A 100 años de la teoría de la relatividad general
3.2 Marcos de referencia
The identification of linguistic metaphors has been at the centre of various studies namely Crisp, et al., (2007), Steen et al., (2010 a, 2010 b, 2010c). How to move from the linguistic metaphors to the underlying conceptual metaphor is yet another problem that has been under-researched in metaphor studies. In this section, we describe the steps that lead to the identification of the conceptual metaphors underlying linguistic metaphors.
Inferring the conceptual metaphors underlying the linguistic metaphor is language independent as it does not involve linguistic decisions except for step one which consists of identifying the linguistic metaphor. This step has been covered in detail for both English and Arabic as seen earlier in this chapter. The remaining steps described in this section apply to both English and Arabic subcorpora. However, if the same procedure applies, this does not necessarily mean that the underlying conceptual systems for each language are the same.
To date, the only available method describing how conceptual metaphors are inferred from the linguistic metaphors is Steen’s procedure. Steen (2008:203) proposes a five-step procedure to infer the conceptual structure from the linguistic forms. This five-step procedure is as follows:
(1) Identification of metaphor related words (2) Identification of propositions
(3) Identification of open comparison (4) Identification of analogical structure
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(5) Identification of cross-domain mapping (Steen 2008: 203).
This complex five-step procedure initially described in Steen’s (1999; 2008) was further refined in a later work (Steen, 2011). Table 6.5—explained below—from Steen (2011:94) shows the five steps put into practice to analyse the conceptual metaphor in the example “Lakoff attacked Glucksberg”.
Table 6.5. Five-step analysis of ‘Lakoff attacked Glucksberg’ from Steen (2011:94)
Steps Analysis
Text Lakoff attacked Glucksberg
1. Identification of metaphor related words
attacked 2. Identification of metaphor related
propositions
P1 (ATTACKs LAKOFFt GLUCKSBERGt) 3. Identification of open metaphorical
comparison
SIM { F, x, y
[F (LAKOFF, GLUCKSBERG)]t [ATTACK (x, y)]s}
4. Identification of analogical structure SIM [CRITICIZE (LAKOFF,
GLUCKSBERG)]t [ATTACK (ATTACKER, ATTACKED)]s}
5. Identification of cross-domain mapping TARGET < SOURCE DOMAIN CRITICIZE < ATTACK
LAKOFF < ATTACKER GLUCKSBERG < ATTACKED
possible inferences:
ARGUMENTS < WEAPONS
The first step consists of identifying the linguistic metaphor using an identification method such as the MIP (see Section 5.4.1) or the MIPVU (see Section 5.4.2). In Steen’s (Steen, 2011 :94) example, the linguistic metaphor (what he calls a “metaphor related word”) is ‘attacked’ as shown in Table 6.5 above.
The second step consists of identifying the metaphor proposition (P1) where the source domain (abbreviated as ‘s’) and the target domain (abbreviated as ‘t’) of the metaphor are
the two parts of the proposition.
The third step consists of applying “a formal notation of the conceptual structure of the structure of the implied comparison” (Steen, 1999: 67) where SIM is used for similarity, F
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is used for “activity (or relation)” (Steen:1999:67), “x” and “y” are two entities that share a similarity in doing F (ibid.).
In step 4, F (the activity) is CRITICIZED; LAKOFF and GUCKSBERG are the target domain (t). The source domain (s) is ATTACK, ATTACKED, ATTACKER.
In step 5, the cross-mapping between the source and the target domains of the conceptual metaphor is explicated. The action of criticising is mapped onto the action of attacking, Lakoff is mapped onto the attacker, and Glucksberg is mapped onto the attacked.
Steen’s procedure brings some insights into how the source and the target domains of the conceptual metaphor are identified. Furthermore, it highlights possible mappings between the source and the target domains. However, the formulation of the conceptual metaphor is not obvious. In the case of the linguistic metaphor ‘attacked’, Steen claims it is CRITICISM IS ATTACK and adds that it can also be the more general conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR already identified by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). However, none of the mappings highlighted in Steen’s analysis could directly lead to conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR. In a recent publication, Deignan (2017) points out that the move from step 4 to step 5 is the weakest link in Steen’s procedure. She states that:
The five steps make the structural and logical aspects of the process of working from linguistic to conceptual metaphor very clear, but the method in itself does not resolve every difficulty. The major problem for the analyst is that the method as set out here still does not provide an answer to the problem of how we can formulate one particular conceptual metaphor rather than another, based on language data. This leap, which takes place between steps 4 and 5, is dependent on the intuitions of the researcher. The issue arises not just when following the five-step method, but in all attempts to generalize from linguistic to conceptual metaphors(Deignan, 2017, Ebook)
As pointed out here, the final formulation of the conceptual metaphors is always dependent on the researcher intuition, no matter how detailed is the procedure to infer the conceptual metaphor. Consequently, some subjectivity is inevitable when formulating the conceptual metaphor.
In addition to the formulation of the conceptual metaphor, there is another problem that seems to be avoided by metaphor researchers, which is the allocation of the linguistic metaphor to a source domain be it called “semantic grouping” (Cameron 2010),
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“conceptual domains” (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) or “mental frames” (Kövecses 2005). The conceptual metaphor theory presupposes that there are distinct categories in the world and each linguistic metaphor can be easily connected to one of these categories. Let’s say the linguistic metaphor ‘attack’ in Steen’s example above belongs to the source domain
WAR. Hence the formulation of the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR. In practice, the boundaries between these categories might not always be clear which makes the allocation of the linguistic metaphors to the sources domains another problem towards the identification of the underlying conceptual metaphors. For instance, the linguistic metaphor ‘cauldron’ in example 13 below, from the A&A English subcorpus, can belong to the source domain of COOKING or HEATING.
13. The early universe was a cauldron of a star formation. (file4076748)
To tackle this problem in the present study, some source domains that share one or more linguistic metaphors were grouped together. For instance, since the ‘cauldron’ is used for both cooking and heating, the source domains COOKING and HEATING were grouped together with the source domain of FOOD as one source domain labelled COOKING, HEATING AND FOOD.
In order to achieve the movement from the linguistic into the conceptual metaphor in a systematic way, we integrated an additional step borrowed from the discourse dynamics approach (Cameron 2010). As seen in the previous chapter, Cameron (2010:91) proposes to use the concept of “systematic metaphors” to group linguistic metaphors into conceptual groups and to establish a connection between the linguistic metaphor and the concept that underlies it. Cameron’s (ibid.) proposed solution differ from Steen’s in that it looks at all linguistic metaphors occurring in a set of data and tries to group them into conceptual groups whereas Steen (2011) applies his identification procedure to individual linguistic metaphors.
This step is particularly useful when using a bottom-up approach where the linguistic metaphors in a corpus are first identified and then grouped into conceptual domains. According to Cameron (2010: 92),
Systematic metaphors are sets of semantically connected linguistic metaphors, collected together from transcriptions or texts across one or more discourse events and labelled. For the researcher, a systematic metaphor
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emerges upwards through processes of analysis and interpretation, and serves as a way of condensing discourse data (Cameron 2010:92).
In the present study, once all linguistic metaphors were identified, they were grouped into semantic/conceptual groups. Some semantic groups were later merged together and presented as one source domain as seen above with the source domain COOKING, HEATING AND FOOD. Another example is the source domain SPORTS AND GAMES.
Initially, there were three separate source domains as shown in Table 6.6 below, which were merged together at a later stage.
Table 6.6. Early stage of linguistic metaphor categorization into the source domains SPORTS, GAMES and TOYS
Source domains Linguistic metaphors
SPORTS ball, player, billiard ball, baseball, plotted, prize, endgame, football, outfielders, hurdles, league, derby, pinpointed
GAMES roller-coaster, fireworks, swing, puppeteers, snowballs, jigsaw, puzzle, mudball, game, coaster
TOYS dollhouse, Russian dolls, balloons pinwheel, ball, Lego bricks
Table 6.7 shows the early attempts to classify identified linguistic metaphors into three source domains which are SPORTS, GAMES and TOYS that appear to overlap. For instance, the linguistic metaphor ‘player’ can belong to each of these three categories. Because of this apparent closeness between all three categories, they were merged into one category labelled SPORTS, GAMES (TOYS are implied in games).
The identification of the conceptual metaphors in the A&A adopts Steen’s procedure but is applied in a less formalised way and integrates two more steps as shown below. Step 1. Identifying all linguistic metaphors following the adapted procedure discussed in 6.2;
Step 2. Grouping the linguistic metaphors into conceptual groups which are the source domains (for instance MYTHICAL AND FANTASTIC CHARACTERS; SPORTS AND
GAMES);
Step 3. Identifying the proposition(s). Given that the present study is concerned with metaphors in the subject-specific domain of A&A, and that the corpus has been constructed
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accordingly, the target domain, of the metaphors relate to cosmic entities such as planets, stars, particles. These are all grouped together under the umbrella target domain which is
UNIVERSE (COSMOS) or its subcategories COSMIC ENTITIES or COSMIC PROCESSES.
Consequently, each of the conceptual metaphors formulated shows the mapping between one of these target domains and one of the source domains identified in the A&A English subcorpus presented later in Chapter 7;
Step 4. Corresponds to steps 3 and 4 in Steen’s (2011) procedure where the open comparison and the analogical structure are identified, bearing in mind that both the source and target domains are pre-identified. The key step in the procedure is to identify the activity F. For instance, in Steen’s example “Lakoff attacked Glucksberg”, identifying the activity is finding that attacking = criticizing, although again Steen does not describe this step clearly;
Step 5 corresponds to the identification of the cross-domain mapping between the source and the target domains (Steen’s step 5);
Step 6 corresponds to the formulation of the conceptual metaphor bearing in mind that the source domain—not covered by Steen—is one of those identified in step 2 and the target domain is one of those identified in step 3.
These steps are believed to lead to the formulation of conceptual metaphors with a certain level of generalisation that allows a description of both the linguistic and the conceptual metaphors used to explain A&A concepts.
Table 6.7 shows how this adapted procedure is put into practice to infer the conceptual metaphor from the indirect linguistic metaphor ‘cauldron’ presented in example 13 above.
Table 6.7. Step by step procedure to infer the conceptual metaphor underlying the LM ‘cauldron’.
Step No. Description Analysis
1. Identification of the linguistic
metaphors by applying the procedure described in Section 6.2
Cauldron
2. Grouping into a conceptual group COOKING, HEATING AND FOOD
3. Identification of metaphor related propositions
120 4. Identification of open metaphorical
comparison and analogical structure
F=FORMATION =COOKING COSMIC ENTITIESt
COOKING/HEATING DEVICEs
5. Identification of cross-domain mapping TARGET < SOURCE DOMAIN FORMATION <
COOKING/HEATING UNIVERSE <
COOKING/HEATING DEVICE STAR < FOOD
6. Possible conceptual metaphors expressed using the target domain
COSMIC ENTITIES or UNIVERSE and the source domain COOKING,
HEATING and FOOD
COSMIC ENTITIES
FORMATION IS COOKING THE UNIVERSE IS A
COOKING/HEATING DEVICE
The analysis of the example ‘The early universe was a cauldron of a star formation’ in Table 6.7 shows two possible formulations for the conceptual metaphor underlying the linguistic metaphor ‘cauldron’. These are COSMIC ENTITIES FORMATION IS COOKING,
and THE UNIVERSE IS A COOKING/HEATING, DEVICE. The second formulation is retained as will be seen later in Chapter 7.2.5 because it allows the inclusion of other linguistic metaphors belonging to the same source domain.
It is worth mentioning here that the identification of the comparison structure is easier for direct metaphors, as also claimed by Steen (2011), compared to indirect metaphors as illustrated in example 10 below and described in in Table 6.8 that follows.
10.Particles are as spread out as baseball outfielders (file408257).
Table 6.8. Step by step procedure to infer the conceptual metaphor underlying the linguistic metaphor ‘baseball outfielders’.
Step No. Description Analysis
1. Identification of metaphor related words
Baseball, outfielders
2. Identification of the semantic group SPORTS, GAMES and TOYS
3. Identification of metaphor related propositions
P1 (PARTICLESs) P2 (SPREAD OUTs) P2 (BASEBALLt,
OUTFIELDERSt 4. Identification of open metaphorical
comparison and analogical structure
F DISTRIBUTED = SPREAD OUT
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BASBALL, OUTFIELDERS (x, y)]s
5. Identification of cross-domain mapping
TARGET <SOURCE DOMAIN DITRIBUTION < SPREAD OUT PARTICLES <OUTFILDERS UNIVERSE < BASEBALL FIELD
6. Possible conceptual metaphors THE UNIVERSE IS A SPORTS FIELD
COSMIC ENTITIES ARE SPORT PLAYERS
Because the cross-domain comparison is explicitly expressed using the copular simile ‘as’, it is easier to identify the propositions and the open comparison. However, the problem of formulating the conceptual metaphors remains the same as for direct metaphors. In the present case, two conceptual metaphors are possible THE UNIVERSE IS A SPORTS FIELD, or COSMIC ENTITIES ARE SPORTS PLAYERS.
In addition, the conceptual metaphor can be formulated at a more specific level, in which case PARTICLES is the source domain rather than the more general designation COSMIC ENTITIES and BASEBALL is the target domain instead of the more generic designation
SPORTS AND GAMES. The specific metaphor is PARTICLES ARE BASEBALL OUTFIELDERS.
A more general metaphor is the one that connects the previously identified source and target domains and is either THE UNIVERSE IS A SPORTS FIELD, or COSMIC ENTITIES ARE SPORTS PLAYERS.
The conceptual metaphors in the present study were formulated in a manner that reflects the connexion between identified target and source domains as shown earlier in this chapter. However, sometimes, a different formulation might be inevitable to bring together linguistic metaphors from the same source domain. Again, it should be stressed here that inferring conceptual metaphors from linguistic metaphors is a result of an interpretation of the data which can differ from one researcher to another.
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6.4 Conclusion
This chapter has described the criteria and the analytical tools chosen to design and analyse the A&A bilingual corpus. In addition, it has described how the available linguistic metaphor procedures were adapted to fit the purposes of a genre-specific parallel corpus. This chapter has also detailed how conceptual metaphors are inferred from linguistic metaphors, and how Steen’s steps were adapted to fit the purposes of the analysis of a subject-specific corpus. It has also addressed the question of formulating the conceptual metaphor by connecting the target domain (subject-specific) to source domains identified in the data.
The next chapter reports and discusses the results of the analysis of the A&A English subcorpus.
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