ABSTRACT
Cognitive Linguistics was founded in part on the cognitive commitment—the promise that linguistic models, explanations, theories, accounts, etc., of language functioning in people would adhere to what we know about human cognitive functioning in general. This commitment, when applied to explanations of figurative language, has had significant impacts. Probably the most widely known such effects have been on accounts of metaphor and, by extension, figures that can contain metaphors like idioms and proverbs (e.g., conceptual metaphor, blending, conceptual integration, etc.) and metonymy (e.g., cognitive metonymy, etc.). But other figurative language treatments (as well as figurativity in other media) have also embraced content from cognitive psychology or cognitive science (e.g., using prototype accounts to discuss idioms, using perceptual contrast and distinctiveness to account for verbal irony, hyperbole, and some of their pragmatic effects, invoking cognitive biases (e.g., for positivity), or schemas when dealing with verbal irony, indirect negation, proverbs, etc.). The following chapter will first review briefly these successful adherences to the cognitive commitment in accounts of figurative language. But it will also suggest ways in which the accounts could do more. Further critique will also be presented on needed extensions of the cognitive commitment into other domains of human functioning which impact figurative language production and comprehension.
