"Sorry I'm not feeling myself today": The metaphor system in poetry

It has been observed that in persuasive language and by the term 'persuasive' encompassing genres such as politics, ads, literary texts and most of all poetry the metaphorical system is dominant.


In post-modern works; for instance in Oslon, Cage, Duncan, Bukowski, Owen, Palmer, Davidson, Bernstein, Pulmer, North, Trinidad and in many others the loss of self metaphor is juxtaposed and embedded. The self is regarded as the totality of facts and things. Facts refer to state of affairs, situations, experience and things to more objective entities such as the human body in itself (especially the female one). 


From a linguistic aspect- or to put it better from a more Cognitive view the metaphor lies on the embodiment condition. With respect to this, language shapes meaning and meaning shapes feelings and emotions. In virtue of emotive language the metaphor and especially the loss of self metaphor is used as the vehicle for expression. 


A person is presented as a dual entity.It is understood as a group of entities: the Subject & the Self. This distinction is applied on the basis of conceptualizing a holistic system of experiences (such as imagining ourselves as being someone else).—A person is the totality of Subject and Self. The experiencing consciousness is the Subject. The bodily and functional aspects constitute the Self due to a spatial relationship between Subject & Self. Hence,the metaphor is a way of conceptualizing a wide range of real experiences both positive & negative. The conceptualization of conscious control in terms of Self & Subject presupposes that the Subject possesses and controls the Self. If control is lost, possession is also lost.

Do we always speak of what we mean? Evidence from Reference

Do we always speak of what we mean? Do we always use reference in order to denote meaning and how can we really define its counterparts? Language can be ‘misleading’ in certain cases since not all referring expressions necessarily convey reference. Definite descriptions, deictics, generics, indexicals, proper names etc., should not be regarded as simple cases of referring expressions as their meaning goes beyond the utterance they occur. Their reference is shaped both by the intention of the speaker and the way the audience makes the identification with what is being referred. Non-referring is not restricted only to the attributive, or equative use of referring expressions. This paper will follow a more critical approach concerning (non)reference and examples will be drawn from newspaper articles, political speeches and advertisements; (non)reference will be considered as the interrelation of the situation derived from a particular context, on the basis of who, to whom, why, when, where and how norms of interaction, interpretation and genres are used.

References:

Bach, K. (1987): Thought and Reference. Oxford: Clarendon P.

Bloomaert, J. (2005): Discourse. New York: Cambridge UP.

Cruse, A. (2004): Meaning in Language, “Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics”. Series eds. Keith Brown,

Eve V. Clark, April Mc Mahon, Jim Miller & Lesley Milroy. Oxford: Oxford UP.

Donnellan, K. (1966): “Reference and Definite Descriptions”. Philosophical Review. 75: 281-304.

Eikmeyer, H. & Rieser, H. Ed. (1981): Meanings, Intentions and Stereotypes, “Words, Worlds and

Contexts.” Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter. 133-150.

Kitis, E. (2009-10): “Semantics”. Thessaloniki: Aristotle UP.

Kitis, E. (MS): Deixis. Thessaloniki: Aristotle UP.

Kripke, S. (1972): “Naming and Necessity”. In Semantics for natural language, eds. Donald Davidson

and Gilbert Harman. Dordrecht: Reidel. 253-355 and 763-9.

Lyons, C. (1999): Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

The paper was presented in the 20th International Symposium of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics.

To my supervisors -professors for their guidance, my colleagues for the support  and most of all to despoina for her encouragement...