On Our Mind: Salience, Context, and Figurative Language

In this volume, Rachel Giora explores how the salient meanings of words--the meanings that stand out as most prominent and accessible in our minds--shape how we think and how we speak. For Giora, salient meanings display interesting effects in both figurative and literal language. In both domains, speakers and writers creatively exploit the possibilities inherent in the fact that, while words have multiple meanings, some meanings are more accessible than others.