Metonymies and Metaphors for Death Around the World

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1 Why not be direct about death?

1.2 Taboo, euphemism and dysphemism

1.3 Highlighting and hiding

1.4 Do metonymy and metaphor let us achieve a long-lasting backgrounding effect?

1.5 The structure of the book

1.6 Sources and methods

Chapter 2. Why have metonymies for death?

2.1 Types of metonymic relation

2.2 Why are part for whole and whole for part metonymies so important?

2.3 Why are part for whole and whole for part used to talk about death?

2.4 How do we select the source?

2.5 Conclusion

Chapter 3. How is the part for whole used to talk about death?

3.1 The initial stage

3.2 The central and post-central stage

3.3 The final stage

3.4 The post-final stage – the effect of death

3.5 Multiple part for whole metonymies

3.6 Part for whole in metaphor and blending

3.7 Form metonymy

3.8 Conclusion

Chapter 4. How is the whole for part used to talk about death?

4.1 Whole for part – euphemising death and dying

4.2 Whole for part and deliberately caused death

4.3 Whole for part and suicide

4.4 Whole for part in militarese and other specialised discourse genres

4.5 Whole for part – multiple levels of euphemism

4.6 Whole for part euphemisms for death-related concepts

4.3 Conclusion

Chapter 5. Why Use Metaphors for Death?

Chapter 6. The Death of Sleep

6.1 The experiential basis of death is sleep

6.2 The state of the ‘soul’ during death and sleep

6.3 Funerary customs that extend the correspondences between death and sleep

6.4 Dreams and the afterlife

6.5 Awakening and resurrection

6.6 The manifestations of the death is sleep metaphor

6.7 Examples of blending

6.8 Conclusion

Chapter 7. Darkness, night and winter

7.1 A lifetime is a fire

7.2 A lifetime is a year and a lifetime is a day

7.3 Blending

7.4 Conclusion

Chapter 8. The End of a Journey

8.1 The deceased are 'gone', but where did they 'go'?

8.2 The Source of the voyage in death is departure

8.3 'Going' to Heaven, eternity, or another Goal

8.4 How do we 'get there'? The Path in death is departure

8.5 When the body is a container

8.6 'Going to one’s grave' as a conceptual blend

8.7 Conclusion: To what extent are we all going together?

Chapter 9. Game Over

9.1 Death as a game/entertainment

9.2 Cultural frames in death is the end of a game/entertainment

9.3 Death as a player: A conceptual blend

9.4 The deceased as a player – a conceptual blend

9.5 Conclusion

Chapter 10. The Unseemly Sights and Sounds of Death

10.1 Position of the body

10.2 The sounds of life and death

10.3 Burial of the body

10.4 Funerary rites and artefacts

10.5 Manner of death

10.6 Processes of decay

10.7 Blending

10.8 Conclusion

Chapter 11. Conclusion

11.1 The hiding power of death metonymies

11.2 Near-universals in the human experience of death

References

Attributions

Biography

Wojciech Wachowski is Assistant Professor in the Institute of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

Karen Sullivan is a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Queensland, Australia.

"The title of this book should not deceive anyone. The book is much more, and much more important, than just an annotated collection of interesting metaphors and metonymies that deal with death in a large number of languages. It presents the reader with a coherent explanation of why the metaphors and metonymies, and the thought patterns that go with them, are both convergent and divergent around the world’s cultures. In reading the book, we learn about how we think about death, how our fears affect the way we think, and how we try to make this inevitable end-stage of human life acceptable to ourselves." - Zoltán Kövecses, Eötvös Loránd University

"As scholars of rhetoric situated in cognitive linguistic studies, we believe that this book is invaluable to humanities and social science scholars invested in cognitive linguistics, sociolinguistics, intercultural communication, and cultural studies, encouraging scholars to explore metaphorical and metonymical mechanisms in discourses across other cultures and to generate more insightful triumphs." - Shukang Li & Hailiang Yin (2023): Metonymies and metaphors for death
around the world, Studia Neophilologica

"Overall, this book provides a substantial insight into how most euphemisms and metaphors can take on a more subtle form and not only serve to replace a taboo, but can also be used by politicians to address specific issues in broader innocuous terms or in less threatening ways for the public."- Fang Zhu, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies,China