Conventional and novel metaphors in language

Metaphor drives innovation in language. New meanings are not necessarily metaphorical, but metaphor provides the grounds for new referents to be identified using old words. In the discussion of conventional and novel metaphor in this chapter, novelty is measured with reference to the conventional. The conventions of our language and how it allows us to express concepts are a constraining factor in linguistic creativity. It is important to appreciate this before venturing into the study of novel metaphors, because although metaphor allows us to stretch the meanings of words so that they can also refer to new things, it is subject to the same rules and norms as any other aspect of the language. In the course of this chapter, we focus on metaphor as expressed through linguistic forms, and how conventionality and novelty can be identified using linguistic parameters. We first look at some of the theoretical debates surrounding cognitive versus linguistic accounts of metaphor (section 2) then discuss what is meant by ‘conventional’ or ‘novel’ in the context of metaphor, how we can measure degrees of novelty, and how novel linguistic forms and novel concepts interact (section 3). To finish up, two short case studies are provided in section 4 to illustrate recent research into novel metaphor.