Abstract
ABSTRACTThe idea that metaphorical meaning is guided by speakers’ experiences of the world is central to Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Yet little is known about the ways in which speakers’ understandings of objects in the world around them influence how they use words in metaphorical and non-metaphorical ways. This article is a corpus linguistic analysis of the collocational patterns of metaphorical and non-metaphorical bridge instances from the Corpus of American English Corpus of Contemporary American English. The study shows that metaphorical and non-metaphorical uses of words are systematically linked to different types of real world experiences. It is argued that lexical metaphors are, in fact, lexico-encyclopedic conceptual metaphors (i.e., conceptual mappings that involve speakers’ understandings of specific target concepts by means of the specific source concepts that they refer to in metaphorical language), and that they are constrained by cognitive salience.
Highlights
The English term bridge may be used both metaphorically and non-metaphorically
It is argued that lexical metaphors are, lexico-encyclopedic conceptual metaphors, and that they are constrained by cognitive salience
Corpus linguistic analysis have previously shown that collocations tend be unique to either the source, or the target domain of a metaphorical mapping (Deignan, 1999, 2005)
Summary
The English term bridge may be used both metaphorically and non-metaphorically (i.e., in literal or metonymic ways). Sentence 1 discusses a metaphorical bridge between the classroom and students’ homes, and sentence 2 a garbage truck that disappears beneath a non-metaphorical bridge. (Corpus of American English [COCA] [my emphasis]). Are some collocations (i.e., words that occur together more frequently than expected, Sinclair, 1991) of a given word metaphorically used, and others only non-metaphorically, and if so, which and why? This article is a corpus linguistic analysis of the most frequent collocations of the English term bridge from COCA. Corpus linguistic analysis have previously shown that collocations tend be unique to either the source, or the target domain of a metaphorical mapping (Deignan, 1999, 2005). One example is the collocation death blow, which is primarily used in reference to the target domain
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