Interior Furnishings: Scenes from an American Foundational Schema

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 3 offered us a close look at a single American cultural model, the game of baseball. We saw how, in addition to its obvious role as pure entertainment, baseball models the problematical relationship between individualistic and communitarian values, enduring issues in American culture and history. The analysis also showed how this baseball model contributes to the structure of the American cultural model of love and marriage. This kind of cross-mapping between models is not uncommon. Models enter into complex relations with other cultural models. In some cases, (sub)-models are parts of larger encompassing models (D’Andrade, 1992:30 ff.). In other cases, as in the baseball example just cited, one model serves as a source for structuring a second model through a kind of analogical transfer. The transfer from baseball to dating is accomplished largely through language and involves the metaphorical mapping of baseball jargon onto important aspects of dating behavior. This cross-mapping between these two cultural domains is also accomplished in other ways. Marriage can become an actual part of a baseball game, creating a kind of metonymic transfer rather than metaphor. This happens when marriage proposals are flashed on the electronic board in ballparks or when newlyweds still in their wedding garb seat themselves behind home plate.