The Construction of Sense: The Case of Metaphoric Utterance in Academic Discourse

Abstract

In recent decades academic discourse has changed into an
object of study of numerous investigations that, starting from
different theoretical frameworks, propose different objectives.
n the other hand, if the so-called metaphor has been
the motive of theoretical reflection since ancient times, in
recent years the quantity and variety of studies that have been
developed and continue to be developed around this object
of study have risen considerably. In such a context of multiple
theoretical and methodological proposals, this work has as
its objective to demonstrate that both the study of metaphor
and that of academic discourse decisively involve concepts
that don’t always appear to be explicitated. We are referring
to, among others, the concepts of language, subject, meaning,
literal meaning, and metaphorical meaning. or our part, from
a semantic discursive non referentialist point of view of language
(Schulz, 2000; 2002; 2004) we gather the contributions from
Discourse Analysis (the French-Brazilian variety). hus we
start from the definition of discourse as a meaning effect
between speakers and we study it in its constitutive
relationship with the production conditions. e understand that
the production conditions and circulation of texts materialize
in discursive mechanisms according to the imaginary
representations of the subjects. inally in accordance with this
investigative line we propose characterizing the so-called
metaphors as semantic constructions inserted in discursive
dynamics and in this sense, we redefine them as metaphoric
utterances.