Dynamism in Metaphor and Beyond

Book excerpt: The last half century witnessed an upheaval in scientific investigation of human meaning-making and meaning-sharing. Dynamism in Metaphor and Beyond, is offered as a snapshot of the status of this multidisciplinary endeavor—a peak under the umbrella of what Cognitive Linguistics, Psycholinguistics, Figurative Language Studies and related fields have morphed into. This volume honors Raymond W. Gibbs, who played no small role in this upheaval. The themes and insights emerging from the chapters (i.e., among others, a need for account integration, a new appreciation of the dynamic nature of figurative [and all] meaning-making, a need for continued broadening of the communicative techniques in our studied topics, greater attention to emotion, a deepened appreciation of social motivations and psychological processes involved, etc.) may guide us in our continued grappling with meaning-making and meaning-sharing, via metaphor, through figurative language, and via other communicative phenomena associated with them.