NEW
WS RELEASE
Embargooed for releasse until: Decc 10, 2010
Contact: Alyson Reeed, LSA Execcutive Direcctor
areed@lssadc.org; 202
2-835-1714
Siign Languagges help us understand
u
thhe nature of metaphors
m
(Washinggton, DC) – A recent stuudy of the usse of metaphhors in spokeen language and
a various sign
languagees shows thatt certain typees of metaphhors are diffi
ficult to convvey in sign laanguage. The
study, “Icconicity and
d metaphor: Constraints
C
o metaphorrical extensioon of iconic forms,” to be
on
b
publishedd in the Deceember 2010 issue of the scholarly joournal Languuage, is authhored by Irit Meir
of the Unniversity of Haifa.
H
A preprint versionn is availablee on line at:
http://lsadc.org/info/d
documents/22010/press-releases/meirr.pdf.
s
new ligght on the innterrelations between two notions thaat play an
Dr. Meir’s research sheds
importannt role in lang
guage and coommunicatioon, iconicityy and metaphhor. This stuudy shows thhat
the iconiccity of a form
m may consttrain the posssible metaphhorical extennsions that thhe form migght
take. Putt another waay, certain metaphorical
m
expressions in spoken laanguage cannnot be
“translateed directly” into sign lannguage if theeir form is icconic.
n
languages, with riich and compplex gramm
matical structuures and
Sign langguages are natural
lexicons. Sign languaages have ricch use of meetaphors. Buut quite oftenn, when tryinng to translatte
oken language to a sign language, we
w find that itt is impossibble to use thee
metaphorrs from a spo
same words. For exam
mple, it is im
mpossible to use the signn FLY (in Isrraeli Sign Laanguage andd
Americann Sign Lang
guage) in the expression "time flies" or "the day just
j flew by"". The
metaphorrical uses off a word suchh as FLY aree impossiblee because of the form of this sign, in
particularr, its iconicitty. The sign for FLY is produced
p
byy moving thee arms as if flapping
f
one's
wings. But in the exp
pression "tim
me flies", we do not meann that time is flapping its wings. Ratther,
the metapphor is built on an implication of thee action of fllying, namelly that it is a very fast waay of
motion. So
S there is a clash betweeen what the form of the sign encodees (wing flappping) and thhe
aspect off meaning on
n which the metaphor
m
is built (fast movement).
m
m
u is not poossible. The meaning com
use
mponents
When such a clash occcurs, the metaphorical
reflected by the form
m of the (iconnic) verb andd the meaninng componennt which servves as the baasis
u should be congruent. If they are not, then thee sign cannoot be used forr the
for its meetaphorical use
specific metaphorica
m
al use in quesstion. Iconic signs, then, are more reestricted in thhe metaphorical
extensions they can undergo than non-iconic signs, because their form is not arbitrary. The
effects of iconicity on metaphors are much more salient in signed languages, because of their
better ability to express many concepts in an iconic way. Sign languages, then, are instrumental
in getting better understanding of metaphors and the forces that shape them.
###
The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) publishes the peer-reviewed journal, Language, four times per
year. The LSA is the largest national professional society representing the field of linguistics. Its mission
is to advance the scientific study of language.