Figures of speech in cognitive semantics

Abstract EN

This study is an attempt to investigate a range of figures of speech by taking a series of examples of from Shaw’s ‘Man and Superman’ to be analysed under cognitive semantic theory of Mental Spaces.

The study aims to provide a counter argument that dramatic language can equally be examined with reference to linguistic structures just like everyday language.

The study also makes the counter claim that the figures of speech do have value outside literature, as they are not only literary tools in literature, but they are primarily linguistic tools for meaning construction.

It is realised that these devices are expanded from their linguistic function to also fulfill the literary ones.

This is because these literary devices enable the language users to firstly conceptually construct meaning in mind via spaces creation and connection that comprise information as their elements, and then these information realised in words in communication.