Toward a New Theory of Metaphorical Interpretation

Abstract

Over the years, the principles of metaphorical interpretation have been proposed to be semantic, pragmatic, or/and cognitive. However, these proposed theories have never reached even a near consensus. In this context, recently, Leezenberg (2001) proposed an interesting theory based on the notions of "context" and "thematic dimension," which is basically semantic but also tries to combine cognitive aspects of language. Given this, one purpose of this paper is to review Leezenberg's theory. In the process of pointing out some problems of his theory, we will propose an alternative analysis on the principles of metaphorical interpretation which combines semantic and cognitive aspects of language.