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Conceptual Metaphor Conceptual metaphor What is the Lakoffian metaphor? how does it function? how does it 'shape' culture? How do we understand (a culture) through metaphor? How does metaphor perform persuasion? Federica Ferrari NB on reference texts and didactic materials • Johnson, M. & G, Lakoff (2003). Metaphors we live by . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pp. 1-34, p. 157) • Lakoff, G. (1993). “The contemporary theory of metaphor”. In Ortony, A. ed. (1993). Metaphor and Thought (2nd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 202-251. • The majority of quotes are taken from the second text; inverted commas are used for “fundamental definitions”, other concepts are referred to without inverted commas, a version of the second text is also available on-line Intro • literal vs. metaphorical meaning - examples (discuss) • The balloon went up • The cat is on the map • Our relationship has hit a dead end street toward a definition of lakoffian metaphor • “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another”. (Lakoff G. & M. Johnson, 2003 [1980] Metaphors we live by . p. 5) • this definition in a certain way subsumes the potential development of lakoffian theory. This thanks to the conceptual domains that the choice terms “understanding” and “experiencing” evoke: (understanding and experiencing : reasoning and acting, thought and action, mind and body….) • according to Lakoff metaphor assumes a broader sense than the strictly literary one. In fact in his perspective it wouldn’t simply be a mere characteristic of language but the very vehicle for everyday reasoning and action. In this sense: • “Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature”. (Id.: p.3) • Nevertheless, the only way we have to look at how this system is like is observing language: • “Since communication is based on the same conceptual system that we use in thinking and acting, language is an important source of evidence for what that system is like”. (Id.: p.3) • The reason why by looking at language we can understand something on the way metaphor functions is metaphor’s systematicity. For example in the case of the structural metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR, the war vocabulary expressions – attack a position, indefensible, new line of attack, win… – constitute a systematic manner to talk about conflict aspects of discussions. Systematicity thus concerns the relationship between metaphorical expressions and metaphorical concepts. • […] metaphorical expressions in our language are tied to metaphorical concepts in a systematic way [that’s why] we can use metaphorical linguistic expressions to study the nature of metaphorical concepts and to gain an understanding of the metaphorical nature of our activities (Lakoff 2003, p. 7) • In a broader sense metaphor as linguistic phenomenon par excellence may constitute a means to investigate a given conceptual system (ascribable to a given culture) and by transitive rule the definition of reality or of events that culturally defined subjects propose in a more or less strategic way on the basis of a given conceptual system. The mechanism by means of which metaphor defines reality is a network of coherent implications that underlines some aspects and hide some others depending on the mapping at work (we will see what’s a mapping in a while) • […] metaphors, […] define reality […] through a coherent network of entailments that highlight some features of reality and hide others. (Lakoff 2003: 157) Toward a ‘technical’ definition of lakoffian metaphor • “The contemporary theory of metaphor” (Lakoff 1993) Ortoni ed. • vs. 'classical' theories : literal vs. figurative old distinction, ordinary vs. poetic • the technical definition of metaphor as a cross domain mapping – the origin: Reddy's conduit metaphor – what is not metaphorical The cognitive nature of metaphor • According to the contemporary theory metaphor is primarily conceptual, conventional, and part of the ordinary system of thought and language. This contemporary theory can be traced back to Michael Reddy's now classic paper, The Conduit Metaphor. The origin: Reddy’s conduit metaphor • Reddy's chapter on how we conceptualize the concept of communication (“if only I had the words to express what I feel”) by metaphor demonstrates that: 1) the locus of metaphor is thought, not language, 2) that metaphor is a major and indispensable part of our ordinary, conventional way of conceptualizing the world 3) that our everyday behaviour reflects our metaphorical understanding of experience. Contemporary vs. Classical theory • A major difference between the contemporary theory and the classical one is based on the old literal-figurative distinction. • In classical theories of language: a) metaphor was seen as a matter of language, not thought (language vs. thought) b) metaphorical expressions were assumed to be out of the realm of ordinary everyday language (ordinary vs. figurative language) • this theory was not merely taken to be true, but came to be taken as definitional. • The word metaphor = was defined as a novel or poetic linguistic expression where one or more words for a concept are used outside of its normal conventional meaning to express a similar concept. Old literal figurative distinction A major assumption that is challenged by contemporary research is the traditional division between literal and figurative language: • All everyday conventional language is literal, and none is metaphorical. • All subject matter can be comprehended literally, without metaphor. • Only literal language can be contingently true or false. • All definitions given in the lexicon of a language are literal, not metaphorical. • The concepts used in the grammar of a language are all literal; none are metaphorical. A major difference between the contemporary theory and the classical one is based on the old literal-figurative distinction. Given that distinction, one might think that one arrives at a metaphorical interpretation of a sentence by starting with the literal meaning and applying some algorithmic process to it (see Searle, this volume). Though there do exist cases where something like this happens, this is not in general how metaphor works, as we shall see shortly. • According to Lakoff such issues are not matters for definitions; they are empirical questions. Lakoff asks: What are the generalizations governing the linguistic expressions referred to classically as poetic metaphors? • The generalizations governing poetic metaphorical expressions are not in language, but in thought (the classical theory turns then out to be false): they are general mappings across conceptual domains. • The general theory of metaphor is given by characterizing such cross-domain mappings. A cross domain mapping is a function f between two topological spaces A and B that is continuous, meaning that the function sends points that were close together in A to points that are close together in B (funzione, traslazione, mappatura) • And in the process, everyday abstract concepts like time, states, change, causation, and purpose also turn out to be metaphorical. Thus metaphor (that is, cross-domain mapping) is absolutely central to ordinary natural language Metaphor = a cross-domain mapping in the conceptual system • Because of these empirical results, the word metaphor has come to mean: a cross-domain mapping in the conceptual system. The term metaphorical expression refers to a linguistic expression (a word, phrase, or sentence) that is the surface realization of such a cross-domain mapping (this is what the word metaphor referred to in the old theory). What is not metaphorical • Although the old literal-metaphorical distinction was based on assumptions that have proved to be false, one can make a different sort of literal- metaphorical distinction: those concepts that are not comprehended via conceptual metaphor might be called literal. Thus The balloon went up is not metaphorical, nor is the old philosopher's favourite The cat is on the mat. But as soon as one gets away from concrete physical experience and starts talking about abstractions or emotions, metaphorical understanding is the norm. Conceptual metaphor in practice • Mapping construction • Cf. Our relationship has hit a dead end street • Our relationship has hit a dead end street • love is being conceptualized as a journey, with the implication that the relationship is stalled, that the lovers cannot keep going the way they've been going, that they must turn back, or abandon the relationship altogether. This is not an isolated case. English has many everyday expressions that are based on a conceptualization of love as a journey, and they are used not just for talking about love, but for reasoning about it as well. Some are necessarily about love; others can be understood that way: • Look how far we've come. • It's been a long, bumpy road. • We can't turn back now. • We're at a crossroads. • We may have to go our separate ways. • The relationship isn't going anywhere. • We're spinning our wheels. • Our relationship is off the track. • The marriage is on the rocks. • We may have to bail out of this relationship. • these are ordinary, everyday English expressions. They are not poetic, nor are they necessarily used for special rhetorical effect. See also • Look how far we've come ? As a linguist and a cognitive scientist, Lakoff asks two commonplace questions: • Is there a general principle governing how these linguistic expressions about journeys are used to characterize love? • Is there a general principle governing how our patterns of inference about journeys are used to reason about love when expressions such as these are used? (Id. : 206) • There is a principle that answers both: it is a principle for understanding the domain of love in terms of the domain of journeys. • The principle can be stated informally as a metaphorical scenario: • The lovers are travelers on a journey together , with their common life goals seen as destinations to be reached. The relationship is their vehicle , and it allows them to pursue those common goals together.
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