Abstract
In Orientational Conceptual Metaphor, a system of ideas is organized in the relation and interaction in space like up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow, central-peripheral. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) called this group of metaphors “Orientational,” because they give a concept a spatial orientation: in the example, “happy is up,” the concept happy is oriented up leading to English expressions like “I’m feeling up today.” Such metaphorical orientations have a basis in our physical and cultural experience, thus they vary from culture to culture. Drawing on this theoretical and methodological framework, this paper argues for the existence of Orientational Metaphors in Neo-Assyrian sources, which are largely attested in textual and visual references concerning the relationships between king and subjects.
Highlights
In Orientational Conceptual Metaphor, a system of ideas is organized in the relation and interaction in space like up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow, central-peripheral
In 1980, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory upset the traditional view on metaphor: a simple linguistic phenomenon used for literary and rhetorical purposes to embellish speech or to make it more incisive was turned into a question of thinking and of behaving[2]
If many words are recognised as metaphorical expressions, the source of which is perceptual experience, it may be true that structures like image schemas give form to visual expressions, and that metaphors apply to image schemas in images, to give meaning to the image[8]. Having set out these theoretical premises, with this paper I intend to apply for the first time the notion of orientational metaphors to a selection of texts and images dating from the Neo-Assyrian period, the aim being to investigate the way textual and visual expressions throw light on the relationships between the king and his subjects
Summary
In 1980, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory upset the traditional view on metaphor: a simple linguistic phenomenon used for literary and rhetorical purposes to embellish speech or to make it more incisive was turned into a question of thinking and of behaving[2]. As argued by the authors, this kind of metaphors arises “from the fact that we have bodies of the sort we have and that they function as they do in our physical environment”[3] This category of metaphors is related to basic human spatial orientations such as up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow, central-peripheral. If many words are recognised as metaphorical expressions, the source of which is perceptual experience, it may be true that structures like image schemas give form to visual expressions, and that metaphors apply to image schemas in images, to give meaning to the image[8] Having set out these theoretical premises, with this paper I intend to apply for the first time the notion of orientational metaphors to a selection of texts and images dating from the Neo-Assyrian period, the aim being to investigate the way textual and visual expressions throw light on the relationships between the king and his subjects
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