Difficulties With Diagnosing the Death of a Metaphor

Metaphor and Symbol 12 (2):149-157 (1997)
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Abstract

Modem theories of metaphor seem to be pretty unanimous in taking the "death" of a metaphor literally. By doing so they too easily wipe out sedimented, past meanings and so ignore semantic memory. A further consequence of this stand is that meanings are reduced to a one-dimensional (either metaphoric or literal), static structure. This article, in a procedure that resembles a sort of "archeology of meaning," is critical of such an attitude, for which conventionalization of metaphors means their burial in the graveyard of language. It attempts to provide a ground for the assumption that labeling of metaphors as "dead" is not lethal, for their meanings can be revitalized and recreated, according to our linguistic competence, diachronic perspective, interests, and needs. It contains implicit support for the thesis that semantic mechanisms are flexible, dynamic, and subject to evolutionary growth. Not even the death of a metaphor can be exempt from this overall scheme.

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References found in this work

Languages of Art.Nelson Goodman - 1970 - Philosophy and Rhetoric 3 (1):62-63.
Meaning.Michael Polanyi & Harry Prosch - 1975 - Philosophy and Rhetoric 10 (2):123-125.
Knowing and Being.Michael Polanyi & Marjorie Grene - 1971 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 22 (1):65-67.
The Myth of Metaphor.Colin Murray Turbayne - 1965 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 155:260-261.

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