WHAT METAPHORS MEAN

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Any theory of language ought to be able to account for and explain the semantics of not just the wide variety of literal utterances but also of those utterances used as figures of speech, of which metaphor is one of the most conspicuous. John Searle explains these tropes within Grice´s pragmatic theory of conversation and his own theory of speech acts, whereas Donald Davidson argues for a semantic treatment of metaphor that is consistent with his general theory of meaning. Both philosophers argue that in the utterance of a metaphor, the metaphorical sentence retains its literal meaning and that the literal meaning of the sentence must be understood in order for the metaphor to be understood. Both theories, however, fail to satisfactorily explain the semantics of non-literal utterances. On one hand we hold that the metaphorical meaning of an utterance is an instance of utterance occasion meaning an not timeless utterance meaning, discarding the semantic treatment of these tropes. On the other hand we argue that no pragmatic theory of metaphor can provide a sure way of determining the speaker meaning of these tropes but, on the contrary, because they are pragmatically based, that their meaning may remain hidden and that the fact that it does may remain hidden as well. On this count, rather than considering metaphors to be utterances that say this-or-that is the case, they should be looked at as an invitation to follow up a certain comparison. Consequently, the metaphorical meaning of an utterance is not subject to truth-conditions but is successful or not in a different dimension. Keywords: Metaphor, Meaning, Pragmatic theory of conversation