Metaphorical Discourse: in Search for the Essence of Speech Imagery

Abstract

The metaphorical discourse is interpreted by the authors as a specific type of figurative speech speculation, which transforms the subject or sign information into figurative representations. It is justified that the semantic core of metaphorical discourse is the concept as an operational unit of commonplace (naive) consciousness. There is a study of the question upon the development of meanings in images and in verbal iconic signs. The mechanisms of synergy of these phenomena are revealed which arise through interiorization of the objective meanings that generate meaning-images and exteriorization of the verbalized meaning-images that produce cognitive metaphors – mental substratum of the semiosis of speech imagery. It is proved that the components of such linguistic semiosis that transforms a thought-code into a language of words are the processes of activity consciousness: acts of metaphorical nomination, search for the inner form of a secondary nominee, semantization, connotation, etc. It has been revealed that such processes of activity consciousness, responsible for speech speculation on the verge of the verbal and the averbal, constitute the essence of discursive consciousness. The results of the analysis showed that it is responsible for all the basic text-generating processes that are formed on the linguistic and extra-linguistic borders: a) for the search for meaning and its verbalization; b) for the development of meaning in images (including verbal iconic signs); c) for the search for equivalents of object-sensual images – to metaphorical ones; d) for the discursive activity of subjects of imagery communication (the author and the reader) whose linguistic consciousnesses directly participate in the generation and perception (understanding) of meaning in general and the personal meaning born in the depths of metaphorical discourse in particular.