Metaphor and Conceptual Metaphor Theory

What is a metaphor?

"The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another" (Lakoff & Johnson)

In the cognitive linguistic view, metaphor is defined as understanding one conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain without the use of words like “as” or “like”.

For example, when we talk and think about love in terms of journey (e.g. Our marriage is a bumpy road) we have two conceptual domains: the source domain (journey) and the target domain (love). The source domain is the conceptual domain from which we draw metaphorical expression to understand the target domain, which makes the target domain the conceptual domain understood through the use of the source domain.

If I say “Love is a journey” I am expressing a conceptual metaphor. In this case the source domain is Journey and the target domain is Love.

It is necessary to distinguish conceptual metaphor and metaphorical linguistic expressions: the latter are words that come from the language or terminology of the more concrete conceptual domain, and are a manifestation of the conceptual metaphor. Between the source and the target there is a systematic set of → → correspondences, this is called mapping (e.g. The travelers the lovers / the journey events in the relationship). In most cases the source and target are not reversible, this is called principle of unidirectionality.

Typical source domains are the human body (heart of the problem), health and illness (a healthy society), animals (that man is a lion), money (save energy), movement (he went crazy).

Common target domains are emotions, politics, economy, relationship.

→ → I flipped my lid Emotion is movement the body is a container (excomics)

Features of metaphors

Conventionality: how much a metaphor is used in everyday life by everyone → Argument is war highly conventional

Conceptual metaphors can be structural when they allow speakers to understand the target from the source (mapping – ex time passing is motion).

Ontological: allow us to understand better the structure of the sentence where there is none or very little.

Orientational: use spatial movement to express a concept: Happy is up, Sad is down.

Metonymy is a process in which we use a word instead of another, for example the producer for the product. They focus on only one domain.

Universality in conceptual metaphors

Some conceptual metaphors are universal, which means that they are globally recognized. One example can be “happiness is up”, this exists also in other languages, e.g. Chinese and Hungarian.

Cultural variation in metaphors

→ (Life is a game ex. baseball-calcio home run-gol) time is money → → wasting time +++ life is a journey marriage went off tracks ++ moods are weather warm welcome +

Can be cross-cultural, when different languages share the same or similar conceptual metaphor (ex. Anger is a hot fluid in English and Zulu) or within culture (depending from personal experience and life). This is caused by the broader cultural context. Total coincidence in CM across languages is rare.

Semino's article analyzes how the adoption of the Euro as the single currency for Europe has been commented by newspapers with large use of metaphors, for example personificating the Euro (ex the birth of euro, un bambino forte, an heavyweight baby), using the journey as a metaphor (il faticoso viaggio verso la moneta unica, a derailing train) and comparing the euro to a container (being inside or outside euro, stare nell'euro).

An argument is war

• Your claims are indefensible.
• He attacked every weak point in my argument.
• I demolished his argument.
• I’ve never won an argument with him.

Love is a journey

• We’ll just have to go our separate ways.
• We can’t turn back now.
• I don’t think this relationship is going anywhere.
• It’s been a long, bumpy road.

Metaphor: "An analogy identifying one object with another and ascribing to the first object one or more of the qualities of the second" (Harmon and Holman, A Handbook to Literature).

A comparison between two things without the use of "like" or "as."

A metaphorical concept: Argument is war. It is a complete thought, rather than a mere image. L&J prefer the term metaphorical concept because metaphor is part of our conceptual system; metaphor is not just an image but also a complete thought; and as such, metaphor has an impact on action, for action arises from thought.

Emotion is movement

• He floated around the room (happiness)
• He stomped around the room (anger)
• He strutted around the room (pride)
• He climbed out of his depression

Time is money

• You're wasting my time.
• That flat tire cost me an hour.

• Metaphor is not a special use of language
• Metaphor is pervasive in everyday language and interaction
• Metaphor in language is the result of the analogical structure of human conceptualization
• Our ordinary conceptual system in terms of which we think and act is fundamentally metaphorical in nature
• Metaphor is possible in language because it is present in the mind.

Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Container metaphor:

The body is a container

Emotions are fluids

Emotions are fluids in a container (the body)

Rationale behind the expression “I flipped my lid”. When the fluid in the container is too much or too agitated, the container overflows. If there is a lid on the container, the pressure in the container causes the lid to pop open.

Anger is an emotion.

When there is too much anger in the body the emotion is represented as boiling, rising and causing the top (the head) to pop open. That is where the expression “I flipped my lid” (meaning “I was extremely angry”) comes from.

• I flipped my lid.
• I blew my top
• I blew my stack
• I hit the ceiling.

Conceptual metaphors

A set of conceptual metaphors organizes a whole system of concepts with respect to one another

CM: Love is madness FIGURATIVE EXPRESSION: I’m crazy about her.

CM: LOVE IS WAR FIGURATIVE EXPRESSION: He fled from her advances.

CM: LOVE IS A PHYSICAL FORCE FIGURATIVE EXPRESSION: I could feel the electricity between us.

A concept is structured by the metaphor PARTIALLY and it can be EXTENDED in SOME ways but not in others.

MORE IS UP LESS IS DOWN

The figurative expression: He attacked every weak point in my argument is motivated by The CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR (CM): AN ARGUMENT IS A BATTLE

Love is fire

• He was on fire with emotion
• They were ablaze with emotion
• Seeing her every day kindled his passion for her
• He was burning with desire
• She fanned the flames of his desire
• She was consumed by passion
• He was all burned out
• Time extinguishes passion

Happy is up; sad is down.

Conscious is up; unconscious is down.

Health and life are up; sickness and death are down.

ECONOMY IS WAR inflation is my biggest enemy

Idiomatic expression-a polylexical (partially fixed) unit whose meaning cannot be derived from its component parts

I flipped my lid

Time is motion

In cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor, or cognitive metaphor, refers to the understanding of one idea, or conceptual domain, in terms of another, for example, understanding quantity in terms of directionality (e.g. "prices are rising"). A conceptual domain can be any coherent organization of human experience. The regularity with which different languages employ the s