Abstract
In the present work we would like to emphasize the aspect of imagination as an element of great relevance in the production of metaphorical processes. With the experientialism upheld by the cognitive approach, people's imaginative ability is established as one of the main arguments to face any lexical analysis from a cognitive perspective. A double focus can be appreciated in the religious vocabulary: On one hand, the experience that the members of a linguistic community live directly and personally and on the other hand, a virtual creation of such an experience, a sort of "imagined experience". In it, imagination would be characterized by the ability to transfer certain conceptualizations and ideas to human domains; conceptualizations and ideas which, from a theological point of view, are neither present nor located in such domains. This focus centers on a series of religious lexemes of a superhuman nature, angel and devil.
Highlights
A double focus can be appreciated in the religious vocabulary: On one hand, the experience that the members of a linguistic community live directly and personally and on the other hand, a virtual creation of such an experience, a sort of “imagined experience”
In the present work we will analyze the relevance of imagination in the production of metaphorical processes, especially in connection with religious superhuman lexemes in English
We can see the experience that the members of a linguistic community live in a direct and personal way; on the other, the virtual creation of such an experience, the “imagined experience”
Summary
In the production of nonliteral meanings of a metaphorical character, the projections may be seen as movements of certain aspects of experience and knowledge from one domain to another. When several specific domains of experience are used to structure other more abstract domains, metaphorical projections operate. As a result of this, both speakers and listeners can understand these last domains of experience which would lack, in principle, a preconceptual structure (Lakoff 1987: 303). The projections between two domains are based on the similarities, and on the experiential correlations as well, existing between the domains Prototypical ideas generalize and determine the associations and projections between domains (cf Geeraerts 1992). This may be considered one of the reasons by which nonliteral meanings exist and are possible
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