Upright posture and the meaning of meronymy: A synthesis of metaphoric and analytic accounts

Cross-linguistic strategies for mapping lexical and spatial relations from body partonym systems to external object meronymies (as in English ‘table leg’, ‘mountain face’) have attracted substantial research and debate over the past three decades. Due to the systematic mappings, lexical productivity and geometric complexities of body-based meronymies found in many Mesoamerican languages, the region has become focal for these discussions, prominently including contrastive accounts of the phenomenon in Zapotec and Tzeltal, leading researchers to question whether such systems should be explained as global metaphorical mappings from bodily source to target holonym or as vector mappings of shape and axis generated “algorithmically”. I propose a synthesis of these accounts in this paper by drawing on the species-specific cognitive affordances of human upright posture grounded in the reorganization of the anatomical planes, with a special emphasis on antisymmetrical relations that emerge between arm-leg and face-groin antinomies cross-culturally. Whereas Levinson argues that the internal geometry of objects “stripped of their bodily associations” (1994: 821) is sufficient to account for Tzeltal meronymy, making metaphorical explanations entirely unnecessary, I propose a more powerful, elegant explanation of Tzeltal meronymic mapping that affirms both the geometric-analytic and the global-metaphorical nature of Tzeltal meaning construal. I do this by demonstrating that the “algorithm” in question arises from the phenomenology of movement and correlative body memories—an experiential ground which generates a culturally selected pair of inverse contrastive paradigm sets with marked and unmarked membership emerging antithetically relative to the transverse anatomical plane. These relations are then selected diagrammatically for the classification of object orientations according to systematic geometric iconicities. Results not only serve to clarify the case in question but also point to the relatively untapped potential that upright posture holds for theorizing the emergence of human cognition, highlighting in the process the nature, origins and theoretical validity of markedness and double scope conceptual integration

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

Poetic metaphor and everyday metaphor: a corpus-based contrastive study of metaphors of SADNESS in poetry and non-literary discourse

Conceptual Metaphor Theory holds that metaphor is a ubiquitous phenomenon that frequently manifests itself in ordinary discourse rather than a rhetorical device characteristic of literary language. This makes the similarities and differences between poetic metaphors and everyday metaphors an interesting issue. Lakoff and Turner (1989) have claimed that poetic metaphors are based on everyday metaphors and what distinguishes the two is that the former combine and elaborate the latter in ways that go beyond the ordinary. A number of studies have lent support to this claim by illustrating how the meaning of a poem depends essentially on conceptual metaphors that pervade non-literary language and how poetic metaphors elaborate everyday metaphors creatively to achieve their “poeticality” (see, for instance, Deane 1995; Freeman 1995, 2002; Yu 2003). However, these studies have not answered the question of whether poems generally exploit the same range of conceptual metaphors to depict a particular target domain topic as the range that is commonly used to conceptualize it. The question is worth investigating not only because it can shed new light …published_or_final_versio

Interdiscursive revitalization of the red plague metaphor in archbishop Jędraszewski's 2019 sermon : a critical analysis

Celem artykułu jest ukazanie opiniotwórczego potencjału metafory konceptualnej stosowanej w perswazji społeczno-politycznej, interpretowanej zarówno jako mechanizm poznawczy, jak i wysoce zideologizowane narzędzie dyskursywne. W części teoretycznej analizowane są zagadnienia interdyskursywności i intertekstualności w Krytycznej Analizie Dyskursu. Część empiryczna zawiera przeprowadzone na podstawie modelu Krytycznej Analizy Metafory jakościowe studium struktury i efektów perswazyjnych metafory tęczowej zarazy, publicznie użytej przez arcybiskupa Marka Jędraszewskiego w odniesieniu do środowiska LGBT w Polsce, będącej przykładem świadomego przekraczania granic gatunkowych w komunikacji społeczno-politycznej i religijnej. W odniesieniu do oryginalnego tekstu, z którego czerpie określenie wykorzystane przez arcybiskupa krakowskiego w jego kontrowersyjnym kazaniu, a mianowicie bardziej zakorzenionej historycznie metafory czerwonej zarazy, spopularyzowanej przez polskiego poetę Józefa Szczepańskiego w wierszu skomponowanym w czasie powstania warszawskiego w 1944 roku, analizowane są interdyskursywne i intertekstowe korelacje między dwiema metaforami ZARAZY (KOMUNIZM TO ZARAZA i LGBT TO ZARAZA).The paper aims at demonstrating the creative perlocutionary potential of interdiscursive production and interpretation of conceptual metaphor used in socio-political persuasion, simultaneously interpreted as mental phenomenon and discursive practice that is historically entrenched and highly ideological. The Critical Metaphor Analysis model is used to investigate the interdiscursive application of two PLAGUE metaphors (COMMUNISM IS A PLAGUE and LGBT IS A PLAGUE) as an example of deliberate transcending of genre boundaries in the increasingly intertextual and interdiscursive world of both socio-political and religious discourses. The empirical part provides a qualitative study of the historical background, structure and persuasive effects of the rainbow plague metaphor (Pol. tęczowa zaraza), publicly used by the Archbishop of Cracow, Marek Jędraszewski, in reference to the LGBT community in Poland, conducted in relation to the original text on which it draws, namely the more historically entrenched red plague (Pol. czerwona zaraza) metaphor made popular by the Polish poet Józef Szczepański in his poem composed during the Warsaw Uprising 1944

Cognitive Sociology

Cognitive sociology is the study of the conditions under which meaning is constituted through processes of reification. Cognitive sociology traces its origins to writings in the sociology of knowledge, sociology of culture, cognitive and cultural anthropology, and more recently, work done in cultural sociology and cognitive science. Its central questions revolve around locating these processes of reification since the locus of cognition is highly contentious. Researchers consider how individuality is related to notions of society (structures, institutions, systems, etc.) and notions of culture (cultural forms, cultural structures, sub-cultures, etc.). These questions further explore how these answers depend on learning processes (socialization, acculturation, etc.) which vary according to the position one takes on the role of language in cognition. It is from these positions that we operationalize a theory of human nature and construct a justification for the organization of the state of human affairs and the related conceptualizations of identity, self, and the subject. In this way, cognitive sociology seeks to establish the minimal model of the actor (the ontology) that underpins not only other subfields of sociology but also the human sciences in general. In this way, cognitive sociology analyzes the series of interpersonal processes that set up the conditions for phenomena to become “social objects,” which subsequently shape thinking and thought. In classical cognitive sociology, the historical traditions of the sociology of knowledge and phenomenology are emphasized, with the work of Bourdieu and Goffman given special treatment, given their contributions as precursors to many of the contemporary contingencies and consequences of debates in culture and cognition. The principle organizing the more contemporary literature are the paradigmatic assumptions concerning the locus of cognition, which have been organized into five ideal-types. These elucidate the points of agreement and disagreement in the field by addressing how thematic concerns (e.g., knowledge, rationality, embodiment, practices, discourse, etc.) highlight the priority of individuality in modeling society, to illustrate what makes cognitive sociology at once interdisciplinary yet contentiously distinct in addressing the politics of “tacit knowledge.

Exploring Metaphor as an Alternative Marketing Language

Purpose - The main aim of this paper is to stimulate more relevant and critical ideas about marketing and the wider management field by exploring the actual and potential contribution of metaphor to marketing theory and practice. The subsequent connections made can help contribute towards understanding and coping with the theory/practice gap. Methodology/Approach – To date, the majority of metaphor application has tended to be literal and surface-level rather than theoretically grounded. This paper interrogates the literature surrounding metaphor in marketing and management fields, while also examining the contribution of other areas such as art. The paper constructs and debates the conceptual notion of the marketer as an artist. Research Limitations/Implications – Incorporation of theoretically grounded metaphors into marketing theory can help develop a form of marketing which is capable of dealing with ambiguity, chaotic market conditions, creative thinking and practice. Originality/Value of paper – Adoption of a metaphorical approach to marketing research helps to instil a critical and creative ethos in the research process. Marketers are concerned with identification and exploitation of opportunities. Metaphor assists in the process by enhancing visualisation of these future directions. We live out our lives to a large degree through the making of metaphorical connections. We should therefore embrace more qualitative, creative associations in marketing theory, as well as practice