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tags: Linguistics
In afterword, some reflection on this Theory of Metaphor:
The theory of metaphor has come a long way from the humble beginnings presented in this slim volume. Yet, most of the key ideas in this book have been either sustained or developed further by recent empirical research in cognitive linguistics and in cognitive science generally. These key ideas are the following:
- Metaphors a fundamentally conceptual in nature; metaphorical language is secondary.
- Conceptual metaphors are grounded in everyday experience.
- Abstract thought is largely, though not entirely, metaphorical.
- Metaphorical thought is unavoidable, ubiquitous and mostly unconscious.
- Abstract concepts have a literal core but are extended by metaphors, often by many mutually inconsistent metaphors.
- Abstract concepts are not complete without metaphors. For example, love is not love without metaphors of magic, attraction, madness, union, nurturance, and so on.
- Our conceptual systems are not consistent overall, since the metaphors used to reason about concepts may be inconsistent.
- We live our lives on the basis of inferences we derive via metaphor.
Structural
Metaphor is thought of as a device of poetic imagination, something extraordinary rather than ordinary language. Moreover, it is thought of as a characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action.
Metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action.
Example: Argument is War - we don’t just talk about arguments in terms of war. We see the person we are arguing with as an opponent and we gain or lose ground. Though there is no physical battle, there is verbal battle, and the structure of an argument — attack, defense, counter — reflects this.
Imagine a culture who views argument as a dance, the the participants are performers attempting to perform in a balanced and aesthetically pleasing way. But we’d not see them as arguing. We have discourse form structured in terms of battle, and they have on in terms of dance.
Metaphor is not just a matter of language. Human thought processes are largely metaphorical.
Example - Time is Money
- you’re wasting my time
- this gadget will save you hours
- I’ve invested a lot of time in her
- You’re running out of time
- Is that worth your whole life?
- He’s living on borrowed time
Corresponding to the fact that we act as if time is a valuable commodity, a limited resource, even money - we conceive of time that way.
Conduit Metaphor: Reddy observes that our language about language is structured roughly by the following complex metaphor
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ideas (or meanings) are objects
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linguistic expressions are containers
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communication is sending The speaker puts ideas (objects) into words (containers) and sends them (along a conduit) to a hearer to who takes the objects out of the containers. He estimates this accounts for at least 70% of expressions used for talking about language.
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Your reasons came through to us
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It is difficult to put my ideas into words
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Don’t force your meanings into the word words.
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Your words seem hollow
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The sentence is without meaning
There are cases where context doesn’t matter
Please sit in the apple juice seat.
Title
I love this! There’s a hidden, localized language here that is so playful because of this feature.
In isolation this sentence has no meaning at all, since the expression “apple-juice seat” is not a conventional way of referring to any kind of object. But the sentence makes sense with the context - an overnight guest came down to breakfast. There were four place settings, three with orange juice and one with apple-juice. And the next morning, even without the apple-juice present it was still clear which seat was the apple-juice seat. rel:Taking a Language
Orientational Metaphors
Structural Metaphor - where once concept is metaphorically structured in terms of another.
Orientational - organizations whole system of concepts with respect to one another. Most have to do with spatial orientation - up-down, in-out, etc.
Happy is UP → I’m feeling up today, That boosted my spirits.
Thought
Some of this is just re-use (we need to simplify and reuse words) , but it does make sense to evaluate why we make the connection. For example, resorting to using specialized words in certain contexts as a barrier/boundary of context.
Using cardinality in reference to sets rather than “size” or a seemingly applicable word. etc. (specificity?)
For some cultures the future is in front of us, whereas others it is in back.
Good is UP. Bad is DOWN.
Things are looking up. We hit a peak last year, but it has been downhill. All time low. He does high-quality work.
- most of our fundamental concepts are organized in terms of one or more spatialization metaphors.
- there is an internal systematicity to each spatialization metaphor. Happy is UP defines a coherent system rather than a number of isolated and random cases. (i.e. My spirits rose, meaning being sadder, is false.)
- there is an overall external systematicity among the spatialization metaphors that defines a coherence among them.
- they are rooted in cultural and physical experience.
- so-called purely intellectual concepts have a physical and/or cultural basis. The high in high-level functions.
Ontological Metaphors
When things are not clearly discrete or bounded, we still categorize them as such e.g. mountains, hedges etc rel:Islands
The pressure of his responsibilities caused his breakdown. I can’t keep up with the pace of modern life
Ontological metaphors are so natural and pervasive in our thought that they usual are taken as self-evident, direct descriptions of mental phenomena.
Personification
Extensions of ontological metaphors.
Important!:
they allow us to make sense of phenomena in the word in human terms - terms that we can understand on the basis of our own, motivations, goals, actions and characteristics. Viewing some as abstract as inflation in human terms has an explanatory power of the only sort that makes sense to most people.
Metonymy
Metonymy is using one entity to refer to another that is related to it.
He is in dance (=the dancing profession.) Mrs. Grundy frowns on blue jeans (=the wearing of blue jeans)
Synecdoche is where a part stands for the whole.
We need a couple of strong bodies for our team (=strong people)
It’s typical for the symbolism to not be arbitrary. The DOVE FOR HOLY SPIRIT is ground in the conception of the dove in Western culture. It is the dove and not the chicken or vulture. The dove is conceived of as a beautiful friendly, peaceful bird that inhabits the sky and flies gracefully, glides silently and lands among people.
Definition and Understanding
Definitions for a concept are seen as categorizing the things that are inherent in the concept itself.
Neural Basis of Metaphorical Thought
When we imagine seeing a scene, out visual cortex is active. When we imagine moving our bodies, the pre-motor cortex and motor cortex are active. In short, some of the same parts of our brain are active in perceiving and doing.
Multiple enactments are always being carried out by the brain, and single enactments can be guided by multiple parametrizations. Consequently target domain enactments can be governed by multiple metaphors. This is explains why complex metaphorical Sentences can been seen like I’ve fallen in love, but we seem to be going in different directions.