scholarly journals Conceptual Metaphors of Time in the Sonnets of Shakespeare: A Cognitive Linguistic Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Mufeed Al-Abdullah

The article studies the conceptual metaphors of time in the sonnets of Shakespeare in light of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) of Lakoff and Johnson (1980) presented in their book, Metaphors We Live By, and Kovecses’ (2002) informative views in his book, Metaphor: A Practical Introduction. The extracted metaphors selected from a variety of sonnets that tackle the theme of time will be divided into three sub-categories: structural, ontological, and orientational. Under ontological metaphors, the study addresses metaphors in the forms of personification, metonymy, and synecdoche. Using the cognitive approach to understand the abstract concept of time in terms of a variety of concrete concepts with experiential dimension enables the reader to perceive this concept from different perspectives. The study hopes to show that the cluster of source domains Shakespeare provides in the metaphors maps an association of multidimensional possibilities that improve our understanding of time. Also, this consortium of possibilities points to the creativity and the wide scope of Shakespeare’s vision. The study hopes to add another vantage point from which to view Shakespeare’s presentation of time in light of modern progress in the studies of conceptual metaphors and cognitive poetics.

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-150
Author(s):  
Oana-Maria Păstae ◽  

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.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chun Lan ◽  
Zichong Yin

AbstractThis is a cognitive linguistic study of Shi Jing (The Book of Poetry), the first collection of poems in Chinese history dated from the 11th to the 6th century B.C. Adopting the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, we carry out a comprehensive analysis of all the metaphorical expressions in the collection, with the aim of investigating the underlying conceptual metaphors and exploring the interrelationships between metaphor, cognition and culture. The main findings are: 1) Altogether 476 metaphorical expressions have been identified, not only in those poems traditionally associated with bĭ (comparison) or xìng (affective image), but also in those poems traditionally associated with fù (narration). 2) Most of the metaphorical expressions identified belong to the Great Chain of Being Metaphor and can be further divided into downward ones and upward ones, with the former outnumbering the latter. 3) From the underlying conceptual metaphors, it can be observed that the conceptualization pattern of the Zhou Dynasty is rather anthropocentric and anthropomorphic, with a certain tendency towards animism. It is also patriarchal in regarding men as aesthetic subject and women as aesthetic object. 4) The Zhou people also showed remarkable figurative creativity. All the four devices summarized by Lakoff and Turner (1989) for creating novel language from conventional materials (extending, elaborating, questioning and composing) have been skillfully employed by the Zhou people to sing for their love and lament the miseries of life.


Author(s):  
Zoltán Kövecses

The chapter reports on work concerned with the issue of how conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) functions as a link between culture and cognition. Three large areas are investigated to this effect. First, work on the interaction between conceptual metaphors, on the one hand, and folk and expert theories of emotion, on the other, is surveyed. Second, the issue of metaphorical universality and variation is addressed, together with that of the function of embodiment in metaphor. Third, a contextualist view of conceptual metaphors is proposed. The discussion of these issues leads to a new and integrated understanding of the role of metaphor and metonymy in creating cultural reality and that of metaphorical variation across and within cultures, as well as individuals.


2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Salvador Alarcón-Hermosilla

Abstract The aim of this paper is to take a close look at John McGahern’s mind style through the language of the heroine Elizabeth Reegan and other characters, in his 1963 novel The Barracks. Specifically, attention will be drawn to how the linguistic choices shape the figurative language to cast the author’s controversial views on the religion-pervaded puritan Irish society that he knew so well. This will be done from two different perspectives. One perspective is through the breast cancer afflicted heroine, who asserts herself as a free thinker and a woman of science, in a society where priests have a strong influence at all social levels, and most women settle for housekeeping. The other is also through Elizabeth, together with other minor characters, who dare question some of the basic well-established ideological assumptions, in a series of examples where the author skilfully raises two parallel dichotomies, namely, FAITH versus REASON, and DARKNESS versus LIGHT. At a linguistic level, the present analysis relies on precepts from Frame Semantics, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and Cognitive Grammar. These insights prove a most useful method of approach to a narrative text while unearthing the author’s ideological world view.


Author(s):  
Nenad Blaženović ◽  
Emir Muhić

An analysis was carried out with two interviews given by the tennis-player Novak Djokovic, one of which was in English and the other in his native Serbian. In both instances, Novak Djokovic used many conceptual metaphors throughout his speech, some of which were analysed in more detail. The main premise of the research was that people’s personalities change in accordance with language they speak at any given time and that they use different conceptual metaphors to describe the same events in different languages. The aim of the paper was to investigate whether personality shift in bilingual speakers can be observed through the speaker’s use of conceptual metaphors in different languages. Through the framework of conceptual metaphor theory, it was shown that Djokovic’s personality does change with the language he speaks. This change was shown through the conceptual metaphors, i.e., source and target domains that Djokovic used during the interviews. He does indeed use different source domains to conceptualise the same target domains in different languages.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 166
Author(s):  
Victor Ondara Ntabo ◽  
Moses Gatambuki Gathigia ◽  
Naom Moraa Nyarigoti

A review of literature on pop songs reveals that composers use metaphors to communicate their feelings. In particular, the meaning of the metaphors in EkeGusii pop songs needs to be interpreted to reveal the message of the composers. The EkeGusii pop singer Christopher Mosioma’s (Embarambamba) songs have gained fame in Kenya because of their richness in the usage of metaphors. One of Christopher Mosioma’s songs, amasomo (education) which was launched in 2015 has gained acclaim from Kenyans. The song amasomo (education) is basically presented as a piece of advice to students to embrace education in order to optimally reap from its benefits. The study identified 10 metaphors in the song amasomo (education) through the Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit. In order to interpret the metaphors in the EkeGusii pop song amasomo (education), the Conceptual Metaphor Theory complemented by the folk conception of the generic Great Chain of Being Metaphor were employed. The study employed four coders (including the researchers) in the identification of the metaphors. The study found that, inter alia, animal, plant and object metaphors are used in the song amasomo (education). The study concludes that the metaphors in the EkeGusii pop songs belong inherently to different levels of the generic Great Chain of Being Metaphor.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Ayed Ibrahim Ayassrah ◽  
Mohd Nazri Latiff Azmi

Of the rhetorical tools, metaphor still has insufficient interest, primarily as a crosscultural phenomenon though it is an attractive and vivid area, so it should be studied and highlighted (Suhadi, 2018) and (Barton, 2017). This comparative study investigated the conceptual metaphor in modern Arabic versus English poetry with reference to Al-Sayyab and T. S. Eliot as two poles of modern poetry in Arabic and English. This study tried to shed light on the frequency of the conceptual metaphors in Al-Sayyab’s The Rain Song versus Eliot’s The Waste Land. Besides, it aimed to explore the similarities and differences between the two poems in using the CMT orientational ’Up’ and ’Down’ strategy. However, to accomplish its aims, this study adopted Lakoff and Jonson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory ’CMT’ (1980); this theory asserted that metaphor is an inborn mental system in which we understand a certain concept in terms of another by drawing a logical mapping between the source domain and the target one. Finally, the study found that modern poetry was wealthy of conceptual metaphors. It also discovered that The Rain Song involved 65.29% conceptual metaphors of its total lines, so it exceeded The Waste Land which comprised only 39.40%. Furthermore, the study revealed that the two poems were generally pessimistic in which the ’Down’ domain exceeded the ’Up’ one in each poem. Also, it detected that Eliot was more pessimistic than Al Sayyab who was more optimistic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Merry Lapasau ◽  
Sulis Setiawati

This study aims at finding the use of life metaphors in tetralogy Laskar Pelangi (hereinafter TLP). Data were analyzed in the framework of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) by using a descriptive qualitative approach. We found 21 life metaphors in TLP and the finding shows that the conceptual metaphor of life as a target domain is mapped into several diverse source domains, and they are: life is a fluid in a container, life is a journey, life is a living organism, life is a precious possession, life is dedication to others, life is a struggle,life is guidance, life is war, and life is hard work. It can be concluded that TLP is rich with the use of metaphors in describing the cultural events of the Malays in detail. The way how the Malay master the problems in their lives, how they see and understand the world, is made clear by their language, which is reflected in conceptual metaphors. The results of this research support the idea that metaphors are not just rhetorical devices to say something more stylistically but they are conceptual in nature and its existence can be different in each culture.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peer F. Bundgaard

Abstract George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory is by and large a theory of what (abstract) concepts are, how they are structured, and how this structure is acquired — i.e., by mapping of structure from one more concrete or sensory-motor specific domain to another more abstract domain. Conceptual metaphors therefore rest on “cross-domain mappings.” The claims to the effect that our abstract concepts are metaphorically structured and that cross-domain mappings constitute one of the fundamental cognitive meaning-making processes are empirical and can therefore be put to the test. In this paper, I will critically assess Conceptual Metaphor Theory as a theory of concepts in light of recent experimental findings. Many such findings provide evidence for the psychological reality of cross-domain mappings, i.e., that structure activated in one domain actually can perform cognitive tasks carried out in another domain. They do not, however, support the claim that the structure of our (abstract) concepts is still metaphorical, as Lakoff and Johnson claim — that is to say, that our mind actually does perform cross-domain mappings when we process conventional conceptual metaphors such as “Death is Rest” or “Love is a Journey.” Two conclusions can be drawn from this: (1) it is necessary to distinguish between cross-domain mappings (which are psychologically real) and the metaphoric structure of our concepts (which is not, in the sense that such concepts do not any longer activate cross-domain mappings when processed); (2) Conceptual Metaphor Theory is not an adequate theory of concepts. I will therefore sketch another more viable theory of concepts where the structure of our concepts is defined as the full ecology of their situations of use, which includes the kind of situations (objects, agents, interactions) they apply to and the kind of emotional, cognitive, bodily, and behavioral responses they elicit. On this view, the contents of our concepts are to be considered as vague predicates, with vague extensions, which take on a specific form in their situation of use.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark J. Landau

Pursuing meaning in life confronts the individual with abstract ideas about the connections between experiences and identities over time ( continuity), the ends that life serves ( purpose), and its worth ( value). Conceptual metaphor theory is helpful to explain the cognitive strategies people use to understand these ideas. This theory posits that metaphor is a cognitive tool for understanding abstractions in terms of superficially dissimilar, relatively more concrete concepts. Early empirical tests of this claim focused on how activated metaphors influence judgments of other people, events, and social issues. Going further, an emerging area of research examines metaphor's roles in perceptions of life's continuity, purpose, and value. This article provides the first overview of this development. Specific aims are to organize previous findings, identify questions for future research, and discuss theoretical implications for the meaning of meaning.


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