CONCEPTUAL MAPPING MODEL ACROSS LANGUAGES: A TEST IN VIETNAMESE LANGUAGE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37569/DalatUniversity.13.3.871(2023)Keywords:
CMM, CMT, Conventional metaphor, Mapping principle, Novel metaphor.Abstract
The conceptual metaphor, LOVE IS A JOURNEY, has been identified as a process of mapping based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). However, Ahrens (2002) pointed out several problems that the CMT may encounter, especially in setting parameters to be experimentally tested. Ahrens (2002) proposed the Conceptual Mapping Model (CMM) to investigate metaphor expressions by identifying three mappings between the source domain and the target domain: entities, qualities, and functions. After an analysis, the reason for these mappings, called a mapping principle, is indicated. In particular, the CMM can predict the processing of conceptual metaphors in terms of conventional and novel metaphors. This study is intended to test whether the CMM can perform well across languages through the experimental rates of acceptability and interpretability for different types of metaphors. Fifty Vietnamese native speakers were recruited. Each participant judged (on a Likert scale of 1-7) the levels of acceptability and interpretability of three conceptual metaphors in Vietnamese: LIFE IS A BOOK, HAPPINESS IS LIGHT, and LOVE IS FIRE. Each conceptual metaphor consists of six types of sentences, including (a) Literal pair to B, (b) Conventional metaphor, (c) Literal pair to D, (d) Novel metaphor that follows the mapping principle, (e) Literal pair to F, and (f) Novel metaphor that does not follow the mapping principle. The results of t-tests show that in terms of both acceptability and interpretability, conventional metaphors are ranked higher than novel metaphors. The results also indicate that novel metaphors that follow the mapping principle are rated higher than those that do not. Therefore, the mapping principle can constrain the image schemas so that any image that does not belong to the schemas can affect the processing of metaphors.
Metrics
References
Ahrens, K. (2002). When love is not digested: Underlying reasons for source to target domain pairings in the contemporary theory of metaphor. In Y. E. Hsiao (Ed.), Proceedings of the First Cognitive Linguistics Conference (pp. 273-302). National Taiwan University.
Ahrens, K. (2010). Mapping principles for conceptual metaphors. In G. Low, A. Deignan, L. Cameron, & Z. Todd (Eds.), Researching and applying metaphor in the real world (pp. 185-207). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.26.12ahr
Boroditsky, L. (2000). Metaphoric structuring: Understanding time through spatial metaphors. Cognition, 75(1), 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(99)00073-6
Clausner, T., & Croft, W. (1997). Productivity and schematicity in metaphors. Cognitive Science, 21(3), 247-282. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog2103_1
Deignan, A. (1995). Collins cobuild English guides 7: Metaphor. Harper Collins.
Deignan, A. (1999). Corpus-based research into metaphor. In L. Cameron & G. Low (Eds.), Researching and applying metaphor (pp. 177-199). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139524704.012
Fauconnier, G., & Turner, M. (1996). Blending as a central process of grammar. In A. Goldberg (Ed.), Conceptual structure, discourse, and language (pp. 113-130). Cambridge University Press.
Grady, J. E. (1997). Theories are buildings revisited. Cognitive Linguistics, 8(4), 267-290. https://doi.org/10.1515/cogl.1997.8.4.267
Kövecses, Z. (2010). Metaphor: A practical introduction. Oxford University Press.
Kövecses, Z. (2011). Methodological issues in conceptual metaphor theory. In S. Handl & H. -J. Schmid (Eds.), Windows to the mind: Metaphor, metonymy and conceptual blending (pp. 23-39). De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110238198.23
Lai, V. T., Curran, T., & Menn, L. (2009). Comprehending conventional and novel metaphors: An ERP study. Brain Research, 1284, 145-155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2009.05.088
Lakoff, G. (1993). The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (2nd ed.) (pp. 202-251). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139173865.013
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh. Basic Books.
Nguyễn, V. T. (2018). A comparative analysis on metaphoric strategies in presidential inaugurals of Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Studies in Linguistics, 48, 157-179. https://doi.org/10.17002/sil..48.201807.157
Pragglejaz Group. (2007). MIP: A method for identifying metaphorically used words in discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 22(1), 1-39. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926480709336752
Stefanowitsch, A. (2006). Words and their metaphors: A corpus-based approach. In A. Stefanowitsch, & S. T. Gries, Corpus-Based Approaches to Metaphor and Metonymy (pp. 63-105). De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110199895.63
Tsur, R. (1999). Lakoff ’s roads not taken. Pragmatics and Cognition, 7(2), 339-359. https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.7.2.06tsu
Downloads
Published
Volume and Issues
Section
Copyright & License
Copyright (c) 2022 Nguyen Vi Thong
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
