Theoretically and empirically investigating the indeterminacy of metaphor

• Autor(a) principal: Moura, Heronides
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Outros Autores: Zanotto, Mara Sophia
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Gragoatá
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.uff.br/gragoata/article/view/33122
• topic: Metaphor. Inteterminacy. Polisemy. Reading. Paraphrase; Metáfora. Indeterminação. Polissemia. Leitura. Paráfrase

In this paper, it is argued that there is no per­fect paraphrase for a metaphorical statement. The metaphor is seen as indeterminate and it is observed that this aspect has not been investigated extensively by metaphor scholars. To show the me­taphor indeterminacy, an empirical investigation has been carried out, with qualitative methodology, by having students thinking aloud in group about a poem. The conclusions of the investigation are that the metaphorical statement inherits part of the literal indeterminacy of the words that are the metaphor vehicle and that metaphor is not a specific case of indeterminacy, but it behaves sometimes as a kind of indeterminacy (e.g., polysemy), sometimes as another kind of indeterminacy (e.g., ambiguity).