This chapter examines the conceptual patterns involved in the interpretation of metaphors primari... more This chapter examines the conceptual patterns involved in the interpretation of metaphors primarily in English, French, German, and Italian from the field of drugs terminology. It suggests that the process defined here as conceptual networking constitutes a substantial aid in cross-cultural comprehension. Many features of networks are shared among languages, such as similar analogies, cultural overlap in linguistic metaphors, and universal components in both specific and more generalized metaphors. However, there are cases in which shared conceptual metaphors display considerable cross-language variation with regard to the types of linguistic metaphors linked to their networks. These cases demonstrate the limits of cross-cultural comprehension and reveal that non-contextual features are required to establish a reasonable interpretation of the metaphor in question.
Comparaison de deux traductions de "Causerie" en anglais, axee sur la contribution de l... more Comparaison de deux traductions de "Causerie" en anglais, axee sur la contribution de la syntaxe au traitement des metaphores, et a la place essentielle qu'elle occupe dans la restitution du sens des metaphores.
This chapter will investigate long-term trends in war mappings by adopting a comparison of corpor... more This chapter will investigate long-term trends in war mappings by adopting a comparison of corpora from three historical periods in Western society: the Roman Empire, the Crusades and post-1945 military conflicts. These will therefore correspond to a diachronic framework of three major eras: Antiquity, the late Middle Ages and the modern period spanning the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
An interesting question arises out of the type of conceptualisation processes we have been discus... more An interesting question arises out of the type of conceptualisation processes we have been discussing so far. Do we also think of words when a mapping process forms in the mind? For example, we might look up into the sky on a hot, humid day and see billowing white clouds above us. Suddenly, another thought could come to mind. In our imagination, they might really look like huge icebergs floating in the Arctic Ocean. The common links between clouds and icebergs are huge size and whiteness in a mapping procedure: CLOUDS = ICEBERGS. This transfer arises from shared attributes of concepts stored in the mind as a result of the conceptualisation of our environment (if we have been to the Arctic), or worldly knowledge (through pictures we have seen of the Arctic). Hypothetically, the reverse transfer should also be possible: if we look at icebergs we might think of clouds. But does the word ‘cloud’ or ‘iceberg’ spring to mind?
... a decline in the influence of religion. Indeed, diachronic trends of cultural focus can be se... more ... a decline in the influence of religion. Indeed, diachronic trends of cultural focus can be seen in other writers such as American authors of the 17th to 20th centuries (16751975). Smith, Pollio and Pitts (1981: 911935) analysed ...
Metaphor and the Historical Evolution of Conceptual Mapping, 2011
In this final chapter, we will look more precisely at the role of cultural history in the evoluti... more In this final chapter, we will look more precisely at the role of cultural history in the evolution of conceptual mapping. This aspect is fundamental not only to the parameters of culture, but also to universals, salience and the nature of the semantic field under study. It is therefore felt that culture plays a particularly important role in conceptual history compared to mental processes that might be supposedly independent of culture. The preceding discussions have tended to divide universal constructs and culture into separate entities. One theory that will be proposed here with regard to the time dimension is that culture and universal theories on human embodiment are very often mixed in mapping procedures. This is in line with ideas proposed by Gibbs (1997: 146): Our understanding of what is conceptual about metaphor involves significant aspects of cultural experience, some of which is even intimately related to our embodied behaviour. Under this view, there need not be a rigid distinction between cultural and conceptual metaphor. Second, public, cultural representations of conceptual metaphors have an indispensable cognitive function that allows people to carry less of a mental burden during everyday thought and language use. This possibility suggests that important parts of metaphoric thought and language are as much part of the cultural world as they are internalized mental entities in our heads.
This chapter examines the conceptual patterns involved in the interpretation of metaphors primari... more This chapter examines the conceptual patterns involved in the interpretation of metaphors primarily in English, French, German, and Italian from the field of drugs terminology. It suggests that the process defined here as conceptual networking constitutes a substantial aid in cross-cultural comprehension. Many features of networks are shared among languages, such as similar analogies, cultural overlap in linguistic metaphors, and universal components in both specific and more generalized metaphors. However, there are cases in which shared conceptual metaphors display considerable cross-language variation with regard to the types of linguistic metaphors linked to their networks. These cases demonstrate the limits of cross-cultural comprehension and reveal that non-contextual features are required to establish a reasonable interpretation of the metaphor in question.
Comparaison de deux traductions de "Causerie" en anglais, axee sur la contribution de l... more Comparaison de deux traductions de "Causerie" en anglais, axee sur la contribution de la syntaxe au traitement des metaphores, et a la place essentielle qu'elle occupe dans la restitution du sens des metaphores.
This chapter will investigate long-term trends in war mappings by adopting a comparison of corpor... more This chapter will investigate long-term trends in war mappings by adopting a comparison of corpora from three historical periods in Western society: the Roman Empire, the Crusades and post-1945 military conflicts. These will therefore correspond to a diachronic framework of three major eras: Antiquity, the late Middle Ages and the modern period spanning the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
An interesting question arises out of the type of conceptualisation processes we have been discus... more An interesting question arises out of the type of conceptualisation processes we have been discussing so far. Do we also think of words when a mapping process forms in the mind? For example, we might look up into the sky on a hot, humid day and see billowing white clouds above us. Suddenly, another thought could come to mind. In our imagination, they might really look like huge icebergs floating in the Arctic Ocean. The common links between clouds and icebergs are huge size and whiteness in a mapping procedure: CLOUDS = ICEBERGS. This transfer arises from shared attributes of concepts stored in the mind as a result of the conceptualisation of our environment (if we have been to the Arctic), or worldly knowledge (through pictures we have seen of the Arctic). Hypothetically, the reverse transfer should also be possible: if we look at icebergs we might think of clouds. But does the word ‘cloud’ or ‘iceberg’ spring to mind?
... a decline in the influence of religion. Indeed, diachronic trends of cultural focus can be se... more ... a decline in the influence of religion. Indeed, diachronic trends of cultural focus can be seen in other writers such as American authors of the 17th to 20th centuries (16751975). Smith, Pollio and Pitts (1981: 911935) analysed ...
Metaphor and the Historical Evolution of Conceptual Mapping, 2011
In this final chapter, we will look more precisely at the role of cultural history in the evoluti... more In this final chapter, we will look more precisely at the role of cultural history in the evolution of conceptual mapping. This aspect is fundamental not only to the parameters of culture, but also to universals, salience and the nature of the semantic field under study. It is therefore felt that culture plays a particularly important role in conceptual history compared to mental processes that might be supposedly independent of culture. The preceding discussions have tended to divide universal constructs and culture into separate entities. One theory that will be proposed here with regard to the time dimension is that culture and universal theories on human embodiment are very often mixed in mapping procedures. This is in line with ideas proposed by Gibbs (1997: 146): Our understanding of what is conceptual about metaphor involves significant aspects of cultural experience, some of which is even intimately related to our embodied behaviour. Under this view, there need not be a rigid distinction between cultural and conceptual metaphor. Second, public, cultural representations of conceptual metaphors have an indispensable cognitive function that allows people to carry less of a mental burden during everyday thought and language use. This possibility suggests that important parts of metaphoric thought and language are as much part of the cultural world as they are internalized mental entities in our heads.
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