Abstract
Investigations of metaphorical meaning constitution and meaning (in-) variance have revealed the significance of semantic and semiotic domains and the contexts within which they function as basis for the grounding of metaphorical meaning. In this article some of the current views concerning the grounding of metaphorical meaning in experience and embodiment are explored. My provisional agreement with Lakoff, Johnson and others about the “conceptual” nature of metaphor rests on an important caveat, viz. that this bodily based conceptual structure which lies at the basis of linguistic articulations of metaphor, is grounded in a deeper ontic structure of the world and of human experience. It is the “metaphorical” (actually “analogical”) ontological structure of this grounding that is of interest for the line of argumentation followed in this article. Because Johnson, Lakoff and other’s proposal to ground metaphorical meaning in embodiment and neural processes is open to being construed as subjectivist and materialist, I shall attempt to articulate the contours of an alternative theory of conceptual metaphor, meaning and embodiment which counteracts these possibilities. This theory grounds metaphorical meaning and meaning change in an ontological and anthropological framework which recognises the presence and conditioning functioning of radially ordered structures for reality. These categorisations in which humankind, human knowledge and reality participate, condition and constrain (ground) analogical and metaphorical meaning transfer, cross-domain mappings, and blends in cognition and in language, provide the basis for the analogical concepts found in these disciplines.
Highlights
Because Johnson, Lakoff and other’s proposal to ground metaphorical meaning in embodiment and neural processes is open to being construed as subjectivist and materialist, I shall attempt to articulate the contours of an alternative theory of conceptual metaphor, meaning and embodiment which counteracts these possibilities
Domains and embodiment and reality participate, condition and constrain analogical and metaphorical meaning transfer, cross-domain mappings, and blends in cognition and in language, provide the basis for the analogical concepts found in these disciplines
Hierdie kategoriserings waarin die mens, menslike kennis en werklikheid deel het, kondisioneer en begrens analogiese en metaforiese betekenisoordrag, oor-en-weer-kartering van domeine, waarnemings- en taalversmelting, en voorsien die basis vir analogiese konsepte wat in die verskillende dissiplines aangetref word
Summary
Recent developments in cognitive semantics (Lakoff & Johnson, 1988:119-154; Johnson, 1987; Johnson, 1993b:61) and cognitive. M. Elaine Botha semiotics address the problem of how metaphorical meaning is possible through discussions of the “grounding” of metaphorical meaning. Where metaphors allow us to understand one domain of experience in terms of another (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980:117), it is generally argued or assumed that metaphorical understanding is grounded in non-metaphorical understanding (Lakoff & Turner, 1989:113), an assumption characteristic of most reductionist theories of metaphor. The question raised in this article is to what extent Lakoff, Johnson and Turner’s move away from grounding metaphorical meaning in literal language to autonomous concepts grounded in patterns of bodily and social experience, solves the problem of the grounding of metaphorical meaning without succumbing to either subjectivism or materialism. Philosophical insights from the philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd’s so-called Amsterdam School, will be utilised in this analysis
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