Commentary on Nonliteral Language: Processing and Use

The three articles in this issue deal with how metaphors and irony are understood as well as with the uses of metaphor and irony in discourse. I discuss alternative models of metaphor comprehension and also propose a general. model of discourse irony that is consistent with the findings reported by Dews and Winner and by Kreuz and Roberts. In both the metaphor and irony models, literal meaning is treated as an integral part of the comprehension process wherein literal meanings are used directly to arrive at the figurative intentions of speakers.