ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the key notion of conflictual complex meaning, which provides the semantic purport for the living figures of the plane of content and above all for oxymoron and for the most significant instances of metaphor and metonymy. Since they do not correspond to independent and consistent conceptual models, conflictual complex meanings are creative semantic structures that valorize the connecting power of syntactic structures. Valorization is the key to figures on the plane of content as well as on the plane of expression. When applied to the plane of content, the concept undergoes a significant change, for the relationship between coding, functions, instrumentality, and conceptual creativity is no longer the same. The chapter characterizes conceptual conflict as a form of valorization of the elective functional task of formal syntactic structures. It also outlines a typology of forms of coding and describes the interaction between each form of coding and both consistent concepts and conceptual conflicts.
