Exploring metaphor, metonymy and subjectification in Cantonese slang

Abstract

This presentation will focus on the notions of metaphorisation, metonymisation and (inter)subjectification as they operate in one domain of Cantonese lexicon, viz, slang expressions. The primary concern is with the pragmatic properties of these expressions in contemporary spoken Cantonese. I will argue that the source meaning of these expressions has undergone what Traugott (1989, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2003, 2007a, 2007b, 2010) calls metaphorisation/metonymisation, and this process of semantic change has been accompanied by the development of pragmatic, interpersonal, speaker-based image schemata (inter(subjectification)). What emerges from the current study is a comprehensive picture of lexical items from a literal domain being used with a non-literal meaning that could be attributed to a body-mind mapping. It seems that conceptual metaphor theory has been able to provide a convincing explanation for why two distinct semantic fields can be seen as the realisation of a conceptual metaphor that connects the two domains at the level of thought in general, and offer a predictive framework for the metaphorisation of semantic meaning in Cantonese slang words in particular. The current study makes a contribution to Traugott and Dasher’s (2002) hypothesis that nonsubjective meanings are often recruited to express and regulate beliefs and attitudes and become more subjective and even intersubjective. Although the use of metaphoric, extended meanings of slang words appears to be on the rise, it is to be expected that the older meanings survive alongside the newer ones as polysemes and the older generation is largely immune to it. Further research can perhaps explore the extent to which slang words and colloquial phrases have infiltrated across different sectors of the language community and the effect this has on the prototypicality of meaning in the Cantonese lexicon.