The Pragmatic Functions

of Metaphorical Language

Bálint Forgács

1 Introduction

Why do we speak figuratively, if everything could be told in a simple, direct, literal

manner? Metaphorical language has been fascinating scholars since the time of the
ancient Greek philosophers, but the questions of why and how we use it gathered
considerable attention again only in the twentieth century. The chapter is first going to
review two radically different, but prominent views of metaphor that propose different
roles for them in language and cognition, Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) Cognitive
Metaphor Theory and Sperber and Wilson’s (2008) deflationary account based on
Relevance Theory. After taking stock of prior models, the pragmatic functions of
metaphors are going to be discussed by highlighting two important roles they play in
communication beyond rhetoric: revealing hidden properties and covering up risky

This chapter is a deeper elaboration and further development of ideas laid out initially in the very
first scientific paper I have written, in Hungarian (Forgács, 2009), as a Ph.D. student guided by
Professor Csaba Pléh. I would like to express my eternal gratitude for his helpful, careful, and truly
transformative mentorship and for introducing me, through his most welcoming and witty manner,
to the excitement and joy of cognitive science, in hope of following in his footsteps towards the
heights of the science of the mind. Csaba has been a sharp and open minded mentor from the
classical school, encouraging investigations outside of his main area of interest, which shows in
the diversity of his students’ research. As a brilliant scientist, excellent speaker and outstanding
mentor there is a lot to learn from him, but the Pléh-superpower seems to be beyond reach: Csaba
is able to recall and recommend practically any author, book and idea from the recorded history of
psychology and philosophy alike. Particularly noteworthy is the smaller havoc that erupted in the
Ph.D. room when someone accidentally printed his full bibliography instead that of the past five
years: the printer could not be stopped. His productivity and intellectual freedom combined with his
friendliness and organization skills not only enabled him to establish cognitive science in Hungary,
but to bring fresh air to the study of mind and language at large – which is radiating ever further
through the several generations of students all over the globe he helped spread their wings.

B. Forgács (B)
Department of Cognitive Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Izabella u. 46, Budapest 1064,
Hungary

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 41

J. Gervain et al. (eds.), A Life in Cognition, Language, Cognition, and Mind 11,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66175-5_4
42 B. Forgács

topics. Finally, a novel model, Abstract Conceptual Substitution is proposed, which

unifies the unique semantic and pragmatic aspects of metaphor.
There is no commonly accepted definition of what metaphor is, but it can be
thought of as an expression linking two distinct concepts and thereby creating a
comparison or an analogy, often via an identity or category statement (e.g., ‘Odysseus
is a lion’). The process of qualifying the target or base of the metaphor (‘Odysseus’)
using a distant concept, creates, for the source or vehicle expressions (‘lion’), a
meaning beyond its primary or literal interpretation (predatory wildcat); it is this
figurative sense (‘strength’, ‘bravery’, or ‘pride’) that most metaphor theories try to
account for.
The first known scholarly discussion is from Aristotle (322 BC/1952, 335
BC/1952), who suggested that metaphor is an ornament of language, indispensable in
prose and poesy, but its expressive power makes it particularly important in rhetorics
as well. Its skilled use is “the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an
eye for resemblances.” Aristotle’s view and interpretation dominated thinking about
metaphor for over two millennia, and it has not been challenged profoundly until
the last century. Bréal (1900) was the first to suggest that metaphors are not only
poetic or rhetoric tools, but they serve as important means of linguistic innovation
and change, and that they are widespread in everyday language. Black (1962) noted
that they work on a conceptual level. Figurative language has been recognized to
play an important role in communicational pragmatics and consequently suggested
to lie beyond typical language processing (Pléh, 2000; Van Lancker Sidtis, 2006).
Some propose that metaphors are unique and special, either because of the way we
use them (Aristotle, 335 BC/1952; Grice, 1975), or because of their role in cognition
(Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Mithen, 1996; Pinker, 2010), while others hold that they
are mundane and just one of many possible tools of communication, and the neither
have a special place in language (Sperber & Wilson, 2008), nor require specific
comprehension mechanisms (Carston, 2010; Wilson & Carston, 2007).

2 Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Lakoff and Johnson (1980) claim that metaphors are not only extensively used in
language but structure thought. They pointed out that a vast number of expressions
in everyday conversations are figurative in nature (e.g., ‘above all things’), often
without being recognized as such, and suggested that this is because metaphors reflect
a deeper organization of the conceptual system and cognition at large. Conceptual
Metaphor Theory (CMT) (Lakoff, 2014, 1987; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) proposes
that metaphorical mappings between conceptual domains form the backbones of
and provide structure for concepts. We understand abstract notions (e.g., theo-
ries)1 by systematically mapping more concrete, experiential, real world, imageable

1 Following the convention in cognitive science I use small capitals for concepts, single quotes
for words and expressions, double quotes for quotations proper, and italics for meanings, senses,
The Pragmatic Functions of Metaphorical Language 43

ideas (e.g., buildings), onto them which thereby provide internal relational struc-
ture and content to otherwise vague concepts. Everyday expressions, like ‘It is a
well-founded theory’ or ‘His model collapsed’ are expressions of the deeper concep-
tual metaphor theories are buildings. Embodied cognition (Gallese & Lakoff,
2005; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999) is a theory that claims that all cognitive functions
have a bodily, experiential basis, and that cognition is founded on metaphorical
mappings, which transmit perceptual, sensorimotor information towards unimage-
able, abstract domains. The fundamental building blocks are primary metaphors,
which are motivated by perception and have a clear sensorimotor basis (e.g., orga-
nization is physical structure; persisting is remaining erect), and which
combine into complex metaphors (e.g., theories are buildings) (Grady, 2005).
Cognition and experience associates in schemas of experiential gestalts where the
whole seems more basic than the parts; for example, experiencing physical warmth
and smiling faces together in our childhood makes the expression ‘warm smiles’
eventually self-explanatory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980).
Embodiment (Evans et al., 2007; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999), however, assigns
no special communicational or conversational role to metaphors: they permeate
language and cognition. The reason Lakoff (1993) provides for utilizing metaphors
in everyday communication is that whenever we leap away from concrete, physical
experiences and start to talk about abstract entities or emotions we rely on metaphor-
ical mappings, because that is the way we conceptualize them—and otherwise we
would have no words to express them.
However, a number of theoretical problems have been raised with CMT (Bowdle &
Gentner, 2005; Cameron & Deignan, 2006; McGlone, 2007). There are serious doubts
regarding its potential to explain conceptual organization. Mappings are always
partial (Kövecses, 2002), but it is not clear why and which elements of a source
domain are left out (e.g., windows or roofs are not parts of theories), why and
which are transferred, and how they find their place in the target domain. CMT also
fail to address why one target domain can have (or require) multiple, rather different
source domains (love is a journey but alsoa patient, madness, magic and
war), or why a source domain can contribute to multiple target domains (love is
a journey just as well as careers and life in general are) (Lakoff & Johnson,
1980). Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) collections of metaphorical expressions provide
fascinating examples of relations and structure in linguistic expressions, but if so
many non-systematic groups of conceptual mappings are necessary to understand
each abstract domain and emotion concept, and concrete concepts can contribute to
so many, arbitrarily distinct and unrelated notions, the comport of the theory is rather
doubtful. If any basic element can be related to any complex element, structure is
lost, and the model can hardly provide predictions beyond rationalizations. More-
over, the central claims of Embodiment, that metaphorical mappings shape thinking,
language, and cognition by way of sensorimotor processes have not received unequiv-
ocal empirical support in the decades following its conception (e.g., Casasanto &

referents, and any semantic values (the word ‘dog’ refers to the concept dog, and mean and expresses
the property of being a dog).
44 B. Forgács

Gijssels, 2015; Mahon & Caramazza, 2008), and Embodied theories often offer
axioms and presuppositions rather than falsifiable hypotheses regarding cognitive
processes (Evans et al., 2007). Embodiment is fundamentally an Empiricist concep-
tion of cognition—with some eerie resemblances to the ideas of Giambattista Vico
(1668–1744), the empiricist philosopher (Nuessel, 2006)—, where the heavy lifting
from the concrete, perceptual to the abstract is carried out by metaphors. Yet, neuro-
scientific experiments aimed at the processing of metaphors found that they are not
processed like concrete but more like abstract language (Forgács, 2020; Forgács &
Pléh, 2019; Forgács et al., 2015). Consequently, once metaphors do not elicit the
processing of sensorimotor features, it is hard to see, how metaphors can transmit
sensorimotor information to abstract domains and how mappings can serve as the
fundamental mechanism of abstraction and cognition.

3 Relevance Theory

On the other end of the spectrum of enthusiasm for metaphors lies Sperber and
Wilson’s (1986); Wilson & Sperber, (2004) Relevance Therory (RT), an approach in
stark contrast with that of Lakoff. These authors argue that metaphors play no role in
cognition, are not unique in language, and do not form a natural kind of theoretical
importance. In their “deflationary account” (Sperber & Wilson, 2008) they suggest
that we understand metaphors by the same inferential mechanisms that we apply to
any form of language, and metaphor is simply one of many kinds of loose language
use. Loose language broadens the denotation of decoded meanings during meaning
construction to include senses beyond the narrow lexical entry (Wilson & Sperber,
2002). For example, when we hear ‘Holland is flat’ we do not expect ‘flat’ to strictly
and literally mean the flatness of a table but to include trees and houses.
Sperber and Wilson’s (1986) RT follows Grice (1975) in his footsteps when
proposes that human communication is inferential in nature: intended meanings are
established not merely based on information content (cf. Broadbent, 1958), but on
the assumption that communicative partners strive to change our thoughts. Utter-
ances are utilized as pieces of evidence for inferring what others wish to make us
believe. Linguistic communication is borne out of mutual attributions of mental
states and intentions, and meaning is established based on the “cognitive environ-
ment”, which includes the broader context, local common ground, mental states, situ-
ation models, common history, etc. Therefore, mentalization, the ability to attribute
thoughts, beliefs and intentions to others (e.g., Premack & Woodruff, 1978) appears
to be an integral part of inferring linguistic meaning and necessary for successful
communication.
The way we accomplish comprehension is by striving to optimize relevance
(Sperber & Wilson, 1986) by maximizing cognitive effects and minimizing cognitive
efforts. A cognitive effect is a change in our mental representations, for example, a
true conclusion based on an inference using new information, either by reinforcing
or confirming a previous assumption, or by refuting a present assumption (Wilson
The Pragmatic Functions of Metaphorical Language 45

& Sperber, 2004). In linguistic communication relevance is computed in two steps.

Initially, the logical form of the utterance is developed (based on morphology, seman-
tics, syntax), which creates a non-propositional frame. To develop the proposition
itself, relevance is necessary: based on the given cognitive environment, we estab-
lish explicatures and implicatures. Explicatures are what follow from the form of
the utterance, for example, from the statement ‘it is cold here’ it could follow that a
window is open. Implicatures are purely inferential, implicit premises and conclu-
sions, implied and included in utterances, for example, that the window should be
closed. Meaning is constructed in parallel through these procedures, based on expec-
tations and hypotheses. Explicatures are beyond Grice’s (1975) notion of “what is
said”: The surface meaning might not be intuitively so clear or common sensical
and itself is a subject matter of decoding and inference, which means disambigua-
tion, enrichment, and fine tuning of meaning (Wilson & Sperber, 2002). Importantly,
Grice (1975) argued that the default interpretation of “what is said” is the literal
meaning and suggested that, for example, metaphors violate it. With the introduction
of explicatures Wilson and Sperber (2002) relieved themselves from a commitment
to a literal layer of word meaning.

3.1 Loose Language Use

According the RT (Sperber & Wilson, 1986) and the lexical pragmatist approach
(Wilson & Carston, 2007) meaning is always construed on-line by means of
narrowing and broadening decoded meanings. When someone says, ‘I have a temper-
ature’ or ‘I’m not drinking’ we narrow meaning to include only fewer and alcohol,
respectively; and when we hear ‘it’s boiling hot outside’ we broaden ‘boiling’ to
include temperatures well below 100 °C. Loose language use is created by broad-
ening, which is often employed to deliver extra communicational effects, including
those with poetic and rhetoric power (e.g., ‘Juliet is the sun.’) When speaking loosely,
speakers optimize relevance by not strictly speaking the truth: implicatures are weak,
which means that the audience cannot be entirely certain what the speaker could
have had in mind, which leads to more cognitive effort, which, in turn, yields more
cognitive effects (e.g., ‘How should a president be grilled?’).
Loose language use is sometimes a communicational necessity, however a state-
ment is never fully identical with the thoughts of the speaker, and the audience needs
to develop some kind of interpretive hypothesis regarding the speaker’s informative
intention (Wilson & Sperber, 2002). We might struggle as speakers as well to find
the exact words with close enough meanings that could express a complex thought
of ours. In fact, Sperber and Wilson (1998) suggest that since we have a lot more
concepts than words, but we need to rely on the words available to us and our inter-
locutors, we always construe ad hoc meanings. Instead of using word prototypes
we narrow and broaden the meaning of lexical entries to express personal concepts
(e.g., for a particular tingling) or simply to adjust to the local context. Therefore,
sometimes we speak loosely out of necessity, perhaps unintentionally, yet relatively
46 B. Forgács

unambiguously, by picking the words we have close at hand to express ourselves

meaningfully.
Nonetheless, we may speak loosely intentionally, when we want to evoke higher
cognitive effects in our audience on purpose. Some of these enhanced effects might
be poetic or rhetoric in nature—tropes, i.e. poetic tools, such as simile, metonymy,
hyperbole, irony, etc. (Nuessel, 2006) are good examples—, which might attract
attention in everyday conversations as well. Loose use can be employed both
unintendedly and strategically. The question is, then, why speaking ambiguously
loosely on purpose? Some cognitive effects might not stem merely from a higher
processing effort due to semantic but due to social factors. Thus, an additional reason
for expressing ourselves loosely besides not having enough words, or making an
emphasis by creating a strong effect, might be speaking ambiguously to open a way
for relationship negotiations and social bargains (Lee & Pinker, 2010).

3.2 Metaphors in Relevance Theory

Cognitive effects are generated in everyday communication, but Sperber and Wilson
(2008) suggest there is no profound difference between metaphorical and non-
metaphorical language use. Literal meaning is just as underdetermined as figurative,
and literal interpretations are not the default. In fact, audiences never take entirely
narrowly, strictly, or literally what speakers say. We speak loosely for the sake of
optimal relevance, because sometimes employing words in a figurative sense is the
most effective way to hint at a thought we have. Metaphorical effects might not be
extraordinary, as such interpretations can simply be more relevant than literal ones
(Tendahl & Gibbs, 2008). For example, when we say, ‘his head is empty’ we do not
instantly think that it literally contains nothing, yet we do not need much extra effort
and might not derive much extra effect from such ‘empty headedness’.
There is, however, some tension in RT’s conception: metaphors require not only
broadening (of their lexical meaning) but some narrowing as well (of their literal
senses). Carston (2010); Wilson & Carston (2007) and the lexical pragmatists propose
that we constantly create ad hoc concepts during conversations, where we expand
denotations beyond encyclopedic meaning strategically. For example, when we say,
‘Boris is a giraffe’, we simultaneously broaden and narrow meaning, to refer only
to Boris’ overall height, not to the length of his neck. This is how the explicature
of metaphors are born, but there are two concerns here. First, it is underspecified,
which are the features that are excluded by narrowing, which are the features that
are included by broadening, and which are the features that are excluded from the
broadening. Giraffe is broadened to include humans, narrowed to not include neck
length or any features apart from height, and from the broadening apart from Boris,
all humans are excluded. The theory provides a clear model to describe cases of
metaphorical language and meaning construction in general but cannot predict, only
explain retrospectively, why a particular dynamic unfolds for one particular word in
one particular context, and not another.
The Pragmatic Functions of Metaphorical Language 47

Secondly, by proposing lexical or encyclopedic meaning as the basis of narrowing

and broadening, lexical pragmatists and RT let ‘literal’ back through the back door.
Wilson and Sperber (2002) argue that Grice’s (1975) literal meaning cannot be the
basis of comprehension because it assumes an encoding–decoding of information and
treats literalness in terms of truthfulness—and they break away from this tradition of
truth-value semantics. Indeed, the neurocognitive processing of metaphors involves
neither the recognition of a violation of a literal meaning nor an ensuing paraphrasing
by transformation into a simile in a serial fashion (Blasko & Connine, 1993; Forgács
et al., 2014; Ortony et al, 1978). Instead of literal meaning, Wilson and Sperber
(2002) claim that it is the decoded, encyclopedic or lexical meaning that should
matter. However, such entries typically start with the most ‘basic’ sense, which
typically turns out to be a literal one. In some cases, the figurative sense might be
the first entry, for example, for conventional metaphors (e.g., for the word ‘cool’
it is not temperature but approval), but would that mean that using them literally
requires narrowing? Literal is not expelled but gains a different sense in RT: some
sort of literal meaning remains the basis of narrowing-broadening and even if lexical
(literal) meaning can be subjected to narrowing, sometimes it labels the narrow end
of the continuum (Sperber & Wilson, 2008). Sperber and Wilson (2008) suggest
that literalness is somewhat preserved with narrowing, but not with broadening—
their point being that narrowing and broadening are not functionally distinct uses of
language, and meaning construction is independent of figurativeness. Nevertheless,
quite indirectly and not in a Gricean sense, literalness seems to play a role in RT, if
not a definitional but an interpretive or anchoring one.

3.3 Indirect Speech

While narrowing and broadening primarily considers lexical pragmatics and the
construction of meaning on the word level, loose meanings can arise on the sentence
level as well. The strategic speaker theory of Lee and Pinker (2010) puts forward the
idea that indirect speech is not exclusively a polite or eloquent manner of expressing
desires (‘Could you please close the window?’), but it has a structure that allows for
negotiations by way of ambiguity. Polite indirectness has been analyzed as preemp-
tive face saving strategy when risking the rejection of a request (Brown & Levinson,
1987). Consequently, some of its forms (“off-record indirect speech”) creates ambi-
guity on purpose, which opens a way for safe backtracking. For example, when
attempting to bribe a police officer, by asking ‘Is there another way to solve it?’ two
possible interpretations are on offer: a safe, neutral one that pretends some sort of
ignorance of rules or procedures and a risky one offering a bribe that could have
serious consequences. The two, simultaneously available interpretations allow for
backtracking via the plausible deniability of the risky offer by exploiting the neutral
surface. The police officer might accept the bribe or reject it but has no strong evidence
to prove the offer itself. Therefore, a safe negotiating situation is established, where
both interlocutors can choose between the two possible interpretations, and they can
48 B. Forgács

reach an agreement without openly expressing anything legally binding. The above
basic structure of indirect speech is utilized in a great variety of social situations to
express socially risky beliefs and desires in order to negotiate relationships, from
sexual offers to resolving conflicts (Pinker et al., 2008).
Many forms of loose language use allow for plausible deniability. Sarcasm, irony,
and joking in general are regularly offered as ways of backtracking from offensive
or otherwise harsh statements (‘I didn’t mean it’). Another often utilized excuse
is ‘speaking figuratively’. Since some metaphors can have both a figurative and a
literal interpretation, they can be used beyond simply denying what was meant and
to open up a second layer across sentences (e.g., journey planning as relationship
planning and vice versa), which provides flexibility in negotiations much like indirect
speech proper. Indirect speech is not always metaphorical, and metaphor is not always
indirect speech, but the dual nature of metaphor endows it with unique pragmatic
functions.

4 The Pragmatic Functions of Metaphor

Metaphor appears to play various roles in human communication, which makes it

unique among the tropes and other forms of loose language use. Its expressive power
has been recognized for millennia and it has been utilized by poets and rhetors
ever since. It also plays important roles in everyday communication, but instead of
merely being either a conceptual or lexical tool to establish word meaning, it seems
to serve particular communicative purposes to establish social meaning as well.
Here I propose that metaphor has two main pragmatic functions: first, we can speak
metaphorically with the aim of creating two parallel layers of meaning, a figurative
and a literal one, which allows for social bargains and veiled conversations, similarly
to indirect speech. Second, we use metaphors to extend the meaning of words with
a particularly protruding conceptual property in a figurative direction to express a
novel notion via cross-domain similarity that we have no words for in the public
lexicon. In the former case we intend to increase ambiguity, so beliefs and desires
can be communicated in a comprehensible but deniable manner, while in the latter
case we intend to decrease ambiguity by providing specifications and analogies using
vivid words for ideas we have no common ways yet to discuss.
The duality of metaphorical and literal layers of meanings together with the feat
of relating conceptual domains place metaphor in a unique position among other
forms of loose language use. Hyperbole is when a notion or property, for example,
coldness, is expressed in an exaggerated manner (e.g., ‘What an Arctic summer
night!’) but the figurative content remains in the conceptual domain of the literal
meaning it exploits, that is, cold. It is the same case with approximation (e.g.,
‘Holland is flat’—not entirely, but still) and category extension (‘Google it!’—which
is still a search). Metonymy (‘The theater erupted in applause’) and synecdoche
(‘Black Lives Matter’) both involve mappings but within domain part-whole relations
(e.g., Lakoff, 1987). Irony states just the opposite of what the speaker has in mind
The Pragmatic Functions of Metaphorical Language 49

(‘What a pleasant blizzard’), which is intimately related, as an antonym. Synesthesia

involves two domains but both are perceptual (‘purple song’). Simile involves two
distinct domains (‘this meal is like a Bildungsroman’), but due to the comparison,
some literal senses remain active (Glucksberg & Haught, 2006), which could risk
in conversations the deniability of the figurative content. A metaphorical meaning is
not only figurative, but it transfers only non-literal meanings to a different conceptual
domain. Such a transmutation through identification—or categorization (Glucksberg,
2003)—can create a tension between the literal and the figurative senses of the
vehicle and mutually exclusive interpretations. It is in this sense that among all
tropes only metaphor possesses a kind dual layer that allows for negotiations during
social bargainings and is able to catapult meaning into entirely different dimensions.
Historically, the most recognized use of metaphors is that of rhetors and poets as
described by Aristotle 350 BC (1952): a good metaphor has strong evocative power
and the similarity it elucidates through an analogy, based on vivid imagery, makes it a
great communicational tool, even beyond being a mere ornament of speech. Rhetoric
metaphors are certainly generating enhanced cognitive effects (Sopory & Dillard,
2002), but not necessarily through ambiguity. A distinction between two kinds of
broadening is useful here: broadening in order to create multiple possible meanings
and broadening to include an unusual but particular meaning. Poetic metaphors play
with ambiguity and multiple layers of senses, and as characteristic examples of
loose use, they belong to the first class by leaving the interpretation for the audience.
Rhetoric metaphors, however, often strive to hit unambiguously upon a felicitous
example, image or parallel, therefore they seem to belong to the second class, where
broadening serves specificity.

4.1 Sensualizing: Broadening for a Particular Novel

Figurative Meaning

The cases of targeted broadening in a metaphorical direction, when we appeal to a

well-known, easy to imageine, concrete domains, could be labelled “sensualizing”. It
is one of the paradigmatic uses of meaning broadening, as suggested by Sperber and
Wilson (1998), when we express a novel concept, for which there is no word in the
public lexicon, by bending the meaning of perceptual words towards the unknown.
When we create a novel metaphor for that end, we often use some kind of a tangible
notion, based either on a sensorimotor experience or on a vivid image, which is easy
to relate to for the audience. For example, when physicists discovered qualitatively
different kinds of quarks, to express their distinctiveness, they coined the term “quark
flavors.” Instead of creating obscurity, the expression instantly transmits the idea
that quarks differ from one another just lake tastes do. Such metaphors elucidate one
particular aspect of the topic or target domain of the metaphor (quarks) by way of
a prominent part, feature, relation or structure of the vehicle or the source domain
(flavors).
50 B. Forgács

Metaphors are regularly employed to aid explanations and even to create knowl-
edge in scientific contexts (Nuessel, 2006). Scientific language is abundant with
novel metaphors in psychology (Leary, 1994) and cognitive science (Forgács, 2013)
as well. Metaphors in science are partly rhetorical tools, partly attempts at high-
lighting a key feature of a phenomenon, but very often they give rise to analogies,
which may eventually obstruct critical thinking. Scientific scrutiny can excavate a
hidden or even unintended analogy that leads theoretical and experimental work or
can develop it to such a detail, that it does not hold any longer. Scientific debates can
revolve around the literal or figurative interpretation of a model or a key concept for
decades. Still, a well-struck metaphor can provide a concrete handler for a distant
concept.
Metaphors are produced in clusters in lectures, lessons, and sermons when a
difficult or unfamiliar topic is discussed, and a few central or “root” conceptual
metaphors are extended systematically to illuminate various details (Cameron &
Stelma, 2004). Similarly, in everyday conversations an initial metaphorical topic can
be expanded into an entire target domain and its vehicle could be a first allowance
from an entire source domain, but developing systematic mappings seem neither
necessary nor compulsory. The reason why most metaphorical mappings are partial,
incomplete, and diverse could be that one metaphor might describe a few key aspects
well and perhaps it could be extended a bit further, but the analogy breaks down
eventually, and then a different source might be a better choice to further elucidate
the target.
Sensorimotor experiences, wild images, physical, concrete words might be used
as sources not only because of their expressive power, but because they are the easiest
to relate to: after all they allude to percepts, as if they pointed at something tangible.
However, such effects might be pragmatic in nature, not semantic or neural, as
Embodiment claims (Gallese & Lakoff, 2005; Lakoff, 2014). Concrete words do acti-
vate corresponding sensorimotor areas (Pulvermüller, 2005), but motor activations,
for example, happen very early on, around 200 ms (e.g., Pulvermüller et al., 2005).
Conversely, hence they could be explained by early automatic cascading activations
and priming effects: the causal role of sensorimotor processes in language compre-
hension has not been established (Mahon & Caramazza, 2008). Importantly, the
irrelevant meaning of ambiguous words is activated initially but suppressed around
200–300 ms (Gergely & Pléh, 1994; Seidenberg et al., 1982; Swinney, 1979; Thuma
& Pléh, 1999, 2000), before semantic retrieval is completed, whch is indexed by the
N400 response (Kutas & Federmeier, 2011). Therefore, when used figuratively, a
concrete word’s concrete, literal meaning might activate sensorimotor areas initially,
but it well could be suppressed by the time the intended figurative sense is reached.
The electrophysiological concreteness effect which indicates sensorimotor feature
processing (Barber et al., 2013) shows that novel metaphors are processed simi-
larly to abstract not to concrete words (Forgács, 2020; Forgács et al., 2015). Even
though sensorimotor activations do not seem to play a central role in the processing of
metaphors as suggested by Embodiment, figurative language can nevertheless induce
strong cognitive effects, when controlled mental imagery, analogical thinking, and
verbal creativity mash together in the mental representations of speakers and hearers.
The Pragmatic Functions of Metaphorical Language 51

Sensualizing through metaphorical sources is an important communicational-

pragmatic tool that provides imageable, meaningful, and easy-to-relate-to raw mate-
rial for thought. Under the pressure of expressing ourselves in communicative situ-
ations we regularly come up with unusual wordings and phrasings to create novel
meaning. It is particularly true for young language learners, who do not have a large
lexicon, but certainly present in all conversations where stakes for self-expression
are high. Such verbal creativity and “meaning making” (Bruner, 1990) could be a
drive for linguistic change, when innovative terms or senses spread and stabilize in
a language community.

4.2 Speaking Figuratively: Broadening for Creating

Ambiguity

Sometimes metaphors are used deliberately to create ambiguity by activating both a

literal and a metaphorical layer of meaning to grab attention, for example in news-
paper headlines (Brone & Coulson, 2010). However, speaking metaphorically and
ambiguously can also be analogous with indirect speech in that it can open up a
convenient escape route by enabling deniability and transformation of social nego-
tiations into negotiations of what was said (e.g., ‘What do you mean by»heating up
our relationship?«’). If the other understood the metaphorical referents, a covert and
safe rejection or acceptance is also on offer. During social bargains and relation-
ship negotiations meaning is broadened towards ambiguity in a strategic manner:
not to merely create uncertainty in meaning but to open a space for a choice from
various interpretations and corresponding social offers. For example, in emotionally
loaded conversations of the metaphor life is a journey can have both its literal
(actual traveling) and figurative meaning (emotional reconciliation) available simul-
taneously (Cameron, 2007), which could make the intended meaning negotiable.
Therefore, language is broadened in a particular direction, where the speaker strives
to leave little ambiguity regarding a veiled topic, while she can keep open an escape
route for denial. A discussion of emotional matters (e.g., Cameron, 2007), transgres-
sions of norms, or sexual advances (e.g., Pinker et al., 2008) could develop from an
offer conveyed by a metaphor, and if it is appropriated by the conversational partner
an agreement could be reached before or even without turning the topic explicit
(Cameron & Stelma, 2004).
In fact, entire conversations can be conducted under the veil of an innocent topic
if both parties are aware of the sensitive topic underneath. Adults regularly engage
in such conversations in front of children, when adult topics are discussed under the
guise of a seemingly innocent subject or by using words for which it is difficult to
determine the exact referents. Negotiations could be pushed to an overt level purpos-
fully or by chance; negotiations could fail because the hearer misses the hidden layer,
or the speaker could speak unintendedly in a manner that may be interpreted on an
52 B. Forgács

emotional level, which could lead to unexpected consequences. When such inter-
actions are successful, a number of different metaphor vehicles could be employed
while keeping the topic constant. Such a conversational strategy could be the reason
for having a multitude of source domains available (e.g., journey, madness, magic
orwar) for certain target domains (e.g., love), while it also allows for a swift change
of topic using the same words, which could account for having the same source
domain (e.g., journey) subserving various target domains (love, careers or life
in general).
A closely related speaker strategy is suggesting that a statement was not meant
literally—after having made it. This strategy is typically a face saving act if and
when an expressed belief or desire did not bring applause (just like indirect speech,
by way of politeness, Brown & Levinson, 1987). Speakers can claim that they did
not mean seriously or strictly literally what they said in order to soften hearers and
loosen up the search for possible interpretations. Sometimes there is not even another
sense to be found, because the statement was intended narrowly, and requesting a
broadening is merely backtracking. Such ‘de-literalization’ is regularly employed
from household quarrels to high politics to cover up statements that turned out to be
unacceptable for the hearers or which could have legal consequences. Since what
was said was not meant figuratively initially, it depends on the audience whether
such post-hoc offers of meaning broadening are accepted or rejected.
The complement of asking for a figurative reinterpretation by a speaker is offering
one by the hearer. Such a non-literal interpretation is similar to the idea of “imposed
metaphoricity” (Porat & Shen, 2015), which suggests that practically any expression
can be interpreted metaphorically, regardless of its original content. Legal language is
a prime example for the opposite attempt: to exclude all alternative readings, because
conflicting partners regularly try to offer retrospective reinterpretations of what was
said and meant. The desire to get rid of ambiguity makes legal texts not only dry
but devoid of metaphors, which makes it a paradigmatic case of “literal” language
use. Proposing and requesting broadened interpretations, beyond literal extensions
well into the metaphorical, is often employed in conceptual art. Some kind of meta-
meaning is sought for by titles such as “Fountain” by Marcel Duchamp or “Cece
n’est pas une pipe” by René Magritte.
A search for a deeper meta-meaning behind words is the motivation of Fónagy’s
(1971) dual coding conception. He proposed that the arbitrary, symbolic, and propo-
sitional, primary code of language is complemented by a natural, archaic, emotion
driven, iconic, secondary code of phonotactics and intonation, which carries “symp-
tomatic” or “symbolic” relationships between signifiers and signifieds—as a kind of
anchoring of metacommunication (Pléh, 2018). From symptomatic behavior through
prosodic intonation to choices of words with particular phonological characteristics
and hidden symbolic content and figurative senses, there is a metaphorical value in
language use and expression in general, which reports of deep emotional dimensions,
via an intertwining of form and content, as a sort of verbal metacommunication.
A kind of metaphorical or symbolic interpretation is the approach of psychoanal-
ysis as well. Even though such a search for meta-meaning is more of a hermeneutic
The Pragmatic Functions of Metaphorical Language 53

attitude rather than a linguistic process per se, verbal expressions are of central impor-
tance here. Freud (1901/1989) provides an entertaining and insightful collection of
slips of tongue and illusory mishearings in emotionally charged topics and situations
in an almost linguistic-pragmatic analysis. Psychoanalysts investigate a fixed target
domain of hidden emotional content, which directly manifests in Fónagy’s primary
code, metacommunicatively, but for which a semantic content can be excavated via
metaphorical jumps when broadenings are requested (via association) or offered by
the therapist. Szabó (2015) suggests that Lakoffian metaphors can be understood
as constituent of Jungian symbols in psychotherapy. Metaphorical language use by
patients could indicate therapeutic progress (Bach, 1994): metaphorical reinterpre-
tations reintegrate fragmented layers of meaning and personality. Although psycho-
analytical insights are not primarily linguistic in nature, the interpretive attitude
together with the search for mappings of the hidden target domain of the uncon-
scious demonstrate how metaphorical meaning can be put to work in therapeutic
contexts.

5 Abstract Conceptual Substitution

How can metaphors fulfill these multifaceted pragmatic functions, and how can their
pragmatic-semantic aspects be bridged? In order to function as an efficient commu-
nicational tool, there might be no need to assume systematic mappings (Lakoff &
Johnson, 1980), complete analogies (Bowdle & Gentner, 2005), blends (Fauconnier
& Turner, 1998), ad hoc categories (Glucksberg, 2003) or ad hoc concepts (Carston,
2010). Instead of structure mapping, categorizing, filtering, or broadening some part
of their literal meaning, the basis of metaphor comprehension could be the abstract-
concrete dimension. The theory of Abstract Conceptual Substitution (Forgács, 2014,
2020; Forgács et al., 2015) proposes that the meaning of metaphorical vehicles
(‘shark’) might be computed by the suppression of concrete, sensorimotor features
(e.g., can swim, marine predator, etc.) and the enhancement of abstract properties
(e.g., tenacious, aggressive, cruel). Consequently, the contextually most relevant
abstract property can be simply substituted as a figurative meaning (‘My lawyer is a
shark’, becomes ‘My lawyer is tenacious’). The filtering mechanism is very similar
to the one for polysemous words, but it is carried out along the abstract-concrete
dimension, which yields an outcome superficially similar to a literal-metaphorical
distinction (Gernsbacher et al., 2001), yet it is not based on literal meaning in any
way. Sensorimotor information is neither carried over via mappings, nor rejected
as literal meaning, and no ad hoc categories or concepts need to be generated for
each metaphorical sense in each context. If the vehicle is abstract (‘The fakir’s bed
is an oxymoron’) the taxonomic information (trope) is suppressed but it is still a
more abstract property that is enhanced and substituted (contradiction). There-
fore, “literal meaning” may simply stand for concrete, sensorimotor or taxonomic
information. The model addresses the tension between the right amount of simulta-
neous meaning narrowing and broadening for metaphors, as suggested by Relevance
54 B. Forgács

Theory (Sperber & Wilson, 2008) and the lexical pragmatists (Wilson & Carston,
2007) narrowing may be understood as a procedure to exclude concrete features
and broadening to enhance or activate abstract properties. Thereby, it also gets rid
of the rather elusive notion of literal meaning as a reference point to metaphoricity
and replaces it by concrete, experiential, physical meanings. Such a procedure is a
unique combination of well described semantic operations that also has the explana-
tory power to account for all metaphor-related phenomena and neurocognitive data
(Forgács, 2020; Forgács et al., 2015).

6 Conclusion

Metaphors stand out from other forms of loose language use by involving multiple
layers of meaning and combining distinct conceptual domains. They might not be
the building blocks of the conceptual system, but they seem to be unique commu-
nicational tools. They allow us to point to concepts we have no words for, highlight
similarities, initiate analogies, but also to speak covertly. Offering a figurative rein-
terpretation as a speaker or a hearer, or metaphorization, creates a negotiation space
either in a veiled, safe manner, or in a direct attempt to address topics that are diffi-
cult to verbalize. Taken together, metaphor might reveal some fundamental aspects
of human cognition, from a search for meaning to the symbolic and abstract nature
of thought: the process of abstracting away from the concrete to the imaginary.

Acknowledgments This work was funded by a NKFIH Young Researcher grant (125417) to Bálint
Forgács.

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