Ling 423/640G: Cognitive Linguistics

Ben Bergen

Meeting 11: Conceptual Metaphor II

September 30, 2008

1. Homework 2

2. Is conceptual metaphor psychologically real?

Boroditsky (2000) tested whether those aspects of a target domain that are specified through metaphors will be shaped by the metaphors used.

If people use spatial schemas to think about time, then it should be possible to differentially prime particular spatial schemas to affect how people think about time.

Participants answered several priming questions about spatial relations of objects in pictures. These pictures used either the ego-moving or the object- moving spatial schemas.

Then they interpreted an ambiguous temporal statement like `Next Wednesday's meeting has been moved forward two days'.

• If the statement is interpreted using the ego-moving schema, then forward is in the direction of motion of the observer, and the meeting should now fall on a Friday.
• In the time-moving interpretation, however, forward is in the direction of motion of time, and the meeting should now be on a Monday.
• If the domains of space and time do not share any relational structure, then spatial primes should have no effect on the way participants think about time.

People used primed spatial information to think about time.

• 71.3% of the participants responded in a prime-consistent manner.
• Of the participants primed in the ego-moving frame of reference, 73.3% thought that the meeting was on Friday, and 26.7% thought it was on Monday.
• Only 30.8% of the participants primed in the object-moving frame of reference thought the meeting was on Friday, whereas 69.2% thought it was on Monday.
• Control participants (no prime) were evenly split between Monday (45.7%) and Friday (54.3%).

The experiential basis for metaphor

Where do metaphors come from?

Classically, metaphor is based on (perceived) similarity between source and target domain.

But in light of metaphor data we’ve seen in this class, this cannot be entirely true.

· How are time and travel through space similar?

· How can time be similar to both of the time-space duals?

The contemporary view: metaphors arise when an abstract (subjective) domain and a concrete (perceptual) domain co-occur consistently in experience.

· For example, every time we experience relative motion, we also experience time passing.

· There are perceptual correlates of motion through space while the experience of time passing is more subjective.

· Or think of Emotional Attachment Is Warmth.

A systematic correlation between a subjective and a perceptual domain gives rise through a sort of metonymy to the ability to think of and talk about the subjective domain in terms of the perceptual domain, even when they don't correlate.

Some primary metaphors are based on correlations that are culturally-dependent.

· Think for example of Time is Money. Might there be cultures in which this metaphor does not exist?

Or consider Tamil, in which there is reported to be no Emotional Attachment Is Warmth. Why might this be?

But there are some metaphors we've talked about that don't seem to be good candidates for this kind of origin. What are some of these, and what do we learn from them?