Linguistic Traditions Research Articles

Philology as a systematic method of documentation and its application to the study of Constança Capdeville’s musical works

The advent of new music technologies has led to a rapid growth of the audio preservation field. Music is not independent of its medium, and this growing loss of independence calls for a transdisciplinary approach with a strong technological component. Musical compositions created in the second half of the twentieth century exist in the intersection of technology, embodiment, and sound and thus widen the importance of aspects such as human and non-human interactions. This article will reflect on these issues and how they reframe (digital) philology methods through the works of Constança Capdeville. The works by this seminal artist are accompanied by an extensive archive that includes scores, recorded sounds, video and images, among other documents. It will be demonstrated how a reflexive approach to digital philology can bring concealed archival stories to light while fostering new meanings on what it means to preserve our sound heritage. Resource optimisation is one of the reasons methods of traditional philology are particularly useful for the preservation of contemporary musical heritage. Today the amount of information is excessive, and categorisation and organisation are complex. Most information exists in the form of digitised documents, that comply with certain requirements traditionally applied to secular paper registers while assessing qualities such as reliability and authenticity. Traditional philology approaches framed around these qualities are insufficient for born-digital documents. A reflexive approach to digital philology, focussed both on the creation of digital resources (from digitalisation to cataloguing) and the criticism of digital sources, as a solution the digital treatment of documents is proposed. A comparative approach will be used to understand in what ways digital and analogue media intertwine in the forms we think, reflect, historicise, and preserve our sound archives, and how we make visible aspects that were previously concealed through new forms of categorising and digitising documents.

CONTRIBUTIONS OF AMERICAN DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTIC SCHOOL TO THE STUDY OF VIETNAMESE: A CONTEMPORARY LOOK

This article examines the contributions of the American descriptive linguistic school in the mid-20th century to the study of Vietnamese. Two most important monographs on Vietnamese grammar by two foremost American descriptivist/structuralist grammarians were taken for examination: Studies in Vietnamese (Annamese) Grammar by Murray B. Emeneau and A Vietnamese Reference Grammar by Laurence C. Thompson. It is clear that among the foreign scholars who have studied Vietnamese, Emeneau and Thompson have made the most substantial contributions to the study of Vietnamese grammar. They both have made a major point in seeking to analyse Vietnamese on the basis of Vietnamese alone, trying to avoid as much as possible any distortion from Indo-European grammatical concepts; and thus have produced good and reliable results. Their descriptive works on Vietnamese are detailed and systematic, meeting most of the criteria of a standard grammar: meticulousness, comprehensiveness, lucidity, rigor, and elegance. Together with the studies of Vietnamese grammar by grammarians of other linguistic traditions, either indigenous or foreign, their works have enriched our ways of looking at language, broadening our understanding of one of the most fruitful approaches to the study of Vietnamese grammar.

Diatopia, competenze passive e didattica della L2: Riflessioni teoriche e proposta di descrittori. I casi dello spagnolo (ELE) e del francese (FLE)

Spanish and French are both languages which have a long-standing monocentric linguistic standardization tradition, however they also possess polycentric features, clearly visible - albeit incomplete and largely insufficient - in glottodidactics and related materials. This paper aims to raise awareness of the sociolinguistic dimension in second language teaching, by first providing a thorough theoretical outline surrounding the issue, followed by scale descriptors referring to the introduction of diatopic variations during the second language learning process, with differentiated issues in Spanish an French by considering intrinsic specificities of each language.

Побуждение и способы его передачи в языке: традиционный и когнитивный аспекты изучения (на материале русского и английского языков)

The article is devoted to studying imperative, one of the basic communicative constructs in the languages of different structures - Russian and English. The research objectives are as follows: to prove that imperative and means of its linguistic representation are insufficiently investigated within the framework of traditional linguistics and to justify relevance of the cognitive aspect. Scientific originality of the paper involves analysing the existing approaches to studying the imperative category and its linguistic representation including connected with its secondary comprehension. Imperative is considered as a system of knowledge and is examined through the lens of different linguistic approaches with their own peculiarities. Relying on the conducted analysis, the researcher identifies means to represent the imperative category. However, there are some other means to transfer imperative in speech, for example, secondary structures, which are still insufficiently investigated. The research findings are as follows: the author proves that different approaches to understanding the imperative category supplement each other, but only the cognitive approach makes it possible to conduct a comprehensive analysis of imperative as a system of conceptual and linguistic knowledge.

THEORETICAL JUSTIFICATION OF THE CONCEPT ESSENSE THE OF «SPEECH MANIPULATION» IN POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Knowledge of the laws of manipulation, analysis of the mechanism of this phenomenon in conjunction with a proper understanding of the state and demands of society can help any political leader in the struggle for power and the promotion of their own political interests. The key to successful manipulation in political discourse is the realization of the paramount importance of the ultimate goal. Depending on it, the strategy, tactics and methods of manipulation will be chosen. Careful selection of linguistictools will help to keep manipulative processes out of the realm of awareness and ensure their effective effectiveness. Manipulation is understood as hidden coercion, programming of thoughts, intentions, feelings, and so on. The main purpose of manipulation is to create a profitable policy of the world in the minds of potential voters and reduce the ability of recipients to think critically, creating the illusion of free choice and more. Language manipulation should be understood as the purposeful use of thepeculiarities of language use, which contributes to the emergence in the minds of recipients of illusions and delusions that motivate him to act in a way that is beneficial to the manipulator. It should be noted that any successfully completed communication in which the speaker does not express his intentions openly, is a successful act of language manipulation. The very phenomenon of manipulation in political discourse is given a special place, as it can cause long-term consequences and have a strongeffect on society. Obviously, further study of the phenomenon of manipulation in the linguopragmatic aspect is needed, describing not only the different types of manipulative influence, but also how they contribute to the success / failure of policies and for what reason one or another effect is achieved. The main approaches to the definition of "speech manipulation" and highlights and systematizes the dominant approaches inthe Ukrainian scientific linguistic tradition to it, namely: narrow and broad approaches, and at the same time considers scientific linguistic approaches that consider speech manipulation from different angles. . The main focus is on different classification approaches to this issue, as well as the main criteria for classifying types of speech manipulation (by the nature of the interaction of the addressee and the addressee; by the criterion of awareness of speech actions of the addressee and the addressee; by theorientation of the addressee; by the nature of information transformations) . Modern approaches to their delimitation are highlighted. At the same time, the levels at which speech manipulation is performed (phonetic, lexical and grammatical) are considered.

اجزاء الكلام في اللغة الروسية المعاصرة

اول هذا البحث مشكلة التعبير المفاهيمي والمصطلحي لمفهوم أجزاء الكلام المقبولة عمو ًما وتثير مسألة مدى ملاءمة / عدم ملاءمة وضع الخطاب الجزئي لبعضهم في البنية النحوية للغة الروسية. يتم تحليل وجهات نظر العلماء ومؤيدي اللسانيات التقليدية ، وأنصار القواعد الوظيفية الجديدة في علم اللغويات الحديثة. يتم تمثيل ديناميكيات مصطلحات تعيين أجزاء فردية من الكلام ، بد ًءا من تثبيتها في القواعد النحوية السلافية القديمة وفي القواعد النحوية في الفترات التالية التي حدث فيها التطور النشط للنظام المورفولوجي الفعلي. يتم تتبع تشكيل النظام المفاهيمي والمصطلحات لأجزاء الكلام من الفترة القديمة في تطور الفكر النحوي إلى يومنا هذا ، وكذلك يتم عرض التغييرات التي حدثت في طبيعتها المفاهيمية والمصطلحات ، ما هي آفاق لمزيد من الدراسة لهذه المشكل

Die „Werkstatt des Forschers”: einige Überlegungen zum Begriffsinhalt und -umfang

The following paper focuses on the German translation of the Polish term “warsztat badacza” (die Werkstatt des Forschers, literally “the researcher’s workshop”, generic term for more or less “methodology and best practices of scientific research”). The discussed term seems to be commonly used in Polish philological texts, especially in critical reviews of academic articles and books; the German equivalent of “warsztat badacza” is not widely applied, but it is recognized by older German readers of academic texts. However, some younger scholars may have problems with grasping its meaning recognized in the philological tradition of academic writing. My paper shows how the term’s – “Werkstatt des Forschers” – meaning, its broad sense, its contextual dissemination, and its pragmatic use can be explained and applied in academic discourse. It is also essential for the Polish authors of academic texts to know how to paraphrase a possible translation gap that the mentioned term induces in German texts.

마씨문통(馬氏文通)의 전통 언어학 계승 양상 고찰*

마씨문통(馬氏文通)의 전통 언어학 계승 양상 고찰*

On the Need for <i>Narrations of the Shoah</i> in Contemporary Humanities. A New Opening

The article aims at presenting the new formula of <i>Narrations of the Shoah</i>, Polish academic journal. The idea behind the journal is linked to the conviction that the Holocaust isthe zero point of Polish culture and its conceptualisation, and broadly understood narrations are a necessary medium to recognise and depict complications resulting from this issue. This journal appears to be symptomatic of the state of research on the Shoah (and other genocides) in Poland; <i>Narrations of the Shoah</i> simultaneously probes and delineates the perspectives of its development. The formula of the journal responds to the challenges of contemporary humanities and fills the gap in Polish studies on the Shoah. <i>Narrations of the Shoah</i> is a <i>sui generis</i> laboratory of new methodologies, an interdisciplinary forum of cutting-edge ideas, but it also provides a continuation of the best practices of traditional philology and literary studies. Announced in the title of this article, the journal’s new opening will primarily consist in broadening its field of interest to include such issues as narrations of genocides other tham the Holocaust or the relation between Holocaust studies and ecocriticism, especially the notion of the Anthropocene.

Lin Shu as a translator

Abstract As a pioneer of Chinese translation, Lin Shu groped for a way out of the dichotomy to achieve a balance between foreignization and domestication. His domesticating strategies have enjoyed considerable attention from critics, whereas his foreignization has so far been largely ignored. Mainly concentrating on his collaborative translation, Yinbian yanyu, this essay opens a window to see Lin’s translation strategy as an inevitable mixture of domestication and foreignization, and throws light on the contradictory nature of Lin, identifying him as both a defender and an opponent of Confucian ideology, and as both an inheritor and an innovator of Chinese literary and linguistic traditions.

Крос-культурне дослідження вживання обсценної лексики у молодіжному середовищі

Мета дослідження – визначити психологічні особливості вживання обсценної лексики молоддю різних країн з відмінними культурними та мовними традиціями. В контексті соціально-психологічного підходу вживання нецензурної лайки є індикатором напруження у суспільстві та індивідуально-особистісних криз.
 Процедура дослідження. Впродовж 2018-2019 рр. було проведене онлайн-опитування 518 респондентів віком 16-20 років. Розроблена анкета (Google Форма) містила 15 питань щодо використання нецензурної лайки в різних комунікативних ситуаціях. Здійснений порівняльний аналіз п’яти національних вибірок з різними передумовами формування мовленнєвої культури: Україна, Росія, Польща, США та країни Азії.
 Результати. Національну специфіку мають не тільки зовнішні форми обсценної лексики, але й внутрішні, психологічні реакції, які супроводжують таке спілкування. Принципове неприйняття брудної лайки продемонстрували респонденти з країн Азії. Найбільш толерантне сприйняття ненормативної лексики виявлене в Росії та Польщі. В Україні загальне негативне ставлення висловили 43.7% опитаних, особливо гостро українці сприймають лихослів’я на власну адресу. Молоді американці більш негативно ставляться до обсценної лексики взагалі (як до явища), але досить терпимі до її використання стосовно себе. За частотою та характером вживання нецензурної лайки українська вибірка більш подібна до американської та польської, ніж до російської.
 У висновках сформульовано типологію вживання обсценної лексики, обумовлену соціокультурними особливостями різних країн; виділені характерні риси української вибірки, де на основі кримінально-вульгаризованої мови відбуваються процеси формування демократичного суспільства та відродження національної ідентичності. Запропоновані заходи щодо соціальної регуляції мовної норми та запобігання поширенню обсценної лексики в молодіжному середовищі.

DISCOURSE DIRECTION OF RESEARCH OF ARTISTIC TEXT IN MODERN LANGUAGE UKRAINIAN STUDIES

Background. One of the main issues of linguistics of the XX – early XXI century is a comprehensive study of the concept of discourse, which reflects a variety of real manifestations of human language communication in certain social spheres of its communicative space. The actualization of this concept in various scientific fields, the representatives of which study the essence and mechanisms of interaction of constants of such linguistic and philosophical dichotomies as “language and society”, “language and man”, has led to the need for its clear definition and typology of discourses etc. Despite the fact that linguists use a number of methods of discursive analysis of linguistic units, there is currently no single approach to their study within the theory of discourse.The purpose of the article is to identify and substantiate the features of the literary text in terms of modern discourse. The main objectives of the article: to determine the typological and categorical features of artistic discourse, to establish and describe the most important aspects of the study of artistic texts of different genres within discourse.Methods. The paper uses general scientific methods of observation, analysis, synthesis, comparison; linguistic methods, including the descriptive method – to interpret the discursive status of the literary text; the method of integrative analysis, which is the basis of a comprehensive study of a set of different aspects used in the study of the literary text as the embodiment of individualauthorial communicative intentions; the contextual-interpretive method – to identify probable reading strategies of reception of the literary text and its components.Results. The concept of discourse in the broadest sense is associated with all manifestations of communication. Discourse is a consequence of modeling knowledge structures that provide strategic planning, flow and control of communication, the operation of mechanisms of communicative competence, regulation of interactivity processes and more. An important communicative-semantic segment of the holistic nature of the analyzed concept is its interaction with various factors that reflect the essence of communication, in particular with the concept of the text. The linguistic tradition still has a great influence on the development of theoretical principles of categorization and typology of the concept of discourse, because until recently the discourse was often identified with the text as a complex linguistic sign that arises as a result of the process of language formation. Currently, researchers outline the structural and semantic parameters of the text with a number of features that also appear relevant and objective for the discourse: completeness; coherence; integrity; lexical, grammatical, logical, stylistic, semantic coherence; compositional completeness; communicative and pragmatic orientation, etc. Differentiation of discourses is one of the most important issues of modern discourse, which is currently a problem that researchers, based on a wide range of different socio-linguistic manifestations of communication, solve differently. To establish a typology of discourses, as well as texts, it is necessary to develop common criteria for their classification and determine the main categories of text and discourse. Artistic discourse, in contrast to other discourses, involves indirect communication of the author (sender) with numerous readers (addressees). When creating a text, the writer predicts the expected reaction to its content from readers, instead of “translating” the literary text into the discourse, the recipients carry out in their own way, based on their own knowledge, experience, feelings and emotions. The interaction of the addressee author with numerous addressees is devoid of real communicative factors, in particular temporal and local fixation. Despite the lack of direct contact, the writer's communicative influence on readers is obviously effective: if the artist has a deep knowledge of the language, individualizes and emphasizes linguistic means, it evokes a certain attitude to his literary texts and their evaluation by readers.Discussion. At the present stage of development of texts of any styles and genres requires discursive analysis, because in the language of fiction recorded authorial intentions that should “decipher” speakers in the process of dynamic cognition of semantic and semantic depths of a text, involving their own practical experience and knowledge during its decoding. We see prospects for further research of this topical problem in the study of features of artistic discourses of classic writers and famous contemporary artists, whose language creation is organically connected with the development of the Ukrainian literary word as an important component of the linguistic and cultural universe.

The problem of polyfunctionality in the traditional and computational linguistics

This article describes in detail the study of multifunctional words in traditional linguistics by world and Uzbek scientists. Its relation to concomitant phenomena – homonymy and polysemy is expressed. It is noted that in computational linguistics, the question about the functional vocabulary is not understood, not solved the question of its purpose in the housing, on the agenda posed the need for prompt decision of this question by establishing a theoretical framework for the differentiation of polyfunctional vocabulary in information retrieval system.

The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Tiberian Reading Tradition

Abstract The most authentic portrait of Second Temple Hebrew is afforded by the Dead Sea Scrolls, especially by those texts actually composed in Hellenistic and Roman times. On salient linguistic points Dead Sea Scrolls Hebrew agrees with the vocalization of the Tiberian reading tradition against the testimony of the written, i.e., consonantal, tradition of Masoretic Classical Biblical Hebrew material. This article presents a case study. On the one hand, these Dead Sea-Tiberian vocalization affinities are evidence of the relatively late character of their respective linguistic traditions and of the secondary character of the developments in the Tiberian reading tradition vis-à-vis the classical biblical written tradition. On the other hand, these same affinities demonstrate that the Tiberian pronunciation tradition is plausibly regarded as one that crystallized in the Second Temple Period, rather than in Byzantine or medieval times. Lastly, since joint Dead Sea-Tiberian reading departures from the classical biblical consonantal tradition constitute a tiny minority of their relevant linguistic data, most of which are characterized by historical continuity and/or linguistic heterogeneity of comparable historical depth, it is clear that the Second Temple crystallization of Dead Sea Scrolls Hebrew and the Tiberian reading tradition in no way preclude their routine preservation of authentic Iron Age features.

ЛЕКСИЧНІ ТРУДНОЩІ ПЕРЕКЛАДУ ЮРИДИЧНОЇ ТЕРМІНОЛОГІЇ

The article deals with the main concepts of legal translation; the peculiarities of the translation of legal terminology; the definition of the “term”, “legal term”; the characteristics of the legal term, and features of legal translation; the difficulties of translating legal terminology. The database and dictionaries of legal terms of the German-Ukrainian direction of translation are involved in the translation analysis. The content of this article confirms that terminology in scientific research appears as an object of translation studies. In the fields of lawmaking, judiciary, jurisprudence and education use a legal term. Legal term is a word or phrase that expresses the concept of the legal sphere of public life and has a definition in the legal literature (laws, legal dictionaries, reference books, encyclopedias, scientific papers etc.). Particular attention is paid to the classification of legal terms and the difficulties that often hinder translators. The translation of a legal text causes many difficulties related to the uniqueness of the legal language, linguistic and cultural inequality between the original language and the language of translation, the difference in the legislative systems, and linguistic traditions. Difficulties due to the legal nature of the term and inconsistencies in the legal systems of different countries play a special role. We have suggested ways to overcome language difficulties through lexical-semantic transformations and techniques. These are techniques such as transcoded borrowing, calquing, analog replacement, descriptive and explanatory translation, modulation, concretization, generalization, addition, omission. These methods help to preserve the meaning of terminological units with a possible replacement of their structure. In our opinion the most expedient solutions to translation language problems are descriptive translation, addition, calquing. These methods preserve the semantic meaning of the original term and reproduce it as clearly as possible in the target language. The article indicates the need to continue further development in a certain direction on the material of German-language legal discourse and the search for new ways to overcome difficulties in the translation of German-language legal terminology.

중국어 방언 성조 분포 연구

Earlier literature on tones of Chinese dialects tends to describe a tonal inventory and tone sandhi of an individual dialect or diachronic changes across dialects. However, a typological explanation of tonal systems across various Chinese dialects is still in need to understand the language specific features of Chinese tones as well as their similarities with other tone languages. This paper collects tones from 738 dialects of Chinese and examines the tone distribution from a typological perspective. Results of the paper reveal several important features of Chinese tones: (1) Chinese has significantly larger inventories than tone languages in general. (2) The frequency pattern of ‘level ＞ fall ＞ rise ＞ concave ＞ convex’ found in tone languages shows a negative relation between tonal markedness and distribution. Chinese dialects, however, are not in line with this frequency pattern, i.e., the relative frequency among level, fall, and rise may vary. (3) The most distinctive specificity pertaining to level tone in Chinese is that high register is notably favored for level tone. (4) The balanced distribution between fall and rise and that between concave and convex in terms of pitch register found in tone languages are not shown in Chinese. Rather, fall and rise seem to favor low register and high register, respectively. (5) Complex contour tones appear to realize within the same register rather than across registers. (6) Tones treated as checked tone in a Chinese philological tradition tend to realize as level. Given the paucity of comparative research on Chinese dialects and other tone languages, the findings of the present study contribute to achieve a better understanding of not only the tonal systems of Chinese dialects but also the tonal universals across languages.

The Cognitive Prominence of Euphemism Production: A Perspective of the Embodied-Cognitive Approach

The previous research on euphemism is mainly conducted from the perspectives of traditional linguistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, and the philosophy of mind, but few studies focus on the cognitive prominence of euphemism production from the perspective of the embodied-cognitive approach. This paper takes the euphemisms in English literary works as the corpora and explores the cognitive prominence of euphemism production from the perspective of the embodied-cognitive approach to reveal the production mechanism of euphemism. It is found that euphemism production highlights the linguistic subject’s embodied cognition of identity, causal implication, and supervenience with reality. The linguistic subject’s embodied cognition of identity with reality explains that euphemism is in place of the common expression to direct at an unpleasant or embarrassing thing or event in reality because euphemism is identical to common expression. The linguistic subject’s embodied cognition of causal implication with reality accounts for the fact that the interaction between the mental and the physical follows the principle of causal interaction. Common expression causally implicates euphemism and the causal implication between them is restricted by the specific context and the linguistic subject’s intentionality. The linguistic subject’s embodied cognition of supervenience with reality indicates that the consciousness of the linguistic subject towards the described thing or event supervenes globally on its physical property. Euphemism production is the result of the linguistic subject’s embodied cognition with reality. Cognitive prominence from the perspective of the embodied-cognitive approach has very strong explanatory power over the production mechanism of linguistic expressions.

Oh, Sufferah Children of Jah: Unpacking the Rastafarian Rejection of Traditional Theodicies

AbstractThe article maintains that the theological perspectives of RastafarI continue to be under-researched in the Caribbean context with perhaps more attention being paid to their contributions to the racial, musical and linguistic traditions of the region. In particular, Rasta theodicies are not as clearly articulated as other elements of its belief system even as it is recognised that RastafarI mansions and individual members do not hold homogenous beliefs about many things. The discussion takes as its starting point two prior reflections, “Just Desert or Just Deserts?: God and Suffering in these Perilous Days” (Perkins 2016) and “The Wages of (Sin) is Babylon: Rasta Versus Christian Religious Perspectives of Sin” (Perkins 2012); the former reflection highlights the insufficiency of traditional theodicy to answer the question: “if God is good, why does evil exist?” No one answer can sufficiently do justice to the many dimensions of the question. In that regard, Perkins (2016) argues for attention to the important “answer” that the radical suffering perspective offers to the discussion (Sarah Anderson Rajarigam (2004) too emphasises divine suffering or theopathos, as the response to radical suffering. She frames theopathos not just as an option within theodicy but as an alternative to theodicy, which she derides as “the spoilt child of enlightenment that self-destructively craves for theoretical and philosophical remedies for radical human suffering” (27).). Perkins (2012) explicates a particular Rasta understanding of sin and evil, which are important elements of any theodicy. For Rasta, sin is tri-dimensional – personal, inherited and corporate. Sin in its corporate or social dimension is the most salient as it is moral evil – a rejection of Jah’s will – which leads to the oppression of Jah’s people.

On the Issue of the Berber Written Tradition

The article is devoted to the study of the linguistic tradition of the Berbers, who are the indigenous people of North Africa. The Berbers have maintained a rich tradition of spoken language. At the turn of the 20th ‑21st centuries, against the backdrop of the intensification of the movement for self‑determination, their cultural and linguistic rights, the Berbers launched a large‑scale activity aimed at restoring the national written language. The author suggested that the need to develop standardized writing was partly due to the desire of the Berbers to consolidate the official status of their language in the Constitution. The author notes that the aggravation of the so‑called “Berber question” at the end of the 20th century spurred the interest of scientists and researchers in the Berber written heritage. Most of the surviving handwritten documents make Berber texts (mostly religious), recorded using the Arabic alphabet between the 15th and early 20th centuries. The study of conditions for their creation and fields of their application shows that these texts played a significant role in the dissemination of religious and scientific knowledge among the Berbers. It is concluded that despite the use of the predominantly oral form of the language, the Berbers managed to create a unique written tradition. The article discusses in detail the main problems of the study of Berber manuscripts, among which: the requirement from the researcher of serious pre‑knowledge in various fields; the problem of accessibility of texts stored in private collections; the need to develop unified approaches to the description of Berber manuscripts, their digitization and other important arrangements to ensure the availability of documents for the scientific‑research community. Particular attention is paid to the history of the creation of the first collections of Berber manuscripts and their cataloging. The author has also highlighted the work of scientists, who made a qualitative contribution to the study of the Berber manuscripts, most of which have not yet been discovered and carry significant potential aimed at pre‑ serving and enhancing the Berber cultural and historical heritage.

Uncanny resemblance

Abstract What is the relation between the three following elements: words, pictures, and conceptual representations? And how do these three elements work, in defining and explaining metaphors? These are the questions that we tackle in our interdisciplinary contribution, which moves across cognitive linguistics, cognitive sciences, philosophy and semiotics. Within the cognitive linguistic tradition, scholars have assumed that there are equivalent and comparable structures characterizing the way in which metaphor works in language and in pictures. In this paper we analyze contextual visual metaphors, which are considered to be the most complex ones, and we compare them to those that in language are called indirect metaphors. Our proposal is that a syllogistic mechanism of comprehension permeates both metaphors expressed in the verbal modality as well as metaphors expressed in the pictorial modality. While in the verbal modality the metaphoric syllogism is solved by inference, we argue that in the pictorial modality the role of inference is performed through mental imagery.