Description

Chris Genovesi (ILCLI - SSHRC): "Metaphor and the psycholinguistic strawman"

Tuesday, October 13th, 2020.

4:30 pm.

Venue: Carlos Santamaria Zentroa, Taller de docencia.

Abstract:

Grice did not say much about metaphor. What he did say followed from his treatment of conversational implicatures. It is argued by some theorists that Grice intended to offer a rational reconstruction. However, there is a multi-source trend which opts to understand Grice’s remarks on metaphor as unabashedly psychological. The psychologized version of Grice’s theory runs in serial: compute what is said; reject what is said as contextually inappropriate; run pragmatic processing to recover contextually appropriate meaning. Citing data from reaction time studies, critics of the psychologized version reject Grice’s account as psychologically implausible. Critics have developed models that do not rely on serial processing, or input from literal meaning. I argue that the serial processing model and its criticisms turn on a strawman of Grice’s account. I believe an alternative interpretation is available. On my account, the psychologized version of the Gricean model requires that literal language play a role in the construction of the metaphorical meaning. For example, I contend that a broadly Gricean model can accept parallel processing in metaphor comprehension. I highlight how my interpretation is broadly consistent with neurolinguistic research on metaphor comprehension.