LINGUIST List 13.2261

Wed Sep 11 2002

Books: Cognitive Linguistics

Editor for this issue: Richard John Harvey <richardlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. LINCOM EUROPA, Topology and Cognition, M. Sandra Pe�a Cervel

Topology and Cognition: What Image-schemas Reveal about the
Metaphorical Language of Emotions.

M. Sandra Pe�a Cervel 
National University of Distance Education (Madrid) 

National University of Distance Education (Madrid, Spain) This book is
meant to overcome some of the problems and controversial issues which
were raised by the traditional treatment of the metaphorical
phenomenon within the framework of Cognitive
Linguistics. Additionally, it has been my intention to counteract the
unwelcome tendency to view emotions as elusive and chaotic entities
which display no coherent structure. Criticism of previous accounts
has pointed to an inability to incorporate the experiential grounding
into a sound theory of metaphor. The existence of image-schemas and
their great potential for lying at the base of a great number of
metaphorical expressions is attested in the English language and
proves that the experiential component plays a very important role in
the conceptualization of a seemingly abstract domain: emotions.

Along these lines, the way metaphorical expressions which incorporate
image-schematic structure are constructed and processed is
shown. Another focus on attention is on the way in which mental spaces
combine as guided by the basic conceptual structure provided by
image-schemas to prepare the source of some metaphors for the mapping
process. In relation to this, the notions of interaction and schematic
enrichment have proved useful and have allowed us to determine the
principles of focalization of meaning constituents within their frames
of reference. This discussion also makes it possible to establish
hierarchies of prominence inside image-schemas depending on their
intrinsic nature, i. e. on whether they act temporarily or not as
subsidiary to other schemas.

This book is not only addressed to the researcher interested in the
study of metaphor from the point of view of Cognitive Linguistics but
also to any university student who wants to revise the main notions of
this theory as well as a brief history of metaphor. The contents of
this book have been organized into eight chapters. Chapter 1
constitutes the introduction to the work. In chapter 2 the different
approaches to metaphor undergo critical revision mainly from a
cognitive standpoint. This chapter provides the reader with a brief
overview of the study of metaphor throughout history, from the
classical period, through the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth
centuries, and the Romantic period, down to the twentieth century. All
these approaches fall under the general rubric of objectivism and rely
on the assumption that metaphor is a linguistic device used in order
to enhance poetic language.



On the other hand, it is argued that the cognitive theory of metaphor
assigns metaphor a central role in language and thought. Within this
framework it is also postulated that metaphor does in fact account for
a large portion of what we both know and think, not to mention what we
even feel and do in our daily lives. Additionally, an overview of
experientialism as opposed to objectivism is given and special
emphasis is placed on metaphor as a kind of idealized cognitive
model. In chapter 3, another structuring principle, image-schemas, is
dealt with by offering a lenghty description of its characteristics
and nature. An alternative proposal for a taxonomy of schemas is made
after pointing to the main inadequacies of existing hierarchies of
such constructs. By specifying the general theoretical postulates that
serve as our point of departure, the ground is prepared for the
analysis of the corpus and the presentation of the results derived
from it in chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Finally, chapter 8 offers some concluding remarks.

CONTENTS

LIST OT ABBREVIATIONS 1 1. INTRODUCTION 2 1.1. Scope and organization
of this work 3 1.2. Corpus and data 8 2. A DIFFERENT VIEW OF METAPHOR:
METAPHOR IN COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS 13 2.1. Metaphor before the advent
of Cognitive Linguistics 13 2.2. Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics 19
2.2.1. Objectivism vs. experientialism 19 2.2.2. Metaphor as an
Idealized Cognitive Model 23 2.3. Conclusion 35 3. IMAGE-SCHEMAS 36
3.1. Classification of metaphorical expressions 36 3.1.1. Metaphors
based on the Great Chain of Being 37 3.1.2. Situational metaphors 38
3.2. The nature of image-schemas 41 3.2.1. Definition of image-schema
41 3.2.2. Characteristics of image-schemas 42 3.3. Research on
image-schemas 44 3.3.1. Image-schemas in the brain 44
3.3.2. Image-schemas as basic level categories 44 3.3.3. Image-schemas
in developmental psychology 45 3.3.4. Image-schemas in linguistics and
philosophy 46 3.4. Conclusion 56 4. CONTAINER METAPHORS 57
4.1. Structural elements and basic logic of the CONTAINER image-schema
59 4.2. CONTAINER metaphors for the expression of emotions 62
4.2.1. ABSTRACT ENTITIES ARE CONTAINERS 62 4.2.2. EMOTIONAL ENTITIES
or EMOTIONS ARE CONTAINERS 64 4.2.3. PEOPLE ARE CONTAINERS 68
4.2.4. Some additional remarks about CONTAINER metaphors for the
expression of emotions 89
4.3. The nature of containers 91
4.3.1. Open and closed containers 91
4.3.2. The prepositions in/out in relation to the notions
of trajector and landmark 94
4.3.3. Some additional characteristics of containers 103
4.4. Schemas subsidiary to the CONTAINER image-schema 106
4.4.1. The FULL-EMPTY image-schema 106
4.4.2. The EXCESS image-schema 116
4.5. Conclusion 122
5. PATH METAPHORS 123
5.1. Structural elements and basic logic of the PATH imageschema 124
5.2. Spatial meaning and the PATH image-schema 129
5.2.1. Manner and path languages and their connection
with emotion metaphors 129
5.2.2. The metaphorical connection between spatiality
and causality 134
5.3. The nature of paths 136
5.3.1. Dynamic vs. static paths 136
5.3.2. A typology of paths 137
5.4. Schemas subsidiary to the PATH image-schema 138
5.4.1. The FORCE image-schema 139
5.4.1.1. COMPULSION 144
5.4.1.2. BLOCKAGE 149
5.4.1.3. COUNTERFORCE 153
5.4.1.4. REMOVAL OF RESTRAINT 156
5.4.1.5. ENABLEMENT 158
5.4.1.6. DIVERSION 160
5.4.1.7. ATTRACTION and REPULSION 164
5.4.1.8. Talmy's Force Dynamics 166
5.4.2. The PROCESS image-schema 176
5.4.3. The FRONT-BACK image-schema 180
5.4.4. The NEAR-FAR image-schema 184
5.4.5. The CIRCLE image-schema 187
5.4.5.1. The CYCLE image-schema 188
5.4.5.2. The SPIRAL image-schema 189
5.4.6. The VERTICALITY image-schema 190
5.5. Conclusion 194
6. PART-WHOLE METAPHORS 196
6.1. The PART-WHOLE image-schema 196
6.1.1. Structural elements and basic logic of the PARTWHOLE
schema 196
6.1.2. Meronymy and the part-whole relationship 198
6.1.3. The FULL-EMPTY and the PART-WHOLE
image-schemas 199
6.1.4. Is PART-WHOLE subsidiary to CONTAINER? 201
6.2. Schemas subsidiary to the PART-WHOLE image-schema 202
6.2.1. The MERGING and MATCHING imageschemas 202
6.2.2. The COLLECTION image-schema 204
6.2.3. The CENTRE-PERIPHERY image-schema 205
6.2.4. The LINK image-schema 208
6.3. Conclusion 209
7. INTERACTIONAL PATTERNS 210
7.1. Interaction and image-schematic enrichment: preliminaries 211
7.1.1. Types of image-schematic subsidiarity 211
7.1.2. Interaction and image-schematic enrichment 215
7.1.3. Principles which regulate conceptual projection 219
7.2. Interaction between image-schemas 222
7.3. Interaction between image-schemas and metaphoric and
metonymic mappings 238
7.3.1. Convergence of image-schemas with metaphor 238
7.3.2. Convergence of image-schemas with metonymy 252
7.4. Interaction between image-schemas and propositional
models 259
7.4.1. The axiological component 260
7.4.2. The control ICM 264
7.4.2.1. Some preliminaries about the notion of
control 264
7.4.2.2. Ruiz de Mendoza's version of the control ICM 270
7.4.3. Axiology, control and the metaphorical expression of emotions 271
7.4.3.1. Axiology, control, and the CONTAINER
and PATH image-schemas 271
7.4.3.2. Axiology, control, and the PART-WHOLE
image-schema 281
7.4.3.3. Axiology, control, and the VERTICALITY
image-schema 283
7.5. Conclusion 287
8. CONCLUSION 289
CORPUS MATERIAL 296
REFERENCES 297

ISBN 3 89586 309 2. 

LINCOM Studies in Cognitive Linguistics 01. 

320 pp. USD 70 / EUR 68 / GBP 44.

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