Metaphor and Metonymy in Food Idioms

In recent decades, the development of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, put forward by Lakoff and other scholars. In this light, metaphor and metonymy have been found to provide a semantic motivation for a considerable number of idiomatic expressions. Within this framework, the present contribution ex...

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Bibliographic Details
Author: Negro Alousque, Isabel
Format: article
Publication Date:2019
Country:España
Institution:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repository:Docta Complutense
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/12398
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/12398
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Food
idiom
metaphor
metonymy
Lingüística
57 Lingüística
Description
Summary:In recent decades, the development of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, put forward by Lakoff and other scholars. In this light, metaphor and metonymy have been found to provide a semantic motivation for a considerable number of idiomatic expressions. Within this framework, the present contribution explores the cognitive motivation of food idioms in English (e.g., ‘be a cup of tea,’ ‘bread and butter,’ ‘walking on eggshells’) and Spanish (e.g., darse pisto, tener mala uva, cortar el bacalao). The analysis reveals that idiomatic meaning often relies on metaphoric amalgams and metonymic chains, or on the interaction between metaphor and metonymy.