Metaphor, Embodied Realism, and Sacramental Truth

This chapter and the next provide an introduction to the field of cognitive linguistics. This chapter focuses on core concepts including conceptual metaphor, metonymy, polysemy, and prototype theory (conceptual blending is explored in Chapter 3). Based on this overview, the author argues that language “means” not through referential correspondence to objective, observer-independent reality but by prompting for embodied simulation on the part of hearers and readers. Language, then, is true insofar as these simulations are apt to reality as experienced by embodied human beings. The chapter proposes that this epistemological perspective of “embodied realism” is congruent with the critical realism endorsed by many recent theologians and with a sacramental worldview in which the material world can be the arena for God’s self-communication.

The DIVIDED SELF metaphor: A cognitive-linguistic study of two poems by Nabokov

<p>This paper will approach two of Nabokov’s poems from the perspective of embodied realism in Cognitive Linguistics. We will shed light on the reasons why we believe that Nabokov makes use of the DIVIDED SELF metaphor in his poetry. In the analysis of the poems we will explain how the Subject is understood in the author’s life in exile whereas the Self is understood in the author’s feelings of anguish and longing for his Russian past. Finally, we will also explain how Nabokov’s use of the DIVIDED SELF metaphor thematically structures both poems.</p>

International business and the Balti of meaning: food for thought

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the interactive processes linking lived embodied experiences, language and cognition (body-talk-mind) and their implications for organizational change. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use an “embodied realism” approach to examine how people feel/perceive/act (embodied experiences), how they make sense of their experiences (cognition) and how they use language and communication to “talk sense” into their social reality. To exemplify the framework, the authors use a cooking metaphor. In this metaphor, language is the “sauce”, the catalyst, which blends raw, embodied, “lived” experience with consequent rationalizations (“cooking up”) of experience. To demonstrate the approach, the authors employ the study of a Chinese multinational subsidiary in Bangkok, Thailand, where participants were encouraged to build embodied models and tell their stories through them. Findings – The authors found that participants used embodied metaphors in a number of ways (positive and negative connotations) in different contexts (single or multicultural groups) for different purposes. Participants could be said to be “cooking up” realities according to the situated context. The methodology stimulated an uncovering of ineffable, tacit or sensitive issues that were problematic or potentially problematic within the organization. Originality/value – The authors bring back the importance of lived embodied experiences, language and cognition into IB research. The authors suggest that embodied metaphors capture descriptions of reality that stimulate reflexivity, uncover suppressed organizational problems and promote the contestation of received wisdoms when organizational change is pressing and urgent. The authors see the approach as offering the potential to give voice to embodied cultures throughout the world and thereby make IB research more practically relevant.

On Proto-Slavic Oath Formulas

This paper deals with Slavic oath formulas containing the phrases ‘stand firm’ and ‘hold firm’, found mostly in peace treaties. The analysis carried out on the rich corpus of Old Serbian charters written in the vernacular and followed by a comparison with the data from Old Russian. The research is an attempt to reconstruct their possible Proto-Slavic structure, both linguistic and conceptual. After presenting the relevant data, the author reconstructs the following Proto-Slavic formulas: * stojati tvrьdo / krěpьko vь / na klętvě ( kъ) komu ‘stand firm in / on the oath toward someone’, * drьžati tvrьdo / krěpьko klętvǫ ( kъ) komu ‘hold firm the oath toward someone’. Both Serbian and Russian charters show lexical variations in the prepositional phrase and in the adverbial modifier of the formulas, which testify to their semantic compositionality. The etymology of their basic lexical constituents (* stojati, * drьžati, * tvrъdo, * krěpьko) indicates that ‘immobility, firmness’ is their core meaning, * drьžati ‘make immobile > hold’ being just a transitive version of * stojati ‘be immobile > stand’. The concrete, physical concepts ‘stand’ and ‘hold’ were mapped into the target domain of the abstract ones (> ‘exist’ and ‘keep, have’). They represent the embodied experience and speak in favor of Embodied Realism. Indo-European parallels show that ‘stand’ and ‘hold’ belong to some of the basic Indo-European (although not just Indo-European) conceptual metaphors, having a deep cultural motivation. These notions were so deeply rooted into the conceptual apparatus that they survived the change of cultural codes, becoming an integral part of the oath in Christian times. As time went by, they were secularized and reduced to phraseological units. They still exist today, even with the same lexical constituents as in the medieval charters, e.g. Serb. držati X ( reč, obećanje, veru), Russ. sderžat’ X ( dannoe slovo, kljatvu), stojat’ na X = tverdo deržat’sja X ( ubeždenija, mnenija).