Metaphors - A cognitive linguistic view
Metaphors are loosely defined as a figure of speech in which we compare the common property shared by two quite different things. Let us first look at some examples of metaphors.(from [2])
-> Her career was in ruins.
-> Scientists have taken a huge step in understanding Alzheimer's disease.
-> They selectively pruned the workforce.
-> Let's hope he can keep the team on the road to success.
-> ...a local branch of organization.
Here you may have realized that the last usage has become so common that it has ceased to be a metaphor in the intuitive sense of the term (such usage is often termed as a dead metaphor) .We will return to this later when we talk about the cognitive advantage of dead metaphors.
The General Perception
Our intuitive knowledge about metaphors can be summed up in the following points.
->The usage of a particular word or phrase as a metaphor is by the virtue of the word or phrase itself.
-> Metaphors are a very conscious use of words and it requires certain ingenuity on the part of the user.
-> Metaphors are mostly used as ornamentation in literary and poetic works.
-> Last and perhaps most importantly, we feel that we can dispense with usage metaphors in daily communication requirements.
Claims from Cognitive View of Metaphors
Around 1980's George Lakoff and Mark Johnson came up with a systematic treatment of the topic in their book "Metaphors We Live By". Their theory came to be known as "cognitive linguistics view of metaphor". As opposed to the general perception their theory claimed the following points.
-> Almost all of us, use numerous metaphors in day to day conversation, without having any talent or ability to do so. It is just that we don't realize that these are metaphors
-> Linguistic renderings of metaphors are specific instances of a more general comparison between underlying concepts. This is explained in detail in the next paragraph.
-> Rather than being only a language specific advantage, metaphors are an important cognitive tool for reasoning about certain concepts.
Conceptual Metaphor
A conceptual metaphor is a conceptual mapping from the source domain to the target domain. There exist a large number of mappings. These mappings are generally across different concepts like Affection is warmth. Here we should distinguish between conceptual metaphor and linguistic metaphoric expressions.
The metaphorical linguistic expressions manifest particular conceptual metaphors. [1]. Now, in conceptual metaphors the mapping exists from a more concrete, delineated domain called the source domain to a more abstract, dis-delineated domain called the target domain.
This is best explained by the following example from their book [3]. Consider the concept of Life and the concept of Journey and now consider the statement.
LIFE IS A JOURNEY - this is an example of a conceptual metaphor.
Here Life is called the target conceptual domain and the Journey is called the source conceptual domain How this conceptual metaphor leads several linguistic metaphors is demonstrated in the following schematic diagram.
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Some common examples of conceptual metaphors are,
LOVE IS A JOURNEY
ARGUMENT IS WAR
THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS
It would be a good exercise to list some linguistic metaphors arising out of these conceptual metaphors.
How are metaphors born?
Let's talk about a metaphor say, 'More is up'. As a baby when we see our mother or someone putting water in a glass or the milk in a bottle, we observe that the level of the glass rises. We keep seeing this process again and again and this process repeatedly activates two different areas of the brain simultaneously. First, the area associated with the quantity and second the area associated with the verticality. Repetitive activation of these areas leads to spreading of the activation and eventually the two areas find a shortest path between the two areas. As George Lakoff says, "Neurons which fire together wire together" [1]. This leads to the formation of the neural circuits and what we call physical metaphor are born.We can also say that these metaphors are grounded by correlation between different embodied experiences. By the age of 6, 7 we have learned 100?s of metaphors but we are consciously unaware that we have learned them.
What is the cognitive advantage??
If we now focus on the nature of these conceptual metaphors it is not hard to realize that as a generalization the source concept is a somewhat concrete concept as compared to the target concept, and thus comes about the cognitive advantage of using metaphors.
We try to understand, reason and communicate an abstract concept in terms of a more concrete or well defined concept. Moreover the metaphors which have got deeply entrenched in our minds influence our minds the most,they are "metaphors we live by". Have a look at the above examples and convince yourself that this is indeed the case.
By saying that the source concepts we mean that these concepts are directly or indirectly grounded through our sensorimotor experiences. This also bolsters the notion of embodiment as our physical experiences form the foundation of our understanding of abstract concepts such as Life. Human body is one of the most common source concept!!
It is not surprising to notice that it is not possible for the conceptual metaphors mentioned above to get reversed. This is often referred to as the principle of unidirectionality. This is observed in most conceptual metaphors.
Which Came First?? Source, Target or Both
Now the question arises that is it the case that we first had independent concepts of Life and Journey and then we gradually realized the mapping between the two concepts and started availing of these mappings through metaphors.??
It turns out that it is actually not the case and the evidence for that is a simple thought experiment in which you just try to think about different aspects of a source concept (say Love) without using the target domain(say Journey). The difficulty in doing this establishes that it in some sense the concept of Journey created the concept of Love.
Metaphor in Literature
How do we accommodate the new and original metaphors found in literary works or speeches by talented orators into this view of metaphors??
Any original or new usage of metaphor can be attributed to either to a new constituent mapping between the concepts of an existing conceptual metaphor or to the development of a whole new conceptual metaphor which is then used to come up with some linguistic metaphors.
Evidence for Conceptual Metaphors
Apart from the linguistic evidence that we have so far seen there must be some non-linguistics evidences for these conceptual metaphors because as proposed these metaphors influence our thought and action subsequently. Such evidences are indeed present and are as follows[2].
-> Several Bollywood movies depict life as a journey. Instances where child actor turns into an adult while running is quite a common depiction (not so frequently observed in recent movies, watch some 90's movie if you wish catch up on some of this.
-> Advertisements often demonstrate conceptual metaphors. For example, cars are often showed in advertisements as one's lover and washing powder are shown to be portrayed to be one's friend.
-> Ancient structures also reflect some influence of conceptual metaphors. For example, the metaphor SIGNIFICANT IS BIG is found in architecture, in the pyramids of Egypt where the pyramids were built to reflect upon the significance of the rulers.
[1] George Lakoff, the Neural Theory of Metaphor, R. Gibbs. 2008 The Metaphor Handbook, Cambridge University Press.
[2] Zoltan Kovecses, Metaphor, A Practical Introduction, Second Edition; This is a comprehensive and up to date text on metaphors and considers most of the issues concerning the study of metaphors. Although a bit long, but it is very readable. Each chapter considers different concerns in metaphors. If you are even slightly enthused by metaphors, read this book!! (our presentation is largely based on this text).
[3] Lakoff, G., and M. Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1980; 2nd edition, 2002.; This is the seminal text by two major proponents of the cognitive linguistic view of metaphors that came out around 1980. This book also considers various empirical evidences for their theory. Even though this is quite a lengthy text but if you are sufficiently interested its worth reading. ( at least a few chapters)