On Our Mind
Salience, Context, and Figurative Language
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:5th Jun '03
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
How do we learn to produce and comprehend non-literal language? Competing theories have only partially accounted for the variety of language comprehension evoked in metaphor, irony, and jokes. Rachel Giora has developed a novel and comprehensive theory, the Graded Salience Hypothesis, to explain figuative language comprehension. Giora contends that the salience of meanings (i.e., the cognitive priority we ascribe to words encoded in our mental lexicon) has the primary role in language comprehension and production.
She has single-handedly lifted a current paradigm out of its hinges and placed it on a new footing, .. despite the many technical explanations, the book is easy to read and the experiments are easy to follow. The well-argued plausibility of Giora's model is at least an eye-opener, if not a refreshing alternative, for people subscribing to different paradigms and who are being helped not least by the pleasant lightheartedness which is an overall positive feature of Giora's book, making it a good read, even for non-professionals. * J.L.Mey, Lingua *
ISBN: 9780195136166
Dimensions: 157mm x 236mm x 31mm
Weight: 526g
272 pages