In this ambitious and wide-ranging book, Andrew Goatly looks at how we use metaphor to communicate meaning. Combining insights from functional linguistics and relevance theory, he provides a powerful model for understanding how metaphors work in real communicative situations, how we use them to communicate meaning and how we process them.

Drawing on substantial linguistic corpora including literary works by William Golding, TS Eliot, Ezra Pound, George Eliot and AS Byatt, articles from national newspapers and extracts from popular and advertising culture, this book:

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In this ambitious and wide-ranging book, Andrew Goatly looks at how we use metaphor to communicate meaning. Combining insights from functional linguistics and relevance theory, he provides a powerful model for understanding how metaphors work in real communicative situations, how we use them to communicate meaning and how we process them.

Drawing on substantial linguistic corpora including literary works by William Golding, TS Eliot, Ezra Pound, George Eliot and AS Byatt, articles from national newspapers and extracts from popular and advertising culture, this book:

...

How are humorous meanings generated and interpreted? Understanding a joke involves knowledge of the language code (a matter mostly of semantics) and background knowledge necessary for making the inferences to get the joke (a matter of pragmatics). This book introduces and critiques a wide range of semantic and pragmatic theories in relation to humour, such as systemic functional linguistics, speech acts, politeness and relevance theory, emphasising not only conceptual but also interpersonal and textual meanings. Exploiting recent corpus-based research, it suggests that much humour can be...