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Conceptual Metaphors:

A Brief Introduction


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Contents

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What is a Metaphor?
The Traditional View vs. The Cognitive View

Motivations for the Cognitive Approach

Examples of Conceptual Metaphors
The Event Structure Metaphor and the 'Life Is A Journey' Metaphor

Origins of Conceptual Metaphors

Further Information
Core Texts and Relevant Links


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What is a Metaphor?
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The word metaphor in Greek meant "carry across" or "transfer", and is normally used to refer to the method of comparing two different items based on resemblance or similarity. For instance, "her eyes were ponds", "he is a pig", "she carried her guilt", and "my brother is a plague", are all examples of metaphoric language use.


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The Traditional View
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Traditional views of metaphor consider metaphor to be a feature of language rather than thought.

Creative use of language, such as in literary works, is often dismissed as being 'outside' the domain of linguistic theory. This is because metaphor can be seen to be a 'violation' of normal linguistic rules, since it is non-compositional in nature.

'Creative' metaphors are often contrasted with 'dead' metaphors. A dead metaphor is a commonly used metaphor which has, over time, become a part of ordinary language, to the extent that speakers are normally unaware that they are even using a metaphor.


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The Cognitive View
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The cognitive view of metaphors sees metaphors as cognitive instruments. Metaphors are a matter of cognition as opposed to language, and are fundamental to conceptualising the world. Metaphor is a mapping across conceptual domains, from source to target, and normally from the concrete to the more abstract.

Metaphor is considered to be absolutely central to our cognition, especially 'dead' metaphors. This is because 'dead' metaphors, which are automatic and unconscious, are more deeply entrenched in our cognition. Such metaphors are therefore called Conceptual Metaphors, the extension of which leads to literary metaphors.

The traditional distinction between literal and figurative language is thereby dismissed.


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Motivations for the Cognitive Approach
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What are the motivations for the cognitive approach to metaphor? Lakoff notes what he considers to be some of the assumptions of the traditional approach which are demonstrably false:

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.

The 'discovery' of this large network of conceptual metaphors, organised in hierarchical structure, has shown these claims to be false, since this system of metaphors can be argued to not just affect but also structure our cognition.

These metaphorical structures pervade our thought and dictate our language. In many cases what had been analysed as literal, ordinary language, can be shown to be metaphorically based. These conceptual metaphors also exhibit large generative capacity, manifesting themselves in a large variety of different ways and highlighting different features of the same source metaphor. They therefore cannot be thought of as deviant or outside the scope of traditional study.


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Examples of Conceptual Metaphors
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Conceptual metaphors are metaphors which are considered to be deeply entrenched in our cognition. So far, many such metaphors have been documented, two of which shall be briefly documented here.


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Event Structure Metaphor
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The Event Structure Metaphor can be considered to be one of the most widespread of all the conceptual metaphors. It maps from the source domain of space to the target domain of events, and leads to the following concepts, according to Lakoff:

States are locations (bounded regions in space).
Changes are movements (into or out of bounded regions).
Causes are forces.
Actions are self-propelled movements.
Purposes are destinations.
Means are paths to destinations.
Difficulties are impediments to motion.
Expected progress is a travel schedule; A schedule is a virtual traveller, who reaches pre-arranged destinations at pre-arranged times.
External events are large, moving objects.
Long-term, purposeful activities are journeys.

Each of the above extend to further conceptual metaphors. An example of this is the Life Is A Journey metaphor, which results from our cultural consideration of life as purposeful, with a beginning and end.


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'Life Is A Journey' Metaphor
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The 'Life Is A Journey' metaphor is descended from the Event Structure Metaphor, taking its conception of a long-term and purposeful activity as a journey. Culturally we consider of life as purposeful, with a beginning and end. Goals in life are destinations, and difficulties in life are impediments to that motion. This metaphor inherits all the features of the Event Structure Metaphor, mapping from the source domain of space to the target domain of life.

This domain is a part of our cognition, and exhibits itself in our language and thought.

Examples from English include:

He got a head start in life.
He's without direction in his life.
I'm where I want to be in life.
I'm at a crossroads in my life.
He'll go places in life.
He's never let anyone get in his way.
He's gone through a lot in life.

Hierarchical organisation, as mentioned, is a prominent feature of conceptual metaphors. The higher structurally the metaphor, the more widespread it tends to be. The Event Structure Metaphor is considered to be almost universally exhibited in languages around the world, whereas the 'Life Is A Journey' metaphor is culturally restricted.


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Origins of Conceptual Metaphors
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If metaphors are a cognitive tool for understanding one domain by reference to another, there must be some grounding i.e. concepts that are not understood via metaphor. Cognitive linguists have posited the existence of Image Schemas which serve as this grounding. These Image Schemas are based on the physical, bodily experience of being in the world.

For example, there are several conceptual metaphors with an up-down orientation, and these are argued to have developed from an Up-Down Image Schema. This Schema is, in turn, said to have developed from our bodily experience of being vertical when awake and well, and horizontal when asleep, ill, or dead.

Some examples of conceptual metaphors with this up-down relation, (taken from Saeed, p304), are:

HAPPY IS UP;
SAD IS DOWN
I'm feeling up. My spirits rose. You're in high spirits. I'm feeling down. I'm depressed. He's really low these days. My spirits sank.

HAVING CONTROL OR FORCE IS UP;
BEING SUBJECT TO CONTROL OR FORCE IS DOWN
I have control over her. He's at the height of his powers. He's in a superior position. He ranks above me in strength. He is under my control. He fell from power. He is my social inferior.


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Further Information
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Core Texts

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  • Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Lakoff, George. (1987). Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Johnson, Mark. (1987). The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination and Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Saeed, John (1997) Semantics. Cambridge: Blackwell.

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Relevant Links

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Page last updated 17 February 2002.



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