к.ф.н. Шингарева М.Ю., магистрант Сарабекова Ж.М.

Региональный социально-инновационный университет

Play with figures of speech

If compared to the types of language-play based primarily on the repetition of formally defined elements (such as rhyme or alliteration — to be taken up later), the category to be discussed here is much more pun-like because of the fact that meaning and pragmatics are strongly involved. In my opinion, it serves well as a kind of transition from the previous chapter on puns to more distinct types of non-punning language-play.

What the examples included have in common is that well-established expressions or ways of expressing something, or expressions normally connected to a particular type of situation or context, are used or interpreted in such a way that the implications and connotations that they carry are brought to the fore by being unexpectedly overthrown. In the process, the expression itself is left unchanged (cf. the next section or e.g. some of the paronymic puns for examples where an expression is changed), and it is another character’s interpretation of it, or the context in a broad sense, that turns its occurrence into language-play.

I found it impossible to come up with a concise label for the present category, even though it partly overlaps with what e.g. Grassegger treats under “the literal interpretation of idiomatic expressions” (1985:58ff). In fact, play with idioms is given some attention in studies on wordplay (cf. e.g. Veisbergs 1997), and this is also true of other types of relatively fixed expressions (e.g. Leppihalme 1996), especially when the original wording has been altered. I, too, have treated several such cases as e.g. paronymic puns. However, the expressions taken up here have not undergone any formal changes (such as additions or certain elements being substituted for others), and only some of the examples involve what would generally be counted as true idioms. Where that is the case, the idioms in question have retained so much of their metaphorical nature that the original imagery would have been evoked even in non-playful language use.

Now, consider the sequence from Antz that first prompted my suspicion that establishing a separate category for this kind of playful language use might be called for:

In Insectopia, some insects enjoy a mild summer evening, sitting together and talking. A beetle nibbles on a bit of ‘food’.

Beetle: This stuff tastes like crap.

Fly: Really ? Let me try some. (tastes) Hey, it is crap. Not bad.

I think the humour of this sequence is primarily derived from the extra- linguistic circumstance that a creature which otherwise behaves very much like a human being should like to consume ‘crap’. The important point here, however, is the fact that an often used, if informal, way of describing an unpleasant culinary experience (tastes like crap) turns out to be much truer than is normally the case. To exploit this standard expression in the way shown must be counted as language-play. In my opinion, it does not represent a pun, though, because we are really only dealing with just one meaning here, namely that of something tasting like crap.

Of course, it might be argued that a person claiming that something tastes like crap, say a meal served in prison or a culinary experiment gone awry, really wants to convey nothing more than that the foodstuff in question tastes bad. Many comparisons such as tastes like crap are not literally true. Frequently, as in the present case, exaggeration is involved, and both the speaker and the addressee know that the other one knows this, which is exactly why it is so striking when, for once, the picture evoked by the choice of words is actually accurate.

Some analysts might consider the literal interpretation of a figure of speech as a kind of pun. I would argue that there is a difference, however, because we are not really dealing with separate meanings here, or polysemy of the kind exploited in puns, but with implications or implicatures. What is implied by tastes like crap is that it ‘tastes as bad as crap’, which may or may not be true (who would dare to claim expertise in this matter?), and the language- play is thus not based on a clash of incongruous meanings, but on the fact that what every competent language user must perceive to be a figure of speech represents an accurate description on every level.

Consider another example, which perhaps illustrates the difference more clearly between puns on the one hand and plays with certain established ways of expressing something on the other. I particularly enjoyed it due to the way it transcends the boundaries of the fictional narrative in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and becomes a meta-comment on the realities of film-making:

A police officer, played by the actor John Goodman, arrests Karen, among other reasons for “impersonating FBI agent Karen Sympathy”. When it is pointed out to him that Karen actually is the agent in question, he dismisses this with the words:

Yeah, and I’m really John Goodman.

We are dealing not so much with a metaphor or a simile in this case, and not really with exaggeration either, but rather with irony or sarcasm. Declaring oneself to be a well-known or powerful person is a common way of demonstrating that another speaker’s claims about him- or herself have not been believed. Now, even though the point may be driven home more effectively by choosing for this purpose an imaginary figure such as Santa Claus or a historical one such as the Emperor of China, a well-known living actor, including John Goodman, will generally also do the trick. Consequently, whenever a person claims to be John Goodman, it can be assumed that this is meant to imply that the claim is as untrue as anything the addressee may have said immediately before. The more striking the effect, therefore, when it actually is John Goodman who answers in this way, negating the implications that anybody familiar with this kind of expression must have taken for granted. While the police officer implies that both Karen’s claims and his own are nonsense, both are actually correct, if on different levels of reality.

I think it would be stretching the concept of polysemy too far if it were claimed that John Goodman carries the meaning of both ‘the actor by that name’, and, as if in contrast to this first meaning, ‘a celebrity of the kind the speaker is not’. For this reason, I reject the otherwise not entirely inconceivable alternative of including this example among the polysemic puns, just as I reject it with the example based on tastes like crap.

As an illustration of a different way of playing with standard expressions without necessarily creating puns, consider the following excerpt from Inspector Gadget, where the expressions have been transferred from their habitual semantic field of sports to a quite unrelated one:

The villain Scolex has been forced to abandon his helicopter and is coming down on a parachute. The Gadgetmobile pulls under him, all the time commenting on its own actions as if the whole event were part of a baseball game, and eventually catches Scolex in a cage on the back seat.

Gadgetmobile: Ladies and gentlemen, Scolex is out and that is the game!

Final score: Gadgetmobile one, Scolex zippo. And the fans rush the field. (police cars surround the Gadgetmobile) No autographs,please. [...]

Apparently, catching criminals is more of a sport than a regular job to the Gadgetmobile, and it shows this by employing lexemes and expressions that are normally only used in connection with large spectator sports such as baseball. In this case, too, it would be misleading to speak of multiple meanings that are simultaneously evoked in expressions such as that is the game, final score and the fans rush the field. The speaker simply engages in a game of make-believe that involves a reinterpretation of the actual events with the help of playful language use.

As a curiosity, I can also briefly mention that a play with an established expression need not depend on any actually audible or visible words at all. In Chicken Run, which is part of my corpus, there is a scene where a spanner (a wrench) gets caught among the cogwheels of a large machine and causes it to stop and break down. It is of course no coincidence that the item responsible for this event should be that particular kind of tool: it offers a literal interpretation of the idiomatic expression a spanner (a wrench) in the works. The result is a rather clear polysemic pun.

Literature:

1. Grassegger, Hans. 1985. Sprachspiel und Ubersetyung: eine Studie anhand der Comic- Serie Asterix. Tubingen: Stauffenburg.