Personification in discourse: Linguistic forms, conceptual structures and communicative functions

Abstract

Drawing on examples from a corpus of 14 excerpts from novels, this article aims to present a systematic investigation of the different linguistic forms, conceptual structures and communicative functions of personification in discourse. The Metaphor Identification Procedure (Pragglejaz Group, 2007) and Steen’s five-step procedure (1999, 2009) will be used to present an integral model distinguishing between linguistic, conceptual, and communicative levels of analysis. The influence of linguistic realization, conventionality, deliberateness, metonymy, and stylistic effects will be considered and it will be demonstrated that studying personifications in discourse raises different issues at each level of analysis. As a result, the question whether something should count as a personification may yield a different answer for each level.