Conceptual Metaphor in the Archaeological Record: Methods and an Example from the American Southwest

2000 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 613-645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott G. Ortman
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
American Southwest ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Ethnographic Studies ◽  
Textile Fabrics ◽  
Archaeological Cultures ◽  
Preliminary Application ◽  
Psychological Experiments

This paper attempts to unify recent theorizing on cultural meaning in material culture using the notion of conceptual metaphor. Research in several disciplines suggests that conventional metaphorical concepts are central to cultural cognition. Ethnographic studies and psychological experiments indicate that conceptual metaphors are expressed in numerous forms of human expression, including speech, ritual, narrative, and material culture. Generalizations on the nature and structure of metaphor emerging from cognitive linguistic research can be used to develop methods for reconstructing ancient metaphors from archaeological evidence. In a preliminary application, I argue that pottery designs from the Mesa Verde region of the American Southwest were conceptualized as textile fabrics, and suggest that connections between these media derived from a worldview grounded in container imagery. The ability to decipher conceptual metaphors in prehistoric material culture opens up many new avenues for research, including the role of worldview in cultural evolution, and the discovery of cultural continuities between archaeological cultures and historic ethnolinguistic groups.

Metaphor, Cognition, Culture

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltán Kövecses
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
The Other ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Culture And Cognition ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
The One ◽  
Cultural Reality ◽  
Metaphor And Metonymy

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.

scholarly journals Cognitive Function of Conceptual Metaphors in “The Raw Shark Texts” by Steven Hall

2019 ◽  
pp. 58-71
Author(s):  
Aliona Matiychak
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Memory Storage ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Visual Metaphors ◽  
Narrative Structures ◽  
Dissociative Amnesia ◽  
On Line ◽  
Split Personality

From the perspective of modern cognitive science the conceptual metaphor reflects the mental aspect of cognition and creation of a new conception of the world. Therefore, numerous researchers in the area of conceptual metaphor explored it as the understanding of one conceptual domain in terms of another, paying little attention to the role of fiction diegesis. Thus, the objective of the article is to gain a better understanding of conceptual metaphor perception in the diegesis of Steven Hall's fiction. In “The Raw Shark Texts” the conceptual worldview helps the protagonist to recreate the chronicle of his self-identification after the posttraumatic loss of memory. Human knowledge, experience and communication as well as his individual mind, ideas and thoughts are perceived by the protagonist’s split personality as an aquatic space inhabited by conceptual fish. His fear of the conceptual shark, feeding on his memory, generates distinctive psychedelic hydro-text in the form of specific narrative structures. The state of fear also extends to increased human dependence on technology, digital databases (on-line memory storage and loss). The discreteness of narrative diegesis emphasizes the protagonist’s frustrations and is used by the author as a literary imitation of dissociative amnesia. Besides peculiar metaphorical expressions, in the author’s visual metaphors, owing to the simultaneous implementation of the first and second planes of the metaphor content, a third plane (a new reality) arises. Comprehension of conceptual metaphors as intimately interconnected in the narrative diegesis reveals the way of creating layered, intertwined conceptual reality exemplified by the First / the Second Eric Sanderson’s narrative structures. Consequently, metaphorical expressions and visual metaphors in Steven Hall's novel are merely a manifestation of the conceptual metaphors underlying them. Reproducing the features of perception mechanisms in their interaction with psychological, the author was able to catch the common between tangible things and abstract concepts, matter and idea, to compare the incomparable. This approach allows us to consider the conceptual metaphor as a structural component of meta-fiction and to emphasize the cognition specificity of metaphor in creation of new realities in it.

scholarly journals Multimodal Metaphor in Ten Dutch TV Commercials

2007 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Forceville
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Structuring Element ◽  
Systematic Examination ◽  
Central Factor ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
Tv Commercials

Since the publication of Lakoff and Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By (1980), conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) has dominated metaphor studies. While one of the central tenets of that monograph is that metaphors are primarily a phenomenon of thought, not of language, conceptual metaphors have until recently been studied almost exclusively via verbal expressions. Another limitation of the CMT paradigm is that it has tended to focus on deeply embedded metaphors rather than on creative metaphors of the kind that Black (1979) discusses. One result of this focus is that relatively little attention is paid in CMT to the form and appearance a metaphor can assume (cf. Lakoff and Turner 1989). Clearly, which channel(s) of information (language, visuals, sound, gestures, among others) are chosen to convey a metaphor is a central factor in how a metaphor is construed and interpreted. A healthy theory of metaphor as a structuring element of thought therefore requires systematic examination of both its multimodal and its creative manifestations. Conversely, research into non-verbal and multimodal metaphor can help the theorization of multimodality.In this paper it is shown that creative metaphors occurring in commercials usually draw on a combination of language, pictures, and non-verbal sound. After an inventory of parameters involved in the analysis of multimodal metaphors, ten cases are discussed, with specific attention to the role of the various modes in the metaphors’ construal and interpretation. On the basis of the case studies, the last sections of the paper discuss three issues that are crucial for further study: (1) the ways in which similarity is cued in multimodal, as opposed to verbal, metaphors; (2) the problems adhering to the verbalization of multimodal metaphors; (3) the influence of textual genre on the interpretation of multimodal metaphors.

scholarly journals Images of Ukraine-EU relations in conceptual metaphors of Ukrainian mass media

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Conceptual Spaces ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
Depth Study ◽  
The Eu

This paper discusses the system of conceptual metaphors reconstructed via analysis of metaphorical expressions (ME) employed by eight popular Ukrainian newspapers (Holos Ukrainy, Uriadovyi Kurier, Den', Dzerkalo Tyzhnya, Gazeta Po-Ukrains'ky, Segodnya, Ukraina Moloda, and Kommmentarii) published in January – June, 2016. The ME describe perceptions of the EU, Ukraine, and their cooperation in the target conceptual spaces of POLITICS and ECONOMY. The data are processed according to an authentic methodology applicable to multiple metaphorical expressions [Zhabotynska 2013a; 2013b; 2016]. Grounded on the findings of Conceptual Metaphor Theory [Lakoff and Johnson 1980], this methodology represents an algorithm for exposure and further description of conceptual metaphors applied in a thematically homogeneous discourse, and manifested by multiple ME. Their analysis, aiming to portray some metaphorical system as a whole, provides an in-depth study of its target and source conceptual spaces and an empirically rigorous account of their cross-mapping influenced by the discourse type. In this study focused on mass media political discourse, the reconstructed system of conceptual metaphors demonstrates Ukraine’s stance on its relations with the EU and contributes to understanding the role of political metaphor as a mind-shaping device.

Conceptual Metaphors and Image Schemas: A Corpus Analysis of the Development of the On Track/Off Track Idiom Pair

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-165
Author(s):  
Dilin Liu ◽  
Qiyang Mo
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
American English ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Image Schemas ◽  
Usage Patterns ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Image Schema

Using the theoretical constructs of “image schema” and “conceptual metaphor,” this study examines the use and historical development of on track and off track as a pair of metaphorical idioms in American English. Specifically, this article is concerned with usage patterns and semantic changes of the expressions over the past two centuries in three American English corpora. We study the semantic features of the subject nouns as the “trajectors” and the diverse verbs used with the on/ off track metaphors in order to uncover the main cognitive mechanisms underlying the use of the two idioms. The results of the study delineate how the development of the metaphorical idiom pair was largely motivated by PATH/FORCE conceptual metaphors based on image schemas and licensed by the Event-Structure Complex Metaphor; this demonstrates the important role of image schemas and conceptual metaphor in language use and development. The results also reveal that, in using metaphors based on image schemas, speakers/writers may activate very specific embodied images, and that context influences the use of the metaphorical idiom pair. Our results also support findings from previous corpus-linguistic theory-guided corpus studies of lexical/syntactical constructions, confirming again the vitality of this research.

scholarly journals Americans’ cultural attitudes to group work: Insights from the proverbs

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 6-31
Author(s):  
Mohammad Tamimy ◽  
Rahman Sahragard ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Psychosocial Factors ◽  
Group Work ◽  
English Language ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
World Views ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Cultural Attitudes ◽  
Cultural Reality

The role of culture, especially the American culture, in group work is relatively understudied because it is often presumed to be no different from the colonialist West, or is alternatively stereotyped as individualistic and competitive. Thus, this paper studies English-language proverbs used in America, as culturally rich symbols, at three levels of discourse, conceptual metaphor, and content to discern what attitude American culture, as represented in the proverbs, has to group work, and what world views and psychosocial factors can inform such attitudes. The findings suggest that American culture is marginally cooperation friendly, with a considerable penchant for individualism and competition. This ambivalence was not simply a proverbial phenomenon, rather a cultural reality because it was observed to be the result of the interplay between heterogeneous conceptual metaphors, representing different world views. Psychosocially, many factors were observed to have molded the American culture’s attitude to group work, noticeably, egoism, distrust, altruism, and socially shared cognition.

Attitudes towards English in Norway: A corpus-based study of attitudinal expressions in newspaper discourse

Multilingua ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 33 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Line Graedler
Keyword(s):  
Main Part ◽  
English Language ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Negative Attitude ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Lexical Sequences ◽  
Newspaper Articles

AbstractThis article explores some dimensions of how the role of the English language in Norway has been discursively constructed in newspapers during recent years, based on the analysis of data from the five-year period 2008–2012. The analysis is conducted using a specialised corpus containing 3,743 newspaper articles which were subjected to corpus-based macro-analyses and techniques, as well as manual micro-level analyses and categorisation. The main focus of the analysis is on the manifestation of attitudes through various ways of expression, such as the occurrence of lexical sequences and conceptual metaphors related to language. The results show that even though positive perceptions of English were quite frequent in the data, the main part consisted of expressions where English is seen in a negative light. Hence, a fairly negative attitude towards the role of English is predominant, as illustrated by the most frequent conceptual metaphor,

scholarly journals Gregory of Nyssa’s Engagement with Conceptual Metaphors

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 112-146
Author(s):  
Isabella Sandwell
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Thought Processes ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Metaphor Theory

Abstract This essay explores what Gregory of Nyssa is doing when he claims in Against Eunomius that his use of the language of “father,” “son” and “begetting” for the divine is supported by the “apprehension of ordinary people” and by the “judgement of nature.” It uses conceptual metaphor theory in order to show that while Gregory recognised the role of ordinary human language in comprehending the divine, and so engaged with normal conceptual mappings from the domain of kinship, he also sought to transform those mappings in order to transform peoples’ thought processes and thus how they conceptualised the divine.

Seeing the Dao: conceptual metaphors and the philosophy of religion

2015 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
VICTORIA S. HARRISON
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Deep Structure ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Cultural Philosophy ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
Ways Of Thinking

AbstractThis article suggests that different philosophical traditions have developed and matured around particular conceptual metaphors. It proposes that conceptual metaphor theory provides a useful tool with which to think about different world philosophical traditions, as it can reveal the deep structure of networks of ideas. Conceptual metaphors are not just linguistic devices; rather they organize whole networks of thought, experience, and activity. This idea is explored and special attention paid to the role of those conceptual metaphors that structure ways of thinking about knowledge within Western, Indian, and East Asian traditions. The article concludes with some reflections on the implications of this approach for inter-cultural philosophy of religion.

scholarly journals Map, Foundations, Recipe, Burden: Teachers’ Conceptual Metaphors on Lesson Planning

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Alarcón ◽  
Claudio Díaz ◽  
Tania Tagle ◽  
Víctor Vásquez ◽  
María Jesús Inostroza ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Lesson Planning ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Qualitative Research Study ◽  
Research Participants

ABSTRACT Conceptual metaphor constitutes both the theoretical framework and a tool for eliciting and analyzing data in this qualitative research study. The aim of this study is to analyze the role of conceptual metaphors for unpacking research participants’ conceptualizations about lesson planning in Chilean schools. An eliciting metaphor questionnaire was designed to require respondents to complete the statement “lesson planning is like…because…”. The data were analyzed through content analysis for metaphors, as follows: pre-analysis, labeling, classification, categorizing, peer judgment. The questionnaire was applied to 54 Chilean teachers from different schools. Four metaphor categories were obtained: Map, Foundations, Instructions, Burden.

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