Book Review on The Extent of the Literal：Metaphor，Polysemy and Theories of Concepts

Abstract：The book The Extent of the Literal：Metaphor， Polysemy and Theories of Concepts mainly studies the relationship between words， meaning， concept and the relationship between them. For the book report， I will give a brief introduction of the book contents firstly， and then I will mainly make some comments on this book.

Key words：Metaphor； Polysemy； Theories of concept； Review； Comments

1. Introduction

This book was published by Palgrave Macmillan company in 2003. The author of this book is M. Rakova. She comes from Briton. There are eleven chapters in this book. It is a book about semantics and cognitive linguistics.

2.About the Book

（1）Main Points of the Contents

Aut2hor provides an overview of some “classical” metaphor theory in first chapter， discusses several popular views about the distinction between literal meaning of a metaphor meaning. Constructing concept by means of metaphor has attracted criticism from many psychologists， philosophers and linguists， because they found that only those domain that we are familiar with can be built through the metaphor. （Rakova， 2003：24）

The third chapter relates to describe the ambiguity of word “hot”. The authors cited the evidence from Berlin Brent and Kay Pauls （1969） results of the study of basic color terms. Based on cross language evidence， the authors states that the opinion of regarding the physiological significance of the double functional adjectives as a metaphorical meaning is totally wrong. In the sixth chapter， the author continues the same topic： double function terms. The seventh chapter is very short. It just like a link between the empirical research and theoretical exploration. According to the author， Sweetsers “mind as body metaphor” is still not very satisfactory. For this theory cannot explain the specific condition of the concept of the association-perception adjectives and double functional adjectives. In the ninth chapter， the author discusses the controversy between Jackendof， James Pustejovsky， and Jerry Fodor. The tenth chapter elaborates the non-polysemy view of conceptual structure.

（2）A Short Conclusion

The author admits that the main purpose of this book is to explore the relationship between words， meaning， concept and the relationship between them； he wants to express that the literal meaning or non metaphorical meaning of the language is more. The author thinks that the concept is not the meaning. The concept is connection to connect ourselves and the mental entities of outside world， specifically manifested as a systematic combination of perception and physic.

3.My View Points of the Book

（1）Strong Point of the Book

Firstly， I have to say that the viewpoint of this book is relative novel. At the beginning of the study， Rakova analyzed some problems exists in the study of metaphor. Although she did not mentioned Aristotle， but she made an overview of some of the representative metaphor theory in twentieth Century. She wants to show that many metaphor theories which usually appear to be different， have a lot of similarity.

Secondly， the perspective of this book is unique. If we only demonstrate a certain of phenomenon in a language system， it is bound to lead to a circular argument. To get rid of this circular， we must go to the outside of the language to find justifications. In fact， this is a common proposition of functional linguistics and cognitive linguistics. In this book， Rakova did not illustrate the problem only in the field of linguistic study， but through a lot of experimental data of neurophysiology and psychology to support her view. For example， she support the results of Berlin and Kay through the results of their study on basic color terms.

（2）Shortcomings of the Book

There are some shortcomings in this book. On the one hand， the authors acknowledge the revolutionary charcter of Lakoff and Johnsons theory. On the other hand， she maintains that the study of metaphor in cognitive linguistics is only a continuation of the traditional of metaphor theory. She thinks that the common point of them lies in the polysemy； The author mentioned that a word only a literal meaning， namely， the primary meaning， and the other meaning belongs to the metaphorical meaning or derived meaning. In fact， there is a large difference between the traditional metaphor study and the metaphor study in cognitive linguistics. Langacker （1991） argued that the relation among various meaning of polysemy is not arbitrary but develop through specific semantic extension mechanism. Each kind of relation is always rational.

【References】

[1] George Lakoff &Mark Johnson . Metaphors We Live By. Chicago： The University of Chicago Press， 1980.

[2] M. Rakova. The Extent of the Literal：Metaphor， Polysemy and Theories of Concepts. Beijing： Peking University Press， 2003.

【作者簡介】

刘亚玲（1990—），女，甘肃省兰州市人，研究生学历，单位：兰州交通大学，主要研究方向：外国语言学及应用语言学。