Metaphorical Extension Research Articles

Esperienza e sentimento del confine nell’opera di Gëzim Hajdari

To what extent the notion of boundary moulds the production of “migrant writers” in Italy? Is it possible to make boundary a reading key to some of these writers? To verify a possible sentiment of the boundary aside from the congruity of biographical events, into the living texts, could set an alternative procedure to the detection of the category of “migrant” within the critics. As to Gezim Hajdari verses, Italian writer in Italian of Albanian origins ( Poesie scelte , 2009), the literary analysis will intersect “border studies”. The reference to the limes in fact is at the bases of a recent offshoot of those studies which have in last years proceeded with a material reconstitution of the concept against the previous tendency to its metaphorical extension. The boundary, then , will be analyzed in terms of influence on the structure of the text, such as metric peculiarities, genre dynamics and bilingualism. Some authors who experiment the trespass even since the linguistic option draw our attention to the materiality of boundaries. Besides some poetical statements in fact, a close-up analysis of the most recent production stresses re-emergences of the identitarian theme and indubitable signals of the seismic activity in the substratum of the mother tongue. It is then possible to trace back the definition of “migrant” from the extratextual dimension of biography to (and within) the natural boundaries of the literary fact.

Letters to Language

Letters to Language Will Leben Language accepts letters from readers that briefly and succinctly respond to or comment upon either material published previously in the journal or issues deemed of importance to the field. The editor reserves the right to edit letters as needed. Brief replies from relevant parties are included as warranted. Response to Joseph’s discussion note December 31, 2010 To the Editor: In his discussion note in Language 86.4 on the mission of this journal (‘Language and the LSA: A reappraisal’, pp. 806–9, 2010), Brian Joseph notes an opposing view that holds that not many readers pay much attention to articles outside their narrow areas of interest. I can see why someone might think that, but I’d be surprised if this were found to be a general view. Language is the journal I turn to most often for articles and book reviews outside my own area, phonology. When I try to recall Language articles that made a big impression, most happen to fall outside my main areas of interest. An example from 86.4 is Irit Meir’s piece on metaphor and Israeli sign language (‘Iconicity and metaphor: Constraints on metaphorical extension of iconic forms’, pp. 865–96), which I might never have picked up if it hadn’t been in Language. There’s a reason why I turn to Language first for such articles. From past experience I know they’ll be worth reading, thanks to the editorial policies Brian mentions in his note. Maybe having a journal like this will someday be a luxury the LSA or the field can’t afford, but as linguistics becomes more complex, the need for such a journal is likely to become greater. Possibly we pay a price for universal coverage in Language by not always having the latest breaking news in every subfield of linguistics. But I don’t think the journal could have served me better than it has over the forty years I’ve been reading it. [End Page 1] Will Leben [leben@stanford.edu] Copyright © 2011 Linguistic Society of America

Neural Constraints on Temporal-Spatial Metaphors

Metaphor theory proposes that our understanding of high-level concepts arises through metaphorical construction and extension. One class of metaphors that has been studied extensively within metaphor theory is TIME IS SPACE. The cross-cultural existence of this metaphor has traditionally been interpreted as being a result of our common embodied experiences in the world. In addition to these experiential mechanisms, we examine data from human neuroimaging, neuropsychology and monkey physiology demonstrating that the parietal cortex houses circuitry crucial for both temporal and spatial representations to argue that these neural structures create a predisposition towards a neural mapping between the domains of time and space, and thus provide a brain-based constraint on the universal TIME IS SPACE metaphor. These considerations further suggest that cultural artifacts that best fit the pre-existing structures of the brain are most easily learned, and are therefore most likely to be passed on to future generations.

The Fish and the Loom: Toward a United Semantic Reconstruction

In his foundation-laying study of the early Austronesian lexicon, Dempwolff (1938) proposed the reconstructions *bali[dD]a 'k.o. fish' and *balija 'weaver's sword'. Although these formally similar lexical reconstructions show no obvious semantic connection, both are assignable to Proto-Austronesian *baRija 'weaver's sword'. This etymon became Proto–Malayo-Polynesian *balija, which is reconstructed with the meanings 'weaver's sword' and 'k.o. fish', since reflexes of this form refer not only to a part of the loom, but also metaphorically to certain kinds of fish or, less frequently, kinds of plants, landscapes, or parts of constructions (musical instrument, house, etc.). The use of metaphorical extensions taking "cultural" objects as the model for representing "natural" objects is also discussed briefly.

Punctuated equilibrium and species selection: what does it mean for one theory to suggest another?

McMullin (In: Cohen et al. (eds.) Essays in memory of Imre Lakatos, 1976, In: Leplin (ed.) Scientific realism, 1984) argues that fertility is a theoretical virtue. He thinks of a fertile theory as one whose central metaphors suggest new directions for theoretical development, where those new developments help solve previous problems and anomalies. Nolan (Br J Philos Sci 50:265-282, 1999) argues that fertility in this sense is not a distinctive theoretical virtue in its own right. Rather, Nolan thinks that fertility is reducible to predictive novelty. This article explores the relationship between punctuated equilibrium (PE) and species selection in the light of this philosophical debate about the nature of theoretical fertility, or suggestiveness. I argue that (1) PE suggests, but does not imply, that species selection is a mechanism of evolution; (2) the suggestiveness in this case is not reducible to predictive novelty; (3) species selection is not a metaphorical extension of PE; and (4) getting clear about the way in which PE suggests species selection can help solve a puzzle about punctuated equilibrium. The puzzle is that Eldredge and Gould's initial presentation of PE seems to presuppose a minimalist or extrapolationist view of macroevolution, even though many scientists take PE to challenge that minimalist view.

Split Witness: Metaphorical Extensions of Life in the Art of Felix Gonzalez-Torres

This article examines timelessness as a strategy of textual survival employed in the art of Felix Gonzalez-Torres in the wake of the exhibition of his work at the 2007 Venice Biennale. At the Biennale, an erosion of the awareness that this timelessness stems from a split witnessing position led to effects of haunting, in which the artist's intentionality was problematically depicted as literally continuing beyond his death.

Iconicity and metaphor: Constraints on metaphorical extension of iconic forms

Some conceptual metaphors common in spoken languages are infelicitous in sign languages. The explanation suggested in this article is that the iconicity of these signs clashes with the shifts in meaning that take place in these metaphorical extensions. Both iconicity and metaphors are built on mappings of two domains: form and meaning in iconicity, source domain and target domain in metaphors. Iconic signs that undergo metaphoric extension are therefore subject to both mappings (Taub 2001). When the two mappings do not preserve the same structural correspondence, the metaphorical extension is blocked. This restriction is formulated as the double-mapping constraint , which requires multiple mappings to be structure-preserving. The effects of this constraint go beyond explaining possible and impossible metaphors in sign languages. Because of the central role of metaphors in various linguistic processes, constraints on their occurrence may affect other linguistic structures and processes that are built on these metaphors in both sign and spoken languages.

A conceptual understanding of bodily orientation in Mandarin: A quantitative corpus perspective

The present study investigates the conceptualization of our bodily orientation in a quantitative corpus-based approach. Specifically, we identify correlated target domains with respect to each spatial dimension and clarify to what extent the physical symmetry of the spatial dimension plays a role in the metaphorical conceptualization. Based on the symbolic nature of constructions, we examine the correlation patterns of the NPs and the locatives in Mandarin Locative Construction “zai4 + NP + (zhi1) + LOCATIVE” through three major statistical analyses, i.e., covarying collexeme analysis, hierarchical clustering and principal component analysis. The results show that only FRONT/BACK dimension displays symmetrical metaphorical extension to similar metaphorical domains. The distributional patterns of the locatives have far-reaching implications for the embodiment of conceptual metaphors. It is concluded that the (a)symmetry of metaphorical patterns along each spatial dimension may be attributed to our recurring (a)symmetrical daily interaction and bodily experiences with the surrounding physical environment.

The pre-linguistic basis of grammaticalisation

Traditionally, grammaticalisation has been described as being based on phenomena specific to language such as metaphorical extension or reanalysis. This characterisation is somewhat in contrast to claims that grammaticalisation is involved in the much more general process of the initial emergence of language. In this article, we provide a unified analysis of both the metaphor-based and the reanalysis-based account of grammaticalisation which is grounded in the cognitive mechanisms underlying ostensive-inferential communication. We are thus able to show that the process of grammaticalisation is an instantiation of a domain-general pre-linguistic phenomenon.

Semantic and interactional indirectness in Tongan lexical honorification

This paper compares semantic indirectness and interactional indirectness in Tongan lexical honorification and relates them to each other, demonstrating a need for greater methodological and theoretical attention to interactional indirectness, both in the study of honorific systems and more generally in the linguistic conceptualization of indirectness. Semantically the Tongan honorific vocabulary is created primarily through metaphorical extensions and semantic bleaching of everyday words. These processes are common in linguistic honorific systems. While the metaphorical extensions predominate in Tongan language ideology, the semantically bleached words predominate in the actual use of the honorific vocabulary. There are conventions of entextualization of the Tongan honorific speech register that give it common linguistic features across a range of Tongan public social activities, and a common approach to the social personae who are the targets of honorification. These conventions render the semantically bleached words more semantically specific in use. In addition, in the lived reality of ongoing interaction, speakers collaborate in producing shared denotationally specific meanings of honorifics, while maintaining the surface vagueness of the semantically bleached honorific terms.

Lay Performances of Work and Salvation in the York Cycle

Lay Performances of Work and Salvation in the York Cycle Andreea Boboc (bio) That notions of work and its cultural value have captivated the attention of medievalists for quite some time is exemplified by James Simpson's recent claim that cycle plays "mounted a theology of labor at whose centre stands the practice of mercy in the active life."1 This theology of labor becomes further nuanced and particularized when one examines the plays' contribution to what Nicola Masciandaro has called the "polysemy of werk,"2 which "attests … to a cultural habit of perceiving relations between work and life, between occupational and personal agency."3 The York plays emphasize the complexity and urgency of these relations by bringing them to bear upon salvation—a medieval Christian's ultimate goal. In this essay, I draw upon the many ways in which laypeople give meaning to work during theatrical performances to show how physical labor is transformed onstage for salvific purposes. Work emerges as the highest civic priority, and salvation is mediated through performances of work and its metaphorical applications, that is, the understanding of good work in a spiritual sense and good works in the sense of community welfare. These performances help lay drama negotiate the cultural relationship between individuals and their community. Surprisingly, however, community is understood in a fairly broad Christian sense rather than restricted to guilds and their families. Significantly, too, performances of work address larger issues, in particular the spiritual interdependence, in this broader Christian community, not merely between the rich and the poor but among all members of the community.4 Explicit or implicit references to werk, craft, and travail appear prominently in the plays, and perhaps that stands to reason since of work-related words, werk and craft are most closely associated with guilds- and [End Page 247] craftsmen.5 The semantic plasticity of both words, in fact, makes them especially well suited for onstage transformation. Werk's pliability is such that it accommodates binary oppositions (it means both good and evil deeds)6 and it encompasses both literal and metaphorical uses (since it refers to both work and good works).7 As Masciandaro points out, "the special value of werk within the Middle English work vocabulary lies in its being a holistic and versatile term that places relatively balanced emphasis on the subjective and objective dimensions of work."8 Werk's various semantic possibilities can only be particularized through performance. Similarly, craft combines literal with metaphorical uses, referring to both physical and moral strength.9 According to Masciandaro, craft emphasizes work's "intellective, technical component and the tangibility of its product,"10 thus differentiating itself from travail, which stresses instead the effort, striving, and exertion of work.11 Of course, travail is also a gendered term because of its specific association with the pains of childbirth.12 But, generally, travail refers to the harrowing of both body and spirit as illustrated in the following example from John of Trevisa: "There is double maner trauaile, of spirit and of wittis and bodely trauaile," and he gives the instances of "studiynge, wakyng, wreththe, sorewe, and busines."13 Spiritual and/or emotional travail thus become a metaphorical extension of the physical. Further inquiry into the association of werk, craft, and travail with guild- and craftsmen helps tease out the complex relationship between work and salvation as it emerges onstage in four mystery plays from the York Cycle. Yet why is such an inquiry necessary, and why choose these four plays from this particular cycle? While the emergence of mystery plays is still shrouded in mystery,14 the work that craft guilds invested in staging and performing the York cycle is well documented. A look at the records shows us that guilds occasionally grumbled under its demands. In an entry from 31 January 1422 from the A/Y Memorandum Book, the Painters and Stainers, for example, deplore the fragmentation of the Corpus Christi play in too many pageants and point out that "unless a better and more speedy device be provided, it is to be feared that it [the play] will be impeded much further in a very brief passage of time."15 The guildsmen's criticism touches...

Cognition in HCI: An Ongoing Story

The field of human computer interaction (HCI) is d eeply rooted in cognitive science. But can cognitive science still contribute to the newest developments? This article introduces the recent trends towards embod ied cognition. Then research on image schemas and their metaphorical extensions is reviewed as an example of how understanding a special branch of embodied cognitio n can be useful to HCI. Special emphasis is placed on the validity of the theory an d its practicability in different phases of the user interface design cycle. It is concluded that cognition can still contribute to current HCI and that the dialogue between the diffe rent schools of thought is beneficial to the field.

Metafore metatestuali

In this paper, the cognitive importance of metaphor is shown by analysing text deixis, which can be thought of as an operation based on the metaphor text is space. After reviewing the concept of metaphor as found in cognitive linguistics, text deixis is defined and exemplified as a procedure related to both situational deixis and anaphora. The analysis of narrative examples highlights different types of text deixis which can be understood as metaphoric extensions of the above mentioned metaphor basic metaphor. Metaphorically, demonstratives can indicate proximity or distance from a textual, temporal or emotive perspective; in addition, deixis am Phantasma and presentational deixis, which are not related to any linguistic antecedent, are considered as special cases of text deixis. Keywords: Anaphor, Deixis, Demonstratives, Metaphor, Metalinguistic metaphor, Text deixis

Toward a Prototypical Model of Culture for Bible Translation

Bible translation is inherently a communication event originating in a historical language and culture. Recipients of translated Scriptures interpret this historical text through their language and cultural grid. They have cultural practices, material culture, beliefs, values, a worldview, image schemas, etc., that can assist or compromise their ability to properly understand the Bible. This work addresses the challenge to translators and translation consultants to more readily identify translation issues that are rooted in the target culture such that they may be further researched and treated as appropriate in the translation and helps. A prototypical model of culture is proposed to support these deliberations, which is comprised of a stratified network of observable cultural systems, beliefs, values, and deep structural components of worldview and image schemas. The cultural model is productively applied to a survey of translation issues rooted in the target cultures of several language teams in eastern Africa, and to three, in-depth analyses from Zinza and Digo Scriptures. The results suggest that Zinza prefer LINK and PATH image schemas over IN/OUT and FULL/EMPTY CONTAINER image schemas in metaphorical extensions such as “in Christ.” In addition, the Digo people’s limited knowledge of biblical construction practices, and the strong impact of the Lake Victoria ecosystem on Zinza culture, present translation challenges to the Digo New Testament and Zinza Genesis, respectively.

Essay on a Flapjack: Philology and the <em>Urvolk</em>

After surveying some familiar territory regarding the field’s formulation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this essay probes far deeper into the past to conjecture on a prehistoric, metaphorical extension of a word for unleavened bread batter to a word for people. Such an etymology, with origins in the ancient hearth of Indo-European nationalities, may provide insight into the variable implications of “folk,” disparaging or complimentary, when it is deployed as a term of rhetoric. Seeking to understand the fringe status of folklore in contemporary research universities, this essay draws a contrast with philology, which successfully recast itself as historical linguistics in the twentieth century, sloughing off burdensome connotations taken up during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and the nineteenth-century reaction of Romanticism.

The paper suggests: inanimate subject + active verb in English linguistic discourse

The present paper discusses the ‘inanimate subject + active verb’ pattern in research papers in applied linguistics attempting to identify major differences between linguistic discourse as a discourse of human sciences and hard sciences (as represented in Master 2001) and account for the usage and meaning of the pattern under investigation in the framework of the CTM. The quantitative aspect of the investigation includes the overall frequency count of the pattern in the corpus and their distribution per 1000 words as well as the count of inanimate subjects and active verbs according to frequency, their semantic properties and functions. There is a comparative dimension involved in the investigation: the results of the present investigation into linguistic discourse roughly representing human sciences is compared to Master’s investigation into ‘hard’ sciences (2001). The tendency to use the pattern in the explanatory environment has been confirmed. The qualitative aspect of the analysis involves the interpretation of the results in the framework of conceptual theory of metaphor (CTM). The interpretation of the results in the framework of the CTM has yielded several major metaphorical extensions: research as a person, research as a journey, research as construction/building, research as economic activity, research as (uncovering) a secret. The personification type of metaphor (research as a person) seems to overlap with what is usually interpreted as metonymy. This research has some implications for teaching academic English to non-native speakers of English, especially speakers of languages which do not have any such patterns.

A Study of Two Functions of Modal Auxiliary Verbs in English, with Special Reference to Can, May and Must

Many linguisticians in the English research field have detailedly illustrated all kinds of usage of English grammars and roles. However, in the modal auxiliary verbs of English, they have also stated their opinions, but deontic modality and epistemic modality have not been completely studied. Especially, how we transfer of deontic function to epistemic function, and the metaphorical extension in the process by the force dynamics between them is an extremely important aspect. The problem aroused my interest to study. In order to study further language continuous development, I begin from expounding the metaphorical extension of the epistemic function from deontic function, and then infer my own opinions as the conclusion of the thesis.

Metaphor awareness in teaching vocabulary

Patterns of language are usually perceived, learned and used as meaningful chunks that are processed as a whole, resulting in a reduced learning burden and increased fluency. The ability to comprehend and produce lexical chunks or groups of words which are commonly found together is an important part of language acquisition. This paper demonstrates how an awareness of conceptual metaphor and grouping of various words and expressions in a metaphorical chunk may improve the process of vocabulary acquisition. Since words that appear in language as a result of metaphorical extensions resemble other etymologically related words, this method may help learners in establishing mental associations and speed up learning, especially if students already know words to which new vocabulary is related. In this way, learners' prior knowledge would assist in assimilating new information by reducing burden on limited-capacity working memory. The current paper offers a specific example of implementing this approach, and demonstrates how Russian words and idiomatic expressions can be presented in metaphorical chunks to facilitate cognitively efficient learning. It suggests that a similar approach may potentially be extended to syntactic properties of words that could be explained via conceptual metaphors encoded in their origin. By exploring this connection, a metaphorical approach could also be used in teaching grammar.

Abstraction as a basis for the computational interpretation of creative cross-modal metaphor

Various approaches to computational metaphor interpretation are based on pre-existing similarities between source and target domains and/or are based on metaphors already observed to be prevalent in the language. This paper addresses similarity-creating cross-modal metaphoric expressions. It is shown how the “abstract concept as object” (or reification) metaphor plays a central role in a large class of metaphoric extensions. The described approach depends on the imposition of abstract ontological components, which represent source concepts, onto target concepts. The challenge of such a system is to represent both denotative and connotative components which are extensible, together with a framework of general domains between which such extensions can conceivably occur. An existing ontology of this kind, consistent with some mathematic concepts and widely held linguistic notions, is outlined. It is suggested that the use of such an abstract representation system is well adapted to the interpretation of both conventional and unconventional metaphor that is similarity-creating.

What the body knows: Exploring the benefits of embodied metaphors in hybrid physical digital environments

A recent trend in ubiquitous computing is the development of new forms of interfaces, which rely on embodied interaction. We focus on the definition of embodiment that refers to the ways in which abstract concepts rely on metaphorical extensions of embodied schemata shaped by processes below the level of conscious awareness as explored by Lakoff and Johnson [Lakoff, G., Johnson, M., 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, USA]. Our inquiry focuses on understanding the role embodied metaphors may play in supporting people to understand the possibilities for physical interaction in augmented spaces. We explore this issue through the development and evaluation of an interactive audio environment. We instantiate metaphor theory by using embodied schemata as the basis for the interactional metaphor that relates full-body input actions to audio output responses. We demonstrate and explore the benefits of this approach through a comparative experiment in which adults and children learn to use our audio environment. The results from our experiment indicated that embodied metaphors improve usability however, other factors including discoverability, perceivability of feedback and duplicity of structural isomorphism may mediate these metaphor-based benefits. We have generalized our main findings as a set of suggestions for the design of embodied style interfaces that rely on physical interaction.