What Time Does in Language: a Cross-Linguistic Cognitive Study of Source Related Variation in Verbal Time Metaphors in American English, Finnish and Hungarian

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-238
Author(s):  
Zsuzsa Máthé
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
American English ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Source Domain ◽  
Metaphorical Language ◽  
Related Variation ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
Cognitive Study

"What Time Does in Language: a Cross-Linguistic Cognitive Study of Source Related Variation in Verbal Time Metaphors in American English, Finnish and Hungarian. Such a universal yet abstract concept as time shows variation in metaphorical language. This research focuses on metaphorical language within the framework of the cognitive metaphor theory, investigating time through a contrastive cross-linguistic approach in three satellite-framed languages. By combining qualitative and quantitative methods, this study attempts to identify what time does in language in a metaphorical context, with a focus on verbs in causative constructions (e.g. time heals) as well as manner of motion verbs (e.g. time rushes), through an empirical corpus-based study complemented by the lexical approach. The two main conceptual metaphors that are investigated in this study are TIME IS A CHANGER and TIME IS A MOVING ENTITY. While these two conceptual metaphors are expected to be frequent in all three languages, differences such as negative/positive asymmetry or preference of a type of motion over another are expected to be found. The primary objective is to explore such differences and see how they manifest and why. The hypothesis is that variations among the three languages related to the source domain (CHANGER and MOVING ENTITY), are more likely to be internal and not external. The purpose is to investigate these variations and to determine what cognitive underpinnings they can be traced back to, with a focus on image schemas. The study reveals that source internal variation does prevail over source external variation. The results show that cross-linguistic differences of such a relevant concept as time do exist but more often through unique characteristics of the same source domain rather than new, distinctive domains. Keywords: cognitive linguistics, corpus linguistics, conceptual metaphor theory, metaphorical entailments, source domain "

scholarly journals On the neo-Vedanta as reconceptualised by Vivekananda in his Complete Works: A cognitive linguistic analysis in light of Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Literator ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Suren Naicker
Keyword(s):  
Representative Sample ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Cognitive Semantics ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Identification Procedure ◽  
Source Domain ◽  
Metaphorical Language ◽  
Metaphor Theory

This article investigates the use of metaphorical language in The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (henceforth CW). Vivekananda is one of the most important modern-day Hindu scholars because his interpretation of ancient Hindu scriptural lore has been very influential. Vivekananda’s influence was part of the motivation for choosing his CW as the empirical domain for the current study. AntConc software was used to mine Vivekananda’s CW for water-related terms, which seemed to have a predilection for metaphoricity. Which terms to search for specifically was determined after a manual reading of a sample from the CW. The data were then tagged using a convention inspired by the well-known Metaphor Identification Procedure – Vrije University (MIPVU). Then, a representative sample of the data was chosen, and the metaphors were mapped and analysed thematically. Five of these are referred to in this article, but special emphasis is placed on the theme of the Vedanta philosophy as the basis for neo-Hinduism, which has become synonymous with contemporary Hinduism, with Yoga as the practical wing, and Vedanta as the ideological basis for the practice; this aspect is expounded upon in more detail. The study’s main aim was therefore to investigate whether Hindu religious discourse uses metaphors to explain abstract religious concepts in a specific way, and indeed one of the main findings was the pervasiveness of water as a source domain. Hence, the key finding in this article is that neo-Hindu thought, as reconceptualised by Vivekananda, relies heavily on the water frame (as is convention in the field of Cognitive Semantics, conceptual domains are written in upper case, including hypothetical frames and conceptual metaphors), which is not as pervasive in other religio-philosophical traditions.

‘Man the hunter’: a critical reading of hunt-based conceptual metaphors of love and sexual desire

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
María D. López Maestre
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Sexual Desire ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Source Domain ◽  
Critical Attention

AbstractWithin the cognitive linguistics literature, many publications have dealt with conceptual metaphors about love and sexual desire (Lakoff 1987; Kövecses 2003; Barcelona 1992, 1995; Emanatian 1995, 1996.) However, a source domain that has not received the attention it merits is that of the hunt. This source domain deserves to be studied not only because of the interest in the conceptual metaphors it generates, but primarily because of the ideology and cultural values behind it. For this reason, applying a combined methodology based on cognitive linguistics and critical discourse analysis (Charteris-Black 2004; Goatly 2007), this article explores the use of the source domain of the hunt for the expression of love and sexual desire in metaphorical linguistic expressions with male hunters and female prey, paying critical attention to discourse and the ideologies about gender that are conveyed.

A Cognitive-Semiotic Construal of Metaphor in Discourse

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-143
Author(s):  
Xia Zhao ◽  
Rong Shen ◽  
Xincheng Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Nobel Prize ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Nobel Prize Winner ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Semiotic Model ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
In Trans

AbstractCognitive semiotics is a new field for the study of meaning in trans-disciplines, such as semiotics, cognitive linguistics, and corpus linguistics. This paper aims at studying how cognitive semiotics is employed to construe conceptual metaphors in discourse. We conducted a corpus-based study, with Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and Fauconnier and Turner’s Blending Theory (BT), to illustrate our cognitive-semiotic model for metaphors in Dragon Seed, written by Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck. The major finding is that metaphors are mental constructions involving many spaces and mappings in the cognitive-semiotic network. These integration networks are related to encoders’ cognitive, cultural, and social contexts. Additionally, cognitive semiotics can be employed to construe conceptual metaphors in discourse vividly and comprehensively and thus is helpful to reveal the ideology and the theme of the discourse.

scholarly journals A ‘wind of change’—shaping public opinion of the Arab Spring using metaphors

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. i142-i149
Author(s):  
Alexandra Núñez ◽  
Malte Gerloff ◽  
Erik-Lân Do Dinh ◽  
Andrea Rapp ◽  
Petra Gehring ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Knowledge ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Clustering Algorithm ◽  
Detection System ◽  
African Region ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Source Domain ◽  
Linguistic Strategies ◽  
The Arab Spring

Abstract Newspapers create publicity, draw attention to topics, and try to gain thematic acceptance from the reader. To achieve this, they use linguistic strategies and select culturally and historically evolved encyclopedic knowledge sources. In our pilot study we explore the presentation of the events in the Middle East–North African region between December 2010 and November 2011 that were soon metaphorically framed as the Arab Spring. To this end, we use a text corpus consisting of 300 opinion pieces from five national German newspapers. To get access to the conceptual knowledge structure and the linguistic strategies, we combine text mining methods and cognitive linguistics. We focus on conceptual metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) and their binary source–target structure, where the source domain reveals the underlying conceptual knowledge structures of the speaker. This research focus is justified by the omnipresence of political abstract nouns and by the consistency of metaphors—in particular, genitive metaphor constructions—within the corpus. We first annotate parts of our corpus for such metaphors. Then, additional genitive metaphors are automatically extracted using an adapted metaphor detection system. Finally, we use a clustering algorithm to group the metaphors by source domain. In the following manual cluster analysis, we show that conceptual metaphors are being used throughout the corpus in a systematic way to implicitly categorize and assess the Arab Spring.

scholarly journals The cup as metaphor and symbol: A cognitive linguistics perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nerina Bosman
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Related Concept ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Whole Process ◽  
Religious Symbolism ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
The One

Although the Afrikaans word beker carries strong religious and other connotations, among them references to the Eucharist cup, the contribution of this article is to highlight, within a cognitive semantics framework, the role that cognitive mechanisms such as metaphor and metonymy played in the creation of this symbol. The article aims to illustrate the following: that the two signs of the Christian Eucharist, the bread and the wine, are grounded in conceptual metaphors of eating and drinking; that two conceptual drink metaphors are present when the symbol of the cup is analysed; that a related concept, that of metonymy, acts as a cognitive trigger, thus enabling the realisation of the symbol; and that other factors such as culture and religious symbolism played a significant role in the whole process. A corpus linguistics methodology is used to identify expressions containing the word beker. In analysing the expressions, Conceptual Metaphor Theory is used as a theoretical framework. It is found that conceptual metaphors such as nourishment is drinking and suffering is drinking underlie metaphoric expressions with beker. The metonymy container [the cup] for contained [the wine or blood] plays an important role in enabling the metaphors. In the images of the Eucharist cup and the broken bread, powerful metaphors arising from our bodily experience, denoting suffering and death on the one hand, and joy, nourishment and life on the other hand, are united to form the symbol.

Animal-related concepts across languages and cultures from a cognitive linguistic perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-324
Author(s):  
Sadia Belkhir
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Cultural Models ◽  
Hierarchical Classification ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
Cognitive Study

Abstract This paper investigates the use of animal-related concepts in the proverbs of English, French, Arabic, and Kabyle. Research in cognitive linguistics has highlighted the important role played by cultural influences in conceptual metaphor variation (Kövecses 2005). Animal-related proverbs constitute interesting examples of cultural influences upon conceptual metaphor and its instantiation in language (Belkhir 2014, 2012). The principle of hierarchy underlying the Great Chain Metaphor Theory has been questioned. It has been demonstrated that in addition to the ranking of human and animal concepts on a hierarchical scale, animal concepts were also ranked on the scale (Belkhir 2014). The present article attempts to show that there exists another type of ranking that seems to have never been explored to date; that is, the ranking of concepts within the same animal species. Therefore, this paper offers a cross-cultural cognitive study of some animal-related concepts’ use in a sample of English, French, Arabic, and Kabyle proverbs. Its aim is to explore the influence of cultural contexts and cultural models upon the main meaning foci characterizing the concepts dog, lion, ass, horse, camel, and ox leading to, not only a hierarchical classification of these animals, but to a classification of animals within one animal species as a result of the influences of cultural contexts and cultural models. The conclusion is that sociocultural contexts determine the main meaning foci characterizing the animal source domain concepts involved in the human is animal metaphor resulting in animal-animal rankings within different species, and animal-animal rankings within the same species.

The conceptual metaphor of joy

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-150
Author(s):  
Oana-Maria Păstae ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Cognitive Model ◽  
Conceptual System ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Basic Premise ◽  
Metaphor Theory

The purpose of this paper is to study how ‘joy’, an emotional concept, is metaphorised in English from a cognitive perspective. It introduces the theoretical framework of Cognitive Linguistics, then briefly touches upon the definition of metaphor, the different types of conceptual metaphors and, finally, the conceptual metaphors of ‘joy’. We think in metaphors, which we learn very early. Our conceptual system, in terms of what we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature (Lakoff, & Johnson 2003: 8). Lakoff and Johnson’s book Metaphors we live by changed the way linguists thought about metaphor. Conceptual Metaphor Theory was one of the earliest theoretical frameworks identified as part of the cognitive semantics enterprise and provided much of the early theoretical impetus for the cognitive approach. The basic premise of Conceptual Metaphor Theory is that metaphor is not simply a stylistic feature of language, but that thought itself is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. The cognitive model of joy can be described using the example of Lakoff for anger: JOY IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER: She was bursting with joy; JOY IS HEAT/FIRE: Fires of joy were kindled by the birth of her son; joy is a natural force: I was overwhelmed by joy; JOY IS A SOCIAL SUPERIOR: If I ruled the world by joy; JOY IS AN OPPONENT: She was seized by joy; joy is a captive animal: All joy broke loose as the kids opened their presents; JOY IS INSANITY: The crowd went crazy with joy; JOY IS A FORCE DISLOCATING THE SELF: He was beside himself with joy.

scholarly journals Dressing for Spiritual Battle and Other Challenges: Translating Passages with Underlying Conceptual Metaphors

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-34
Author(s):  
Christy Hemphill
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Conceptual Domain ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
Literary Devices

Traditionally, the approach to translating metaphor in Scripture assumed that metaphors are descriptive literary devices with an underlying “literal meaning.” Research in cognitive linguistics has challenged this idea, and a new field of study, conceptual metaphor theory, has emerged. Conceptual metaphor theory draws a distinction between image metaphors, where a target is described in comparison to a source, and conceptual metaphors, where an abstract or complex conceptual domain is actually understood in terms of a more concrete or familiar conceptual domain drawn from embodied human experience. This paper examines the importance of identifying conceptual metaphors and analyzing their accessibility when translating Scripture. Translators who encounter figurative language derived from underlying conceptual metaphors that are not culturally conventional may try to convert the mapped elements of the source domain into a series of descriptive image metaphors. This skewing of meaning could be mitigated if translators were trained to identify conceptual metaphors licensing figurative language and consider making them explicit. As a case study, a translation of Ephesian 6:13–17 in Tlacoapa Meꞌphaa (tpl) produced by a translator guided by Paratext notes and trained in the traditional approach to the translation of metaphors (Larson 1984) is compared with a second translation produced after encouragement to make the underlying conceptual metaphor PREPARATION IS GETTING DRESSED explicit at the beginning of the passage.

scholarly journals A Cognitive Study of Anger Metaphors in English and Kurdish

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-47
Author(s):  
Khalid Ali Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
Human Emotions ◽  
Cognitive Study ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
The Way

       This article is a comparative study of anger metaphors in English and Kurdish from a cognitive linguistic perspective. Based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), the paper makes a comparative analysis of the conceptual metaphors of anger in English and Kurdish. The two languages are geographically and culturally unrelated. The study aims to find out similar and dissimilar points related to the way anger is conceptualized in English and Kurdish to show the universality and specificity of the different cultures. Also, the article looks for the causes of these differences and similarities so as to help people further understand the conceptualization of anger as one of the basic human emotions.

scholarly journals A Cognitive Study of the Color Metaphor of Yellow

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Li Yan
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Rhetorical Device ◽  
Metaphorical Language ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
Scope Of Application ◽  
Cognitive Study ◽  
Linguistic Phenomenon

A metaphor is the substitution of unknown things by familiar or perceptible things. Traditional linguistic theory regards metaphor as a rhetorical device and metaphorical linguistic transformation as an inter-lingual transformation at the rhetorical level. Cognitive linguistic theory holds that metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon but also an important cognitive way, which provides a new study of language cognition and transformation. From the perspective of cognitive linguistics, this paper analyses metaphorical phenomena and explores the transformation of metaphorical language to deepen readers' understanding of metaphorical language and broaden the scope of application of metaphorical techniques.

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