Showing papers in "Jezikoslovlje in 2007"

Conceptual Integration Theory – the key for unlocking the internal cognitive choreography of idiom modification

Abstract: The paper represents an attempt to reveal the internal choreography of idiom modification. It is argued that modified idiomatic expressions can be explained using the postulates of the Conceptual Integration Theory. Optimality principles and vital relations, proposed by Fauconnier and Turner, clarify and regulate the relations within the conceptual integration network. The main aim of this paper is to analyze the extent to which vital relations and optimality principles at work in conceptual integration can account for mechanisms of idiom modification.

Pragmatic properties of idiom modifications in the language of advertising

Abstract: The language of print advertising abounds with pragmatically-motivated phraseological units (PUs) such as: idioms, metaphors, slogans, proverbs, etc. In order to draw the reader’s attention, advertisers exploit the pragmatic potential of PUs. The paper explores the various interpretations of meaning as well as the use of idiom modifications (as a group of PUs) in the advertising discourse, primarily via pragmatic devices such as presuppositions and implicatures.

Jedan mogući teorijski model pristupa analizi jezičnoga posuđivanja

Abstract: The present paper discusses the process of linguistic borrowing and adaptation of foreign words to the rules of Croatian. The process is analysed on the examples of borrowings from English. Earlier studies of this process and linguistic changes in general are critically analysed within the context of the theory of radial categories and concepts of encyclopedic knowledge (whose methodological apparatus provides a detailed description of the course and logic of linguistic borrowing). A new model for the analysis of linguistic borrowing is proposed. This model, on the one hand, integrates the results of earlier studies of this phenomenon and presents them in the light of their mutual interdependence, and on the other hand, offers an integral insight into the nature and course of linguistic borrowing. Earlier attempts studied only individual aspects of linguistic borrowing and did not provide a complete insight into the whole process. On the basis of the proposed model some general conclusions about the nature of two basic approaches to interrelations of lexic and norm (puristic and functional), as well as some principles of lexical normativity can be made, if we abandon somewhat paradoxical notion of lexical norm due to the direct interdependence of linguistic borrowing and extralinguistic reality.

The Michael Jackson of two or three noses ago and the Michael Jackson of today – multiple personalities or conceptual metonymy?

Abstract: The paper deals with the construction of the figurative meaning of personal names in expressions of the type the X of Y, in which X is a personal name designating humans and Y designates a temporal period. Such expressions, used in connection with the original bearer of the name, are considered to be instances of partitive restrictive modification. Applying the findings of Barcelona (2003, 2004) and Brdar and Brdar-Szabó (2007) concerning the figurative meaning of personal names, the paper illustrates that the ENTITY FOR ACTIVE ZONE metonymy is an essential tool in explaining how the figurative meaning of personal names arises in expressions of this type. As a result of partitive restrictive modification, the original bearer of the personal name is figuratively split into distinct individuals due to the ENTITY FOR ACTIVE ZONE metonymy.