Thematic role mappings in metaphor variation: contrasting Englishbakeand Spanishhornear

Abstract

The present study investigates the scope of metaphors evoked by the culinary term bake in American English and its Peninsular Spanish equivalent hornear. The data analysed was extracted from the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the Corpus del Español: Web/Dialects. The target frames evoked and the frame elements involved in the metaphorical mappings were used to identify and analyse the metaphorical expressions. Furthermore, the type of process and thematic roles performed by the frame elements in the conceptual projections were examined to make divergences explicit. Our results suggest that metaphor diversity is broader in American English, as the source frame evoked by bake expresses metaphorically a larger number of target frames than hornear in Peninsular Spanish. Consequently, these lexical items are not exact equivalents. Each language seems to place the experiential focus on different frame elements and thematic roles to create their metaphorical mappings, which points to differential cognitive preferences between both cultures.

A Taste of Metaphor Variation: Contrasting the Metaphorical Extensions of “stew” and “guisar”

“…Furthermore, stewing can express drug intoxication. In this regard, the results indicate that stewing solely refers to alcohol intoxication, as opposed to other cooking frames like baking, which usually refers to marijuana consumption (Esbrí-Blasco, Navarro i Ferrando, 2023).…”

“…The metaphorical senses identified in COCA and CEWD have been compared in both languages, thereby bringing to light the similarities and divergencies in terms of metaphorical conceptualisation across cultures. The metaphor analysis is based on comparing conceptual mappings between the SF and the TFs (see Esbrí-Blasco, Navarro i Ferrando, 2023). This study addresses the limitations identified in prior research by offering a cross-linguistic, in-depth, systematic analysis of the particular FEs participating in metaphorical correspondences.…”

“…MIP does not address the conceptual dimension, as it does not identify the source and target configurations involved in a metaphor. To overcome this limitation, this study adopts a refined version of MIP (see Esbrí-Blasco, Navarro i Ferrando, 2023), integrating frames as a semantic tool for identifying the SF and TFs as well as the specific FEs engaged in the metaphorical mappings. Unlike MIP, this version not only identifies metaphorical expressions but also explores mappings at the conceptual level.…”

“…Culture shapes metaphorical configurations by selecting the aspects of human experience that are more salient in a given cultural context (Dobrovol'skij, Piirainen, 2022;Esbrí-Blasco, Navarro i Ferrando, 2023;Kövecses, 2020;Littlemore, 2019;Yu, 2012). Therefore, exploring the variation of metaphorical patterns of conceptualisation across languages can furnish invaluable elucidations regarding how distinct cultures conceptualise a specific concept.…”