Semino Elena, Demjén Zsófia (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Metaphor and Language

Routledge, 2017. — 560 p. Over the last two decades, there has been increasing recognition of the need for and valueof investigating metaphor in language, from the lexicon to authentic discourse from many sources. This refocusing on language has resulted in major advances in our understanding of metaphor in communication, cognition and culture: it has inspired the development of new theoretical approaches; it has led to improved and more reliable methods of investigation; it has highlighted how metaphor varies in different registers and genres; it has shown the importance of considering how verbal metaphors interact with metaphors in other modes; it has enabled new ways of assessing attitudes and ideologies embedded in different types
of communication; it has led to new insights into language development (both phylogenetic and ontogenetic) and into second/foreign language learning; and it has illuminated some of the ways and circumstances in which metaphors can be helpful or harmful. It is these developments, insights and threads that this new handbook draws together.The chapters in The Routledge Handbook of Metaphor and Language are divided into
six parts:
I. Theoretical approaches to metaphor and language
II. Methodological approaches to metaphor and language
III. Formal variation of metaphor in language
IV. Functional variation of metaphor in language
V. Applications and interventions: using metaphor for problem solving
VI. Language, metaphor, and cognitive development.
The handbook is then rounded off by a (self-)reflexive epilogue on metaphors for language and communication.