Contenu du sommaire : Nouvelles approches de la métaphore, sous la direction de Antoinette Balibar-Mrabti et Mirella Conenna

Metaphor: from definition to typology. The main point of this paper is that no consistent definition of metaphor can be at once general and adequate. If a definition is so broad as to include the whole set of metaphors, it simply circumscribes from outside a layered category without saying anything about the qualifying properties of the different kinds it includes. The alternative proposed is to combine a definition broad enough to include any kind of metaphor with a fine-grained typology isolating the main parameters whose variation defines the different kinds of metaphor. At this point, the relevant question is not the Socratic one - What is metaphor - but a question dealing with typicality - namely, What kind of metaphor valorizes at its best the potential of the figure?

The relativity of the concept of metaphor. By observing how native speakers use the word metaphor in a metalinguistic way, the present article tries to show that they refer to the same "object" referred to by linguists. Furthermore, this concept seems to be characterized by linguists as well as by native speakers through a deep "negative aspect", which, according to the author, is due to its scope as a phenomena of "deviation", based essentially on the negation of the deep meaning of words, that is of the linguistic or semantic value attached to words. Metaphor is in deed generally described as an "improper use" of words, where "sentence meaning" is given up for/replaced by "utterance meaning". But, as the author tries to show in a second part, against common believes metaphor is not in itself an "object", which would be, so to speak, really present in our languages. It is not, as such, a "phenomena", but a fact, i.e. it is depending on an observer and, furthermore, on a theoretical point of view on language. This point of view includes specific hypotheses concerning the nature of this even language, and more concretely, the nature of "meaning". If metaphor seems to correspond to a certain degree with reality in ordinary language, this is because of a powerful illusion at the heart of natural language, and of which every speaker seems a victim: the illusion that there is some kind of extra-linguistic reality behind our words and phrases. As a consequence, by avoiding both this "referential" illusion and this point of view the concept of metaphor is no longer necessary to describe meaning.

Predicative Metaphor and Nominal Motifs. Predicative Metaphor (e.g. Max is a lion) is commonly construed as a problem of conceptual rupture in a cognitive framework, even if many philosophers and semanticists have already criticized this view. This text aims at showing that, for explaining why such predications are usual, grammatical and, in some sense, coherent, we need a internally much more flexible conception both of lexical and grammatical (the predication) meanings. They should not be confused with an unique (categorial) dimension, but should integrate an open "motif" stratum, anticipating and mixing up all possible "thematic" instantiations of the meaning. This is both a linguistic and philosophical matter. that, for explaining why such predications are usual, grammatical and, in some sense, coherent, we need a internally much more flexible conception both of lexical and grammatical (the predication) meanings. They should not be confused with an unique (categorial) dimension, but should integrate an open "motif" stratum, anticipating and mixing up all possible "thematic" instantiations of the meaning. This is both a linguistic and philosophical matter.

Metaphor in proverbs. The authors try to confirm the idea that so-called metaphorical proverbs show the same characteristics as classical lexical metaphors. They thus apply a grid of metaphorical analysis to the interpretation of one specific proverb chosen as a typical case. They also study the synecdochical link between proverbial meaning and literal meaning, as displayed by several proverbs. They also study, to a certain extent, the problem of proverbs and metaphor in general.

Verbal Constructions and methaphorical uses. The Lexicon-Grammar, built at LADL, attemps to classify the syntactic structures of French and the set of relations which hold between them by means of the lexical elements which admit or exclude these syntactic structures. Thousands of French simple verbs have been classified, according to the syntactic structures of the sentences in which they may occur. They have been grouped within 60 syntactic tables. Each verbal entry in a table includes the structure of a "defining sentence", characterizing the particular use of the word which the entry relates to and the particular distribution of arguments that are involved. Constructions associated with this defining construction (specific distributions, substructures, metaphors, etc.) are taken into account in the description, and noted as properties of each particular entry. A verb has as many entries as it has uses that are judged to be distinct. In many cases, this distinction is difficult to establish. It depends on the answer to the question: does a variation in the distributional features of the argument create a different use, which deserves another entry, or is it a metaphor which can be noted as a property of the entry in question? This article tries to answer this question... and fails to do so.

Lexicography and Metaphor. The metaphorical verb classes in the dictionary "Les verbes français" of J. Dubois and F. Dubois-Charlier are presented. These classes are compared with the traitement of verbal metaphors in the lexicon-grammar of M. Gross. In both cases, the systematic coverage of metaphor and metonymy in rigorously defined sentence corpora is a part of the connections between lexicon and syntax made by the new discipline of computer lexicography. Because such metaphorical uses are incorporated in the dictionaries, they play a role in our culture insofar as norms and usage are concerned. Because such metaphorical uses are incorporated in the dictionaries, they play a role in our culture insofar as norms and usage are concerned.

Conceptual Integration and Extended Metaphor. In relation to the specific question of the metaphor, a comparison between two cognitive theories - the conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson 1986) and the conceptual integration theory (Fauconnier & Turner 1998) - is leading us to note their similarities but also a number of existing differences. Both of these two approaches share the idea that a metaphor is based on the initial severance of two entities (conceptual domains or mental spaces), which is to be resolved in a set of conceptual mappings. However, the conceptual integration puts in place a different formal structure which outlines the dynamic aspect of the problem. As a result, its explanatory capacity reaches the innovating metaphors and the extended metaphors, contrary to the conceptual metaphor theory which is often confined to the most generic conventional metaphors. We are illustrating this advantage of the conceptual integration with an example from the Doderer's novel. Such an example would allows us also to stress the importance of the optimality principles for the constitution of the integration network and in particular, of the blending space.