Metaphor and Culture

Not only is this question difficult because it goes against our everyday experiences and intuitions as regards metaphorical language in diverse cultures, but also because it is extremely difficult to study, given that there are languages spoken around the world today. However, if we go beyond looking at metaphorically used linguistic expressions in different languages, and, instead of linguistic metaphors, we look at conceptual metaphors, we begin to notice that many conceptual metaphors appear in a wide range of languages.

Many other researchers suggested that the same conceptual metaphor is present in a large number of additional languages. Several other conceptual metaphors appear in a large number of different languages. As a final example, Lakoff and Johnson describe the metaphors used for one's inner life in English. Given that one's inner life is a highly elusive phenomenon, and hence would seem to be heavily culture- and language-dependent, one would expect a great deal of significant cultural variation in such a metaphor. All in all, then, we have a number of cases that constitute near-universal or potentially universal conceptual metaphors, although not universal metaphors in the strong sense.

How is it possible that such conceptual metaphors exist in such diverse languages and cultures? After all, the languages belong to very different language families and represent very different cultures of the world. Several answers to this question lend themselves for consideration. First, we can suggest that by some miracle all these languages developed the same conceptual metaphors for happiness, time, purpose, etc.

Intercultural Pragmatics

Second, we can consider the possibility that languages borrowed the metaphors from each other. Third, we can argue that there may be some universal basis for the same metaphors to develop in the diverse languages. The conceptual metaphor can be seen in such linguistic expressions as to feel up, to be on cloud nine, to be high , and others.

Yu , noticed that the conceptual metaphor can also be found in Chinese. And evidence shows that it also exists in Hungarian. Below are some linguistic examples: Ta xing congcong de. Zhe-xia tiqi le wo-de xingzhi. Ez a film feldobott. English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hungarian a Finno-Ugric language belong to different language families, which developed independently for much of their history.

It is also unlikely that the three languages had any significant impact on each other in their recent history. This is not to say that such an impact never shapes particular languages as regards their metaphors e. So how did the same conceptual metaphor emerge then in these diverse languages?

The best answer seems to be that there is some "universal bodily experience" that led to its emergence. Lakoff and Johnson argued early that English has the metaphor because when we are happy, we tend to be physically up, moving around, be active, jump up and down, smile i. These are undoubtedly universal experiences associated with happiness or more precisely, joy , and they are likely to produce potentially universal or near-universal conceptual metaphors. The emergence of a potentially universal conceptual metaphor does not, of course mean that the linguistic expressions themselves will be the same in different languages that possess a particular conceptual metaphor Barcelona ; Maalej Specifically, in the case of emotion concepts, such as happiness, anger, love, pride, and so forth, the metonymies correspond to various kinds of physiological, behavioral, and expressive reactions.

These reactions provide us with a profile of the bodily basis of emotion concepts. Thus, the metonymies give us a sense of the embodied nature of concepts, and the embodiment of concepts may be overlapping, that is, near- universal, across different languages and language families.

Such universal embodiment may lead to the emergence of shared conceptual metaphors. Joseph Grady developed the Lakoff-Johnson view further by proposing that we need to distinguish "complex metaphors" from "primary metaphors. The primary metaphors consist of correlations of a subjective experience with a physical experience.

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As a matter of fact, it turned out that many of the conceptual metaphors discussed in the cognitive linguistic literature are primary metaphors in this sense. For instance, HAPPY IS UP is best viewed as a primary metaphor, where being happy is a subjective experience and being physically up is a physical one that is repeatedly associated with it. On this view, it is the primary metaphors that are potentially universal. Primary metaphors function at a fairly local and specific level of conceptualization, and hence in the brain. At the same time, the brain is also characterized by much more global metaphoric potentialities, or principles.

Indeed, the major research question for several cognitive archeologists is: What kind of brain is necessary for metaphorical thought?

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Cognitive archeologist Steven Mithen , suggests that the brain of humans before the Upper Paleolithic period in Europe , to 30, years ago was a domain specific brain. In it, cognitive domains related to tools, the natural world, and social interaction were isolated. These early humans were not capable of metaphoric thought until the Upper Paleolithic period, when the domain-specific brain became more fluid and allowed the interpretation of knowledge in one domain in terms of knowledge in another domain.

This newer brain was a "cognitively fluid" brain. For example, in cave drawings people may be represented as animals. Other conceptual metaphors pointed out by Mithen Furthermore, in the same way as animals can be metaphorically viewed as humans and humans can be viewed as animals, objects can be seen as humans.

A famous example of this was described by Keith Basso , who showed that in the language of the Western Apache cars are metaphorically viewed in terms of the human body. They represent global metaphoric potentialities, or principles, of a cognitively fluid brain. It seems to be clear at this point that commonality in human experience is a major force shaping the metaphors we have.

It is this force that gives us many of the metaphors that we can take to be near-universal or potentially universal. But commonality in human experience is not the only force that plays a role in the process of establishing and using metaphors. There are also counterveiling forces that work against universality in metaphor production. There are languages in which spatial relations are conceptualized not as the human but as the animal body. He points out that such languages function in societies where animal husbandry is a main form of subsistence.

This leads us to the question: What causes our metaphors to vary as they do? It is convenient to set up two large groups of causes: One example of how the social-cultural context can shape conceptual metaphors is provided by Geeraerts and Grondelaers They note that in the Euro-American tradition it is the classical-medieval notion of the "four humors" from which the Euro-American conceptualization of anger as well as that of emotion in general derived. The humoral view maintains that the four fluids phlegm, black bile, yellow bile, and blood and the temperatures associated with them regulate the vital processes of the human body.

They were also believed to determine personality types such as sanguine, melancholy, etc.

Metaphor and Culture

The humoral view exerted a major impact on the emergence of the European conception of anger as a hot fluid in a pressurized container. By contrast, King and Yu and suggest that the Chinese concept of "nu" corresponding to anger is bound up with the notion of "qi," that is, the energy that flows through the body. When "qi" rises in the body, there is anger "nu". Without the concept of "qi," it would be difficult to imagine the view of anger in Chinese culture.

Differences in the metaphors we have in particular cultures may also derive from social and personal history. Why do Hungarians use the metaphors they do for life, and why do Americans use different ones? The issue obviously has to do with the peculiarities of Hungarian and American history. Hungarians have been in wars throughout their more than one thousand year old history as a nation and state and had to struggle for their survival as they are wedged between powerful German-speaking and Slavic nations.

Given this history, it is not surprising that for many Hungarians life is struggle-and less of a game. To point this out is, of course, trivial as far as history is concerned, but it is not trivial as far as the study of the emergence of a particular metaphorical conceptual system is concerned. Finally, for an example of how differences in human concern can create new metaphors, consider some well known conceptual metaphors for sadness: The counterpart of sadness is depression in a clinical context.

Linda McMullen and John Conway studied the metaphors that people with episodes of depression use and, with one exception, found the same conceptual metaphors for depression that "non-depressed" people use for sadness. Why don't "merely" sad people talk about sadness as being a "captor"? Most people do not normally talk about being trapped by, wanting to be free of, or wanting to break out of sadness, although these are ways of talking and thinking about depression in a clinical context.

It makes sense to suggest that people with depression use this language and way of thinking about their situation because it faithfully captures what they experience and feel. Their deep concern is with their unique experiences and feelings that set them apart from people who do not have them. It is this concern that gives them the "captor" metaphor for depression. People can employ a variety of different cognitive operations in their effort to make sense of experience.

For example, what I call "experiential focus" can have an impact on the specific details of the conceptual metaphors used and what is conceptualized metaphorically in one culture can predominantly be conceptualized by means of metonymy in another. The universal bodily basis on which universal metaphors could be built may not be utilized in the same way or to the same extent in different languages.

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What experiential focus means is that different peoples may be attuned to different aspects of their bodily functioning in relation to a metaphorical target domain, or that they can ignore or downplay certain aspects of their bodily functioning with respect to the metaphorical conceptualization of a target domain. A case in point is the conceptualization of anger in English and Chinese. As studies of the physiology of anger across several unrelated cultures show, increase in skin temperature and blood pressure are universal physiological correlates of anger Levenson et al, However, King's and Yu's work mentioned above suggest that the conceptualization of anger in terms of heat is much less prevalent in Chinese than it is in English.

In Chinese, the major metaphors of anger seem to be based on pressure-not heat. This indicates that speakers of Chinese have relied on a different aspect of their physiology in the metaphorical conceptualization of anger than speakers of English. The major point is that in many cases the universality of experiential basis does not necessarily lead to universally equivalent conceptualization-at least not at the specific level of hot fluids. Are there any differences in the way the cognitive processes of metaphor versus metonymy are used in different languages and cultures?

Jonathan Charteris-Black examined in great detail how and for what purpose three concepts-mouth, tongue, and lip-are figuratively utilized in English and Malay. He found similarities in metaphorical conceptualization. For example, in both languages, the same underlying conceptual metaphor e. However, he also found that the figurative expressions involving the three concepts tended to be metonymic in English and metaphoric in Malay. In English, more than half of the expressions were metonyms, while in Malay the vast majority of them showed evidence of metaphor often in combination with metonymy.

For example, while metonymic expressions like tight lipped abound in English, such expressions are much less frequent in Malay. It seems that, at least in the domain of speech organs, the employment of these concepts by means of figurative processes is culture-specific. Culture and language are connected in many ways and the interconnections can be studied from a variety of different perspectives.

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Metaphor and Culture - Oxford Scholarship

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