Some Aspects and Models of Metaphor Understanding

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to show that each model of metaphor understanding focuses on different aspects of metaphor understanding. The standard pragmatic model best explains aspects of metaphor recognition, the domains interaction model best explains metaphor appreciation, the salience imbalance and structure mapping models best account for metaphor interpretation, and the attributive categorization and the conceptual metaphor models best account for metaphor comprehension. Therefore I suggest that if these models could cooperate and complement each other rather than compete, we would have more complete models of metaphor understanding.