1. 35 years of Cognitive Linguistics Session 3: Metaphor
Martin Hilpert

2. your questions

3. the invariance principle
Metaphorical mappings preserve the cognitive topology (that is, the image-schema structure) of the source domain, in a way consistent with the inherent structure of the target domain.
Entire image-schemas are mapped from source to target
balance: entity 1, entity 2, comparison between them

4. target domain override
not every part of the source domain can be mapped onto the target domain
the target domain ‘limits’ what can be mapped
a target domain override means that a source domain element is suppressed
THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS
This theory has a shaky foundation.
?This theory has nice windows.
A CAREER IS A RACE
She is way ahead of her peers.
? She is two laps ahead.

5. the event structure metaphor
States are locations.
He was sliding into a depression.
Changes are movements.
Causes are forces.
His alcohol problem almost pushed him over the edge.
Actions are self-propelled movements.
He tried to get back on his feet.
Means are paths.
He knew that therapy was the right way to go.

6. When is a metaphor a ‘dead’ metaphor?
MENTAL STATES ARE CONTAINERS ?
He is in love.
She went into shock.
Don’t look back in anger.
Are you a damsel in distress?
Diagnostic: Is the metaphor productive?
You can fall out of love, live through a shock, but can you be ?out of distress?

7. metaphor
“The essence of metaphor is understanding one kind of thing in terms of another.”
(Lakoff and Johnson 1980)

8. domain of WAR domain of ARGUMENTS
mappings
Participants
in an argument
Raising objections
Maintaining
one’s opinion
Giving up your
opinion
Fighting parties
Attacking
Defending
Surrendering
source domain
target domain

9. Warmth makes you feel sympathy (Williams and Bargh 2008)
Holding a warm cup of coffee makes you feel more sympathy for others:
“before the experiment”, subjects were casually asked to hold the experimenter’s drink during an elevator ride
two groups: hot coffee, cold soda
both groups were then asked to complete a personality assessment questionnaire
the same person was rated as more friendly, intelligent, etc. by the coffee group
Source domain activates the target domain.

10. Sympathy feels warm, exclusion feels cold (Zhong and Leonardelli 2008)
Two groups of subjects were asked to perform a number of tasks, among them
Group A had to imagine a scene of social inclusion
Group B had to imagine a scene of social exclusion
After all the tasks, the experimenter asked each subject to estimate the room temperature “at the request of lab maintenance staff”.
Significant difference between the two groups, exclusion group giving lower estimates.
Target domain activates the source domain.

11. TEMPERATURE INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS
mappings
warmth
coldness
warming up
chilling
sympathy
loneliness
developing a stronger relationship
alienation
source domain
target domain

12. question for today:
Does this bidirectional activation work with other metaphors as well? How about TIME IS SPACE?

13. SPACE TIME mappings source domain target domain place point /event
distance between
places
movement
going back
point /event
in time
time between events
aging
‘time travel’
???
source domain
target domain

14. Boroditsky 2000 Three results:
(1) the domains of space and time do share conceptual structure
(2) spatial relational information is just as useful for thinking about time as temporal information
(3) with frequent use, mappings between space and time come to be stored in the domain of time and so thinking about time does not necessarily require access to spatial schemas

15. the metaphoric structuring view
“metaphors provide relational structure to those domains where the structure may not be obvious from world experience”

16. SPACE TIME

17. SPACE TIME
place
distance between
places
movement
going back

18. SPACE TIME place point /event in time time between events places aging
distance between
places
movement
going back
point /event
in time
time between events
aging
‘time travel’
the source domain provides the relational structure

19. ‘weak’ variant of this view
The source domain is used initially in order to ‘get a grip’ on the target domain.
Once we have talked about time and thought about time in terms of space for a while, we no longer access spatial reasoning when we think about time.
‘dead metaphor’

20. ‘strong’ variant of this view
We cannot understand time on its own terms.
We always have to use spatial reasoning when we think about time.

21. Two flavors of TIME IS SPACE

22. He’s been going through some tough times, lately.
ego-as-moving

23. I hope that these things will soon pass.
time-as-moving

24. Experiment 1
Next Wednesday’s meeting has been moved forward 2 days. When is it taking place?
for instance when you expose speakers to this picture
TEXT
it will affect how speakers answer a question about time, such as the following
Conversely, ...
Of course, the important second half of the story is that the opposite pathway is not possible: different temporal primes do not lead speakers to reason differently about space
So, the asymmetric priming hypothesis is an extremely attractive idea, but it also has its problems
Next Wednesday’s meeting has been moved forward 2 days. When is it taking place?

25. Findings
If you prime people with different ways of thinking about space, they will think differently about time.
Source domain activates the target domain.

26. Warmth makes you feel sympathy (Williams and Bargh 2008)
Holding a warm cup of coffee makes you feel more sympathy for others:
“before the experiment”, subjects were casually asked to hold the experimenter’s drink during an elevator ride
two groups: hot coffee, cold soda
both groups were then asked to complete a personality assessment questionnaire
the same person was rated as more friendly, intelligent, etc. by the coffee group
Source domain activates the target domain.

27. Findings
If you prime people with different ways of thinking about space, they will think differently about time.
Source domain activates the target domain.
Does this also work the other way around?
According to the ‘strong’ version of the metaphoric structuring view, thinking about time will necessarily make people think about space.

28. Experiment 2 spatial primes temporal primes
Thursday comes before Saturday.
space to space
time to time
time to space
space to time
spatial target question
temporal target question
Wednesday’s meeting has been moved
two days forward. When is it?
Which of the widgets is ahead?

30. time does not prime space
thinking about time does not
influence how you think about
space

31. contradiction of the ‘strong’ view
you don’t need spatial thinking
to reason successfully about time

32. the generic schema view
Could it be that time is not thought about in spatial terms, but in terms of some general, domain-independent schema?
The results would be consistent with the view that such a schema exists, and that it is activated more strongly by space than by time.
However, this would mean that when you measure reaction times, people should be faster to make the connection from space to time than from time itself to time.

33. Experiment 3 spatial primes temporal primes March comes before May.
temporal target question
spatial target question
Is August ahead of June?
Is O in front of T?

34. Findings

35. overall conclusions
spatial reasoning influences how people understand time
connection from source to target domain
but:
spatial schemas are not necessary to reason successfully about time
time-to-time priming works just as well
temporal reasoning failed to influence people’s understanding of space
no connection from target to source domain

36. conceptual metaphor theory, thus far
people understand abstract domains (time, personal relations, etc.) in terms of more concrete domains (space, temperature, etc.)
evidence for this idea:
linguistic structures (people talk about time in spatial terms)
psycholinguistic evidence (people’s spatial thoughts influence how they think about time)

37. a matter of thought, not words
If metaphor is a matter of thought, not just words, it should reveal itself in non-linguistic behavior.
Is there a way of showing that people think metaphorically when they are not using language?
Casasanto & Boroditsky 2008 test TIME IS SPACE with growing lines

38. look at the growing line

40. estimate the length
. starting point

42. estimate the time
click to start
click to stop

43. asymmetry of space and time
length influences duration estimates
longer lines >> greater time estimates
BUT:
time does not influence length estimates
longer growing time >> no greater length estimates

44. another example: SIMILARITY IS CLOSENESS
These two shades of blue are not identical, but they are close.
The opposing candidates couldn’t be further apart with regard to this issue.
We talk about similarity as closeness, but do we also think about similarity in spatial terms?

45. How similar are the meanings of these words?

46. sympathy
loyalty
very similar not at all similar

47. grief
justice
very similar not at all similar

48. hope
memory
very similar not at all similar

50. How similar are these faces?

51.
very similar not at all similar

52.
very similar not at all similar

53.
very similar not at all similar

55. How similar do these things look?

56.
very similar not at all similar

57.
very similar not at all similar

58.
very similar not at all similar

59. How similar are these things when you use them?

60.
very similar not at all similar

61.
very similar not at all similar

62.
very similar not at all similar

63. conceptualizing
perceiving

64. conceptualizing vs. perceiving
conceptualized entities are subject to metaphorical thinking
perceived entities are judged on their own terms, without influence from conceptual metaphors
however: conceptual metaphor theory does not predict the ‘negative’ effect that is observed in the perceptual tasks

65. a matter of thought, not words
Conceptual metaphors such as TIME IS SPACE or SIMILARITY IS CLOSENESS are used in non-linguistic reasoning.
But: Just because a metaphor is there in language does not mean people use it to think about the world.
SIMILARITY IS CLOSENESS would predict that people judge close faces as more similar, but they don’t do that. Perception intervenes.
Linguistic examples are a good source for hypotheses about cognition, but not evidence for patterns of thought.

66. next time: polysemy

67. See you next time!