CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Conceptual Metaphor in Language
2.1.2 The Nature of Metaphor
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metaphor is based on the correlations or the structural similarity between two domains;
metaphor helps to structure our ordinary conceptual system; and metaphor can be grounded
in the body or socio-cultural experiences.
2.1.2 The Nature of Metaphor
In this session, we will focus on the nature of conceptual metaphor through its
manifestation in linguistic modality. The partial characteristic of conceptual metaphor is
discussed first. The target domain of a metaphor is normally more abstract, and the source
domain of a metaphor is usually more concrete. Most of the time, a single abstract concept is
not completely or exactly defined by a single concrete concept. Lakoff and Johnson (1980b)
suggested that an abstract concept is normally understood in terms of more than one concrete
concept. A cluster of metaphors are used to understand an abstract concept, and each
metaphor partially defines the concept. For instance, the focuses are different in the following
two expressions: Life is empty for him (Lakoff & Johnson 1980c: 51) and He’s holding all the
aces (ibid.). In the former expression, life is comprehended as a container, and the emphasis
is on the content of life. In the latter one, life is understood in terms of a gambling game, and
we pay attention to how people live rather than what is in life. These examples denote that
“abstract concepts are not defined by necessary and sufficient conditions” (Lakoff & Johnson
1980b: 200). The partial nature of metaphor shows that a concept may be reasoned in terms
of different sources which profile different sematic aspects. Based on this notion, the present
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study examines what the targets are that people tend to conceptualize through various
sources.
Next, we will focus on the direction of metaphorical correspondences. Kövecses’s
(2002) finding supports the notion that metaphorical correspondences usually go from the
more concrete and delineated domains to the abstract and less delineated domains. He
collected the linguistic expressions of metaphors in dictionaries (e.g., Cobuild Metaphor
Dictionary) to survey the common sources and targets in his qualitative study. The frequent
sources given by him are arranged in Table 1.
Table 1. Common source domains of metaphorical expressions in English (Kövecses 2002: 16-20)
Source Example
The human body the heart of the problem
Health and illness a healthy society
Animals He is a donkey.
Plants the fruit of her labor
Buildings and construction She constructed a theory.
Machines and tools conceptual tools
Games and sports He tried to checkmate her.
Money and economic transactions (business) Spend your time wisely.
Cooking and food What’s your recipe for success?
Heat and cold a warm welcome
Light and Darkness She brightened up.
Forces I was overwhelmed.
Movement and direction He went crazy.
These sources are concrete in general, and they are what we are familiar with.
Kövecses also mentioned that basic entities and the properties of the entities are common
source domains as well. The sources suggest that metaphor is grounded in our bodily
experience or socio-cultural practices. For instance, heat/cold and light/darkness associate
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with our perceptual experience. Forces and movement relate to our motor experiences.
Games and commercial activities are the socio-cultural practice we perform in everyday life.
Table 2. Common target domains of metaphorical expressions in English (Kövecses 2002: 21-24)
Target Example
Emotion He was bursting with joy.
Desire She is hungry for knowledge.
Morality that was a lowly thing to do
Thought I see your point.
Society/ Nation What do we owe society?
Politics the president plays hardball
Economy the growth of the economy
Human relations the built a strong marriage
Communication That’s a dense paragraph.
Time Time flies.
Life and death Grandpa is gone.
Events and action She has reached her goals in life.
Religion the God’s sheep (sheep = follower)
The common targets given by Kövecses are arranged in Table 2. He roughly classified
the most frequent targets into psychological states and events (emotion, desire, morality, and
thought), social groups and process (society, nation, politics, economy, human relationship,
and communication), and personal experiences and events (time, life, death, and religion).
Compared to the frequent sources, these targets are more abstract and less delineated. We
may say the healthiness/illness of the society, yet we do not commonly talk about the society
of healthiness/illness. Kövecses then concluded that metaphors are normally unidirectional;
that is, the corresponding direction between the sources and targets is asymmetry.
Furthermore, some metaphors are universal. Expressions in Chinese are compared with
expressions in English in several qualitative studies on metaphors in Chinese (including
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Mandarin and Southern Min). In Yu’s (1998) study, metaphors in Mandarin were collected
from dictionaries to compare with the expressions of emotion metaphors, time as space
metaphors, and event structure metaphors in English. Lin (2003) obtained data from
dictionaries and compared the body-part metaphor in Southern Min with the ones in
Mandarin and English. Lai (2011) used data in pop songs to explore the sources for the
metaphor about LOVE in Southern Min. Metaphoric expressions of love in Southern Min,
Mandarin, and English are compared in her study. She also found that multiple source
domains (e.g., FOOD, PLANT, and GAMBLING) map to the target-domain concept of LOVE.
The above studies investigated metaphors from cross-language perspective, and it was found
some metaphors are universal and some are culture specific. In Wang’s (2010) quantitative
study, he gathered data from pop songs to examine love metaphors in Mandarin. He also
found love can be realized by different types of metaphor. Results show that the event
structure metaphor and the ontological metaphor are the most frequent types of metaphors to
express LOVE.
Kövecses’s (2002) study in English supported that source domains are more concrete,
that target domains are more abstract, and that the corresponding direction is asymmetrical.
The cross-linguistic research (Yu 1998; Lin 2003; Lai 2011) revealed there are some
universal metaphors shared by different cultures. Wang’s (2010) and Lai’s (2011)
investigations on love metaphors provided evidence for the notion that an abstract concept
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can be defined by different metaphors which highlight different semantic elements of the
concept. The findings also showed that a single target-domain concept can map to multiple
sources. Except for Wang’s study of LOVE metaphor, all the studies mentioned above only
employ qualitative analysis. The present study attempts to analyze the data in both
quantitative and qualitative ways to gain dependable information about the habitual
expressions of metaphors and the correspondences between the two domains.