Metalinguistic Metaphors of Euclides da Cunha

Abstract

This paper presents a reading of the metalinguistic metaphors used by Euclides da Cunha, to refer to his two main books, Os sertões (about The Canudos’ War) and Um paraíso perdido (about Amazonia). The concept of the metalanguage established by Jakobson was fudamental to the research, which had s its basic-theoretical support of Lakoff and Johnson’s conceputal metaphor postulate (2002). The metaphors analyzed in this paper (TO REVENGE IS TO WRITE and BOOK IS A SON) were collected from the writer's essays and letters he wrote to friends and family, rewriting his writing through the metalanguage. Based on Lakoff and Johnson (2002), the reflections assumes that metaphor is not just a matter of language. It is also - and fundamentally - a matter of thought and action. The research uses Mota (2003), which also comments Euclid's texts.