Meaning and Metaphor - Assignment 11 James Madison University

Instructions: Type or clearly write your answers to each of the following questions. [This assignment will be marked only as an acceptable or unacceptable effort.]

This assignment is your first, introductory use of the pragglejaz metaphor identification procedure on a text/discourse/corpus you intend to use in your project. Here are the basic guidelines:

1. Read a reasonably representative sample, constrained by size – eg. What would normally be about a half hour of reading (20-25 pages if contemporary prose, probably just several pages of poetry). Your partner may choose the same sample or a different one.
2. Chose a much smaller sample from the middle of that to then work with (maybe 300 words if prose, maybe 60-100 words if poetry).
3. Cross off all completely obvious literal meanings.
4. Underline all completely obvious metaphoric meanings.
5. Now start using the Pragglejaz MIP with the rest, considering just the nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs for now.
6. See how far you can get in one concentrated hour examining these words. Then spend about a half hour carefully writing up (for submission) all the questions you had and all the ambiguities you encountered, and also be prepared to compare notes with your partner, if you haven’t already done so, and to discuss what you find with the class.