What's in a title? The strategic use of metaphor and metonymy in "Some like it hot"

María del Rosario Caballero Rodríguez

doi:10.18172/jes.40

Authors

María del Rosario Caballero Rodríguez University Jaume I

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18172/jes.40

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to call attention upon the strategic and relevant use of the polysemous nature of language as it is instantiated in film titles such as the one in our discussion. The theoretical framework adopted in our analysis of the concept hot in our title is that of Cognitive Linguistics (Lakoff 1987; Langacker 1987), which explains polysemy in terms of conceptual organisation and categorisation. We defend that the cognitive approach to lexis as an array of semantic networks triggered by the words within them proves a useful explanation in solving a number of troublesome issues in the analysis of short texts like titles, namely the use of implicatures, polysemy, and the ambiguity usually resulting from both.

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