Reanimating the Body in Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Author(s):  
Elisabeth El Refaie

This chapter critically reviews the traditional notion of embodiment in Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), arguing that it is characterized by a somewhat inflexible view of the way the human body shapes one’s thinking. Probing more recent developments in CMT, including dynamic systems approaches and cross-cultural studies of metaphor, and confronting these with key theories from phenomenology, psychology, social semiotics, and media theory, the original notion of dynamic embodiment is developed. Accordingly, the degree to which people draw on their own bodies when producing and interpreting metaphors depends not only on the cultural practices and the specific actions in which they are engaged at any given moment, but also on the degree to which they are consciously aware of their physicality, as well as the affordances of the modes and media they are using to communicate.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Omar Bani Mofarrej ◽  
Ghaleb Rabab'ah

The present paper examines the metaphorical and metonymical conceptualizations of the heart in Jordanian Arabic (JA) within the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory developed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The main aim is to explore how the human heart is conceptualized in JA, and to test the applicability of the different general cognitive mechanisms proposed by Niemeier (2003 and 2008) to those found in JA. The data were extracted from Idioms and Idiomatic Expressions in Levantine Arabic: Jordanian Dialect (Alzoubi, 2020), and other resources including articles, dissertations and books of Arabic proverbs. The findings revealed that all the four general cognitive mechanisms suggested by Niemeier (2003 and 2008) are applicable to JA. The findings also showed that the similarity derives from the universal aspects of the human body, which lends tremendous support to the embodiment hypothesis proposed by cognitive linguists. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-285
Author(s):  
Mason D. Lancaster

This article provides an overview of metaphor theories and research on their own terms, as well as their use in Hebrew Bible (HB) studies. Though metaphor studies in the HB have become increasingly popular, they often draw upon a limited or dated subset of metaphor scholarship. The first half of this article surveys a wide variety of metaphor scholarship from the humanities (philosophical, poetic, rhetorical) and the sciences (e.g., conceptual metaphor theory), beginning with Aristotle but focusing on more recent developments. The second half overviews studies of metaphor in the HB since 1980, surveying works focused on theory and method; works focused on specific biblical books or metaphor domains; and finally noting current trends and suggesting areas for future research.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-78
Author(s):  
Akhmad Saifudin

 Hara simply means belly, but for Japanese people it means more than physical. Hara is a concept, an important concept related to Japanese human life. This paper discusses the conceptualization of hara image for Japanese people. The study utilizes 25 idioms that contain hara ‘belly’ word that are obtained from several dictionaries of Japanese idioms. This paper is firmly grounded in cognitive linguistics, which relates linguistic expressions to human cognitive experience. The tool for analysis employed in this paper is the “conceptual metaphor theory” pioneered by Lakoff and Johnson. This theory considers human perception, parts of the body, and people’s worldview as the basis for the structure of human language. The analysis of this paper results that metaphorically, hara ‘belly’ is an entity and a container, which contains important elements for humans, such as life, mind, feeling, mentality, and physical. The concept of hara 'belly' for Japanese people is to have a spiritual, psychological, social and cultural, biological, and physical image. Keywords: conceptualization, conceptual metaphor, hara ‘belly’,  idioms, imagee.


2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltán Kövecses

Several scholars have proposed alternative views to conceptual metaphor theory (see, for example, Ortony, 1993; Barnden, 2006; Wilson and Carston, 2006, 2008; Vega, 2007; Gibbs, 2008). How are the modified, refined, and alternative theories related to each other and standard conceptual metaphor theory, and which theory provides the best account of the phenomenon of metaphor? The particular approaches I will consider in this paper include the theory of metaphor as categorization, standard conceptual metaphor theory, blending theory, the neural theory of metaphor, conceptual metaphor theory as based on the idea of main meaning focus, and relevance theory. I will present the various theories through the analysis of a single metaphorical sentence: This surgeon is a butcher. I will propose that conceptual metaphor theory as based on the idea of the main meaning focus gives us a good way of characterizing the emergence of the sentence’s meaning. This characterization consists of a four-stage process. First, there exist two independent conceptual categories: BUTCHERY and SURGERY. Second, due to the similarity between the two, a metaphorical relationship is established between them. Third, the property of incompetence emerges in the concept of BUTCHERY in light of and against the background of the concept of SURGERY. Fourth, this property is projected into the blend, in which the property will now characterize the surgeon. I will point out that this approach is compatible with several other views, such as Ruiz de Mendoza’s Combined Input Hypothesis and with aspects of relevance theory.


2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-39
Author(s):  
Gregory E. Sterling

AbstractThis essay considers Philo of Alexandria’s metaphor in which he used the dual nature of embodied existence (body and soul) to argue that both literal and allegorical readings are legitimate. It examines the metaphor in the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CTM) developed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson that argues that experience is the key to meaning. A metaphor occurs when we apply a pattern that we have observed in one setting (gestalt) to another. In this case, Philo has drawn on a Platonic/Stoic understanding of being human and applied it to contested hermeneutics within the Alexandrian Jewish community in an effort to maintain a sense of unity among two groups. The metaphorical experience is the recognition that Scripture is polyvalent in the same way that being human is.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jisup Hong

This paper presents MetaNet’s automatic metaphor detection system that applies theoretical principles from construction grammar, frame semantics, and recent developments in conceptual metaphor theory, including the theory of cascades (Lakoff 2014). The system has achieved relative success in identifying metaphorical expressions for a range of target domains from large corpora and holds promise as a useful tool for corpus-based study of metaphor. The detection system relies on MetaNet’s conceptual network of frames and metaphors as a computational resource for its functionality, and improves automatically as the representations stored in the network are built up. In addition, because of its theoretically principled design the system’s level of accuracy at identifying metaphorical expressions provides feedback to linguists about the accuracy of the frame and metaphor analyses in the network.


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florencia Reali ◽  
Catalina Arciniegas

Over the last two decades, accumulating work in cognitive science and cognitive linguistics has provided evidence that language shapes thought. Conceptual metaphor theory proposes that the conceptual structure of emotions emerges through metaphorization from concrete concepts such as spatial orientation and physical containment. Primary metaphors for emotions have been described in a wide range of languages. Here we show, in Study 1, the results of a corpus analysis revealing that certain metaphors such as EMOTIONS ARE FLUIDS and EMOTIONS ARE BOUNDED SPACEs are quite natural in Spanish. Moreover, the corpus data reveal that the bounded space source domain is more frequently mapped onto negative emotions. In Study 2, we consider the question of whether the instantiation of metaphorical framing influences the way we think about emotions. A questionnaire experiment was conducted to explore this question, focusing on the Spanish case of locura (‘madness’). Our results show that when madness was framed as a fluid filling a container (the body), people tended to rate symptoms as less enduring and as more likely to be caused by social and environmental factors, compared with when it was framed as a place in space. Results are discussed in the light of conceptual metaphor theory.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-177
Author(s):  
Nadhira Shafa Ghassani ◽  
Akhmad Saifudin

Kanyouku is used to express human emotions. This study discusses the mapping of the meaning of Japanese idiom related to emotions in human cognition by using Knowles and Moon’s metaphor theory and conceptual metaphor theory by Lakoff and Johnson. The study utilizes 28 idioms that related to human basic emotions such as anger, happiness, sadness, fear, love, shame, pride, and surprise. These basic emotions are obtained from Goo Jiten online Japanese dictionary. The results show that human cognition viewing emotion concept as an entity and representing emotions into human body. In Japanese people’s cognition, anger represented as belly, chest, and head; fear represented as tongue, heart, and foot; happiness represented as cheek, chest, and heart; sadness represented as shoulder, chest, and heart; love represented as eye and heart; pride represented as chest; shame represented as face and cheek; and surprise represented as eye, tongue, and heart. Human cognition represented emotion concept as human body to measure the level of emotion. This study mapped the emotion concepts as a concrete entity: the entity as fluid in a container or entity as parts of body. Keywords: Cognitive Linguistic, Conceptual Metaphor, Image Scheme, Idiom, Emotion


2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Ogarkova ◽  
Cristina Maria Soriano Salinas ◽  
Anna Gladkova

This paper explores the value of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) in the interdisciplinary study of emotion. The insights provided by a quantitative, corpus-based analysis of anger metaphors in three languages (English, Spanish, Russian) are compared to those obtained from two other methodologies of a more psycholinguistic kind: a feature-rating and a labelling task. The three methodologies are used to test in language several hypotheses on cross-cultural differences in anger experiences derived from earlier findings in emotion psychology. The three methods are found to be complementary and provide convergent evidence that support the hypotheses, with each method contributing additional pertinent data on some of the issues addressed. We discuss the contribution of CMT, its relative importance and specificity, and highlight several methodological and analytical adaptations that CMT studies should undergo for its results to become informative to other disciplines in the study of emotion.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document