Language for imagery

Abstract The chapter opens by reviewing scholarly attempts to specify the difference between literal and figurative uses of language, based on criteria such as processing time, the role of context, making inferences, or perceiving ambiguities. We then point out why these are inadequate and how the issue could be resolved by avoiding a dichotomous distinction between the two, since many of the same factors are involved in both types of language use. Here, we take into account notions of embodiment and salience, and the impact of familiarity in processing conventional, established versus novel usages, along with the well-known distinction between what people say versus what they mean. Next, we move to varieties of figurative use—how idioms and proverbs differ from metaphors, linguistic humor, and irony—and what is involved in understanding and producing each of these different figures of speech, as language-dependent and culture-bounds linguistic usages. We go on to consider the brain structures that underlie non-literal language, and the networks shared by most figurative usages as well as those activated for specific varieties, showing that, for example, contrary to what is commonly believed, the left hemisphere is strongly involved in metaphor and other types of figurative usages. And we conclude by tracing the protracted developmental pathways involved in gaining command of non-literal uses, where varieties of figurative use show different trajectories from childhood on.