Riassunto esame linguistica inglese,docente Sandford, libri consigliati Cognitive Linguistics Croft, Cruse e Metaphor: A Practical Introduction, Zoltan Kovecses

PASSING IS MOTION OF AN OBJECT and TIME PASSING IS AN OBSERVER’S MOTION OVER A

LANDSCAPE.

1. The time for action has arrived.

I’m looking ahead to Christmas.

Thanksgiving is coming up on us.

2. His stay in Russia extended over many years.

He passed the time happily.

We’re coming up on Christmas.

We’re getting close to Christmas. 51

Ontological metaphors provide much less cognitive structuring for target concepts than

 structural ones do.

we conceptualize/conceive of our experiences in terms of objects, substances, and containers, in

general, without specifying them.



Given that undelineated experiences ( those that are not clearly delineated, vague, or abstract)

receive a more delineated status via ontological metaphors→This way we can attempt to understand

more about it.



If we conceptualize the mind as an object, we can easily provide more structure for it by means of the

“machine” metaphor for the mind (as in: “My mind is rusty this morning”).

The preposition “in” in I’m in love, trouble”has a locative meaning, a state such as love is

 conceived as a container that one can be inside of or outside of.

BOIL WITH ANGER: ANGER IS A HEAT OF FLUID→ Heat of fluid: SOURCE; Anger:

 TARGET.

The constituent mappings of this metaphor are:

Our body is the container, heat of fluid is anger, the degree of fluid heat IS the intensity of anger,

explosion is the loss of control.

we know that the fLuid and the steam exert pressure on the walls of the container;

that beyond a certain limit the walls will burst as a result of too much pressure;

the fLuid will come out of the container as a result of the explosion:

WHEN ANGER BECOMES TOO INTENSE, THE PERSON EXPLODES

-When I told him, he just exploded.

-She blew up at me.

-We won’t tolerate any of your outbursts.

“We have entered the 21st century” This locative expression describe time and is the

 manifestation of the TIME IS SPACE metaphor.

the perception of structural similarity between A and B may be induced

 by “ontological metaphors.”

ontological metaphors are extremely basic, in that they give object, substance, or container “shape” or

“status” to entities that are not physical objects, substances, or containers.

Riassunto esame linguistica inglese,docente Sandford, libri consigliati

Cognitive Linguistics Croft&Cruse e Metaphor: A Practical Introduction-

Zoltan Kovecses

If two concepts (one abstract, the other concrete) share this basic shape or status, this can induce the

perception of certain structural similarities between the two.

IDEAS ARE FOOD:

i CAN’T DIGEST ALL THESE FACTS ,

I just can’t swallow (INGHIOTTIRE) that claim.

Let me stew over that for a while.

She devoured the book.

perceived structural similarities between the abstract concept of idea and that of food:

We cook food and we can stew over ideas→ we think about them

we swallow food and we can swallow a claim or insult→ accept them

we digest food and we can or cannot digest an idea→ understand

perceived structural similarities in the form of mappings:

⇒

(a) cooking thinking

⇒

(b) swallowing accepting

⇒

(d) digesting understanding

conceptual metaphors that provide the submappings of THE IDEAS ARE FOOD metaphor:

(a) thinking is cooking: “Let me stew over this.”

(b) accepting is swallowing: “I can’t swallow that claim.”

(c) considering is chewing: “Let me chew over the proposal.”

(d) understanding is digesting: “I can’t digest all these ideas.”

what facilitates the perception of these similarities is some basic ideas we have about the mind=

ontological metaphors

the mind is a container

ideas are objects 53

communication is sending ideas from one mind-container to another

This set of metaphors is known as the “conduit” metaphor. (It is called the

“conduit” metaphor because ideas are assumed to travel along a conduit, as

shown by sentences such as “His message came across.”) These ontological

metaphors for the mind arise from certain nonmetaphorical assumptions we

make about the human body:

The body is a container.

Food consists of objects or substances.

We receive food from outside the body and it goes into the body.

Given these nonmetaphorical assumptions about the body and the ontological metaphors that map this understanding onto the

mind, it makes sense for us that we talk and think about ideas and the mind in ways that reflect our structured knowledge

about food and the body. This is how ontological

metaphors may facilitate the perception of structural similarities between otherwise conceptually distant domains.

We can conceive of personification as a form of ontological metaphor.

In personification, human qualities are given to nonhuman entities. Personification is common in literature,

but it also abounds in everyday discourse,:

His theory explained to me …

Life has cheated me.

The computer went dead on me.

These verbs are used with reference to human beings, because involve for exaple the act of speech.

Orientational metaphors



Make a set of target concepts coherent target concepts tend to be conceptualized in a uniform manner.

⇨

have to do with basic human spatial orientations, such as up-down,center-periphery,whole-not whole.

For example, all the following concepts are characterized by an “upward” orientation that tends to go

together with positive evaluation, while downward orientation with a negative one:

MORE IS UP; LESS IS DOWN: Speak up, please.

CONTROL IS UP; LACK OF CONTROL IS DOWN: I’m on top of the situation. He is under my control.

HAPPY IS UP; SAD IS DOWN: Im feeling up today. He’ s really low thesedays.

Riassunto esame linguistica inglese,docente Sandford, libri consigliati

Cognitive Linguistics Croft&Cruse e Metaphor: A Practical Introduction-

Zoltan Kovecses

But positive-negative evaluation is not limited to the spatial orientation up-down. Also various spatial

image schemas are bipolar and bivalent. Thus, whole, center, link, balance, in, goal, and front are mostly

regarded as positive, while their opposites, not whole, periphery, no link, imbalance, out, no goal, and back

are seen as negative.

the phrase “half the man” denotes someone who is not positively viewed.

The Nature of Metaphor: Knowledge vs Image



Metaphors may be based on both knowledge and image. (Most of the metaphors we have discussed so

far are based on our basic knowledge of concepts).

In the image-schema metaphor it is not conceptual elements of knowledge (like traveler, destination, and

obstacles in the case of journey) that get mapped from a source to a target, but conceptual elements of

image-schemas.

they map relatively little from source to target→ By contrast, structural metaphors are rich in knowledge

structure and provide a relatively rich set of mappings between source and target.

→ basic image-schemas derive from our interactions with the world : we explore physical objects by

contact with them; we experience ourselves and other objects as containers.

basic physical experiences ( give rise to

⇨These Interactions such as these occur repeatedly in human experience)

imageschemas that structure many of our abstract concepts metaphorically.

Image-Schema Metaphorical Extension

in-out I’m out of money.

front-back He’s an up-front kind of guy.

up-down I’m feeling low/up.

contact Hold on, please. (“Wait”)

motion He just went crazy.

force You’re driving me insane. 55

Conceptual metaphors can also be specifi c-level and generic-level. Most conceptual metaphors employ

concepts that are at a specifi c level of generality.

Some conceptual metaphors are generic-level, such as events are actions and generic is specific. Generic-

level metaphors have special jobs designed for them in the working of our metaphorical conceptual system.

Recent research indicates that source domains are activated in the real-time or online comprehension of

target-related metaphorical meanings. This happens even in the case of highly conventional metaphorical

expressions. Metaphor in Literature

Original, creative literary metaphors are typically less clear but richer in meaning than either everyday

metaphors or metaphors in science.

everyday language and everyday conceptual system contribute a great deal to the working of the artistic

genius. poets and writers.

the metaphors used by poets are based on everyday conventional metaphors.

These conventional metaphors that are part of our everyday conceptual system guide and direct us to

understand and interpret correctly the poem even if an unconventional linguistic expression is used, or the

word denoting the idea of the poem does not occur in the poem at all.

poets regularly employ several devices to create novel unconventional language :

These include extending, elaboration, questioning, and combining.

• In extending, a conventional conceptual metaphor is expressed in a novel way, by adding

an“unused” element TO the source.

• Dante’s Divine Comedy:

In the middle of life’s road

I found myself in a dark wood.

• Conventional metaphor LIFE IS A JORNEY. The novelty here derives from the unconventional

element that life’s road may pass through a dark wood.

• Elaboration is different from extension, in that it elaborates on an existing element of the source

in an unusual way. Instead of adding a new element to the source domain, it captures an already

existing one in a new, unconventional way.

Riassunto esame linguistica inglese,docente Sandford, libri consigliati

Cognitive Linguistics Croft&Cruse e Metaphor: A Practical Introduction-

Zoltan Kovecses

• conventional metaphors for anger: ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER.

In Rich’s poem, the hot fluid gets elaborated as acetylene. When Rich modifies the hot fluid and

turns it into a dangerous substance, she performs the (unconscious) act of elaborating on an

everyday metaphor.

• In the poetic device of Questioning, poets can call into question the very appropriateness of

common everyday metaphors:

• the metaphors of a LIFETIME IS A DAY and DEATH IS NIGHT, their validity or

appropriateness is called into question. The source domains (that day becomes night and night

becomes day) does not apply to the target domains (life becomes death, but death does not

become life again).

• Catullus observes that the metaphors are only partially appropriate.

• combine everyday conceptual metaphors

Combining

• Let’s take the clause “black night doth take away [the twilight].” In this single clause, we find the

following metaphors combined:

• black: lifetime is a da