Abstract
The present paper sets out to examine music-related metaphors in classical music reviews written in English. Previous researchers working in the framework of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory have identified several music metaphors. One of the key domains of music conceptualization seems to be motion. However, their methodology of research did not rely on actual language data and on many occasions was discussed as debatable. The second generation cognitive linguists have focused on corpus and corpus-related methodologies of metaphor identification, elaborated many crucial concepts and thus questioned many ideas of previous researchers. The present paper relies on MIP methodology, or metaphor identification procedure, elaborated by a group of cognitive linguists and further updated by the Amsterdam group in Vrije University. The findings suggest that the MOTION metaphor features in the collected data most prominently. This metaphor together with CONTAINER and LINGUISTIC CREATION metaphors account for almost two thirds of all linguistic metaphors. Presumably, they structure classical music reviews and underlie our reasoning about classical music to a very large extent. Also a large number of linguistic metaphors tend to be more innovative than dead. The more innovative the metaphor, the more evaluative it is. A rather explicit evaluation (positive or negative) is part of the review genre. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sal.0.23.5268
Highlights
Metaphor and music are related by a sheer coincidence of the first letters in the words metaphor and music
The findings suggest that the MOTION metaphor features in the collected data most prominently
The present paper has focused on the analysis of a rather specific genre—classical music reviews
Summary
Metaphor and music are related by a sheer coincidence of the first letters in the words metaphor and music. As claimed by a number of cognitive linguists, our reasoning about abstract things is largely shaped by metaphors, which are grounded in bodily experience (cf Lakoff, 1987; Lakoff and Johnson, 1999, 2002; Gibbs et al, 2004; Johnson, 2007, among others). Music in this respect is no exception. After carefully examining the review texts, all musicrelated metaphorical expressions were identified following the above identification procedure Afterwards they were interpreted within the framework of the CMT, briefly discussed above.
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