ABSTRACT

Metaphoric expressions break from predetermined meanings in a way that invites interlocutors to participate in the creation of language; this invitation is eminently suited to facilitate development and which renders human linguisticity an exemplary open system of constructions. So it is unaccountable that this open sort of language tends to be ignored in our scholarly inquiries. One may for instance wonder what the infancy, parenting, and ultimate senescence of humans would be like in the absence of just that non-literal language that metaphorical concerns try to explore.1 Paradoxically, birth, reproduction and death in the human species would not be truly human with the sole aid of the sort of language focused upon by the majority of linguistic studies; continually confronted with that sort of language a human infant would hardly develop, or else might ‘evolve’ into a sad imitation of a human.