Rhetoric and pragmatics: the classical roots of the notion of implicature
Three basic terms of ancient rhetoric – enthymeme, trope, and figure of thought – are examined in this article as being in close connection with Gricean implicature. The discussion starts by reviewing some conceptions on the relationship between pragmatics and rhetoric, followed by an outline of Grice’s notion. It is emphasized that pragmaticists need to be aware that classical rhetoric described a good many phenomena on empirical grounds which manifest themselves not only in public speeches but in naturally occurring discourse as well. Although tropes have been commented on extensively, figures of thought are definitely understudied in pragmatic theories (with a few exceptions such as simile and interrogation). The author demonstrates that many figures of thought can be reconsidered as conveying a conversational implicature, either a thought or an attitude towards the hearers, while the rest of them seem to be simple narrative or argumentative strategies. It is difficult to assess, however, the similarity of enthymeme to implicature because of the uncertain definition of the former inherited from Aristotle. As a link between rhetoric and pragmatics, the two notions are proposed to complement each other: enthymemes have one or more missing premises, whereas in case of an implicature it is the conclusion which remains unexpressed. Taking this view, all types of implicit meanings (e.g., presuppositions, implicitures, generalized conversational implicatures) require a thorough investigation in order to make clearer the distinction between what is said by a sentence and what is implicated by an utterance of that sentence, that is, between semantics and pragmatics.
Keywords: pragmatics, Grice, implicature, rhetoric, enthymeme, trope, figures of speech, figures of thought.
Nyelv és stílus
Metaphor comprehension and/or sentence comprehension: The poetic role of metaphor
The way metaphors work in lyrical poetry is discussed in the present paper in a cognitive linguistics framework. Following a general introduction to the concept of metaphor, Emily Dickinson’s „Safe in their Alabaster Chambers” is analysed. The poem involves a complex system of metaphors closely connected with the concept of death. The starting point for a literary metaphor is an everyday metaphor; however, it is represented differently in terms of the way it works and its aesthetic function. This paper could be a starting point for further research given that metaphors in poetry can be given a comparative analysis across ages and cultures
Keywords: cognitive linguistics, metaphor, lyric, blend, sentence
Time reference in proverbs
The results of this study of the temporal structure of proverbs occurring as quotations in various speech situations are in harmony with the claim of functional cognitive linguistics that the primacy of meaning is underpinned by form. The author assumes that the structure of proverbs has certain peculiarities that underlie our shared knowledge concerning proverbs in general. The various kinds of time reference used by Hungarian at large are contrasted with those found in proverbs: external time reference, means of expressing the functional semantic category of temporality, as well as deixis and the lack of prototypical occurrence of deixis are all investigated. It is confirmed that speakers’ way of thinking, the linguistic function of proverbs, and the linguistic form of the type of phrasemes under study are interlinked.
Keywords: proverb, quotation, intertextuality, time reference, speech time, event time, reference time, internal time, deixis
A nyelvtudomány műhelyéből
Referential cohesion and translation universals: shifts of reference in Hungarian–English news translations
It is an important issue in media translation how faithful the translation should be to the source language text. Within the general area of news translation, a number of researchers have studied the strategies involved in translating news items, yet we know little about how they relate to the specific text production norms accompanying the process of translation. This paper investigates target language correspondents of reference, a crucial factor of text interpretation, with respect to the language pair Hungarian and English. We intend to explore the role of systemic differences between languages vs. individual features of the kind of translation (news translation) and of the genre investigated (news text) in the referential shifts. The results show that, although shifts of referential cohesion can be identified in translations of news items, the differences between source texts and their the translations are statistically not significant. Rather, there are shifts in the quality of referential items, in a way that in the target language text either the type or the place of reference is changed. With respect to translation universals, the data suggest that, in the translations of news texts, the explicitation hypothesis can be justified in individual components of the event structure, but the repetition avoidance hypothesis does not apply. It is worth noting that optional referential shifts can be identified in the translation of sentences having a special discourse function and of key components of the event structure, serving a more explicit transmission of the news content. All this supports the claim that, although the rendering of reference in the target language is a grammatical operation, and as such it is mostly compulsory and automatic, its study is justified since it depends on characteristics of the linguistic system and the actual genre.
Keywords: news translation, news texts, event structure, cohesion, reference, shifts
The progressive aspect in Hungarian
The present study examines aspect from a functional cognitive linguistic point of view with special attention to the conceptualisation of different aspectual notions. It is argued in the article that the aspectual view of a given situation is a result of construing, but how this can be achieved can vary from language to language. In Hungarian, unlike in English, the progressive aspect does not form a central category of the aspectual system. Although the concept of being in the middle of a process can be expressed in special Hungarian constructions as well, it does not have a definite, grammaticalised marker because the basic aspectual distinction lies between the imperfective and the perfective view of situations. In Hungarian the simple form of the verbs in most of the cases expresses imperfective situation and by the elaboration of a natural endpoint of the event the situations can be viewed in a perfective way. It is also pointed out that the aspectually relevant semantic elaboration of the situations is significantly affected by the event schemes entailed in the verbs. With the help of the typical progressive construction, in which perfective events can also appear, some important features of the workings of the aspectual construing of the Hungarian language are highlighted.
Keywords: functional cognitive linguistics, linguistic construal, conceptualisation of aspectual notions, progressive aspect, aspectual potential
Hypernym, hyponym – meaning of pronouns
The author presents the typical meaning of hypernyms, hyponyms and pronouns. Finally, he comes to the conclusion that the Hungarian word ember ’man’ is a hypernym but not a pronoun.
Keywords: pronoun, pronominal meaning
On interdisciplinary relationships between linguistics and Library and Information Science
There are a substantial number of interdisciplinary connections between linguistics and library activities with their underlying discipline, Library and Information Science (LIS). The latter is often regarded as a type of applied linguistics. The common denominator between the two disciplines is that both are interested in the study of text. Meanwhile the prevalence of digital media results in an the abundance of post-typographic forms of text production that requires new literacies. If we regard it to be a documentary analysis of texts, LIS has a cognitive paradigm and the methods of semiotic textology can be utilized in it. One of the central categories of LIS is the document, the delimitation of which can be handled by linguistic means. LIS is interested in the study of relevance with an evident relationship to Sperber and Wilson’s relevance theory. The most important connection between linguistics and LIS can be discovered in the need of representations of textual content, meaning, sense and knowledge, like indexes and abstracts.
Keywords: interdisciplinarity, library and information science, textual linguistics
Szó- és szólásmagyarázatok
Szemle