Animal Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics

Abstract

The phenomenon of AM (animal metaphor) can be discussed based on the class-inclusion model in cognitive linguistics. In this article, we try to prove that this kind of metaphor accords more with this model than with correspondence model of Lakoff. It does not mean that the correspondence model is not valid in this regard, but we argue that depending on the nature of this kind of metaphor, class-inclusion model can explain some of its characteristics better than the other models. The correspondence model assumes that metaphors are essentially analogical in character. Also, it suggests that mappings are one-to-one and structurally consistent. Invariance principle of this model states that 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. But, the class-inclusion model does not treat metaphors as analogies rather the source is treated as prototypical instantiation of a larger, newly created super-ordinate category, which is seen then as encompassing both source and target domains. This newly created category uses a prototypical member as an exemplar. We tried to compare these two models in explaining AM in Persian.