Selecting and Analyzing Metaphors in the Hebrew Bible: Cognitive Linguistics and the Literary

Abstract

Conceptual Metaphor Theory is undoubtedly one of the most popular if not the most popular current theory on metaphor. Metaphor is a central theme in Cognitive Linguistics. It involves two conceptual domains: the source domain is the concept that helps to understand a more abstract concept, called the target domain. To explain the poetic effect of metaphors, Pilkington suggests we investigate metaphors in terms of 'range' and 'strength'. Whereas most metaphors have a small range of very dominant mappings, some metaphors have a broad range of equivalent mappings. Furthermore, deliberately used metaphors constitute a natural subcorpus. This metaphor is never as such used deliberately in the book but it is an important characteristic of the author's depiction of Job. Though conceptual metaphor can explain metaphorical linguistic expressions in isolation, it is not by definition equipped to deal with conceptual metaphor in literary texts. Keywords: cognitive linguistics; Conceptual Metaphor Theory; deliberately used metaphor; Hebrew Bible; Hermeneutics; literary texts