Work

Chapter 2. Construing and constructing hyperbole

Year: 2017
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: Hyperbole has received little attention in Cognitive Linguistics, while studies within psychology and pragmatics leave aside its representational aspects. To fill this gap, this chapter looks into linguistic evidence of the cognitive operations that underlie its communicative impact. Following up on recent research on figurative thought in terms of cross-domain mappings (e.g. Ruiz de Mendoza 2014), this chapter provides further evidence for an analysis of hyperbole in such terms. It offers a critical account of existing taxonomies of this phenomenon, argues for a twofold distinction between inference-based and constructional hyperbole, and discusses the usually hyperbolic X is not Y but Z and ‘God-related’ constructions. Finally, the chapter contends that hyperbole is regulated by the joint activity of two sets of constraints.
Language: English
Field: Psychology
Open Access status: green
Award: G880959601
OpenAlex ID: W2606461897
FWCI: 6.775
Cites: 69
Cited by: 47
Related to: 10