CHAPTER 4 METAPHORS IN LANGUAGE AND GESTURE
4.3 Cross-Modal Manifestation of Target Domains
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立 政 治 大 學
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l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
4.3 Cross-Modal Manifestation of Target Domains
This section focuses on the target-domain concepts that are metaphorically
conceptualized. Actually, there is a great diversity of the target-domain concepts. Among the
110 tokens in the language-gesture group, 52 kinds of targets are found. Among the 137
tokens in the gesture-only group, 26 kinds of targets are found. This section focuses on 8
kinds of target-domain concepts which have at least five tokens: GROUP, MENTAL ACTIVITY,
(physical) ACTIVITY, DEGREE, SEQUENCE, SPEECH CONTENT, STATE, and TIME. The
remaining targets are generalized as “others”. Except for ACTIVITY, most of the targets can
be found in the examples shown in the previous sections. Example 20 involves the metaphor
GOING TO THE LAVATORY IS AN OBJECT. Time is literally represented by the verb phrase
shàng cèshŏu de shíhòu ‘when one defecates’ in speech. In gesture, the speaker’s palms face
each other and make a boundary to metaphorically represent the activity of defecating as a
bounded object (Panel 3 in Figure 20).
(20) 1 F2: ..他爸爸z-..他爸爸發明的是...(0.9)你知道...(1.0)上廁所的時候它會...有時候那個 2 馬桶...會..反濺..你知道[嗎]
Figure 20. GOING TO THE LAVATORY IS AN OBJECT in gesture
(1) (2) (3)
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Table 9 briefly presents the examples for each target, and the targets are organized
based on their total frequency. Table 10 shows the distribution of the target-domain concepts
in daily conversations. In the language-gesture group, TIME (14.5%) and SPEECH CONTENT
(11.8%) are the more frequent targets. The target, GROUP, is not found in the
language-gesture group. In the gesture-only group, STATE (24.2%), PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
(16.8%), GROUP (13.1%), and TIME (11.7%) are the more common targets.
Table 9. Target-domain concepts and examples
Target Linguistic representation Gestural representation Note
State 那種失控的狀況 The object gesture in Fig. 1 Example 1 in Section 3.2
他不是在規劃中嗎 The weighing gesture in Fig. 19 Example 19 in Section 4.1 Speech
content
你可能講一些什麼東西 The object gesture in Fig. 7 Example 7 in Section 4.1 Sequence 現在那個之前的男友 The front-ward gesture in Fig. 6 Example 6 in Section 3.5 Degree 溫度已經有在上升 The upward gesture in Fig. 10 Example 10 in Section 4.1
With regard to the distribution of the target domains, the difference between the two
groups of metaphors is statistically significant; STATE, PHYSICAL ACTIVITY, GROUP,
MENTAL ACTIVITY, and SPEECH CONTENT cause the differences.9 People tend to use
metaphors in the language-gesture group to conceive SPEECH CONTENT. On the other hand,
9 The Chi-square test for the distribution of the targets in the L-G group and that in the G-only group yields χ2.95(8) = 85.451 (p-value = 0.000). The standardized residuals for STATE are -4.5 in the L-G group and 4.5 in the G-only group. The standardized residuals for PHYSICAL ACTIVITY are -3.6 in the L-G group and 3.6 in the G-only group. The standardized residuals for GROUP are -3.9 in the L-G group and 3.9 in the G-only group. The standardized residuals for MENTAL ACTIVITY are -2.0 in the L-G group and 2.0 in the G-only group. The standardized residuals for SPEECH CONTENT are 3.7 in the L-G group and -3.7 in the G-only group.
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people are apt to use metaphors in the gesture-only group to understand concepts like STATE,
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY, GROUP and MENTAL ACTIVITY.
Table 10. Target-domain concepts in Mandarin conversations
Target Example
Group
Total Language-Gesture Gesture-Only
State 失控的狀況
(STATE OF CONFUSION IS AN OBJECT)
Frequency 4 33 37
% Within Target 10.8% 89.2% 100.0%
% Within Group 3.6% 24.2% 15.0%
Time 早上有下午都是德國那一個嗎
(MORNING IS UP; AFTERNOON IS DOWN)
Frequency 16 16 32
% Within Target 50.0% 50.0% 100.0%
% Within Group 14.5% 11.7% 13.0%
Physical 上廁所的時候
(GOING TO THE LAVATORY IS AN OBJECT)
(THE FORMER IS THE FRONT)
Frequency 6 4 10
* The targets of which the total frequency is less than five are not listed individually in this table; they are categorized as ‘Others’.
Most of the target-domain concepts in the current data are abstract and lack clear
delineation, yet a concept like PHYSICAL ACTIVITY seems somewhat concrete to us. To
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know the reason why PHYSICALACTIVITY is still conceptualized via metaphors, the present
study investigates the correspondences between the metaphor types and the target-domain
concepts (see Table 11). If we compare the target-domain concepts in Table 10 with the
source-domain concepts in Table 7, we can find that the targets do not overlap with the
sources (except for ACTIVITY). This supports the view that correspondences between the two
domains are asymmetrical (Lakoff & Johnson 1980c; Kövecses 2002). The mappings
between the metaphor types and the targets also help to explain why ACTIVITY can serve as
source-domain and target-domain concepts at the same time. Table 11 shows that targets like
STATE, PHYSICAL ACTIVITY, and GROUP are realized by entity metaphor solely. In the
current data, all the instances about PHYSICAL ACTIVITY are manifested by entity metaphors
as the one in Example 20. The metaphor GOING TO THE LAVATORY IS AN OBJECT is
manifested in gesture exclusively. The speaker’s hands make a boundary to metaphorically
present the activity (
shàng cèshŏu ‘defecate’) as a bounded object. In this case, we treat the
activity as a static whole and ignore the dynamic aspect of the action. PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
can serve as the source domain as well as the target domain. While PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
plays the role of source, it is used to understand the more abstract concepts like
COMMUNICATION (e.g., providing knowledge in Example 14) and MENTAL ACTIVITY (e.g.,
planning in Example 17). When PHYSICAL ACTIVITY is a target, the source employed to
comprehend it is OBJECT rather than mental activity or communication. The findings imply
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that the metaphors concerning PHYSICAL ACTIVITY do not oppose the view that the
metaphorical correspondences between sources and targets are unidirectional.
Table 11. Correspondences between the target domains and the metaphor types
Metaphor Type
Sequence Degree Others
Entity
As shown in Table 11, a target may be realized by different types of metaphor. TIME
can be realized through entity metaphor, orientation metaphor, and fictive-motion metaphor.
MENTAL ACTIVITY can be manifested by entity metaphor, causation metaphor, and complex
metaphor. SPEECH CONTENT can be conceptualized via entity metaphor and fictive-motion
metaphor. SEQUENCE and DEGREE can be conceived through entity metaphor and orientation
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metaphor. Also, a certain type of metaphor may be used to express various kinds of targets.
The findings indicate that metaphorical mapping between domains is not restricted to the
one-to-one correspondence. Section 4.4 will discuss the sources used to conceive several
targets and the targets conceptualized in terms of multiple sources.