CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS

NON-LITERAL MEANING
INTRODUCTION
LITERAL LANGUAGE V FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
❑ Literal Language – You say precisely what you mean. You do not
compare anything, nor do you exaggerate or understate the
circumstance.
❑ Figurative Language – You don’t say precisely what you mean. You
compare, exaggerate, and understate the circumstance.
➢ Examples of figures of speech are:
▪ Simile
▪ Idiom
▪ Metaphor
▪ Personification
INTRODUCTION (CONT.)
SIMILE

❑ Comparing two disparate things using the words

“like” or “as”.
➢ E.g., My lawyer was like a shark.
Some ideas are like diamonds.
She is as busy as a bee.
INTRODUCTION (CONT.)
IDIOMS
❖ A constituent or series of constituents for which the semantic interpretation is not a
compositional function of the formatives of which it is composed (Fraser, 1970).
❖ Idioms’ meanings are not the sum of their constituents' meanings and thus their lexical
formation is frequently unpredictable and often highly idiosyncratic.
❖ Idioms' meanings are regarded mostly opaque.

❖ Idioms are often considered fixed, "frozen" expressions, or " long words" (Swinney & Cutler,
1979, Bobrow & Bell, 1973).
❖ Some idioms have a possible literal (non-idiomatic) interpretation
✓ E.g., drag one's feet
✓ not move a finger (Fellbaum, 2011)
INTRODUCTION (CONT.)
IDIOMS

❑ Consider the following example:

▪ She was looking daggers at me.
▪ I almost burst a blood vessel.
▪ You make my blood boil.
INTRODUCTION (CONT.)
PERSONIFICATION

 Giving human characteristics to things that are

not human.
➢ E.g., His religion tells him he cannot drink wine.
The sun smiled down on us.
Lightning danced across the sky.
INTRODUCTION (CONT.)
METAPHOR

 comparing two dissimilar things without using the words like or as.
 A metaphor is the expression of an understanding of one concept
in terms of another concept, where there is some similarity or
correlation between the two.
➢ E.g., Your insincere apology just added fuel to the fire.
Boy, am I burned up!
After the argument, Dave was smoldering for days.
QUESTION
DO YOU AGREE THAT METAPHOR IS NOTHING MORE THAN
A LITERARY DEVICE?

METAPHOR (CONT.)
METAPHOR (CONT.)
❖ Lakoff and Johnson (1980) claim that our ordinary conceptual system is metaphorical in
nature.
❖ This is based on linguistic evidence such as the following everyday use of language.
➢ Consider the following:
➢ I’m feeling up.
➢ I’m feeling down.
➢ It’s a jungle out there.
➢ His ideas were shot down.
➢ Wake up.
➢ They dropped off.
METAPHORS (CONT.)
 Metaphors allow producers of texts to make connections in a few
words that would take lines of writing, or long stretches of speech
to make in a more literal way.
 Consider the lyrics in these songs:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoqeXpw3ne8&t=3s
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL92Ilf-Brg
METAPHORS (CONT.)

 Consider Lakoff and Johnson’s example.

➢“I demolished his argument”
✓The utterance contains a comparison between argument
and war.
✓It shows the idea that arguments can be constructed like
buildings.
METAPHORS (CONT.)  The essence of metaphor is
understanding and experiencing one
kind of thing in terms of another.
 By linking words or concepts that do
not generally have a semantic link, a
new meaning can be expressed.
 ❖ Consider the following examples from
Lakoff and Johnson.
METAPHORS (CONT.) ➢ Your claim is indefensible.
➢ He attacked every weak point in my argument.
➢ I demolished his argument.
➢ I’ve never won an argument with him.
➢ He shot down all my suggestions.
❑ The metaphorical concept of the above
examples of language use is ARGUMENT IS
WAR
 ❖ Structural metaphors are
CONCEPTUAL cases where one concept is
METAPHORS (CONT.)
metaphorically structured in
terms of another.
➢ ARGUMENT IS WAR is an example
of a structural metaphor.
CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS (CONT.)

TIME IS MONEY
❑ What are some examples of language use that show that
we conceptualise time in terms of money?
 TIME IS MONEY
CONCEPTUAL ✓ You're wasting my time.
METAPHORS (CONT.)
✓ This gadget will save you hours.
✓ How do you spend your time these days?
✓ That flat tire cost me an hour.
✓ You're running out of time.
✓ I lost a lot of time when I got sick.
✓ I’ve invested a lot of time in this project.
 LOVE IS A JOURNEY
✓ Look how far we’ve come.
✓ We’re at a crossroads.
CONCEPTUAL
METAPHORS (CONT.) ✓ We’ll just have to go our separate ways. We can’t turn
back now.
✓ I don’t think this relationship is going anywhere.
✓ Where are we?
✓ We’re stuck.
✓ It’s been a long, bumpy road.
✓ This relationship is a dead-end street. We're just
spinning our wheels. Our marriage is on the rocks.
✓ We’ve gotten off the track.
✓ This relationship is foundering.
 Now consider the following
metaphorical expressions:
CONCEPTUAL
METAPHORS (CONT.) o She’s feeling low/ She’s feeling up.
o Her spirits rose/ Her spirits sank.
o He woke up/ He fell asleep.
o John dropped dead/John rose from
the dead.
o I’m in top shape/ I came down with
the flu.
 Orientational Metaphors
CONCEPTUAL
o HAPPY IS UP/ SAD IS DOWN
METAPHORS (CONT.)
o CONSCIOUS IS UP/ UNCONSCIOUS IS
DOWN
o HEALTH AND LIFE ARE UP/SICKNESS AND
DEATH ARE DOWN

➢ These are examples of ‘orientational

metaphors’
 Now consider the following metaphorical
expressions/linguistic metaphors:

CONCEPTUAL • It’s hard to get that idea across to him.

METAPHORS (CONT.)
• I gave you that idea.
• It’s difficult to put my ideas into words.
• Try to pack more thoughts into fewer words.
• Don't force your meanings into the wrong words.
• His words carry little meaning.
• Your words seem hollow.
• The idea is buried in terribly dense paragraphs.
CONCEPTUAL
Conduit Metaphor
METAPHORS (CONT.) ❑ Our language is generally
structured as follows:
➢ IDEAS (OR MEANING) ARE
OBJECTS
➢ LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS ARE
CONTAINERS
➢ COMMUNICATION IS SENDING
CONCEPTUAL
Conduit Metaphor
METAPHORS (CONT.) ❑ Our language is generally
structured as follows:
➢ IDEAS (OR MEANING) ARE
OBJECTS
➢ LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS ARE
CONTAINERS
➢ COMMUNICATION IS SENDING
CONCEPTUAL Ontological Metaphors
METAPHORS (CONT.)
❑ Ontological metaphors serve various
purposes, and various kinds of metaphors
reflect the kinds of purposes served.
❑ Lakoff and Johnson suggest the following:
▪ Entity and substance metaphors
▪ Container metaphors – land areas, visual field,
events, activities, states, etc.
▪ Personification
CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS (CONT.)
INFLATION IS AN ENTITY
❖ Understanding our experiences in terms of objects and substances allows us to pick
out parts of our experience and treat them as discrete entities or substances of a
uniform kind.
❖ Identifying experiences as entities or substances helps us in categorizing, grouping
or identifying them.
❖ Our experiences with physical objects ((especially our own bodies) furnish the basis
for a great variety of ontological metaphors.
❖ Ontological metaphors are interested in the ways of viewing abstract concepts such
as ideas, events, emotions, activities and so on as being entities and substances.
One example is INFLATION IS AN ENTITY.
CONCEPTUAL
INFLATION IS AN ENTITY
METAPHORS (CONT.) ❑ Inflation is lowering our standard of living.
❑ If there's much more inflation, we'll never
survive. We need to combat inflation.
❑ Inflation is hacking us into a corner.
❑ Inflation is taking its toll at the checkout
counter and the gas pump.
❑ Buying land is the best way of dealing
with inflation. Inflation makes me sick.
CONCEPTUAL Personification
METAPHORS (CONT.)
❑ Personification is perhaps the
most obvious type of ontological
metaphor. Non-human entities are
comprehended in terms of human
motivations, characteristics and
activities.
CONCEPTUAL
Personification (Cont.)
METAPHORS (CONT.) ➢ Inflation is killing me.
➢ The fact argues against standard
theories.
➢ The idea suggests that we can still win.
➢ He cheated death when he missed the
flight.
➢ Our greatest friend is our health.