ABSTRACT
The most active kinds of metaphors demand considerable interpretative work besides the decoding of their semantics. Semantic decoding will simply give us the Vehicle concept. To establish the Topic-what the V-term is referring toand to explore the Grounds-the Similarities or Analogies on which the metaphor is based-we must employ mental processes beyond those of decoding. In terms of Figure 5.1, metaphorical understanding depends on the processes and principles involved in the interplay between (1), (2) and (3). (1), knowledge of the language, will give us the output of decoding. To add to this we draw on knowledge which we acquire from (2), the surrounding text, and the physical and social situation in which the text is produced. And we also factor in (3), background knowledge about the world, and the society of our language community. The area of linguistics concerned with the inferential principles and processes needed to complement decoding is Pragmatics, and Relevance Theory provides a coherent general explanation of metaphorical interpretation. So in the first half of this chapter I give a sketch of Sperber and Wilson’s (1986) theory and suggest how it can be usefully modified to provide a more comprehensive account.
