In this paper I reanalyze the data which Lakoff and Johnson (1980) treated äs evidence for the conceptual metaphor THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS. This reanalysis involves making a new distinction between types of conceptual metaphor-primary vs. compound metaphors-according to principles outlined in Grady et al. (1996) and Grady (in press). The two more basic metaphoric conceptualizations proposed here, which combine to yield the data discussed by Lakoff and Johnson, are ORGANIZATION is PHYSICAL STRÜCTURE and PERSISTING is REMAINING ERECT. The decomposition ofcomplex metaphors such äs THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS into more basic metaphors offers several important benefits over previous accounts. First, a decompositional account predicts linguistic data more accurately and specificallye.g., the fact that there is a conventional Interpretation for the foundation of the theory but not for the walls of the theory. Furthermore t this type of analysis captures anddefines the relationship between "different" metaphors such äs THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS and THEORIES ARE FABRICS (e.g., the theory unraveledy), which clearly share much of the same structure. Most importantly f this account focusses on metaphoric mappings for which there is a direct experiential basis, and therefore sheds light on the fundamental structure ofour conceptual Systems.
l. The THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS metaphorThe title of this paper refers to an example discussed in Metaphors We Live By, the 1980 book by Lakoff and Johnson that inspired much of the recent work in the field of metaphor study. The example concerned linguistic evidence that for English Speakers there is a specific and definable conceptual relationship between buildings and theories. In this paper I will take up the discussion of the THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS metaphor where Lakoff and Johnson left off. In particular, I will argue for a slightly different view of the complex of figurative correspondences which make up that larger metaphor-a view which focuses on some component parts of that complex. I hope to show that this analysis highlights certain important aspects of cognitive structure which the earlier discussion obscured, and which may be essential to furthering our understanding of the nature of metaphor.One of the goals of current work in cognitive linguistics is, through observation of the facts of language, to discover the ways in which the mind relates different domains of experience. One of the most striking features of these relationships, and one which demonstrates most convincingly that they are not spontaneous acts of poetic juxtaposition, nor arbitrary, contingent associations of unrelated concepts, is the systematicity of the relationships which have been discovered. One type of systematicity is found in the ränge of words from one domain which are used to refer to the other. For instance, the expression Sally is a block of ice is not an isolated instance of reference to emotions äs though they were physical properties like heat and cold. There are numerous other expressions which bring ...
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