Illocutionary constructions and conceptual metonymies

This chapter aims to contribute to the discussion of indirect speech acts by describing how constructionist approaches to language (Boas 2003; Goldberg 2006; Ruiz de Mendoza and Galera 2014) are suitable to depict the interplay of illocutions with Idealised Cognitive Models (Lakoff 1987), in particular with conceptual metonymy. I conceive of speech acts as illocutionary constructions, which are “entrenched, productive and replicable form-function pairings characterised as constructional procedures capable of jointly activating parts of illocutionary scenarios in connection with relevant elements from the context of situation” (Baicchi 2012).