Jeanette LITTLEMORE (Birmingham); Silvia LURAGHI (Pavia); Fiona MACARTHUR (Cáceres); Lorenzo MAGNANI (Pavia); Ricardo MAIRAL USÓN (Madrid); Giovanna MAROTTA (Pisa); Caterina MAURI (Pavia); Donna MILLER (Bologna); Fabio MOLLICA (Milan); Andreas MUSSOLFF (Düsseldorf and London); Susanne NIEMEIER (Koblenz); Stefania NUCCORINI (Roma Tre); Rossella PANNAIN (Napoli, Orientale); Klaus-Uwe PANTHER (Hamburg and Nanjing); Johan PEDERSEN (Copenhagen); Sandra PEÑA CERVEL (La Rioja); Lorena PÉREZ-HERNANDEZ (La Rioja); Diane PONTEROTTO (Roma Tor Vegata); Günter RADDEN (Hamburg); Francisco RUIZ DE MENDOZA (La Rioja); Paul SAMBRE (Leuven); Andrea SANSÒ (Insubria); Augusto SOARES DA SILVA (Braga); Gerard STEEN (Amsterdam); Rita SZABÓ (Budapest); Linda THORNBURG (Hamburg); Luca VANZAGO (Pavia); Tomaso VECCHI (Pavia); Patrizia VIOLI (Bologna); Michael WHITE HAYES (Madrid, Complutense); Stefanie WULFF (Florida); Yoon JIYOUNG (North TeXas); Maria Assunta ZANETTI (Pavia). Symposium Chair – Annalisa Baicchi (University of Pavia) Organizing Committee Annalisa BAICCHI (University of Pavia) Roberto BOTTINI (University of Milan-Bicocca) Silvia CACCHIANI (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) Paolo DELLA PUTTA (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) Fabio MOLLICA (University of Milan) 3 4 ABSTRACTS PLENARY TALKS Angeliki Athanasiadou Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Intensification via figurative language Figurative language, generally speaking, involves intended meaning; it is employed in order to communicate something beyond the very meaning of the elements that constitute it. This is largely due to the incongruence of domains, scripts, frames or entities that participate in the conceptualization and the expression of figuration. Conflict, incongruence, opposition and reversal of values are devices that enhance figurative meaning in discourse. Depending on the degree of incongruity between sources and targets, we encounter irony (opposition, reversal of values), simile (conflict of values), metaphor (dissimilar domains), hyperbole and understatement (eXtreme ends) and metonymy (A CONCEPT FOR ITS OPPOSITE). The order of the conceptual processes above is not random; it is indicative of the degree of conflict. This, at the same time, reveals the motivation of the speakers in their attempt to create figurative language. Moreover, it highlights a very important purpose: that of intensification. The semantics of the different conceptual processes lead to different degrees of intensification: ironies and similes, for eXample, seem to be more emphatic and more intense than metonymies. Intensification seems also to be due not only to the type of conceptual process but to two additional parameters as well: the complex set of mappings, i.e. the evocation of more than one figures and the special patterns of the usage involved. The paper is based on the assumption that figurative processes cooperate harmoniously resulting in the foregrounding of intensification. Given that figuration encourages and is encouraged by leXicogrammar, representative constructions will be discussed to issue the passport to figuration. Mario Brdar & Rita Brdar-Szabó University of Osijek - ELTE Budapest Separating (non-)figurative weeds from wheat A number of approaches have been developed in cognitive linguistic research that promise to recognize and/or identify figurative eXpressions in discourse, chiefly conceptual metaphors, but also conceptual metonymies (Berber Sardinha 2008, 2012; Goatly 1997; Kövecses et al 2015; Markert & Nissim 2006; Nissim & Markert 2003; Shutova & Sun 2013 Shutova, Teufel & Korhonen 2013; Stefanowitsch 2004, 2006; Steen 2007; Steen et al 2010, Wallington et al 2003). Some of these have advertised themselves as being able to achieve high success rate, in certain cases even surprisingly high ones, in the more or less automatic and (un)supervised retrieval of figurative expressions in comprehensive teXts of various size or in corpora. While they widely differ with respect to the compleXity of the formal infrastructure underlying them, such as the algorithm they rely on in the process of training, the knowledge base, etc., they seem to have one thing in common – they basically aim at separating figurative wheat from non-figurative weeds. In other words, researchers are intent on getting their hands on figurative expressions in as direct fashion as possible. It is, however, possible to envisage an approach going in a diametrically opposed direction. This is eXactly what this presentation is all about – turning our back to figurative wheat and attending to non-figurative weeds first, identifying it and subsequently eliminating it from further consideration. This may at first sight seem to be a counterintuitive proposal, considering the proportion of the non-figurative weeds in running teXts or corpora, i.e. in view of the huge number of literal eXpressions, eXceeding many times the number of potential figurative eXpressions surrounded by the former. While it should certainly be allowed as an interesting, and perhaps entertaining intellectual enterprise, and certainly legitimate if we do not want to leave any stone unturned, i.e. leave no alley of potential research unchecked, it would no doubt be considered by many to be a waste of time, a sort of doing science for its own sake, but hardly promising any worthwhile insights. However, we claim in this presentation on the basis of a series of small-scale case studies involving English, German, Croatian and Hungarian material (e.g. 5 philosophy, oasis, patient) that by engaging in this unusual type of eXercises, approaching conceptual metaphors in a negative way we can achieve a success rate that is comparable to the best ones described in the relevant literature, while making use of a considerably leaner tool, basically just a hierarchically organized, FrameNet- or WordNet-like knowledge database, the decisive factor being whether or not a given eXpression is surrounded in its more or less immediate conteXt by a sufficient number of leXical items denoting concepts belonging to the same frame that the key item belongs to. The likelihood of its being nonfigurative weed, i.e. not a metaphorical expression, is directly proportional to the number of co-occurring items from the same frame. The material retrieved this way can be submitted to some further tests in order to refine the results. The situation with conceptual metonymies seems to be just the opposite, they can only be approached in a positive way, i.e. not by automatically excluding potential candidates. Here a low number of co-occurring items from the same frame indicates that it is quite likely to be metonymic weed. However, in order to determine that a given item is indeed used metonymically, we expect to find additional semanto-syntactic anomaly, i.e. misalignment between the valency frame of the item in question and of the valency frame of the predicate or an argument, depending on the situation. On top of that, it seems that a metonymy typology or hierarchy that is harnessed with an ontology-based FrameNet is necessary, so that a metonymy can be identified as such. This