Views on metaphor in classical and cognitive approaches. Role of foregrounding and mapping for metaphor. Literal vs metaphorical meaning. Features of cognitive metaphor.

Metaphor is a term for a figure of speech. It does not use a word in its basic literal sense. Instead, it uses a word in a kind of comparison. We run, and we also say rivers run. We may run into trouble, especially if we run up a bill at the bar. So a metaphor uses words to make a picture in our mind. It takes a word from its original context, and uses it in another. "I beat him with a stick" = literal meaning of 'beat'. "I beat him in an argument" = metaphorical meaning of 'beat'.

Traditional view:

Language feature: She fished for compliments.

Literary application, violation of language rules: Her eyes were ponds of purest water.

Division into “creative” and “dead”: Legs of the table, hands of a clock, foot of a mountain. He buttered his criticism with bright adjectives.

Cognitive view:

cognition is vitally dependent on metaphor, which is a mapping of conceptual structures from one domain onto another.

Knowledge is structured by preconceptual structures - "directly meaningful concepts" roughly the same for all human beings that thus provide "certain fixed points in the objective evaluation of situations“ (G Lakoff)

Role of foregrounding and mapping for metaphor

Everyday metaphor is invisible, because we understand it immediately and therefore have no need to pay attention to their metaphorical character. There is no problem in understanding metaphor, the problem is to explain how we understand it.

Foregrounding - is the ability of a verbal element to obtain extra significance to say more in a definite context.

Figure/profile.• Ground Фигура и фон – форма восприятия)

Mapping: mental process from source to target.

Basic level arise “as a result of our capacities for gestalt perception, mental imagery and motor movement’’(manifest as basic –level categories such as hunger and pain, water, wood and stone, people and cats, and tablets and houses.

Image schemas are spatial mappings such as source- path-goal, center-periphery, and container. Image schemas serve as grounding for metaphor. They are based the physical, bodily experience of being in the world. E.g.Happy is up. Sad is down. My spirits rose. You're in high spirits. I'm feeling down. I'm depressed. He's really low these days. My spirits sank.

Features of cognitive metaphor

In cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor, or cognitive metaphor, refers to the understanding of one idea, or conceptual domain, in terms of another, for example, understanding quantity in terms of directionality(price are rising). Cognitive metaphor – case study:

understanding the nature of word meaning;

explaining the ultimate value of a concept;

works at any language level. When the cat is away mice will play. Direct meaning/Metaphorical meaning

Mapping – Figure/Ground Cat – threat, order, power Mice – freedom, damage.

A conceptual metaphor uses one idea and links it to another to better understand something. For example, the conceptual metaphor of viewing communication is one large theory explained with a metaphor. There are two main roles for the conceptual domains posited in conceptual metaphors:

Source domain: the conceptual domain from which we draw metaphorical expressions (e.g., love is a journey).

Target domain: the conceptual domain that we try to understand (e.g., love is a journey).

A mapping is the systematic set of correspondences that exist between constituent elements of the source and the target domain. To know a conceptual metaphor is to know the set of mappings that applies to a given source-target pairing. The same idea of mapping between source and target is used to describe analogical reasoning and inferences.

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