2017 Metaphor Wars

metaphor wars
The study of metaphor is now rmly established as a central topic within

cognitive science and the humanities. We marvel at the creative dexterity of
gifted speakers and writers for their special talents in both thinking about
certain ideas in new ways, and communicating these thoughts in vivid, poetic
forms. Yet metaphors may not only be special communicative devices, but a
fundamental part of everyday cognition in the form of conceptual meta-
phors. An enormous body of empirical evidence from cognitive linguistics
and related disciplines has emerged detailing how conceptual metaphors
underlie signicant aspects of language, thought, cultural, and expressive
action. Despite its inuence and popularity, there have been major criticisms
of conceptual metaphor. This book offers an evaluation of the arguments and
empirical evidence for and against conceptual metaphors, much of which
scholars on both sides of the wars fail to properly acknowledge.
Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr., is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the

University of California, Santa Cruz. His research interests focus on embodied
cognition, pragmatics, and gurative language. He is the author of several
books, including The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language and
Understanding, Intentions in the Experience of Meaning, Embodiment and
Cognitive Science, and with Herbert Colston, Interpreting Figurative Meaning.
He is also editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, and
editor of the journal Metaphor and Symbol.
Metaphor Wars
conceptual metaphors in human life
Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr.

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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107071148
doi: 10.1017/9781107762350
Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. 2017
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First published 2017
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
names: Gibbs, Jr., Raymond W., author.
title: Metaphor wars : conceptual metaphors in human life / Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr.
description: New York : Cambridge University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
identifiers: lccn 2016035535 | isbn 9781107071148 (Hardback)
subjects: LCSH: Metaphor. | Concepts. | Thought and thinking. | Communication. |
Cognitive grammar.
classification: lcc p301.5.m48 g53 2017 | ddc 808/.032dc23 LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2016035535
isbn 978-1-107-07114-8 Hardback
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and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
I dedicate this book to my dear friends and colleagues in the former
research collective known as the Pragglejaz Group. The members of
Pragglejaz included the following:
Peter Crisp
Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr.
Alice Deignan
Graham Low
Gerard Steen
Lynne Cameron
Elena Semino
Joe Grady
Alan Cienki
Zoltn Kvecses
Pragglejaz met each year for a decade to discuss our mutual interests in
metaphor. We created MIP, a metaphor identication procedure,
which provides a reliable method for determining the metaphorically
used words in discourse.1 The other members of this group are brilliant,
passionate scholars whose research and writings have had a profound
inuence within the multidisciplinary world of metaphor studies. My
times with Pragglejaz were some of the most intellectually and socially
stimulating moments in my entire life. I am incredibly grateful to all
these people for their support, arguments, and friendship as we explored
the complexities, and celebrated the beauties, of metaphor in human life.
I adore each of my Pragglejaz colleagues and view them as ideal
examples of why some of the very best people on earth study metaphor.
Contents
List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page ix

List of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
1 What Are Metaphor Wars? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2 Conceptual Metaphor Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3 Identifying Metaphors in Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4 Inferring Conceptual Metaphors from Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5 Psychology of Conceptual Metaphors in Verbal Metaphor Use . . . . 168
6 Conceptual Metaphors in Multimodal Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
7 Conclusion and the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
vii
Figures
5.1 Sequential activation of conceptual metaphors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 219

5.2 Interacting subsystem of constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
ix
Tables
2.1 Ontological Correspondences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 25

2.2 Epistemic Correspondences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3 Complex Systems Are Buildings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
xi
1
What Are Metaphor Wars?
Lovers of language adore metaphor. There is nothing more thrilling for

metaphor enthusiasts than to stumble across a phrase or passage that
beautifully and concisely captures a metaphoric understanding of some
idea or event. Classic metaphors, such as William Shakespeares Juliet is
the sun, or Robert Burnss My love is like a red, red rose, express
sentiments about people and experiences that are almost impossible to
state using language other than metaphor. Both metaphors assert some-
thing new about their topics (i.e., Juliet and My love) in terms of
concepts from very different aspects of life (i.e., the sun and a red, red
rose). We marvel at the creative dexterity of gifted speakers and writers
for their special talents in both thinking about certain ideas in new ways,
and communicating these thoughts in vivid, poetic forms. Many meta-
phors have special linguistic, aesthetic, and possibly cognitive, functions
deserving our close attention and persistent admiration.
Metaphor scholars are often fanatical in their pursuit of metaphoricity
in language and life. They closely study language and other human actions/
artifacts for clues on peoples metaphoric conceptions about their lives and
experiences of the world around them. Consider one example of metaphor
in action by reading a brief narrative that was delivered by Chris Matthews
on his American TV political discussion program Hardball (Sept 28,
2012).1 Matthews was commenting on the upcoming TV debate between
President Barack Obama and his opponent, Mitt Romney, in the 2012 Presi-
dential contest. Read the passage and note instances where words and
phrases possibly convey metaphorical meanings.
Let me nish tonight with next weeks rst debate in Denver.
Ill be out there to watch the two of them go at it. I have no real idea
what to expect. I think Romney will take some hard shots; he may spend
1
2 What Are Metaphor Wars?
the whole 90 minutes blasting away at the President, serving him with
one indictment after another, hoping that something will stick.
I think Obama will play with him, parry the assaults, block the blows,
try to keep his head clear so he can avoid getting hurt. I think it will start
slow with both men trying to be cautious, neither able to land a punch,
not hard enough to register with the tens of millions watching.
Then it will happen: Romney will deliver what is clearly a pre-rehearsed
moment, a sound byte. It will be something about Obama not delivering
on a promise, something about the economy he said hed do but hasnt.
He will expect the President to defend himself.
When he does, pointing to what he inherited from Bush, Romney will
pounce. Hell say that Obamas not running against Bush. This will be
the Romney strategy: get Obama to pass the buck on the tough eco-
nomic recovery and then land his Sunday punch.
I suppose President Obama knows this is all coming and is preparing to
deal with it. The good news is this: a month ago, all his rival had to do
was say that Obamas done his best he got his stimulus, got his
healthcare program . . . and here we are. I think that might have nailed
it a month ago.
Somethings changed. It could have been something as denite as Bill
Clintons speech but people dont feel stuck like they did, dont think all
we need is some other president and thats Romneys problem, and its
a big one.
Matthewss commentary depicted the upcoming Presidential debate as

a sporting event or, more specically, a boxing match. Many words and
phrases give evidence of the POLITICAL DEBATES ARE BOXING
MATCHES metaphor, including Romney will take some hard shots,
and will be blasting away at the President, but Romney will expect the
President to defend himself, and that Obama will play with him, parry
the assaults, block the blows, try to keep his head clear so he can avoid
getting hurt, even if both men may not be able to land a punch,
although eventually Romney will pounce and be able to land his
Sunday punch.
Why did Matthews design his commentary about the Presidential
debate around the metaphoric concept of POLITICAL DEBATES ARE
BOXING MATCHES? A traditional assumption is that people use meta-
phor for specic rhetorical purposes, namely to express ideas that are
difcult to convey using literal language, to state something in a compact
What Are Metaphor Wars? 3
manner, to memorably capture the vividness of our phenomenological

experience, and, at times, to be polite.2 Matthewss commentary appears
to be motivated by several of these communicative goals. His choice of
boxing metaphors conveys vivid, memorable images of the forthcoming
Presidential debate that would be challenging to describe using non-
metaphoric discourse.
But what if metaphors were not just special rhetorical devices? What if
metaphors were fundamental tools that structure how people ordinarily
think about abstract ideas and events? One possibility is that peoples
understanding of many aspects of everyday reality is constituted by endur-
ing metaphorical schemes of thought. Metaphor does not signify an
unworldly transcendence from ordinary language, thought, or reality.
Instead, what is most clichd and conventional about reality are those
aspects of experience that are primarily constituted by metaphorical
thought!3
The proposal that metaphor is as much a part of ordinary thought as it
is a special feature of language has been voiced by a few rhetoricians,
philosophers, and others for hundreds of years. Yet this metaphor in
thought thesis gained its greatest attention from the 1980s on with the
rise of conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) within the eld of cognitive
linguistics, most notably starting with the publication in 1980 of the widely
read book Metaphors We Live By, co-authored by George Lakoff and Mark
Johnson. Unlike earlier scholars who speculated on the metaphorical basis
of thought, Lakoff and Johnson provided systematic linguistic evidence to
support the claim that there are metaphors in mind or conceptual meta-
phors. Although some linguistic metaphors clearly present novel concep-
tualizations of different objects and ideas (e.g., My love is like a red, red
rose), many conventional linguistic statements reect the existence of
enduring conceptual metaphors.
For example, consider the following list of verbal expressions, originally
discussed in Metaphors We Live By:
Your claims are indefensible.

He attacked every weak point in my argument.
His criticisms were right on target.
I demolished his argument.
Ive never won an argument with him.
You disagree? Okay, shoot!
If you use that strategy, hell wipe you out.
He shot down all my arguments.
Each of these linguistic statements gives concrete realization to different

aspects of the metaphoric concept in which we conceive of arguments as
wars. The ARGUMENTS ARE WARS conceptual metaphor has as its
primary function the cognitive role of understanding one concept (argu-
ments) in terms of a different, often more familiar, concept (wars). Con-
ceptual metaphors arise whenever we try to understand difcult, complex,
abstract, or less delineated concepts, such as arguments, in terms of
familiar ideas, such as wars. As Lakoff and Johnson wrote, It is important
to see that we dont just talk about arguments in terms of war. We can
actually win or lose arguments. We see the person we are arguing with as
an opponent. We attack his decisions and defend our own. We gain and
lose ground. We plan and use strategies . . . Many of the things we do in
arguing are partially structured by the concept of war.4
Chris Matthewss commentary reected a more specic instantiation of
the ARGUMENTS ARE WARS conceptual metaphor by suggesting how
political arguments may be a particular kind of competition, namely a
boxing match.
Lakoff and Johnson forged a new path for the metaphor in thought
thesis by providing extensive, systematic linguistic evidence showing that
metaphors were both ubiquitous in language and had a major role in the
creation and continued structuring of abstract concepts. Since 1980, an
enormous body of empirical evidence from cognitive linguistics, and
related disciplines, has emerged detailing how conceptual metaphors
underlie signicant aspects of language, and are evident in many non-
linguistic facets of life, including categorization and social judgments,
bodily gestures, mathematics, music, art, dance, and material culture.
The range of elds that have conducted conceptual metaphor analyses
is large and diverse, including linguistics, psychology, philosophy, com-
puter science/AI, anthropology, education, neuroscience, communications,
literature/literary studies, political science, mathematics, business/organ-
izational studies/marketing, sociology, economics, law/legal studies, clas-
sics, architecture, nursing science, geography, history, theater arts, music,
art/art history, dance, biology, physics, chemistry, religious studies, lm
and media studies, and Egyptology. Conceptual metaphor analyses have
uncovered root systems of metaphors underlying theory and research in
each of these academic elds, and have proven to be an invaluable tool for
scholars with applied interests in rst- and second-language learning,
pedagogical practices, cross-cultural communication, advertising and
marketing, doctorpatient interactions, psychotherapy, translation studies,
and politics, to name just a few topics.
The Broader Impact of Conceptual Metaphor Theory 5
In many peoples view, CMT is the most dominant theory within the
large, diverse multidisciplinary world of metaphor research. The literary
theorist and critic Wayne Booth wrote back in 1978, somewhat tongue in
cheek, that the increasing interest in metaphor, even back at that time,
suggests that by the year 2039, there will be more students of metaphor
than people.5 Although it is unclear if Booths prophecy will come true,
CMT is primarily responsible for the incredible popularity of metaphor
within many academic elds and among certain lay audiences. A visit to
any large metaphor conference, such as Researching and Applying Meta-
phor (RaAM), or a closer look at the pages of scholarly journals, such as
Metaphor and Symbol, Metaphor and the Social World, Metaphorik.de, and
Cognitive Linguistics will nd most scholars working within the general
framework of CMT, even if some people also have criticisms of the theory.
Skeptics of CMT, including those who reject most of its assumptions and
conclusions, still often acknowledge the tremendous inuence that the
metaphor in thought thesis has had on metaphor scholarship, as well
as in larger debates about the nature of mind, meaning, and embodiment.
the broader impact of conceptual metaphor theory

Empirical research on conceptual metaphors has had major impact on four
broad concerns in the humanities and cognitive sciences.
First, CMT has been a signicant part of cognitive linguistics program
to offer a new way of thinking about linguistic structure and behavior.
Abandoning the traditional generative approach to linguistics, one that
embraces the autonomy of language from mind, cognitive linguistics
explicitly seeks out connections between language and cognition, and more
deeply, language and experiential action. This new vision of linguistics
stresses the importance of incorporating empirical ndings from a wide
variety of cognitive and biological disciplines to create a theoretical
description of language. CMT has been specically important in uncover-
ing the detailed contents of linguistic meaning and the relevance of
embodied experience in structuring abstract concepts and symbols. Con-
sequently, CMT provides a major alternative to classic modular views of
language that see thought and language as separate architectural systems of
the mind, with the body and mind occupying different realms of human
experience. CMT shows how the study of metaphor offers insights into the
overall unity of human conceptual structures, bodily experience, and the
communicative, even aesthetic, functions of language.
Second, CMT offers a theoretical framework, and certain empirical evi-

dence, for understanding the pervasiveness of metaphorical language and
thought across a wide range of cognitive domains and cultural/linguistic
environments. The traditional view of metaphors asserts that these gures
express only temporary, one-shot, construals of objects and ideas, as in My
lawyer is a shark, which do not necessarily impact the fundamental, literal
contents of human thought and language. Under this perspective, metaphors
may be extraordinarily useful in momentarily thinking about certain ideas in
new ways, and communicating these thoughts in a vivid manner, although
human knowledge is primarily constituted in disembodied, literal terms. Yet
CMT demonstrates that metaphor is neither a rare, linguistic phenomenon
nor merely a pragmatic aspect of language use. Instead, work originating
within cognitive linguistics, and extending to many other elds, has revealed
how metaphor should, at the very least, be recognized as a fundamental
scheme of thought serving many cognitive, communicative, and cultural/
ideological functions.
Third, the claim that signicant parts of abstract thinking are partly
motivated by metaphorical mappings between diverse knowledge domains
has altered our scholarly conception of the relationship between thought
and language. Prior to Lakoff and Johnsons rst book, most discussions of
language and thought dependencies were narrowly focused on questions
related to the SapirWhorf hypothesis, particularly within the domain of
color. Research in the cognitive sciences during the 1960s and 1970s
demonstrated an increasing interest in semantic memory, and showed
how conceptual knowledge was both necessary for language understanding
and could be analyzed in various representational formats. But this work
gave primary emphasis to the architecture of conceptual knowledge (e.g.,
the organization of semantic memory), and far less to the actual contents
of what people know. Most notably, there were few attempts to explicitly
model highly abstract knowledge domains (e.g., politics, scientic know-
ledge, ideas about the self, emotion concepts). CMT provides one way of
thinking about how abstract concepts were established and inuenced
different domains of human thought, as well as ordinary language use
and understanding.
Finally, CMT has been a leading force in what some refer to as the
second revolution in cognitive science, namely the interest in the study
of embodied cognition.6 Cognitive linguistic analyses of language and
gesture and psycholinguistics research, in particular, have played a prom-
inent role in showing the signicant degree to which metaphorical con-
cepts are rooted within recurring patterns of bodily activity that serve as
Attacking Conceptual Metaphor Theory 7
source domains for peoples metaphorical understandings of many

abstract concepts. The great irony here is that metaphor, rather than
emerging from rare, transcendent imaginative thought, provides evidence
on the embodied foundation of abstract thinking and action. CMT
signicantly advances our understanding of the dynamic links between
bodily experiences, and ubiquitous thought patterns about abstract
topics, linguistic structure and behavior, and culture.
attacking conceptual metaphor theory

Despite its inuence and popularity, there have been major criticisms of
CMT beginning with the publication of Metaphors We Live By, and
continuing to this day. These negative reactions to the metaphor in
thought thesis have led to a series of battles among metaphor scholars,
both within and across academic disciplines, which together constitute the
metaphor wars that are the subject of this book.
Metaphor wars are fought by participants with many different motiv-
ations and goals. Some researchers wish to explore how metaphors reect
individual creativity, artistic traditions, and cultural motifs. Different
scholars want to understand what metaphors reveal about peoples com-
municative abilities in changing social circumstances. Other metaphor
enthusiasts focus on the effects that metaphors have on peoples thoughts,
emotions, and interpersonal relationship. Still other researchers study the
ways people interpret metaphorical meanings as a window into the nature
of meaning, as well as conscious and unconscious human cognition.
Some of these varying interests stem from longstanding disciplinary
concerns leading scholars to battle over whether CMT offers a satisfac-
tory theory of meaning (for philosophers), insights into creativity and
poetic practice (for literary scholars), an online account of peoples
immediate comprehension of verbal metaphor (for psycholinguists), or
cultural models (for anthropologists). Yet metaphor wars do not easily
group into disciplinary categories (e.g., linguistics vs. philosophy vs.
psychology vs. literature) or into a simple distinction between scientists
and humanists. Individual scholars are often attracted to the topic of
metaphor precisely because of what it reveals about multiple facets of
human experience. Speaking personally, studying metaphor is endlessly
fascinating for its lessons about the interactions of embodiment, lan-
guage, and thought, and its relevance to everything from culture and
history to neurons and unconscious cognition. CMT has offered me a
way of understanding the emergence of meaning in both everyday life

and spectacular realizations of the human spirit in art.
This complexity in how scholars approach the topic of metaphor may,
however, accurately reect the multitude of ways metaphor manifests itself
in human experience. For this reason, there may never be a clear winner in
the wars over conceptual metaphor. Such a conclusion should not sway us
from trying to adjudicate some of the many disputes which continue to
churn within the interdisciplinary world of metaphor scholarship. But
resolving the debates about conceptual metaphor requires a comprehensive
understanding of the vast empirical literature specically designed to study
CMT, and a sensitive analysis of why some scholars, nonetheless, react so
negatively to the very idea of conceptual metaphors.
Consider again Chris Matthewss political commentary and his differ-
ent boxing metaphors for the Obama vs. Romney debate. Did Matthewss
choice of many conventional expressions necessarily indicate that he was
thinking of the Presidential debate in a specic metaphorical manner?
CMT scholars would argue that Matthewss speech, especially his system-
atic use of boxing metaphors, provides empirical evidence on the power of
conceptual metaphors, such as POLITICAL DEBATES ARE BOXING
MATCHES, in structuring peoples thinking about abstract topics. But
skeptics would likely respond that Matthews merely spit out a series of
clichd phrases which have littered the English language for some time.
Politics just happens to be talked about in certain conventional ways, some
of which originated in metaphorical thinking. Still, the fact that a contem-
porary speaker, such as Matthews, used particular words or phrases does
not imply that he was cognitively drawing cross-domain comparisons
between political debates and boxing matches.
The major argument in metaphor wars concerns the legitimacy of
drawing inferences about human thought and experience from the analysis
of what people say and write. How do we really know if a speakers
metaphorical talk necessarily indicates active metaphorical thought? Some
scholars voice skepticism about the conclusions of CMT because of its
reliance on pure intuition in their systematic analysis of conventional
expressions, novel metaphors, and polysemy. They seek more scientic
evidence, testing falsiable hypotheses, to prove that so-called conceptual
metaphors are psychologically real, and not the mere ctions of cognitive
linguistic analyses.7
Critics also typically do not believe that conventional phrases, such
as Romney will take some hard shots, count as legitimate metaphors
because these are so common or clichd.8 Traditional metaphor
scholarship in many elds focuses on resemblance, or A is B, meta-

phors, such as Juliet is the sun, Man is wolf, and My surgeon is a
butcher.9 Certain cognitive linguistic analyses have been proposed for
how people may interpret A is B metaphors, especially within concep-
tual blending theory.10 But the fact remains that most of the evidence in
favor of CMT comes from an examination of metaphorical words and
phrases that do not t the traditional A is B form. For some, CMT
appears to be too reductive, and spoils the cherished idea that metaphors,
like Juliet is the sun, are special, creative linguistic forms and aesthetic-
ally appealing precisely because of their active, poetic qualities.11
CMT is also faulted for its failure to offer reliable guidelines for
determining how different linguistic expressions are necessarily motiv-
ated by particular conceptual metaphors.12 What are the criteria for
specifying how some linguistic statements, such as those listed above
from Metaphors We Live By, directly point to the existence of one kind
of conceptual metaphor (e.g., ARGUMENTS ARE WARS) as opposed to
some other (e.g., DISPUTES ARE SHOOTING CONTESTS), or even no
conceptual metaphor at all.
Some linguists, especially those working in applied areas (e.g., educa-
tional linguistics, literary analysis, corpus linguistics), voice concern about
the difculty of reliably identifying conceptual metaphors underlying nat-
uralistic conversation and texts. The complexities of real-life discourse
make it far more difcult to perform conceptual metaphor analyses com-
pared to working with isolated, constructed linguistic examples frequently
studied by cognitive linguists. Without explicit criteria for conceptual
metaphor identication, critics see no reason to posit the existence of
conceptual metaphors as either generalization about the language system
or critical parts of the human cognitive unconscious.
Anthropologists and linguists similarly contend that CMT fails to
properly acknowledge the cultural forces that shape metaphorical thinking
and language.13 The attempt to locate the cognitive and embodied, includ-
ing neural, bases for metaphorical language, in many peoples view, ignores
the larger social and communicative goals that speakers and writers have
when using metaphor, as well as the historical customs and ideological
beliefs that may motivate some metaphoric discourses. Mathewss com-
mentary, for instance, did not simply sprout from his private conceptual
system, but emerged within a complex network of cultural understandings
about Presidential campaigns and political debates. Efforts to ground
linguistic metaphors in cognitive and, perhaps neural, structures miss the
vital social nature of metaphorical speech acts.
In a different context, although much research from experimental

psycholinguistics supports certain claims of CMT,14 several psychological
studies report evidence contrary to the idea that conceptual metaphors are
automatically accessed when people use and interpret verbal metaphors.15
These empirical results are consistent with arguments that many conven-
tional expressions are not really motivated by underlying conceptual meta-
phors and, again, raise questions about the linguistic research in favor
of CMT.
More recent claims by cognitive linguists, psychologists, and neuro-
scientists on the embodied nature of conceptual metaphors are also
hotly debated within cognitive science.16 For example, Matthewss
boxing metaphors undoubtedly relate to peoples bodily experiences
when physically ghting, and many conceptual metaphors may be
similarly grounded in recurring patterns of bodily sensation and action
(e.g., LEADING A LIFE IS TAKING A PHYSICAL JOURNEY,
UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING, and CAUSES ARE PHYSICAL
FORCES). Both psycholinguistic and cognitive neuroscience research
offers empirical support that people experience bodily actions when
using and interpreting many, but perhaps not all, verbal metaphors.
Yet critics of embodied cognition, both within cognitive science and
interdisciplinary metaphor studies, deplore the reduction of linguistic
metaphor to bodily and brain processes.17
A brief look at a selection of statements critics have made about CMT
illustrates some of the furor that has long fueled metaphor wars. These
quotes are lifted from longer passages in which authors have gone to great
lengths to articulate their complaints about specic features of CMT, what
the theory ignores or trivializes, and how CMT often fails to address
competing accounts of metaphorical language use and thought.
An early review of Metaphors We Live By, published by the linguist
Anna Wierzbicka in 1986 raised several arguments in regard to Lakoff and
Johnsons positioning of conceptual metaphor as a new, experientialist
theory of meaning. Wierzbickas main criticism focused on the books glib
dismissal of traditional perspectives on language and meaning. For
example, she noted: But what I nd most disturbing about this book is
the eagerness with which it seeks to cut itself off from the Western cultural
heritage in general, and from Western traditions in the study of meaning,
in particular. Later on, Wierzbicka argued that Lakoff and Johnsons
theory of conceptual metaphor specically downplayed the importance
of traditional semantic analyses to determine what words, including meta-
phoric ones, really mean:
I deplore the new fashion in writings about meaning which makes the
writers enthuse about the alleged indeterminacy of human thought,
which allows them to condemn the search for prevision and accuracy
in semantic analysis in the name of fuzziness or experiential gestalts
(and so frees them from the obligation to pursue any such search), and
which makes them hail a relaxation of standards as a sign of progress
and increased wisdom.18
One debate on the merits of CMT arose in the pages of Cognitive

Linguistics in 2002 between Marina Rakova and Mark Johnson on one
side, and George Lakoff on the other. Rakovas essay critiqued Lakoff and
Johnsons theory of experientialism as it related to conceptual metaphor,
and other topics, where she claimed that their approach was philosophic-
ally inconsistent and contradicted by empirical evidence. In their reply,
Lakoff and Johnson accused Rakova of systematic misreading and ignor-
ing mountains of evidence in support of CMT.19 In her 2003 book, The
Extent of the Literal, Rakova offered one reection on her debate with
Johnson and Lakoff.
There is another comment that I cannot help making. Johnson and

Lakoff (2002) accuse me of not understanding their theory and say that
in my critique they can spot a good deal of Anglo-American analytic
philosophy. . . as well as some ashes of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and
Kant. Since this is a book about metaphor I hope I may be allowed a
metaphorical comparison. If I was a composer and somebody said to
me in an accusatory tone that they could spot in my work ashes of
Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Rachmaninov, and that I failed to include
country music I would say that this would have left me totally
unimpressed.20
I confess to laughing aloud when reading this excerpt in Rakovas book,

which is technically called a rebuttal analogy, although I believe that she
vastly underestimates the poetic pleasures of country music, including the
wealth of juicy metaphors that can be found in many country western
songs. (E.g., consider the metaphors in a single line of a Tim McGraw song
titled Shes My Kind of Rain: Shes the sunsets shadow, shes like
Rembrandts light, shes the history thats made at night, shes my lost
companion, shes my dreamin tree, together in this brief eternity.21) Still,
Rakovas writings are a good example of the angst that CMT has evoked
among many metaphor scholars.
Critics have long asked whether conceptual metaphors are really neces-
sary to explain metaphorical meaning. Cognitive linguist Vyv Evan wrote
in 2003: The problem with the level of generalization at which metaphor

scholars have assumed cross-domain mappings can be studied is that it
may simply constitute a post-hoc analysis due to the analyst.22 Linguist
Joerg Zinken voiced a similar concern in 2007 when he suggested that
superordinate conceptual metaphors were post-hoc artefact[s] of sorting
utterances on the part of researcher[s].23 Literary scholar Patrick Colm
Hogan also argued in 2002: We do not need to posit profound or perva-
sive metaphorical thought in order to account for local metaphor, for the
poetic development of metaphor, or for patterns of metaphor within a
given language.24
Certain philosophers assert that CMT is inadequate as a theory of
meaning, because, as Verna Haser suggested in 2005: Merely positing
metaphorical concepts brings us next to nothing.25 Philosopher Gillan
Parker, who embraced a romantic view of metaphor, noted in regard to
CMT claims: Of course, underlying many verbal poetic metaphors are
determinable patterns of inference referring back to basic stock know-
ledge (part of which may be called metaphorical): the truth of this is
almost trivial. But this is probably the least interesting aspect of poetic
metaphor, for that a poetic metaphor is poetic hereby becomes of sec-
ondary importance.26 Michiel Leezenberg argued that CMT ignores
several aspects of metaphor, including its rejection of classical truth
theories of meaning, and complained in 2002 that CMT implies: a
complete reduction of linguistic metaphor to purely cognitive pro-
cesses,27 and that, a cognitive semantic view of metaphor, comes
nowhere near making good its grandiose claims.28
Psychologist Steven Pinker is equally dismissive of critical parts of
CMT, especially in regard to whether conceptual metaphors really form a
basic level of mental representation and, therefore, overturn the need to
worry about truth and objectivity in a theory of human mind and language.
After reviewing various CMT claims, he offered a summary judgment:
The messiah has not come. Though metaphors are omnipresent in

language, many of them are effectively dead in the minds of todays
speakers and the living ones could never be learned, understood, or used
as reasoning tools unless they were built out of more abstract concepts
that capture the similarities and differences between the symbol and
symbolized. For this reason, conceptual metaphors do not render truth
and objectivity obsolete. . .29
Many other scholars complain that positing the existence of conceptual

metaphors may not depict how people ordinarily use metaphorical language.
Literary critic Peter Crisp summarized the problem CMT faces: It is one
thing to invent something for the purpose of illustrating hypothesized
conceptual metaphors, such as ARGUMENT IS WAR or LIFE IS
A JOURNEY. It is quite another thing to decide what exactly may be going
on in the mind of the producer or receiver of a spontaneously occurring text
containing one or more linguistic metaphors.30
Along similar lines, psychologist Mathew McGlone summarized his
critique of CMT in 2007 by noting: Its atmospheric inuence notwith-
standing, the CM view has not fared well theoretically or empiri-
cally. . .31 In 2011 McGlone later observed about CMT, in response to
a paper of mine: I have watched it curdle into a cult of conrmation
biases. . . Until there is a substantial body of empirical evidence
demonstrating conceptual metaphoric mediation of gurative language
comprehension, claims about the theorys foundational status are little
more than hyperbole. . .32
Similar debates about the value of CMT within cognitive science were
evident in 2006 when one psychologist wrote on an Internet blog:
The evidence overwhelmingly indicates that people simply arent per-
forming the conceptual mappings that the Lakoff and Johnson concep-
tual metaphor theory requires. Fortunately, outside of the cognitive
linguistics circle, this is how Lakoff and Johnsons theory is already
viewed.33
Many have also written about the failure of CMT to address the social
nature of verbal metaphor. Linguist Lynne Cameron stated her problem
with the rigidity of CMT in the following way:
My basic objection to this claim of xedness and invariance is that it
leads to an impoverished, asocial view of metaphor that denies import-
ant realities of human noticing, reasoning and languaging, and that
I nd inadequate for describing and explaining what people do with
metaphor and thus what metaphor is. Furthermore, the scientic
method of reduction(ism) that seems to underpin a cognitive linguistic
drive to peel back, abstract away, and purify concepts in order to
theorise, can be inappropriate for studying human phenomena; at some
point in the peeling back, the esh is damaged, the object of study
changes nature and construct validity disintegrates. It is crucial to stop
abstracting and generalising processes carried out in the name of
theory-building before this point is reached.34
A related criticism, from the literary scholar Jim Swan, argued:
Explaining metaphor as the activities of unconscious, basic-led schema
makes it difcult to account for the activity of a cultural subject acting as

an ethical, intuitive agent capable of judgment.35
Finally, anthropologists argue that CMT ignores culture in a theory of
metaphor. For example, Naomi Quinn presented a lengthy criticism of
CMT in 1992, noting the following problems: . . . the case of metaphor
illustrates a uniform tendency for linguists and other cognitive scientists
outside of anthropology to neglect altogether the organizing role of culture
in human thought. . . Quinn also suggested an alternative role for meta-
phor in cultural models: . . .metaphors, far from constituting understand-
ing, are ordinarily selected to t a preexisting and culturally shared
model. . .36
These comments are indicative of the intense negativity that CMT has
provoked, despite its simultaneous appeal within the metaphor community
and elsewhere. As these critical observations make clear, the stakes are high
in the wars over conceptual metaphor.
my fights in these wars

No matter what one may believe about the value of CMT, it is clearly
appropriate to acknowledge that CMT has brought metaphor center stage
to the highest level of theoretical discussions about mind and language
within cognitive science and the humanities. But the time is ripe for a
comprehensive reassessment of CMT, especially given the vast research
related to conceptual metaphor from many disciplines within the cognitive
sciences. I approach this task with a long personal history of involvement
in the metaphor wars. When I rst became interested in metaphor, and all
things gurative, most scholars treated metaphor as if, in T.S. Eliots words,
it were like a patient etherized upon a table. Like pathologists hovering
over a corpse, metaphor researchers would poke at Man is wolf or kick
the bucket wondering if these were dead or alive, sometimes turning the
body over to see if it conveyed a different meaning from the other side (e.g.,
does Man is wolf mean something different than Wolf is man?). But
there was little concern with where metaphors came from, or what meta-
phor actually does when bouncing around the real world of human
speakers in interaction. Even as I, and others, began to conduct experi-
mental studies in the late 1970s looking at the effect of context on gurative
language interpretation, the emphasis was really on how short discourse
contexts facilitated processing of some phrases, such as Regardless of
danger, the troops marched on, as having metaphorical as opposed to
literal meaning. What metaphors actually communicated in real-life
My Fights in These Wars 15
situations, the roles that metaphor had in structuring certain domains of

thought, and how metaphors shaped and reected culture, were not topics
that attracted much attention.
But the revolution in metaphor studies brought about by CMT
changed all that in signicant ways. Metaphor was now viewed as more
pervasive in everyday life and part of ordinary cognition, and not just a
special, ornamental linguistic device. A good deal of my experimental
research in psycholinguistics has, among other things, supported some of
the proposal offered by CMT, work that has advanced the suggestion that
conceptual metaphors are psychologically real. Much of my recent work
has been devoted to understanding the embodied roots of metaphorical
language use and thinking, an idea that is also directly relevant to some of
the newest developments in CMT.37 My involvement with CMT has
taught me important lessons about the interactions of embodiment,
language, and thought, and the relevance of conceptual metaphors in
everything from culture and history to neurons and unconscious cogni-
tion. Most generally, CMT has offered me a way of understanding the
emergence of meaning in both everyday life and spectacular realizations
of the human spirit in art.
At the same time, I have long criticized CMT for its one-dimensional
conception of linguistic understanding, its lack of methodological rigor by
relying too much on the intuitions of individual analysts, its lack of
attention to alternative proposals, and its failure to acknowledge the
complexities in peoples ongoing metaphorical experience. As my view of
human cognition has developed over the years, I now believe that deter-
mining the role that conceptual metaphors play in human life should not
result in either a Yes, it does or No, it does not conclusion. Instead,
conceptual metaphors may be emergent products of multiple, nested
factors (i.e., biological, historical, cultural, social, cognitive, and linguistic),
and may interact with many knowledge sources and experiences to create
context-sensitive, task-specic metaphorical behaviors.
Conceptual metaphor may be an essential ingredient in a comprehen-
sive theory of metaphor, yet it clearly is not the only part of that story.
I will later argue that conceptual metaphors effect on language use,
reasoning, imagination, and different human actions really depends on
the specics of who the people are, what their motivations and goals are,
the specic language and linguistic devices they use, the cognitive and
social tasks they accomplish, and how we as scholars assess metaphorical
performance in different real-life situations. Overall, though, some of the
complaints about CMT being too reductive really miss how conceptual
metaphors express a deeply felt aesthetics of meaning that emerges from

peoples experiences of their bodies and minds in social, cultural contexts.
My plea in this book is for a fair hearing of all the cognitive science data
as we continue to debate the merits of CMT. Only through a complete
analysis of the extant empirical research will we ever come to broader
theoretical agreements about the complexities of metaphor use and under-
standing. This call for a comprehensive analysis of the empirical evidence
is really directed to critics of CMT, who often simply do not know of the
abundant research on conceptual metaphors, as well as advocates of CMT
who sometimes blindly march forward as if it alone is the one and only
true metaphor theory. Right now, there simply remains too much separ-
ation between different research enterprises on metaphor, with scholars
from different theoretical perspectives pursuing their own research
agendas without consideration of alternative ideas and results out there
in the literature. My primary focus here will be on CMT and I will not
always go into great detail about the pros and cons of alternative theoret-
ical perspectives. Nonetheless, I strive to acknowledge other factors or
variables that may be critical to a theory of metaphor, now underempha-
sized by CMT, which critics of conceptual metaphor have taken pains to
explore in their own research and writings.
Describing the debates on metaphor as wars seems apt given the
heated, sometimes vitriolic, nature of these academic discussions, and
because of the signicant theoretical implications that these arguments
have for our vision of human thought, language, and action. Simply put, to
maintain that metaphors are constitutive of the way people think offers a
radical departure from long-standing beliefs in the literal, purely computa-
tional, highly disembodied ways people understand themselves and the
world around them. More dramatically, empirical research showing that
metaphor is an embodied, cognitive process, which clearly manifests as
different linguistic and cultural tools, highlights the poetics of mind, a
view of experience that is far removed from the standard impression of our
lives as clichd and non-poetic.
The paradox of metaphor is that it can be creative, novel, and culturally
sensitive, allowing us to transcend the mundane, while also being rooted in
bodily experiences and unconscious thought patterns common to all
people. Metaphor wars are the result of our continued struggle with this
paradox. Yet in the metaphor wars, it may be ultimately wiser to accept the
multiple functions that metaphors have in human life than to proclaim
victory for one side, and defeat for the other.
2
Conceptual Metaphor Analysis
Lakoff and Johnsons original argument for conceptual metaphor theory

(CMT) was based on the systematic analysis of the ways people talk about
their life experiences. This chapter describes some of the classic cognitive
linguistics research illustrating how conceptual metaphors may be inferred
from the examination of language. Critics of CMT rarely acknowledge the
diversity of empirical ndings on conceptual metaphor from cognitive
linguistics. I will postpone critical discussions of this work until later
chapters. For now, my argument is that the linguistic evidence must be
accounted for in any debates on the signicance of conceptual metaphors
in human life.
systematicity of conventional expressions

English speakers talk about their lives in a variety of ways that express
metaphorical meaning. Consider the following short list of expressions:
Greta is making good progress toward her Ph.D. degree.
John has already reached several career goals.
David ran into a rough patch trying to solve the difcult math problem.
Sandra was completely stuck guring out what to do after her divorce.
This collection of linguistic expressions may appear to be relatively
clich, unrelated to one another, and, to some, not particularly metaphor-
ical. Lakoff and Johnson emphasized, however, that these expressions are
conventional manifestations of an underlying metaphor in thought,
namely the LIFE IS A JOURNEY conceptual metaphor. People understand
parts of their lives in terms of their experiences of taking journeys. Con-
ceptual metaphors, such as LIFE IS A JOURNEY, differ from linguistic
metaphorical expressions, such as Greta is making good progress toward
17
18 Conceptual Metaphor Analysis
her Ph.D. degree. The schematic phrase LIFE IS A JOURNEY represents

only a convenient summary description of the rich set of mental mappings
that characterize the complex relationship between target (LIFE) and
source (JOURNEY) domain knowledge. For instance, Zoltn Kvecses,
who has written extensively about the basic features of conceptual meta-
phor, suggests that the LIFE IS A JOURNEY conceptual metaphor gives
rise to a diverse set of mappings, which include, at the very least, the
following source-to-target domain correspondences.1
travelers ! people leading a life

motion along the way ! leading a life
destination(s) ! purpose(s) of life
different paths to ones destination(s) ! different means of achieving
ones purpose(s)
distance covered along the way ! progress made in life
locations along the way ! stages in life
guides along the way ! helpers or counselors in life
These correspondences are not simply a list of the features in common

between LIFE and JOURNEY, precisely because conceptual metaphors
help establish a more structured conceptualization of the target domain,
which people then speak of using mostly conventional words and phrases.
For instance, experiences of LIFE and JOURNEYS do not share the same
exact features regarding travelers, paths, destinations, and so on. Instead,
the mapping of JOURNEY experiences onto the idea of LIFE creates the
specic inferences that people leading a life are travelers, problems in life
are physical obstacles along a path, and purposes in life are destinations.
Moreover, the mapping of information from a source to a target domain in
a conceptual metaphor is generally, but not always, unidirectional. We can
understand LIFE in terms of JOURNEYS, but the mapping of LIFE onto
JOURNEYS makes less sense. Conventional metaphorical statements are
concrete, linguistic manifestations of these different inferences. Indeed,
analyses of systematic relations of different conventional expressions refer-
ring to abstract concepts reect the presence of conceptual metaphors.
Conceptual metaphors provide a primary basis for understanding a
wide range of abstract concepts. Analyses of systematic relations of differ-
ent conventional expressions reect the presence of numerous conceptual
metaphors referring to many abstract topics, including the following target
domains, and specic linguistic manifestations of these metaphors:2
Systematicity of Conventional Expressions 19
Emotion
She was bursting with joy.
He unleashed his anger.
Desire
She is hungry for knowledge.
He is burning to go.
Morality
He is a straight shooter.
She resisted the temptation.
Thought
Shes grinding out new ideas.
I see your point.
Society/Nation
A friendly nation.
The ills of society.
Politics
They forced the opposition out of the house.
The president plays hardball.
Economy
Germany built a strong economy.
They pruned down the budget.
Human Relationships
To build a strong marriage.
They worked on their relationship.
Communication
Youre putting many ideas into a single sentence.
Thats a dense paragraph.
Time
Christmas is coming up soon.
Time goes by fast.
Life/Death
His father passed away.
The baby will arrive soon.
Religion
Jesus is the lamb of God.
My lord is a shepherd.
Events/Actions
She turned thirty last month.
She has reached her goals in life.
These target domains mostly refer to topics that are difcult to talk or
think about without using metaphor, precisely because of their general
abstract nature. For instance, it is almost impossible to speak of morality,
thoughts, and relationships without metaphor rushing in to facilitate our
understanding of these aspects of human life.
Consider now some of the source domains that commonly enable
people to think about abstract topics in more concrete ways.3
Human Body
The heart of the problem.
To shoulder responsibility.
Health/Illness
A healthy society.
A sick mind.
Animals
John is a real tiger.
Bill is a dog.
Susie is a fox.
Harriet is a cow.
Plants
A budding relationship.
To cultivate a new friendship with her.
Buildings
She constructed a coherent argument.
He is in ruins nancially.
A towering genius.
Machines/Tools
The machine of democracy.
She produced a book every year.
Games/Sports
He tried to checkmate her.
He is a heavyweight politician.
Business
Spend your time wisely.
She invested a lot in the relationship.
Cooking/Food
Whats your recipe for success?
He cooked up a story that nobody believed.
Heat/Cold
In the heat of passion.
An icy stare.
Light/Darkness
A dark mood.
She brightened up.
Forces
She swept me off my feet.
Youre driving me crazy.
Movement/Direction
Ination is soaring.
She solved the problem step-by-step.
The conventional expressions listed above also provide evidence for the
important fact that conceptual metaphors highlight certain aspects of their
respective target domains, yet hide others. Consider the statement She
solved the problem step-by-step, which is related to the metaphorical idea
that SOLVING A PROBLEM IS TAKING A JOURNEY TOWARD SOME
DESTINATION. This conceptual metaphor emphasizes how problem solv-
ing may be seen as a process that extends over time as one moves toward a
specic goal or solution, perhaps overcoming obstacles, or subproblems,
along the way. But this conceptual metaphor hides aspects of our
problem-solving experiences, such as the need to build creative solutions
that sometimes have complex structures (e.g., SOLVING A PROBLEM IS
CONSTRUCTING A COMPLEX BUILDING).
An important discovery of CMT is that many abstract concepts can be
structured by multiple conceptual metaphors. A love relationship, for
example, can be understood as a natural force (e.g., LOVE IS A NATURAL

FORCE) as exhibited by the following conventional expressions.
She swept me off my feet.

Waves of passion overcame him.
We were engulfed by love.
She was deeply immersed in love.
Love may also be understood in terms of other source domains, such as

magic (e.g., She cast a spell over me, and I was entranced by her), and
unity (e.g., We were made for each other, They are inseparable, and
She is my better half). The different metaphorical ways for thinking
about love suggest that we do not have a single cognitive model for love.
Each metaphorical model offers varying entailments appropriate for think-
ing and talking about different aspects of love experiences. For instance,
the unpredictability of love may be better conceptualized by the LOVE IS
A NATURAL FORCE metaphor, while the togetherness of love may be
best understood in terms of the LOVE IS A UNITY conceptual metaphor.4
Some linguistic expressions actually reect the motivating presence of
two different conceptual metaphors for the same topic. Consider the
following examples that mix together the ideas of ARGUMENTS ARE
JOURNEYS and ARGUMENTS ARE CONTAINERS.5
At this point our argument doesnt have much content.

In what we have done so far, we have provided the core of our
argument.
If we keep going the way we are going, well t all the facts in.
These mixed metaphor statements are sensible because two conceptual

metaphors for arguments, JOURNEYS and CONTAINERS, share corres-
pondences or entailments. The JOURNEY metaphor implies that the path
corresponds to the form of the argument, while the ground covered refers
to the arguments content. On the other hand, the CONTAINERS meta-
phor implies that the more the inside surface of a container is covered, the
more content the argument has. Even though the JOURNEY and CON-
TAINERS metaphors are different, and have some inconsistencies, the
shared entailment allows them to t together in certain contexts. As Lakoff
and Johnson observed, the reason we need two metaphors is because no
one metaphor will do the job there is no metaphor that will allow us to
get a handle simultaneously on both the direction of the argument and the
content of the argument.6
In general, metaphorical entailments are critical to linking together

different aspects of a single metaphorical concept (e.g., ARGUMENTS
ARE JOURNEYS), as well as two different metaphorical structurings of a
single concept (e.g., ARGUMENTS ARE JOURNEYS and ARGUMENTS
ARE CONTAINERS).
A major nding of cognitive linguistic studies is that the source
domains in conceptual metaphors are often tied to peoples bodily actions
and experiences. Note how many of the earlier presented conventional
expressions have source domains referring to bodily behaviors and experi-
ences, such as body parts, the physical condition of the body, animals we
physically interact with, physically growing things in nature, building
things, game-playing activities, cooking, physical sensations, physical
forces, and various bodily movements.
CMT has more specically argued that the source domains in concep-
tual metaphors are primarily image-schematic (e.g., based on recurring
patterns of embodied experience).7 Image schemas can generally be
dened as dynamic analog representations of spatial relations and move-
ments in space. For instance, our BALANCE image schema emerges
through our experiences of bodily equilibrium and disequilibrium. The
BALANCE image schema supports the understanding of non-
metaphorical expressions such as He balanced the weight on his shoulder
and is metaphorically elaborated upon in a large number of abstract
domains of experience (e.g., psychological states, legal relationships, formal
systems), as seen in statements such as He was psychologically imbal-
anced and The balance of justice.8 Image schemas have internal logic or
structure that determines their roles in structuring various abstract con-
cepts and in patterns of reasoning. People do not just arbitrarily happen to
use the word balance and related terms when speaking of a large number
of unrelated concepts (e.g., psychological, moral, legal, and mathematical
domains). Instead, people use the same word for all these domains because
these are structurally related by the same sort of underlying image schemas
(e.g., BALANCE). In this way, many aspects of metaphorical meaning are
extensions of basic image-schematic structures.9
One image schema that is frequently employed in metaphorical thought
and language is CONTAINMENT. The CONTAINMENT image schema
underlies many metaphorical concepts related to our understanding of
linguistic action. For instance, our mouths, like our bodies, are experienced
as containers, such that when the container is open, then linguistic action
is possible, and when closed, there is only silence. To be closed-lipped
reects the silent, closed container, and when one bites ones lip, the
closing of the mouth and lips is done quickly with great force. When
someone lies through their teeth, the container is perceived as a hiding
place where true information resides, but the container is somewhat
defective and we can see through the speakers shameless attempt to lie
about something when the truth can partly be seen. Some metaphors talk
of entering the mouth container, as when one puts words in someones
mouth or force/ram/thrust something down someones throat, where
the more forceful the entering into the container reects a more intense
speaker action. Embodied CONTAINMENT also refers to cases where
objects, or information, are removed from the mouth or head of a speaker,
as in He took the words right out of my mouth and pick someones
brains, both of which imply that some persons possess valuable objects
(i.e., information) worth stealing.
Finally, another common image schema is SOURCEPATHGOAL,
which emerges from a variety of bodily experiences, such as when a person
starts moving from one point toward another along some path with the
intention of reaching a specic destination. The SOURCEPATHGOAL
schema is also embodied whenever we reach out to grab hold of an object
(i.e., reaching from a starting point, moving along a path, reaching and
grabbing the object) or when we move our eyes from focusing on one
object in the world across to another (i.e., moving from a source or starting
point along some path to reach a goal). Common linguistic expressions
such as John walked from home to the store are understood as conveying
a SOURCEPATHGOAL meaning. This image schema, like all others,
can be metaphorically extended to create, in this case, journey metaphors
related to expressions such as His career was off-track and Their
relationship hit a dead-end street.
More generally, the image-schematic nature of many metaphorical
source domains is a very important discovery because it emphasizes the
embodied grounding of metaphorical meaning.10 Furthermore, the image-
schematic character of metaphorical source domains provides an essential
constraint on what gets mapped in conceptual metaphorical reasoning.
Many scholars generally agree that metaphorical statements express rela-
tional or emergent meanings where the source domain is projected onto the
target domain in some incomplete manner. Not everything we know about a
source domain is employed when understanding abstract targets in concep-
tual metaphors. Determining what gets mapped, and what is omitted, in
metaphorical meanings has been a major challenge for metaphor theorists.
However, the image-schematic nature of metaphorical source domains
only offers a partial answer to the what gets mapped question. George
Lakoff and Mark Turner originally proposed the invariance hypothesis,

later dubbed the invariance principle, to describe an important constraint
on metaphorical reasoning and meaning.11 The invariance principle states:
Metaphorical mappings preserve the cognitive topology (that is, the
image-schema structure) of the source domains, in a way consistent
with the inherent structure of the target domains.12
The invariance principle does not specify in advance which aspects of

a source domain will necessarily be mapped onto the target domain, but
suggests that the partial source-to-target domain mappings in concep-
tual metaphors generally preserve the image-schematic structure of the
source domain. For example, certain conventional statements about life
are motivated by the LIFE IS A JOURNEY conceptual metaphor in
which JOURNEY is structured by the SOURCEPATHGOAL schema.
This image schema is mapped onto the target domain LIFE such that,
once again, we nd the correspondences that people leading a life are
travelers, leading a life is motion along the path, purposes in life are
destinations, progress in life is distance covered along the path, and so
on.13 In this manner, the target domain (e.g., LIFE) is more specically
conceptualized via the coherent image-schematic structure of the source
domain (e.g., JOURNEY).
Conceptual metaphors vary along a number of different dimensions.
First, two types of correspondences arise from the mapping between source
and target domains. Ontological correspondences hold between elements
of one domain and elements of the other domain. For example, the
conceptual metaphor ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER
has the set of correspondences shown in Table 2.1:14
Table 2.1 Ontological Correspondences
Source: HEATED FLUID IN

A CONTAINER Target: ANGER
containers body
heated uid anger
heat scale anger scale
pressure in container experienced pressure
agitation of bodily uid experienced agitation
limits of containers resistance limits in ones ability to suppress anger
explosion loss of control
Table 2.2 Epistemic Correspondences
When uid in a container is heated When anger increases beyond a certain

beyond certain limit, pressure increases limit, pressure increases to point at
to a point at which the container which a person loses control.
explodes.
An explosion is damaging to the Loss of control is damaging to person and
container and dangerous to others. dangerous to bystanders.
Explosion can be prevented by applying Anger can be suppressed by force of will.
sufcient force and counterpressure.
Controlled release of pressure may occur. Anger can be released in a controlled
manner which reduces danger of
explosion.
Epistemic correspondences, on the other hand, express relations hold-

ing between elements in one domain and elements in the other domain
(Table 2.2).
Both ontological and epistemic correspondences highlight the fact that
conceptual metaphors can convey varied relations between source and
target domains. These relations do not exist one-by-one, but are probably
linked together as part of peoples ordinary conceptual systems. Once
again, the identication of a conceptual metaphor using a phrase like
ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER is a convenient sum-
mary description of a complex system of conceptual relations between
diverse knowledge domains. These complex relations are not pre-existing
conceptual elements, but arise precisely because of the metaphor.
A single source domain may be used to structure many different target
domains. Buildings, for example, can structure the target domains of theor-
ies, relationships, careers, economic systems, etc. These individual concep-
tual metaphors may reect a more generic, overarching metaphor scheme
COMPLEX SYSTEMS ARE BUILDINGS (Table 2.3), which includes, at the
very least, the following source-to-target domain correspondences.15
The COMPLEX SYSTEMS ARE BUILDINGS generic-level metaphor
provides the basic conceptual knowledge for people to think and talk about
careers, governments, economic systems, relationships, and so on, all of
which are stable, enduring, developing in the right manner, and in an
appropriate condition.
Another generic-level metaphor is the EVENT STRUCTURE meta-
phor, which enables us to understand that states are locations, difculties
are impediments, causes are forces, action is self-propelled motion, means
are paths, progress is a travel schedule, change is motion, and external
events are large moving objects.16 Consider some examples of the more
Table 2.3 Complex Systems Are Buildings
foundation ! basis that supports the entire system

framework ! overall structure of the elements that make up the
system
additional elements to ! additional elements to support the structure of the
support the framework system
design ! logical structure of the system
architect ! maker/builder of the system
strength ! lastingness/stability of the system
collapse ! failure of the system
specic instantiations of the EVENT STRUCTURE metaphor, as well as

individual linguistic realizations of these mappings.
Progress is Motion Forward
The Service will continue to stagger from crisis to crisis.
Action is Self-Propelled Motion
Scientists have taken a big step in understanding Alzheimers disease.
Means are Paths
Lets hope he can keep the team on the road to success.
Changes are Movements
The province is quite close to sliding into civil war.
These specic instances of the EVENT STRUCTURE metaphor do not
occur in isolation from one another, but may be organized in hierarchical
structures where lower mappings in the hierarchy inherit the structure of
the higher mappings. One example of this hierarchy with three levels is the
following.17
Level 1: The EVENT STRUCTURE metaphor

Level 2: PURPOSEFUL LIFE IS A JOURNEY
Level 3: LOVE IS A JOURNEY; A CAREER IS A JOURNEY
Overall, the metaphor A PURPOSEFUL LIFE IS A JOURNEY makes

use of all the default organization of the EVENT STRUCTURE metaphor
such that events in life are conceptualized as subcases of events in general.
In this way, the conceptual metaphor A PURPOSEFUL LIFE IS
A JOURNEY inherits the event structure metaphor. Various conventional
expressions illustrate these mappings, for example, Hes without direction
in his life, Hes at the crossroad in his life, Ive gone through a lot in
life, Im where I want to be in life, and She got a head start in life.
Just as signicant life events are special cases of events, so too are
events in a love relationship special cases of life events. Thus, the LOVE
IS A JOURNEY metaphor inherits the structure of the LIFE IS
A JOURNEY metaphor. There are special aspects of the LOVE IS
A JOURNEY metaphor, such as that there are two lovers who are
travelers and that the love relationship is a vehicle. Still, the rest of
the mappings are a consequence of inheritance, such that the lovers are
in the same vehicle, they have the same destination, and that problems
in the relationship are impediments to travel.
The inheritance hierarchy noted above has the important generalization
that lexical items that are central to the highest level (Level 1) can also be
used metaphorically in talking about lower levels (Levels 2 and 3). For
instance, the physical meaning of the word crossroads is in the domain of
space. But crossroads, as in He is at the crossroads in his life, can be
readily used in a metaphorical sense to talk of any extended activity, such
as life or a love relationship. This kind of hierarchical organization is a very
prominent feature of the metaphorical system in English. One possibility is
that metaphors higher up in the hierarchy, such as the EVENT STRUC-
TURE metaphor, may be universal and evident in the entire worlds
languages, whereas metaphors for life and love may be culturally restricted
and have different metaphorical realizations in various languages.18
The EVENT STRUCTURE metaphor provides a coherent under-
standing of fundamental abstract concepts, such as state, change, caus-
ation, purpose, and action. As Lakoff commented, The fact that they are
conceptualized metaphorically shows that metaphor is central to ordin-
ary abstract thought.19
primary metaphor theory

One difculty with the initial presentation of CMT was that some meta-
phorical mappings typically do not make sense. For instance, the con-
ceptual metaphor THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS motivates many
meaningful linguistic expressions such as The theory needs to be but-
tressed or The foundation for your theory is shaky. But some aspects
of buildings are clearly not mapped onto the domain of theories, which is
one reason why it sounds odd, in most contexts, to say The theory has
no windows.20
A possible solution to this improbable mapping problem is that certain
conceptual metaphors are more primary than others in human thought
Primary Metaphor Theory 29
and experience. Joe Grady argued that strong correlations in everyday

embodied experiences lead to the creation of primary metaphors.21 Some
prominent primary metaphors include:
Intimacy is Closeness
We have a close relationship.
Difculties are Burdens
Shes weighed down by responsibilities.
Affection is Warmth
They greeted me warmly.
Important is Big
Tomorrow is a big day.
More is Up
Prices are high.
Similarity is Closeness
Those colors arent the same, but theyre close.
Organization is Physical Structure
How do theories t together?
Help is Support
Support your local charities.
Time is Motion
Time ies.
States are Locations
Im close to being in a depression.
Change is Motion
My health has gone from bad to worse.
Purposes are Destinations
Hell be successful, but isnt there yet.
Causes are Physical Forces
They pushed the bill through Congress.
Knowing is Seeing
I see what you mean.
Understanding is Grasping
Ive never been able to grasp complex math.
These metaphorical correlations arise out of our embodied functioning

in the world. In each case, the source domain of the metaphor comes from
the bodys sensorimotor system. A primary metaphor is a metaphorical
mapping for which there is an independent and direct experiential basis
that can be expressed within language. Grady suggested that there may be
on the order of several hundred such conceptual associations based on
analogous instances of familiar correlations in experience.
A complex metaphor, on the other hand, is a self-consistent meta-
phorical complex composed of more than one primary metaphor. Com-
plex metaphors are created by blending primary metaphors and thereby
tting together small metaphorical pieces into larger metaphorical
wholes.22 For instance, consider the following three primitive metaphors:
PERSISTING IS REMAINING ERECT, STRUCTURE IS PHYSICAL
STRUCTURE, and INTERRELATED IS INTERWOVEN. These three
primitives can be combined in different ways to give rise to complex
metaphors that have traditionally been seen as simple conceptual meta-
phors. But the combination of these primitives allows for metaphorical
concepts without gaps. Thus, combining PERSISTING IS REMAINING
ERECT with STRUCTURE IS PHYSICAL STRUCTURE provides for a
conceptual metaphor THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS that nicely motivates
the metaphorical inferences that theories need support and can collapse,
etc., without any mappings such as that theories need windows. Similarly,
the combination of STRUCTURE IS PHYSICAL STRUCTURE and
INTERRELATED IS INTERWOVEN gives rise to a different metaphorical
compound for theories, namely, THEORIES ARE FABRICS. This com-
pound metaphor gives rise to the reasonable inferences that theories can be
woven together or unravel without generating less likely entailments such
as that theories are colorful in the way that some fabrics have colors.
In general, the theory of primary metaphor provides a critical constraint
on the mapping of metaphorical relations. The work on primary metaphor
does not explain all aspects of why certain words, and not others, get
metaphorically mapped from source-to-target domains. Nonetheless, the
theory does propose a crucial limit on why some metaphorical construc-
tions are likely to occur, and others not.23
neural theory of metaphor

The emergence of primary metaphor theory has led to a new, perhaps
deeper, perspective on conceptual metaphors, known as the neural
theory of metaphor.24 A general assumption of this work, based on
Neural Theory of Metaphor 31
emerging evidence from neuroscience, is that there are no specialized

areas of the brain for language, and that in the case of metaphor,
understanding is not conned to only a few select regions of the brain.
The same neurons can function in many different neuronal groups or
nodes. Computational modeling of cognitive and linguistic processes
is done over networks of nodes, connections, degrees of synaptic
strengths, and time lapses at synapses. These features provide the tools
necessary to explain various aspects of enduring metaphorical thought
and language use.
Within the neural theory, metaphor is an extended consequence of
topographic neural mappings. As with all topographic mappings, the
structure of the source domains is preserved in the target domain
because the neurons of the former stimulate the latter through reen-
trant signaling. How do these connections form? Consider the meta-
phor MORE IS UP. In this mapping, the abstract domain of quantity or
value correlates with the relative changes along the vertical axis of the
spatial domain, as in my stocks skyrocketed and his productivity is
way up. These correlations emerge when the neural networks charac-
terizing each of these domains are co-activated in everyday experience,
such as when we pile more books on the desk and their height goes up
or we add water to a container. If the mappings are connected by
reentrant pathways, co-activation will strengthen the connections. Once
those connections have formed, the relations in the source domain of
verticality will be preserved by the mapping and, therefore, can form
the basis of inferences in the target domain of quantity. If something
shoots up, it is propelled quickly upward and in a very short time is
much higher than before, which motivates expressions such as Her
fame skyrocketed, referring to a sudden and substantial increase in
celebrity.
Now read the complex expression Ive fallen in love, but we seem to be
going in different directions.25 Several conceptual metaphors structure the
neural, imaginative enactment that enable us to understand this statement,
including LOSS OF CONTROL IS DOWN (e.g., Ive fallen), STATES
ARE LOCATIONS (e.g., in love), CHANGE IS MOTION (e.g., fallen in
love is a change to a new state), and LOVE IS A JOURNEY (e.g., going in
different directions). The particular metaphorical inferences derived
from the above statements are carried out not from the simple projection
of different source domain knowledge into the target domain of love and
love relationships. Instead, the inferences arise from source domain
enactments that are carried over to the target domain via neural links.
This is a signicant constraint on the type of metaphorical projections

that are likely to occur.
In cases of metaphorical expressions, such as John nally grasped the
concept of innite numbers, there is activation of neural circuitry associ-
ated with actual grasping (i.e., the source domain), which together with
activation of the target domain from context (i.e., the abstract concept
related to innite numbers) creates a mapping circuit. Cognitive neurosci-
ence has shown the existence of mirror neurons in the pre-motor cortex
that are activated when people merely see specic actions, imagine doing
those actions, and even hear language referring to those actions.26 For
instance, mirror neurons associated with grasping become active when
people see others grasping objects, when they imagine grasping objects,
or when they hear the verb grasp. A signicant feature of this account,
then, is that the totality of a source domain does not need to be processed
before target domain inferences are determined.
This immediate creation of an integrated circuit, in which both the
source and target domains are processed at once, is consistent with behav-
ioral evidence that people can easily understand both metaphorical and
non-metaphorical expressions, as well as with neuroscience evidence on
the spread of activation in neural circuits. Research incorporating compu-
tational techniques from neural modeling has led to the development of
complex systems in which conceptual metaphors are computed neurally
via neural maps neural circuitry linking the sensorimotor system with
higher cortical areas.27 Metaphorical mappings are physical neural maps
that bind sensorimotor information to more abstract ideas as part of the
neural ensembles existing in different regions of the brain.
Consider the following brief newspaper story about European
economics:
Britain was deep in recession while Germany was ourishing three years
ago. France kept moving steadily long after Germany had fallen into
recession. But now France is plunging deeper while the German econ-
omy continues to struggle. Britain has been taking small steps toward
stimulating its economy by cutting interest rates, and has nally started
to emerge from recession.28
Srini Narayanans model, called KARMA (knowledge-based action repre-

sentations for metaphor and aspect), characterized how we may reason
about events using embodied metaphors, including those related to moving
steadily, falling, taking small steps, plunging deeper, struggling, and starting
to emerge. These embodied metaphors function to project features of spatial
Neural Theory of Metaphor 33
motion and manipulation onto abstract plans and processes. Representa-

tional structures, called x-schemas, reect low-level motor synergies pro-
ducing complex motor sequences. These motor events, actions, and
processes are invariantly projected onto more abstract domains to link
physical and economic domains in the form of embodied conceptual meta-
phors, such as ACTION IS MOTION, A RECESSION IS A HOLE, and
MORE IS UP.28 KARMA specically used the physical language in the news
story to activate a mental simulation of physical action, using control
structures (with actual motor action assumed to be inhibited).
Tests of this computational model revealed that the system drew the
same inferences people do when reading a wide variety of newspaper
stories about economics. For instance, the system drew inference related
to goals (their accomplishment, modication, subsystem, concordance,
or thwarting), aspect (temporal structure of events), frame-based infer-
ences, perspectival inferences, and inferences about communicative intent.
In general, Narayanans system shows how the same structured neural
network used to control high-level motor schemas also operates during
abstract reasoning about economic events.
Many aspects of metaphorical thought are now understood as meta-
phorical enactments that occur in real-time as dynamic brain functions.
The neural theory of metaphor offers additional motivation for why
conceptual metaphors arise in the ways they do, endure in thought, and
are widely evident in language. Metaphor is a natural development of the
way that neural systems work with recurring mappings, predictable infer-
ence patterns, and emergent properties.
A more recent development in the neural theory claims that certain
neural pathways, called cascades, are critical to the creation and under-
standing of specic verbal metaphors.29 Cascades control activations
across various regions of the brain which can be combined to create
more complex neural networks, such as seen in motor control and
decision-making. These neural pathways are the basis on which
embodied metaphors may be combined with specic frame-based know-
ledge of specic situations to create very specic verbal metaphors. For
example, a cascade containing primary metaphors such as KNOWING IS
SEEING, IDEAS ARE ENTITIES, COMMUNICATION IS ENTITY
TRANSFER, MULTIPLEX IS MASS, PURPOSES ARE DESTINATION,
and DIFFICULTIES ARE OBSTRUCTIONS TO MOTION can connect
with situational knowledge to produce metaphorical expressions such as
spill the beans, and let the cat out of the bag. This theory aims to
show how the creation and understanding of both novel and
conventional metaphors may be computationally grounded given our

knowledge of neural mechanisms.
Although the work on the neural theory primarily rests on existence
proofs based on computational modeling, an increasing body of research
from cognitive neuroscience shows how sensorimotor source domains
are typically activated during metaphor use and comprehension (see
Chapter 5). A recently completed book manuscript by Lakoff and
Narayanan places the neural theory as the center piece of Conceptual
Science: The Embodiment of Thought and Language. This approach is
deeply rooted in decades of research from neuroscience, cognitive lin-
guistics, structured neural computation, and experimental embodied
cognition, some of which is also discussed in the chapters to follow. Most
broadly, and importantly, the neural theory characterizes metaphor in
language and thought as emerging from basic sensory-motor systems.
The details of this work offer additional scientic evidence for the
biological and psychological reality of embodied conceptual metaphors.
Let me nally, and all too briey, acknowledge one connectionist model
of embodied conceptual metaphors that provides a different testable,
mechanistic theory in support of a neutrally plausible approach to
CMT.30 This model offers an illustration of how conceptual metaphor
naturally emerges within a system that learns the statistical structure of the
environment through progressive differentiation and stores its representa-
tions as distributed and overlapping patterns of activation.31
how many conceptual metaphors are there?

How many conceptual metaphors are there in the human mind? This
question has been raised by both advocates and critics of CMT. There is
no denitive answer, not surprisingly, given that research is continually
discovering new conceptual metaphors or offering suggestions on how
best to express different conventional metaphorical mappings. Still, one
example of the diversity of conceptual metaphors seen in cognitive
linguistic research is the Master Metaphor List, a second edition of
which was compiled back in 1991 by George Lakoff, Jane Espenson, and
Alan Schwartz.32 The 211-page document contains what was estimated to
be less than 20 percent of all the materials at UC Berkeley that were
waiting to be examined back in the early 1990s. At the very least, the list
offers a rough idea of the number and richness of conceptual metaphors,
along with special cases of these metaphors, which may be an enduring
part of the human conceptual system. The list is divided into four main
How Many Conceptual Metaphors Are There? 35
parts, including sections on EVENT STRUCTURE, MENTAL EVENTS,

EMOTIONS, and other miscellaneous gures. Consider some examples
from the section on MENTAL EVENTS.
Creating is Making Visible

The current policy is making a lot of problems appear.
Time is Something Moving Toward You
Three oclock is approaching.
The witching hour is near.
The Mind is a Body
(e.g., MENTAL FAILURE IS PHYSICAL FAILURE)
His mind is decaying.
Her mind is strong and supple.
Mental Control is Physical Control
I can handle the situation.
The idea just slipped through my ngers.
Difcult Subjects are Adversaries

She struggled with algebra.
He wrestled with the subject until he came to understand it.
Ideas are Food

The class gave me food for thought.
It took some time to digest that information.
Ideas are Objects

Sally traded ideas with Sam.
Sally searched for an idea all day.
Beliefs are Possessions

I hold certain beliefs.
He acquired most of his beliefs during childhood.
Theories are Beings With Life Cycles

That theory died out.
The theory is in an early stage of development.
The Conduit Metaphor

(e.g., THE CONTENT IS CONTAINED IN THE STIMULUS)
Your work seems rather hollow.
The poem is bursting with meaning.

(e.g. IDEAS ARE PROJECTILES WHICH THE SENDER CONVEYS
IN SOME MANNER)
She threw questions of money at me.
He heaved the whole issue on me.
Words are Weapons

She used sharp words.
It was a barrage of insults.
Psychological Forces are Physical Forces
(e.g., MANIPULATION IS PHYSICAL MANIPULATION)
He twisted everyones emotions.
She could bend his will.
(e.g., PSYCHOLOGICAL BENEFIT IS PHYSCIAL BENEFIT)
His pleasant remarks picked me up.
Thoughts of his beloved nourish his soul.
Coherence is Whole
He presented a unied theory.
Something is missing in that argument.
The Mind is a Machine
He slipped a cog.
He churned out ideas.
Intelligence is a Light Force
He is very bright.
I always thought he was a little dim.
This list of conceptual metaphors, and some of their linguistic realiza-

tions, offers only a glimpse of the rich, comprehensive system of metaphors
that shape peoples understanding of mental functioning.33 There has been
no attempt to collect all the conceptual metaphors scholars have inferred
from their systematic linguistic analyses.34 Kvecses discussed several hun-
dred conceptual metaphors in his book Metaphor: A Practical Introduction.35
Of course, scholars sometimes disagree over how best to characterize
particular conceptual metaphors, as well as over which metaphorical expres-
sions necessarily relate to specic conceptual metaphors as opposed to
others (see Chapter 4). Still, one may generally claim that there are hundreds
of conventional conceptual metaphors which play a role in structuring
peoples understanding and talk of abstract concepts and events.
Universality of Conceptual Metaphors 37
universality of conceptual metaphors

There is signicant cross-linguistic work showing that many cultures share
similar conceptual metaphors.36 For instance, diverse languages, such as
English, Mandarin, Hindi, and Sesotho, all contain metaphorical expressions
motivated by the TIME IS SPACE conceptual metaphor.37 Interviews
with native informants suggest that the conceptual metaphor AN
ANGRY PERSON IS A PRESSURIZED CONTAINER is present in
English, Japanese, Chinese, Hungarian, Wolof, Zulu, and Polish, which
represent several different language families.38 The primary metaphor
KNOWING IS SEEING, and the more general THE MIND IS THE
BODY conceptual metaphor, have been found in a diverse group of
Indo-European languages.39 There is actually an extensive subsystem of
metaphors in English for the mind, centered on the idea that THE MIND
IS THE BODY.40 Among the specic metaphors are THINKING IS
MOVING (e.g., My mind was racing), THINKING IS PERCEIVING
(e.g., I am trying to see what you are saying), and THINKING IS
OBJECT MANIPULATION (e.g., Lets toss around some ideas), to
name just a few examples. These metaphors are not special to English
speakers, because, as Ning Yu showed, the same metaphors are also
found in Chinese, such as THINKING IS MOVING (e.g., si-lu -think-
ing route/path- train of thought), THINKING IS PERCEIVING/
SEEING (e.g., kan-fa -see-method- a way of looking at things), and
THINKING IS OBJECT MANIPULATION (e.g., sixiang jiaoliu
-exchange of thoughts/ideas- exchange of ideas).41
LIFE IS A JOURNEY is, as noted throughout this book, a prominent
conceptual metaphor in English. Not surprisingly, there is different lin-
guistic evidence to suggest that it is widely seen in other languages as well.
One analysis of a contemporary Greek corpus of several hundred thousand
words examined terms related to this conceptual metaphor, such as road,
journey, and to pass through, in addition to specic Greek ideas related
to Charon and odyssey.42 The results showed that signicant aspects of
Greek life were conceived of as journeys. Several autobiographical titles
specically mentioned my journey, where people referred to a starting
point, a direction, different destinations, obstacles encountered, turns, and
a nal end, such as the common expression I passed through a lot of
sorrows to describe a difcult emotional experience as if one was moving
through a particular stage of the journey. Not reaching ones ultimate goals
was referred to as remaining on a road, as in He said he would go to
university, he started but stayed on the road. The struggle to attain life
goals is described as having unexpected difculty along the journey, as in

He completed his diploma limping and crookedly. Difcult hardships in
reaching life goals were frequently characterized in terms of bad weather
conditions that hampers travel, as in It is a storm and it will pass, and
when someone wishes bad luck upon another he or she will often say May
you have bad weather! implying that experiencing adverse weather con-
ditions will interfere with attaining ones desires and life goals. Greek refers
to an impasse in life as having no good choices available through the
imagery of a dead-end, as in Ahead there is a cliff and behind a stream.
The nal end of ones life travels, the end of the road, was referred to as
He is walking boldly toward his death, where the end point is a place of
rest and sleep, as in He grew very tired, but nally he is resting.
The cognitive linguistic research on cross-cultural conceptual meta-
phors also shows that two languages may share a conceptual metaphor,
but that specic linguistic manifestations of these metaphors can reveal
subtle differences in the cultural-ideological background in which concep-
tual metaphors function.43 For example, Kvecses examined linguistic
instantiations of the classic LOVE IS A JOURNEY metaphor in English
and Hungarian.44
The American English examples translate easily into Hungarian. In
most cases, where English has a metaphorical word or phrase with a
particular physical meaning, Hungarian also has a word or phrase with
the same or similar physical meaning. This suggests that the conceptual
metaphor LOVE IS A JOURNEY is expressed linguistically in much the
same way in the two languages.
Nonetheless, there are subtle differences in the ways that English and
Hungarian conceive of LOVE IS A JOURNEY, which may reect larger
cultural themes shaping metaphorical concepts and talk. For instance, the
English example Look how far we have come uses the word come,
while Hungarian employs jut, meaning get to a place after experiencing
difculties. The English expression Well have to go our separate ways
uses we in the subject position, while Hungarian uses our road that
separates. Decisions about relationships appear to be made by internal
considerations of active agents in English, while relationships are more
inuenced by external considerations in Hungarian (e.g., the fork in the
road is forcing the agents to go on their separate ways).
These subtle differences reect cultural-ideological traditions with Ameri-
can English adopting a more active stance in regard to relationships, and life
more generally, while Hungarian embraces a more fatalistic attitude toward
relationships and life events. In this case, different instantiations of a single
Idioms and Proverbs 39
conceptual metaphor in two languages reects, and constrains, the ways

individuals in different cultures reason about an abstract target domain.
Two cultures may sometimes have different conceptual metaphors for a
particular target domain, leading to radically different concepts for that
domain in two languages. For instance, Chinese language and culture typic-
ally conceive of the heart as the locus of mind (i.e., THE HEART IS THE
LOCUS OF MIND), which yields metaphorical concepts such as THE
HEART IS THE RULER OF THE BODY. More broadly, within the Chinese
cosmological view, the heart is the center of the body, with the human
body being the heart of the universe, implying that the heart is the focal
point of the entire universe.45 This view of THE MIND IS THE HEART
informs many aspects of Chinese reasoning, including that seen in art,
music, literature, politics, and medicine. In English, however, as well as in
many Western cultures, the brain is the locus of mind, leading to THE
MIND IS THE BRAIN metaphor, with the heart being seen as the center of
feelings and emotions. This metaphorical model of the mind leads to
alternative reasoning about the causes of human thought and action, which
is also evident in a wide range of cultural artifacts and beliefs. Most generally,
variation in the Chinese and English metaphorical models of mind symbol-
ize[s] an important difference between two major civilizations of the world
caught in our label as heart-centering holism versus heart-head dualism.46
Overall, the analysis of metaphorical expressions across different languages
supports the claim that many conceptual metaphors are largely universal,
particularly in cases where the metaphors are based on recurring bodily
experiences. It is not surprising that thinking is metaphorically conceptualized
in similar embodied ways across cultures because of the prominence that
moving, perceiving, manipulating objects, and eating have in peoples everyday
lives. Differences in the ways cultures metaphorically talk of certain abstract
topics reect important variations in the ways cultures think about those
domains of experience (see Chapter 4). Verbal metaphors may be similar
across many cultures, indicating similar conceptual metaphors as motivating
forces in why diverse people speak and write as they do. This demonstration,
however, does not deny both cross- and within-cultural variations that arise
from various diachronic, social, ethnic, geographic, and individual factors.
idioms and proverbs

Conceptual metaphor analysis has been applied to characterize a wide
variety of linguistic phenomena, many of which are naturally related to
metaphor in one form or another. For example, the topic of idiomaticity
has always been of interest to metaphor scholars, but often for very
different reasons. Traditional accounts of idiomatic phrases, such as kick
the bucket, spill the beans, and blow your stack, assume that their
gurative meanings arise from forgotten historical reasons such that these
phrases now exist as static, frozen dead metaphors.
However, cognitive linguistic and psycholinguistic research has shown
that many idioms have specic gurative meanings that are partly motiv-
ated by peoples active metaphorical, as well as metonymical, knowledge.47
For example, the idiomatic expression John spilled the beans maps our
knowledge of someone tipping over a container of beans to that of a person
revealing some previously hidden secret. English speakers understand
spill the beans to mean reveal the secret because there are underlying
conceptual metaphors, such as THE MIND IS A CONTAINER and
IDEAS ARE PHYSICAL ENTITIES, that structure their conceptions of
minds, secrets, and disclosure.48 The existence of these conceptual meta-
phors does not predict that certain idioms or conventional expressions
must necessarily appear in the language (e.g., that English must necessarily
have the expression spill the beans as opposed to spill the peas when
talking of revealing secrets). Still, these independent conceptual metaphors
partially explain why specic phrases (e.g., spill the beans) are used to
refer to particular, usually abstract, events (e.g., the revealing of secrets).
The cognitive linguistic view of idioms also assumes that idioms are
partially analyzable, with the gurative meanings of the parts making some
contribution to the metaphorical meaning of an entire phrase.49 People
readily infer, for instance, that the spill of spill the beans refers to
revealing something, with beans referring quite specically to some
individuated idea or set of ideas. The analyzability of idioms allows some
of these phrases to be lexically and syntactically productive to a varying
degree, and experimental research also suggests that the more analyzable
an idiom is the more likely it is motivated by widely held conceptual
metaphors. Idioms that are less analyzable, such as kick the bucket, tend
to express gurative meanings (e.g., to suddenly die) which reect meto-
nymic relationships that are no longer part of speakers contemporary
understandings.
Proverbs, like idioms, are traditionally viewed as clichd expressions
that no longer reect active metaphorical thinking. Cognitive linguistic and
psycholinguistic studies have shown these beliefs to be untrue.50 For
example, Lakoff and Turner claimed that proverbs are often motivated
by various generic-level metaphors. For example, the proverbial expression
Its better to let sleeping dogs lie, is a specic instantiation of the
Polysemy 41
GENERIC IS SPECIFIC metaphor that maps knowledge from specic

domains (e.g., our experiences with dogs at rest) to very general events
(e.g., any situation in which it is best to leave matters as they presently
stand). The specic-level schemas are concrete, easily imaginable, memor-
able, and connected to our everyday experiences.51 The SPECIFIC-TO-
GENERIC schema mapping allows proverbs to express general character-
istics, often associated with folk wisdom, that are nonetheless grounded in
the richness of the special case.
The metaphorical vitality of common proverbs is evident in the ways
some expressions are employed in modern contexts, often in novel gram-
matical forms. Anita Naciscione presented one example of this phenom-
enon by noting how the expression The apple does not fall far from the
tree was used in a modern country western song.52 In Being Pretty Aint
Pretty by the group Pistol Annies, the singer describes how different she
is from her mother because of her spending money on make-up and
material goods:
But Id spend the house
Claiming on new cowboy boots
How the hell did the apple
Fall so damn far from the tree.
We can understand this twist on the original expression because of our
conceptual metaphorical knowledge about SIMILARITY IS CLOSENESS
to infer that an apple falling far from the tree is not close to the tree and is
therefore not similar to the trees essential characteristics.
CMT makes no claim that the theory explains everything about idiomatic
and proverbial language. Many idioms are motivated by metonymy, often
with historically opaque roots (e.g., kick the bucket meaning to suddenly
die). Other expressions may be true instances of dead metaphors (e.g.,
She was unaware of her family pedigree). But the common assumption,
which is still repeated within many academic elds, that idioms, and many
proverbs, are all dead metaphors, is clearly refuted by CMT research. Many
idioms and proverbs demonstrate the existence, and continued use, of vitally
alive conceptual metaphors in human conceptual systems.53
polysemy
Metaphor and polysemy are related because many words with multiple
linked meanings include conventional metaphorical senses. For instance,
the statement I see the point of your argument employs the word see in
a metaphorical way, which reects the motivating presence of the KNOW-

ING IS SEEING metaphor.
One analysis of the preposition out in verbparticle constructions
demonstrates the importance of conceptual metaphors in expressing their
metaphoric meanings.54 Consider the following instances of the take out
construction:
(a) I took the ring out of the box.
(b) We shed out the ring (from the bowl).
(c) We handed out the brochures.
(d) The linguist picked two examples out of the newspaper.
The verbs in these examples differ in that the examples in (a) and (b)
express literal source domains, while (b) and (d) are metaphorical. On the
other hand, the particle out presumes some kind of a container, which
may also be literal (a and b) or metaphorical (c and d). In (c), for example,
the pile of brochures is seen as a container from which different items are
taken and handed to other people.
Most generally, though, people think about containers in different
metaphorical ways that shapes peoples understandings of out in the
various verbparticle constructions. Several conceptual metaphors con-
strain which verbs are therefore paired with out.
SOURCES ARE CONTAINERS cry out, sing out, beach out

SETS ARE CONTAINERS pick out
BOUNDARIES ARE CONTAINERS roll out, ll out, lay out, line out
INACCESSIBILITY IS A CONTAINER make out, work out, gure out
Thus, to gure out something is to make a solution cognitively

accessible by thinking, a process that involves the conceptual metaphors
A PROBLEM IS A LOCKED CONTAINER, THINKING IS CALCU-
LATING, as well as ACCESSIBLE IS OUT, and KNOWING IS SEEING.
Cognitive linguists are generally more inclined toward a network
account of polysemy.55 These networks structure the senses of polysemous
words which are related to one another according to a variety of cognitive
principles (e.g., metaphor, metonymy, and generalization) such that the
meanings of polysemous words are, at least, partly motivated. A classic
instance of this is seen in the work by Claudia Brugman and George Lakoff
on the organization of the preposition over.56 They identied over
100 different senses of over ranging from uses such as The wall fell
over to more metaphorical instances, including The play is over and
Do it over, but dont overdo it. These varying senses are not independent,
Metonymy 43
and arbitrarily determined, but are motivated by a small number of

principled relations, which include conceptual metaphors, that are recur-
rent through the lexicon. By a series of such linking relations, each one of
the senses of over may be tied together into a network or radial structure.
A large body of research within cognitive linguistics has explored the
importance of conceptual metaphors in motivating various complex meta-
phorical meanings for polysemous words.57
metonymy
Metonymy typically refers to linguistic statements in which one well-
understood or easily perceived aspect of something is used to represent
or stand for the thing as a whole. Lakoff and Johnson talked a good deal
about the importance of metonymy in language and thought. Consider the
following set of conventional statements:
Washington has started a new war in Iraq.
The White House isnt saying anything.
Wall Street is in a panic.
Hollywood is putting out terrible movies.
Paris has dropped hemlines this year.
These examples are not isolated expressions, but reect the general
principle by which a place may stand for an institution located at that
place. For instance, a place like The White House stands for an insti-
tution located at that place, namely the US presidency. Cognitive linguistic
studies have suggested that various metonymic models in our conceptual
system underlie the use of many kinds of gurative expressions (e.g., THE
PLACE FOR THE INSTITUTION LOCATED AT THAT PLACE,
OBJECT USED FOR USER, CONTROLLER FOR CONTROLLED, and
THE PLACE FOR THE EVENT).58
Within cognitive linguistics, metonymy is often viewed as a kind of
domain highlighting, while metaphor is characterized as a form of domain
mapping. For instance, the domain matrix of book comprises the
domains of physical objects, artifacts, authorship, reading, etc., and a
speaker may highlight any one of these domains in the domain matrix
(e.g., Proust is a fat book, Proust is difcult to read, Proust is out of
print). Similarly, the domain matrix of trumpet comprises the domains
of sound as in We all heard the trumpet, or the domain of the player as in
The trumpet could not come today.
Metonymy is often seen as primarily having a referential function, but it

also plays a major role in drawing pragmatic inferences within discourse.
For instance, the indirect request Can you pass the salt? highlights one
obstacle for addressees in complying with the speakers request, namely the
persons ability to do as asked. By noting an important part of the sequence
in fullling a request, speakers lead listeners to infer the large pragmatic
reason for stating the specic question.59 Furthermore, speakers can easily
prompt listeners to infer a series of real-world actions, or a script, by
merely mentioning one salient part of that sequence. Thus, when someone
simply states John walked into a restaurant, people will typically access a
restaurant script that species that John likely wishes to eat, will get a
table, order food, eat the food, pay the bill, and exit. Metonymic inferences
are a key part of how people produce and understand various speech acts
and implicatures.60
Most generally, metonymy, like metaphor, is a pervasive part of both
thought and language. There is much debate over the relation between
metonymy and metaphor, and there is much discussion within cognitive
linguistics of the complex ways that metaphor and metonymy interact.61
Some of these arguments over the differences between metaphor and
metonymy are relevant to battles within the metaphor wars, especially in
regard to verbal metaphor identication (see Chapter 3). Still, metonymy
and metaphor are both gures of thoughts, as well as speech, and have
different experiential motivations.
novel metaphors
Much of the long history of metaphor scholarship has focused almost
exclusively on the creation and interpretation of novel metaphors. One
of the reasons why CMT has received a negative response from some
literary critics is because of its main claim that conventional linguistic
expressions reveal the fundamental nature of the metaphorical mind.
These critics see novel metaphors as the true locus of metaphorical mean-
ing and individual creativity.
However, conceptual metaphor analysis has been protably applied to
exploring the workings of novel, sometimes very creative, verbal meta-
phors.62 For example, Lakoff and Turner argued in More than Cool Reason:
A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor that novel metaphors are not always
entirely new creations, but often are crafted extensions or elaborations of
conceptual metaphors. As they noted:
Novel Metaphors 45
Poets can appeal to the ordinary metaphors we live by in order to take

us beyond them, to make us more insightful than we would be if we
thought only in the standard ways. Because they lead us to new ways of
conceiving the world, poets are the artists of the mind.63
Cognitive linguistic research, as well as studies within the eld of

stylistics, has demonstrated various ways that speakers and writers
embellish upon more mundane, conventional ways of thinking about
the world and our different life experiences. Novel metaphors are specif-
ically created via the processes of extending, elaborating, questioning,
and composing.64 An extension of the common metaphor DEATH IS
SLEEP is seen in Hamlets famous soliloquy in which he comments:
To sleep? Perchance to dream! Ay, theres the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come?
An elaboration of the conceptual metaphor DEATH IS DEPARTURE is

Horaces reference to death in the line external exile of the raft, in which
he gives a specic instantiation of the vessel that takes one away from life.
Questioning arises when someone raises a question, or doubt, about a
common metaphorical concept. For instance, Catullus questions whether
the metaphor A LIFETIME IS A DAY is adequate to explain our eventual
death when he wrote:
Suns can set and return again,
but when our brief light goes out,
theres one perpetual night to be slept through.
Finally, novel metaphorical language also arises from the articulation of

composite metaphors. Shakespeares Sonnet 73 provides an excellent example
of metaphorical composing, which concludes with the following lines:
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset had fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Deaths second self that seals up all in rest.
Parts of several conceptual metaphors motivate this quatrain, including

LIGHT IS A SUBSTANCE, EVENTS ARE ACTIONS, LIFE IS
A PRECIOUS POSSESSION, A LIFETIME IS A DAY, and LIFE IS
LIGHT. These poetic metaphors are, therefore, not entirely novel creations
in the sense of introducing new cross-domain mappings, but are specic,
and spectacular, instantiations of common metaphorical concepts.65
Lakoff and Turner also dened a category of image metaphors that

express the mapping of mental images but not concepts.66 These image
metaphors include expressions such as the opening line of the poem by
Andre Breton titled Free Union in which he writes My wife whose hair
is brush re. We understand this metaphor by mapping our mental image
of a brush re onto the domain of Bretons wifes hair, which gives rise to
various concrete images in regard to the color, texture, and shape of her
hair.67 More recent cognitive linguistic analyses suggest, however, that
many image metaphors may involve conceptual mappings and not just
the mapping of static mental images.68
The recruitment of conceptual metaphors in the creation and under-
standing of novel metaphors is always governed by context. Kvecses
has argued that novel metaphors sometimes arise from peoples under-
standing of the immediate discourse situation. Consider one newspaper
interview with the great American musician Fats Domino in the after-
math of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 which destroyed much of New
Orleans and the surrounding areas. The article stated, The 2005 hurri-
cane capsized Dominos life although he is loath to confess any incon-
venience or misery outside of missing his social circle. We understand
capsized as referring to the disruption that Katrina had on Dominos
life, which seems appropriate given that capsized typically refers to the
overturning of a boat on the sea given bad weather. Thus, the physical
situation at hand shaped the selection and novel instantiation of con-
ceptual metaphors in discourse. We interpret capsized as more gener-
ally referring to the LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor, which in this
specic context gives rise to the more specic instantiation LIFE IS
A SEA JOURNEY.
A different example of context-induced metaphorical creativity is
seen in a story about the Japanese auto industry, which stated, The
Americanization of Japans car industry shifts into higher gear. This
metaphorical utterance is motivated by the primary metaphor PRO-
GRESS IS FORWARD MOTION. However, in the context of talking
about the Americanization of Japans car industry, the local metaphor-
ical phrase shift into higher gear is a specic, apt instantiation of the
primary metaphor. Once again, a novel metaphor was motivated by a
particular contextualization of a common conceptual metaphor.
Finally, consider several instances of target-induced metaphorical
creativity in discourse, each of which relates to the politics of European
unication.69
Metaphor in Discourse 47
The common currency is the weight-bearing pillar of the

European house.
(The European house is) a building without re escapes. No escape if it
goes wrong. We are delighted that Germanys unication takes
place under the European roof.
These statements are all creative instantiations of the conceptual meta-
phor POLITICAL STRUCTURES ARE BUILDINGS. However, each
expression reects the development that once a source domain (e.g.,
BUILDINGS) becomes conventionally associated with a target (e.g., GEO-
GRAPHICAL AREAS or POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS), we can often
use any part of it to refer to the target if it ts. If someone has a negative
view about the target, in this case the European Union, then one can refer
to aspects of the source domain that are also seen in a negative light, such
as a building that lacks re escapes. In this way, the metaphorical mapping
is initiated from the target to the source.
metaphor in discourse
Individual verbal metaphors may be motivated by various conceptual
metaphors, but different linguistic metaphors in discourse are often tied
to single conceptual metaphorical themes. Consider, for instance, the
following brief narrative from a speech given by the then Prime Minister
of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher, in which she talks about her
view of the emerging European Union:
There is a fear that the European train will thunder forward, laden with
its customary cargo of gravy, toward a destination neither wished for
nor understood by electorates. But the train can be stopped.
Thatcher expressed her desire to keep the United Kingdom independ-

ent of the growing European political movement toward a unied econ-
omy. She made this argument by referring to the metaphorical idea that
EUROPEAN INTEGRATION IS A TRAIN JOURNEY, one that Thatcher
believed to be moving in a bad direction, and which was ultimately not
wished for by many European citizens. Note that many of the phrases in
Thatchers comment are directly tied to this underlying conceptual meta-
phor, which provides an example of extended metaphor (i.e., one con-
ceptual metaphor that motivates several related linguistic expressions in
the same stretch of discourse).
A large body of linguistic work has demonstrated the ways that concep-
tual metaphors are manifested in different types of extended discourse.
Speakers and writers often elaborate upon common metaphorical ideas
(e.g., understanding political actions as a JOURNEY along some path to
reach certain destinations or goals) using various interrelated verbal meta-
phors, as Thatcher did above. The existence of these coherent patterns of
verbal metaphors in discourse is often viewed as signicant empirical
evidence in support of the claim that conceptual metaphors structure both
thought and language.
Consider just a few other instances of conceptual metaphors within
extended discourse. Several scholars have advanced the idea that much of
the Bible is motivated by the intersection of various conceptual meta-
phors.70 Many individual verbal metaphors are clearly motivated by the
general conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY, as seen in the
following examples:
You must follow exactly the path that the Lord your God has com-
manded you. . .. (Deuteronomy 5:33).
My foot has held fast to his steps; I have kept his way and have not
turned aside (Job 23:11).
I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household
after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and
justice (Genesis 18:19).
The path being followed in each instance above is clearly metaphor-
ical and characterizes the ethical conduct dictated by God. The conceptual
metaphor here is LEADING A MORAL LIFE IS MAKING A JOURNEY
ON GODS WAY. Deviations from this conceptual metaphor give rise to
the metaphorical idea of sinning as deviation from Gods way, as mani-
fested in the following expressions:
But when they [the Israelites] departed from the way, he [God] had
prescribed for them, they were utterly defeated (Judith 5:18).
[The Lord to Moses] Your people [. . .] have been quick to turn aside
from the way that commanded them (Exodus 32:8).
The metaphor of the journey can be realized in two ways: either the
traveler follows Gods way and becomes a moral person, or the traveler
walks away from God, travels on evil ways, and becomes an immoral
person. This choice gives rise to the conceptual metaphor that MORAL
CHOICE IS CHOOSING A PATH, as found in the following statements:
I have chosen the way of faithfulness (Psalms 119:30).

Happy are those who do not [. . .] take the path that sinners tread
(Psalms 1:1).
Furthermore, the kind of path traveled metaphorically conveys specic
meanings, such that Gods way is the straight path:
you averted our ruin, walking in the straight path before our God
(Judith 13:20).
To the faithful his ways are straight, but full of pitfalls for the wicked
(Sirach 39:24).
By contrast, the evil way is crooked:
But those who turn aside to their own crooked way the Lord will lead
away with evildoers (Isaiah 35:89).
Evil ways are also strewn with obstacles:
The way of the lazy is overgrown with thorns, but the path of the
upright is a level highway (Proverbs 16:25).
In the New Testament, Jesus presented himself as the divine guide

leading persons on the straight path toward God and righteousness. Hence
Jesus metaphorically described himself as the gate:
I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in
and go out to nd pasture (John 10:9).
I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father
except through me (John 14:46).
Most important, these different religious metaphors are consistent in

both their forms and functions with metaphors seen in ordinary discourse
domains. One reason why religious metaphors are compelling as didactic
instruments is precisely because they are rooted in metaphorical thought
patterns that are quite familiar to ordinary readers. As shown above,
different segments of the same large texts share a common conceptual
base by being related to a widespread conceptual metaphor, in this case
LIFE IS A JOURNEY.
Religious texts also express broader allegorical messages. Allegory
involves an extended metaphor in which the entire narrative introduces
and elaborates upon a metaphorical source domain to evoke larger life
themes for example, the struggle in our lives as the aim to reach important
goals. Within the Bible, one of the most famous allegories, often repeated at
Christian services, is Psalm 23, which overtly describes the physical journey
through Egypt but alludes to the larger symbolic issue of humans striving to
attain communion with the Lord:71
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down
in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness for his names sake. Even
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death (i.e., Egypt),
I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they
comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my
enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overows. Surely
goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell
in the house of the Lord forever.
(Psalm 23)
Understanding allegory, such as that seen in Psalm 23, requires that one
applies a metaphorical reading to some language or situation to obtain an
overall allegorical meaning, even if no individual word or phrase is meta-
phorical.72 A major reason for this facility is the allegorical impulse that
is fundamental to human cognition, in which we continually seek diverse
connections between the immediate here and now and more abstract,
enduring symbolic themes. For instance, reference to the Lord as a shep-
herd who makes me lie down in green pastures . . . [and] leads me beside
quiet waters and, later on, prepares a table before me in the presence of
my enemies alludes to larger symbolic themes about how the Lord offers
guidance and safety through worship of his teachings. The evocation of
these symbolic themes creates diverse, rich networks of meaning that are
metaphorical, deeply embodied, and evocative of multiple affective and
aesthetic reactions.
A different example of extended metaphor in discourse can be seen in the
following narrative, originally published in The Economist, which speaks of
political problems associated with the development of the European Union.73
The German question never dies. Instead, like a u virus, it mutates. On

the eve of unication, some European leaders worried that it would
resume killer form. Weve beaten the Germans twice and now theyre
back, said Margaret Thatcher, Britains prime minister. Such fears now
look comical, but even todays mild strain causes aches and pains, which
afict different regions in different ways. Americas symptoms are mild.
Central Europe seems to have acquired immunity. After unication, 85%
of Poles looked upon Germany as a threat [. . .]. Now just a fth do. It is
among Germanys long-standing west and south European partners that
the German question feels debilitating, and where a dangerous are-up
still seems a possibility. Germanys answer to the question matters not
only to them. It will shape Europe, and therefore the world.
Andreas Musolff claimed that this narrative is structured around the

POLITICAL BODY metaphor, which in this case is manifested by various
words and phrases related to illness and death (e.g., u virus, mild strain
causes aches and pains, symptoms are mild, acquired immunity,
dangerous are-up, and killer form). Much political discourse, along
with various other expository genres, exemplies the use of extended
verbal metaphors that are all related, loosely or tightly, to specic concep-
tual metaphorical ideas.74
The extended use of conceptual metaphors in discourse is by no
means limited to written language. Discourse analysts have discerned
that verbal metaphors often cluster together in conversation, sometimes
centered on specic metaphorical concepts. Consider the following
example, which I have written about elsewhere of a discussion between
a psychotherapist, Judy, and her client, Howard, about how he dealt with
difculties in life.75
judy: When you have a problem, what do you do with it?

howard: I usually let it be a problem. I dont usually do anything
much. . .
judy: Does the problem go away if you dont do anything about it?
howard: No, it gets worse . . . or it just complicates things as you go
further down the road.
judy: Can you look at your own life. . . look down the road of that line
and see what thats gonna do . . . in your life?
howard: Look down the road?
judy: Yeah, kinda visualize what your own life will be like . . ..
howard: It will just continue the way it is.
judy: Kind of like a snowball effect.
howard: No no not a snowball. Just kinda oating, oating down the
river. . .
judy: Whats it like to be oating down the river? Tell me more.
howard: Its comfortable. Its safe.. Everything just keeps on an even
keel, you know. . . Youre just kinda oating.
judy: Kind of in a canoe? Going down the river or..
howard: No, more like a great ole big barge.. on a great old big river.
judy: Barge, very stable, kinda.
howard: Yeah, plenty of room to spread out and sit in the sun. Yeah,
and you dont have to worry about falling off the edge.. And sun, you
know, its kinda hazy. Its not really clear sun. Its kinda hazy. Kinda half
asleep, thats what its like.
judy: What happens when you kind of come to the falls, the falls that are
down there, about two miles down the river?
howard: Get the hell off the river!
judy: Thats certainly one way to handle it. Get out.

howard: I feel a lot of discomfort. Thats what happened just last
month. I hit those falls last month.
judy: Last time there was um kind of an external situation that sort of
forced you out of your boat.
howard: It was uncomfortable, but I was, I was pretty, I was enjoying it
too. And I didnt want to go back into just oating. It was uncomfortable
and I was out, I dont, Ive been oating a long time.
judy: Mmm, well youve found what works for you, in a sense.
howard: What works for me?
judy: Floating.
howard: Because Im . . . stay comfortable and
judy: In a sense, but it may now be. . . inappropriate. It may not be
working as well as it did in the past.
howard: Yeah, I need a little excitement now and then.
judy: Some rapids.
howard: Yeah, something I can keep in control of and not drown.
This exchange is primarily focused on the ways Howard interprets his

life as a specic kind of journey (e.g., with him oating down the river in a
great old, big barge). Note that the LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor is given
a very specic instantiation, one that is negotiated between Howard and
his therapist. Many conversations, like this one, illustrate how different
instances of verbal metaphors arise from particular conceptual metaphors
that help structure more abstract ideas, and yet also present context-
sensitive meanings which unfold in various ways in different discourse
circumstances.
Finally, people mix their verbal metaphors quite frequently in both
speech and writing. Consider one example from the column Block that
Metaphor! in The New Yorker magazine, in which a reporter described the
controversy that erupted in one online debate.76
The column produced more ames than an oil eld in Abu Dhabi. The
hysterical tone of the column is astounding, wrote cyberpundit Brock
N. Meeks. This sort of journalistic tripe is poison and yet, at the same
time, grist for the mill among the twisted jackals who make up Congress
and who, it seems, have no qualms about using the Internet as a
personal whipping post whenever it suits their fancy.
References to journalistic tripe, grist for the mill, twisted jackals,

and personal whipping post are very different verbal metaphors, each
with different conceptual metaphorical motivations (e.g., journalistic
The Scope of Studies Related to Conceptual Metaphors 53
tripe emerges from BAD IDEAS ARE BAD FOOD). Various critics have
argued that CMT is incapable of explaining mixed metaphors, because
they appear to reveal inconsistency in metaphorical thought sequences.
However, various linguistic and psycholinguistic analyses suggest that
mixed metaphors in discourse do not indicate disorganization in thought
and they are not necessarily difcult for listeners and readers to under-
stand. In fact, the prominence of mixed metaphors in discourse high-
lights the exibility of metaphorical thought given peoples ability to
switch between different metaphorical concepts, sometimes referring to
the same abstract topic.77
the scope of studies related to

conceptual metaphors
The rise of CMT within linguistics has been accompanied by a diverse set
of research ndings. It is simply impossible to properly capture the incred-
ible variety of scholarly work on conceptual metaphor within even a large
book like this one. There are many dozens of scholarly journals, individual
books, edited book collections, and conference proceedings that contain
thousands of studies examining different conceptual metaphorical phe-
nomena. For now, however, consider a list of some of the topics studied
related to conceptual metaphor as seen in the pages of just three scholarly
journals Metaphor and Symbol, Cognitive Linguistics, and Review of Cogni-
tive Linguistics.78
Conceptual metaphors in merger and acquisition discourse.79
Conicting metaphors in educational reform proposals in Hong
Kong.80
Chinese body metaphors for courage.81
Metaphors for immigrants in the United States.82
Metaphorical motion in English and Turkish.83
Arguments as a war or a game of chess.84
Metaphors for chess.85
Metaphors of musical motion.86
Metaphors in psychoanalysis.87
Cross-cultural variation in conceptual metaphor.88
Conceptual metaphors in hieroglyphic script.89
Metaphor in English speaking activity.90
Cross-cultural analysis of animal metaphors.91
Metaphoric expression and culture.92
Embodied metaphor in Tunisian Arabic anger expressions.93

Metaphorical scenarios in public discourse.94
Horse metaphors in Spanish and English.95
Conceptual metaphors in Darwins theory of evolution.96
Political debates about the European Union.97
Metaphorical construals of time.98
Metaphors of emptiness in Buddhisms Heart Sutra.99
Chess metaphors in English and Hungarian.100
Metaphors for the self in Chinese narratives of depression.101
Ancient Roman metaphors for communication.102
Conceptual metaphors in Shakespeares Macbeth.103
Conceptual metaphors for emotion in Korean.104
Conceptual metaphors in translation.105
Metaphors of joy and happiness in Greek.106
Metaphorical extensions of path and road.107
Metaphors of game playing in American life.108
Metaphors for mental functioning as physical functioning.109
Exploitation of strategic metaphors for the Persian Gulf War.110
Metaphors for democracy in Tocqueville.111
Conceptual metaphors in American political discourse.112
Metaphors for regional peace in Latin America.113
Holocaust metaphors in Israeli discourse.114
Metaphors in the language of rape.115
Metaphors in Shakespeares King Lear.116
Metaphors of happiness.117
Metaphors in metaphysics.118
Metaphors for anger and happiness in English and Chinese.119
Metaphors for the US war on drugs.120
Metaphors in legal reasoning.121
Metaphors for global warming.122
Conceptual metaphors in American proverbs.123
Metaphors on 20th-century art commentary.124
Metaphors in religious texts.125
Metaphors for teaching.126
Conceptual metaphors for money and nance in Spanish.127
Metaphors for geoengineering.128
Metaphors for self in Chinese autobiographical writings.129
Metaphors of love in German and Brazilian Portuguese.130
Metaphors of happy and unhappy life stories in Russian.131
Chat metaphors for self in Turkish and English.132
Conclusion 55
Olfactory metaphors in print ads for perfume.133

Metaphors in press headlines of globalization.134
Metaphors of life and death in Turkish.135
Metaphors in Greek pain lexicalization.136
Conceptual metaphors in Chinese TV ads.137
Metaphors for American friendship.138
Space-to-time metaphors in temporal concepts.139
Metaphorical mappings in American Sign Language.140
Metaphorical extensions of straight.141
Conceptual metaphors in American idiomatic phrases.142
Metaphors in American Presidential debates.143
Chinese metaphors for thinking.144
Theories are building metaphors.145
Metaphors in Nigerian ideology.146
Metaphors for cloning in scientic and journalistic texts.147
Mental imagery in conceptual metaphors.148
Metaphorical extensions of weight in Swedish.149
Metaphors of dirt and cleanliness in moral and unmoral reasoning.150
Conceptual metaphors for Chinese verbal behavior.151
This selective list of studies from cognitive linguistics highlights both
the depth and breadth of conceptual metaphors in diverse aspects of
human life. These different studies are quite empirical in the degree to
which they examine various discourse domains, across many languages
and cultures. Simply put, the overwhelming conclusion to be drawn from
this research is that people have a strong tendency to speak and write of
their ideas and experiences using widely shared metaphorical concepts,
many of which are grounded in embodied source domains.152
conclusion
Conceptual analysis has provided an invaluable wealth of linguistic evi-
dence on the metaphorical nature of human thought and action. Empirical
studies within cognitive linguistics suggest the motivating presence of
conceptual metaphors within conventional expressions, novel verbal meta-
phors, extended metaphors in discourse, polysemy, idioms, proverbs, and
various kinds of inferential reasoning. Although conceptual metaphors do
not account for all aspects of verbal metaphor use, they offer powerful
constraints on why people talk and think in the particular ways they do.
Even many critics of CMT employ the method of exploring systematicity
within linguistic metaphors to infer different factors that shape patterns of

metaphoricity in language. This fact alone has led to CMT being quite
prominent in the interdisciplinary world of metaphor research. At the
same time, cognitive linguistic studies uncovering the specic contents of
abstract human thought, and its embodied, metaphorical foundations,
have helped CMT become a major theory within cognitive science. My
strong argument is that the linguistic evidence described in this chapter
must be acknowledged, and deeply studied, as debates continue on the
nature of metaphoricity in human experience.
It is now time to take a closer look at some of the specic battles that
have been fought in metaphor wars regarding different claims about
conceptual metaphors, their psychological reality as enduring mental
structures, and their power to shape human action and social realities.
3
Identifying Metaphors in Language
Understanding the relations between metaphorical language and thought

requires some method for identifying metaphors in discourse. Creating a
reliable scheme for metaphor identication, however, can be very difcult
work. Consider the opening lines of a classical music review for Stravins-
kys Rites of Spring, performed by the San Francisco Symphony under
the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas in June 2013.1
Michael Tilson Thomas recently described the San Francisco Symph-
onys Stravinsky festival as a connect the dots event. Fridays terric
program was just that. The raw materials for Stravinskys astonishing
imagination the keening, unvarnished vocal music of rural Russia
were laid out at the start of the night, and it owed from there, winding
toward Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring), performed with
a clean wallop. . . Its music that gets the blood rushing with its howling
vocal lines, clangorous spirit and clashing, clustered harmonies. Eerie
and celebratory, both, it imprinted itself upon the composer.
This prose is typical of the language in music reviews, as the writer
employs various metaphorical messages to describe his experience listening
to the symphonys performance. But what words or phrases in this passage
convey metaphorical meaning? Go back, re-read the narrative, and under-
line any words that you believe are metaphorical.
If you complete this metaphor identication task, you may nd some
words that clearly express metaphoricity. For example, the words in the
phrase connect the dots appear to have metaphorical meaning, as does
the word unvarnished in the phrase unvarnished vocal music. When
the writer suggests that the symphony was performed with a clean
wallop, the words clean wallop are used to express meanings different
from their standard physical uses.
57
58 Identifying Metaphors in Language
Still, some people have difculty deciding whether or not other words
convey metaphorical meaning. Are keening when speaking of vocal
music, laid out when describing Stravinskys imagination, and clang-
orous, harmonies, clashing, and clustered when talking of the vocal
lines metaphorical? How do we really know whether any word or phrase
necessarily conveys metaphorical meaning in context?
Metaphor enthusiasts have long engaged in erce debates over whether
or not specic uses of words, phrases, and expressions in discourse should
be recognized as having metaphorical meaning. These arguments have led
to several attempts to create schemes for determining whether particular
instances of speech or writing should count as metaphors. The struggle to
identify metaphor in language has signicant consequences for conceptual
metaphor theory (CMT), as well as for many competing theories of
metaphor. Simply put, if CMT claims that underlying conceptual meta-
phors motivate different conventional metaphorical expressions in lan-
guage, then the theory must, as a rst step, precisely identify what words
or phrases actually express metaphorical meanings in discourse. CMT does
not presently advance a specic procedure for identifying metaphor in
language. Individual linguists, and others, simply assert that particular
words or expressions convey metaphorical meaning, usually by noting
the cross-domain mappings between a discourse topic and the source
domain used to speak of that idea (e.g., speaking of life as different physical
journeys). As Lakoff and Johnson once observed, The essence of meta-
phor is understanding and experiencing one thing in terms of another.2
Critics of CMT, however, argue that many of the metaphor judgments
made by cognitive linguists are suspect and biased in favor of the theory.
For example, CMT scholars sometimes argue that a specic linguistic
statement must be metaphorical simply because it appears to be motivated
by a previously established conceptual metaphor. Thus, My career is on
the rocks is metaphorical because it relates to the conceptual metaphor
LIFE IS A JOURNEY. This style of argumentation appears, to some, to be
circular and does not clearly articulate a reliable, bottom-up procedure for
identifying metaphors. These difculties in metaphor identication make it
nearly impossible, so the critics claim, to properly test whether or not
conceptual metaphors really exist and partly motivate why speakers talk
about many abstract topics in the systematic ways they do.
This chapter describes criticisms leveled against CMT for its habit of
labeling certain linguistic expressions as metaphorical. I discuss some of
the larger problems associated with attempts to identify words or phrases
as having literal or metaphorical meaning and argue that peoples
The Goals of Metaphor Identication 59
intuitions about these matters sometimes vary given a wide range of

factors. Most importantly, our conscious beliefs about metaphorical lan-
guage do not always accurately reect the extent to which metaphor
structures our unconscious thinking about different concepts and mean-
ings. I then review several concrete methods for identifying metaphor in
language, acknowledging both their successes and limitations. One of these
proposals attempts to reshape metaphor scholarship by identifying delib-
erate metaphors, an idea that is advanced in opposition to CMT.
Following this, I discuss the general relations between metaphorical lan-
guage and thought by showing how metaphorical meanings can be dis-
played using both metaphorical and non-metaphorical language. These
observations prevent us from drawing simple links between the number of
metaphorically used words and phrases with the extent of metaphorical
thinking. Finally, I present several applications of metaphor identication,
which do not simply count up metaphorically used words or phrases, but
explore the dynamical ways metaphorical ideas unfold both within indi-
vidual conversations and across written texts. My summary characterizes
the present state of research and thinking on metaphor identication,
noting areas of support for CMT, and the need for an expanded search
for metaphoricity in language use.
the goals of metaphor identification

Why do we need methods for identifying metaphor? Isnt the presence of
metaphor obvious, even if we struggle to specify what metaphor is? Den-
ing metaphor is reminiscent of the attempt in law to precisely dene the
concept of pornography. The US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart
once famously observed about pornography that I know it when I see it,3
even if he was unable to clearly dene what pornography may be. We may
be in a similar situation with metaphor in sometimes being able to state,
even with condence, There is a metaphor! without then being able to
state what precisely denes the concept of metaphor.
Still, many of the struggles over the validity of CMT are directly related
to dening metaphor and how best to empirically identify it in discourse.
A major problem in comparing theories of metaphor is that many scholars
selectively choose isolated metaphors from speech and writing, such as
Shakespeares famous Juliet is the sun, and explicate the dening prop-
erties of metaphor more generally from consideration of only these few
examples.
But just as lepidopterists would be remiss if they solely examined

butteries that were most notable or easiest to catch, metaphor researchers
need to study the multiple forms of metaphor and how metaphorical
words get used in the wilds of real discourse. Simply focusing only on
apt, creative, or beautiful metaphors in isolation fails to capture the
pervasiveness of metaphor in language and thought. One of CMTs signi-
cant claims, once again, is that metaphor exists even in the most mundane
aspects of speech, writing and many other communicative mediums.
Verifying this idea demands that scholars come to some agreement on
how best to identify metaphor, which may require a major expansion of
what we think is metaphorical in language.
A theory of metaphor identication should not be confused with a
theory of how metaphors are understood. A common error in many
traditional discussions of metaphor is the assumption that people must
necessarily identify that some stretch of language belongs to the category of
metaphor before that language can be properly understood. As the
philosopher Ina Lowenberg noted back in 1975, Any satisfactory formula-
tion of the principle of metaphor requires the identiability of metaphor
since they cannot be understood or produced unless recognized as such.4
Under this view, the recognition that some use of language does not convey
literal meaning prompts the search for a specic meaning type (e.g.,
This is metaphor!), which then activates special psychological processes
to interpret the contextual, metaphorical meanings.
Much psychological research demonstrates, however, that people do not
interpret metaphor by consciously, or even unconsciously, noting there is
metaphor and I will now proceed to understand its exact meaning.5 There
may be times when a word or phrase evokes the conscious impression
That is an interesting/apt/bizarre metaphor, yet these occasions are rare
given the relative frequency of our encounters with metaphor in language.
We sometimes recognize something as metaphor after its meaning has
already been, even if partially, understood. Still, metaphor recognition or
identication does not necessarily precede our quick, or even more reect-
ive, understanding of verbal metaphor. One of the fascinating, and perhaps
paradoxical, aspects of metaphor is that we are often in its presence
without knowing that this is the case. Metaphor may allow us to escape
from clichd reality, to paraphrase the poet Wallace Stevenss famous
aphorism, but it may also be a fundamental part of the reality from which
there is no escape.6
The fact remains that identifying metaphor requires a sense that some
words are doing something different in discourse. As philosopher Mark
Are Some Conventional Expressions Really Metaphorical? 61
Johnson once observed, Our identication of an utterance as metaphor

does seem to involve some strain between the normal sense of the
utterance and the total speech situation in which it occurs.7 Even though
people may rarely experience words or phrases in a conscious manner as
metaphors, we still need some way of demarking what is metaphorical
and then use this as the basis for drawing further conclusions about the
nature of metaphorical thought and experience.
are some conventional expressions

really metaphorical?
Consider several expressions that are viewed by CMT as supporting the
existence of two different conceptual metaphors.
Life is a Journey
Molly was off to a great start in her job.
Jake got sidetracked as he was studying for his nal exams.
Ricky worked ever so slowly toward his Ph.D.
Janet nally reached her goal of becoming a millionaire.
Sadness is Down
Chris was feeling really low.
Peter was down in the dumps after his divorce.
Carrie was terribly depressed.
How do we know that any of these statements express metaphorical
meaning? Cognitive linguists argue that each of these statements refer to
topics that are conceptualized by knowledge from a different domain of
experience (e.g., sadness is understood in terms of downward spatial
relations). These conventional ways of talking about life and sadness are
metaphorical precisely because of these cross-domain references. As Zoltn
Kvecses commented, What does it mean then to know a metaphor? It
means to know the systematic mappings between a source and target. This
happens in an unconscious manner.8
Critics of CMT see many of the above conventional statements as
expressing meaning that is the normal sense of an utterance. These
conventional expressions may have once been interpreted as metaphorical,
and perhaps came into the language because of metaphorical concepts, but
are now seen by contemporary speakers as literal speech or dead
metaphors. For example, the literary scholar Patrick Hogan considered
the sentence I will defend my views by clarifying my basic approach.
Although people may interpret this expression quite easily, Hogan claims
that it is a metaphorical mess.9 He asks How can an approach be
basic? How can an approach be claried? How can clarication be a
defense?10
The fact that some expression, such as the one Hogan considered, is a
metaphorical mess should not imply that people necessarily interpret
it without using entrenched metaphorical knowledge (i.e., conceptual
metaphors). But Hogans specic argument was that our understanding
of I will defend my views by clarifying my basic approach is entirely
literal given that the relevant meanings are lexicalized.11 People do not
infer that certain words in this expression (e.g., defend, clarify) must
somehow be understood given underlying metaphorical concepts. He
suggests that the systematicity among many conventional expressions,
such as those listed above, is not due to the motivating presence of
specic conceptual metaphors, but can be fully explained in terms of
simple lexical priming processes. Lexical priming bunches certain ideas
together and forms patterns that appear, in some cases, as if they all
shared the same metaphorical structure. The presumed metaphorical
structure, or conceptual metaphor, may just be apparent and not real.
For instance, the word depart in The dear departed Tom Jones
primes other entries for depart, one of which makes reference
to journey.12
Conceptual metaphors, under this view, may primarily be generaliza-
tions that arise from lexical priming processes, but are not reections of
underlying human cognition. Moreover, many utterances seen as meta-
phorical, and arising from conceptual metaphors, may not express meta-
phorical meanings at all.13 Psychologist Mathew McGlone similarly
suggested that many of the conventional expressions seen as metaphorical
within CMT need not be understood as such. He argues that conventional
expressions such as Im in trouble do not convey metaphorical meaning
(via the STATES ARE LOCATIONS metaphor), precisely because these
statements do not have the semantic incongruity typically seen in meta-
phor. More generally, By blurring the distinction between literal and
metaphorical language, the theory [CMT] becomes incoherent, both as a
theory of language comprehension and as a theory of conceptual
representation.14
This argument over whether a particular statement is understood liter-
ally or via conceptual metaphors, again, demands some way of identifying
whether any word or phrase expresses metaphorical meaning. Dening
what is metaphorical implicitly starts with the assumption that the literal
meanings of words and sentences can be reliably determined. But specify-

ing the literal meaning of any word or phrase can also be notoriously
difcult to do. Experimental studies demonstrate that asking people to
make judgments about the literal meanings of linguistic expressions gives
highly variable results that always depend on the specic judgment task
and the contexts in which these statements are presented.15
The inconsistency in peoples judgments of literal meaning is not
limited to the intuitions of untutored undergraduate students, but inl-
trates the scholarly literature on verbal metaphor understanding. For
instance, individual psycholinguistic studies on metaphorical language
processing often compare the time required to understand metaphorical
and literal expressions. A closer inspection of the linguistic utterances
supposedly conveying metaphorical and literal meanings reveals
incredible differences, across studies, in regard to what constitutes both
of these types of meaning.16 This variation in how metaphorical meaning is
characterized and exemplied in psycholinguistic studies makes it difcult
to draw general conclusions about peoples use and understanding of
metaphorical language in comparison to other kinds of linguistic
meaning.
One immediate bias in traditional accounts is the belief that verbal
metaphors are best dened as A is B or A is like B statements, such
as Man is wolf or My surgeon is like a butcher. Each of these cases has
target domains that are explicitly mentioned in the same linguistic state-
ment as the source domain (e.g., surgeon is the target concept and
butcher is the source concept). As noted in Chapter 2, most of the
attention given to metaphor in the elds of linguistics, psychology, phil-
osophy, and literary studies focus on these specic kinds of resemblance
metaphors, despite the fact that these are relatively infrequent uses of
metaphor.17
The primary focus in the study of A is B metaphors and similes has
been devoted to how these phrases express metaphorical meanings through
the interaction of the A and B, or topic and vehicle, terms. Most everyone
acknowledges that statements such as Encyclopedias are like goldmines
are metaphorical, unlike the meaning of expressions such as Encyclo-
pedias are like dictionaries. But scholars differ considerably over the
linguistic and cognitive operations that lead people to infer the metaphori-
city of certain A is B forms, and what exactly makes some of these
metaphorical expressions creative or apt, and others not. Ideas about
identifying metaphors within this domain of research have been tradition-
ally centered around dening what makes a good or apt metaphor,
and not how any instance of speech can be recognized as expressing

metaphorical meaning.18 Many proposals have been advanced for explain-
ing the production and interpretations of resemblance metaphors, yet there
have been surprisingly fewer efforts made to relating these theories, and
some of the accompanying empirical research, with the work on concep-
tual metaphor.19
Still, metaphorical language involves a variety of linguistic forms,
including ones in which the target concept is implied or only evident from
the discourse context. When a speaker says, Were at a crossroads in the
context of trying to negotiate a contract between two companies, the word
crossroads is used to better understand the target domain of negotiating
a business transaction. These indirect metaphors may not always be as
creative or poetic as some of the classic forms of metaphor studied in the
traditional literature (e.g., Juliet is the sun). People may, nonetheless,
understand phrases like Were at a crossroads as conveying metaphorical
meaning. Chapter 5 reviews the large body of experimental research that
supports this very conclusion.
A related topic that continues to plague metaphor identication con-
cerns the difference between conventional and novel instances of meta-
phorical language. Some critics of CMT argue that the conventional
expressions often studied by cognitive linguists no longer retain their
metaphoricity, while novel metaphors reect active, cross-domain map-
pings that are the true signatures of metaphorical thinking. As mentioned
earlier, conventional expressions, according to many critics, may be under-
stood as conveying literal meanings and can be understood directly
without any special type of metaphor processing.20
For example, according to some metaphor scholars, the single state-
ment He was depressed may at one point have been motivated by the
metaphor SADNESS IS DOWN, yet it now can be readily understood as
referring to sadness without any access to this conceptual metaphor. Of
course, some conventional expressions are motivated by other gurative
schemes of thought, such as metonymy (e.g., the gurative meaning of
kick the bucket), or they truly reect metaphorical concepts that are
no longer alive in contemporary speakers conceptual systems (e.g.,
pedigree was motivated by the iconic images of a goose foot). For
this reason, it is mistaken to simply lump all instances of so-called
conventional expressions together as part of one homogenous category
of language. Different conventional expressions may have varying types
of conceptual motivations for their typical meanings. Nonetheless, many
conventional metaphors retain their original metaphorical roots and are
understood as such by contemporary speakers (again, see Chapter 5 for

experimental evidence in support of this conclusion).
The claim that conventional expressions are often understood as
conveying metaphorical meanings touches on a key debate within the
metaphor wars. Critics sometimes argue that CMT does not properly
distinguish between metaphor and polysemy.21 Consider the expression
John cant stand working for the government. A conceptual metaphor
analysis would explain this statements meaning as being partly motivated
by the primary metaphor PERSISTENT IS REMAINING ERECT, which
implies that something being unable to stand is not able to persist or
endure anymore (i.e., as John is struggling to endure his job with the
government). However, one could argue that the word stand is more
simply polysemous in having multiple, related senses, with the most
frequent ones being directly encoded in the mental lexicon, including the
sense specic to not being able to endure. There would be no need, under
this alternative view, to assume that people must infer a metaphorical,
cross-domain mapping, to understand the meaning of stand in the
context of John cant stand working for the government, precisely
because its contextually appropriate interpretation can be directly accessed
via a process of lexical disambiguation. For this reason, the conventional
expression John cant stand working for the government should not be
identied as a metaphor.
Should certain word meanings be recognized as instances of meta-
phor? Some scholars respond negatively to this question because, in their
view, metaphors are creative instances of language that are distinct from
conventionalized word uses. There may have been a moment when the
word stand was rst employed in a non-physical way (i.e., having little in
context to do with physical standing). Understanding this metaphorical
meaning may have required people to draw an active cross-domain map-
ping. Over time, however, the words non-physical meaning became so
familiar and detached from its original physical source that people see it as
just one of its many meanings. This view completely negates the often
complex historical, cultural, and embodied reasons for words having the
meanings they do. It assumes that contemporary speakers simply do not,
even tacitly, nd any motivated connection between the use of stand, for
instance, in its different physical and non-physical interpretations. This
perspective would also maintain that peoples continued bodily experiences
of being able to stand when one is persisting or enduring has nothing to do
with their understanding and use of the word stand as expressing a non-
physical meaning in discourse.
My argument is that people tacitly recognize some of the motivations

for why certain words express different kinds of meaning, including
non-physical ones that are related via metaphor. These motivations
enable people to use polysemous words in a variety of creative ways
and may be part of the meaning inferences people engage in when
using, understanding, and even identifying specic words as conveying
non-literal meanings. Again, Chapter 5 presents psycholinguistic evi-
dence in favor of this position. Most importantly, people may automat-
ically retrieve the conceptual, embodied motivations for metaphorical
meaning, perhaps in the form of a conceptual metaphor, without having
to compute a cross-domain mapping. Conceptual metaphors may
simply be part of peoples automatic understandings of conventional,
metaphorical word meanings.
Part of the difculty in determining whether a word or phrase is
metaphorical depends on the extent to which its metaphoricity is seen as
being dead or alive. For the most part, linguists and psychologists explore
the difference between dead and alive metaphors as a property of the
language, as if the very words themselves underwent some process of dying
or maintaining life. Although CMT assumes that metaphor vitality is
connected to enduring conceptual knowledge, this approach typically sees
vitality as a collective property of all people, and not of individuals.
Cornelia Mller provided an important corrective to past attempts to think
about metaphor vitality and death by suggesting, among other things, that
metaphoricity is really a matter of cognitive activation for specic individ-
uals in particular moments of speaking and listening.22 This dynamic view
of metaphor claims that people may use so-called dead metaphors, but still
give evidence of having vital metaphorical knowledge motivating a word or
phrases use in context.
For example, a speaker may use the term depressed to talk of
another individual. Most analysts would claim that the connection
between depressed and being very sad or having negative affect is
quite opaque or even dead. But examination of this same speakers
manual gestures during talk shows her hands moving in a slow, down-
ward motion when saying depressed, which reects her conceptual
understanding of SAD IS DOWN even if her speech may be character-
ized, by some, as expressing, a dead metaphor. Determining the degree
to which any metaphor is dead, sleeping, or alive depends on assessing a
persons communicative actions in the moment, involving the analysis
of the individuals entire repertoire of language, speech sounds, gestures,
and other body movements. Judgments about whether some word or
expression is living or dead, on some peoples view literal, cannot

necessarily be made from the sole perspective of looking at the language
on the page alone. This conclusion has important implications for the
general effort to create reliable, even computational, methods for iden-
tifying metaphors, as will be discussed below.
At the same time, novel metaphors do not constitute a homogenous
category of language. Some novel metaphors have close ties to enduring
conceptual metaphors and others do not. For example, the statement
Our marriage was a roller coaster ride through hell is motivated by the
enduring conceptual metaphor RELATIONSHIPS ARE JOURNEYS,
while others exhibit completely new one-shot mappings (e.g., The
soul is a rope that ties heaven and earth). Some novel expressions are
image metaphors, such as the now classic example from poetry My
wife. . . whose waist is an hour glass, which maps one detailed image
(e.g., the shape of an hourglass) onto a target domain (e.g., the shape of
the wifes waist).23 Many psychologists and others still maintain that
there must be a single theory for how all novel metaphors are identied
and understood, yet the diversity of novel metaphors seen in language is
signicant enough to question this assumption.
My general point is that there are no simple continuums between
so-called conventional and novel metaphors, and between dead and
alive metaphors, along which all instances of verbal metaphor neatly
align. Metaphor scholars should not, therefore, assume that conven-
tional metaphors are all understood directly, without accessing concep-
tual metaphorical knowledge, with novel metaphors all being
interpreted through the process of creating entirely unique cross-
domain mappings.24 This conclusion suggests that researchers should
not assume that conventional metaphors are never understood to
express metaphorical meanings and do not count as instances of meta-
phorical language. Our quick, intuitive judgments about whether some
conventional expressions are metaphorical or not may be incorrect,
precisely because we may fail to acknowledge the presence of uncon-
scious conceptual metaphors which motivate our uses of different
words and phrases.
Corpus linguistic studies indicate that patterns of word use in dis-
course often differ from ordinary speakers intuitions about literal and
metaphorical word meanings, and whether metaphorical instances are
best viewed as being conventional or novel. For example, consider
two texts from a series of psycholinguistic experiments looking at
peoples understanding of conventional and novel metaphors.25
1. As a scientist, Tina thinks of her theories as her children. She is a

prolic researcher, conceiving an enormous number of new ndings
each year. Tina is currently weaning her latest child.
2. As a scientist, Tina thinks of her theories as her children. She is a
fertile researcher, giving birth to an enormous number of new
ndings each year. Tina is currently weaning her latest child.
The opening sentence of each story presumably established an explicit

metaphorical mapping between theories and children, yet the second line
in each story differs in that the rst contains conventional phrases (e.g.,
prolic and conceiving), while the second contains novel metaphors
(e.g., fertile and giving birth). The nal sentence of each story presents
the same novel metaphor (e.g., weaning her latest child). A rating study
in which undergraduate students were asked to judge the conventionality
of each phrase shown above supported these intuitions.
However, a corpus analysis of the words in the above texts discovered
something different from what experimental participants thought was the
case.26 Consider the word fertile in the statement Shes a fertile
researcher giving birth to an enormous number of new ndings each year.
A search of the British National Corpus (BNC) revealed that the majority
of citations to fertile referring to people were metaphorical, such as For
me, the artists fertile imagination failed him. These ndings suggest that
fertile is not a novel metaphor, contrary to the judgments of most
undergraduate students.
Similarly, the term latest child in the texts nal sentence appears on
the surface to be ambiguous between a literal and metaphorical reading.
Yet a corpus analysis shows that a metaphorical interpretation is strongly
favored, because the collocation latest + child almost never occurs
(compared to words like youngest, which appears frequently with
child). This result suggests that the collocation latest child expresses
a novel meaning of child, because it reects an atypical language pattern.
This corpus analysis illustrates how peoples intuitions about whether
some words or expressions have metaphorical meanings, and the extent of
their metaphoricity being conventional or novel, may differ from how
words are actually employed in real discourse. None of this should be
terribly surprising to learn given the often-noted fallibility of even trained
linguistic intuitions. Many psychological studies have shown that our
intuitions about our own internal mental processes and judgments are
often unreliable indications of exactly what occurs unconsciously when
people solve problems or make judgments. Psycholinguistic studies are
Can We Reliably Identify Metaphors? 69
conducted precisely because people are unable to accurately introspect

about the fast-acting, complex cognitive and linguistic processes that
underlie their own sophisticated language understanding abilities. These
studies speak directly to the debates about the metaphorical character of
conventional expressions within CMT. Critics arguments that conven-
tional expressions no longer convey metaphorical meanings fail to appre-
ciate how tacit knowledge of conceptual metaphors structures their
unconscious understandings of metaphorical language.
Determining whether a person interprets a conventional expression
using conceptual metaphors requires psychological studies that are capable
of detecting fast-acting, unconscious processes involved in linguistic pro-
duction and processing. Linguistic studies are still obviously essential to
understanding the cognitive and experiential motivations for linguistic
structure and behavior. Still, even expert judgments can be blind to the
hidden forces that constrain our real-time linguistic actions. Simply saying
that some expression is not metaphorical because of its conventionality
illustrates one example of this very problem.
can we reliably identify metaphors?

The armchair debates over how best to identify metaphoricity in language
have led to several empirical attempts to create schemes by which meta-
phorically used language may be reliably identied. For example, the
Pragglejaz Groups metaphor identication procedure (MIP) provides a
set of reliable criteria for metaphor identication that researchers can easily
use in doing various kinds of empirical studies.27 MIP was created as a tool
for metaphor analysts and was not intended as a theory of how ordinary
speakers necessarily recognize certain words as conveying metaphorical
meanings. The procedure states that an analyst may determine whether a
word is metaphorically used in context by following a series of steps:
1. Read the entire text (i.e., written text or talk transcript) to establish a
general understanding of the discourse.
2. Determine the lexical units in the text.
3. For each lexical unit in the text, check metaphorical use: Establish
the meaning of the lexical unit in context (i.e., how it applies to an
entity), and the relation in the situation evoked by the text (context-
ual meaning). You should take into account what words are before
and after the lexical unit. Determine if the lexical unit has a more
basic current/contemporary meaning in other contexts than the one
in the given context. For our purposes, basic meanings tend to be:
more concrete; what they evoke is easier to imagine, see, hear, feel,
smell, and taste; related to bodily action; more precise (as opposed to
vague); and historically older. Basic meanings are not necessarily the
most frequent meaning of the lexical unit.
4. If the lexical unit has a more basic current/contemporary meaning in
other contexts than the given context, decide whether the contextual
meaning can be understood by comparison or contrast with the
basic meaning. If yes, mark the lexical unit as metaphorical. Repeat
steps 14 for each lexical unit.
Consider how MIP was applied to analyze the rst sentence of a

newspaper story about the president of an Indian political party, Sonia
Gandhi.28 The lexical units in the sentence are marked by slashes as in the
following:
/For/years/Sonia Gandhi/has/struggled/to/convince/Indians/that/she/is/
t/to/wear/the/mantle/of/the/political/dynasty/into/which/she/
married/, let alone/to/become/premier/
Following this, each unit is analyzed for its possible metaphorical

meaning. According to MIP, words such as for, years, Sonia
Gandhi, and has are not metaphorical. However, struggled is
deemed to be metaphorical because of its contextual meaning, indicating
effort, difculty, and lack of success in reaching a goal contrasts with its
basic meaning referring to using ones physical strength against someone
or something (e.g., She picked up the child, but he struggled and
kicked). More importantly, the contrast between the contextual and
basic meanings of struggled is based on comparison, such that we
understand abstract effort, difculty, and opposition in terms of physical
effort, difculty, and conict.
Another word in the opening sentence with a possible metaphorical
meaning is wear. Its contextual meaning, given by the idiomatic phrase
wear the mantle, refers to some person who has a leading role in a family
whose members have occupied high political positions. The basic meaning
of wear is dened as to have something on your body as clothing,
decoration or protection,29 which is also historically prior to other mean-
ings of wear.30 The difference between the contextual and basic meanings
is understood by comparison such that we interpret the process of
following family members in political positions in terms of physically
adorning the clothing that symbolizes that process.
One nal example of a metaphorical lexical unit is given with into. Its
contextual meaning refers to the family group that Sonia Gandhi has
joined through marriage. The basic meaning refers to entering a container
or bounded area via physical movement (e.g., She got into her car and
drove away). These two meanings differ by a contrast of comparison such
that joining a social-kinship group is understood as the process of entering
the physical space dening that family.
The Pragglejaz Group determined that six of the twenty-seven lexical
units in the rst sentence of the Gandhi story were judged to be potentially
conveying metaphorical meaning. We used the term potential in refer-
ences to these judgments because MIP is unable to determine whether any
individual speaker would necessarily interpret a specic word as being
metaphorical in context. These decisions about the metaphorical uses of
words clearly depend on how the contextual and basic meanings were
dened, and the judgment that the possible differences between these
meanings was due to comparison as opposed to some other relationship
(e.g., contiguity, opposition).31
A variant of MIP, called MIPVU: VU stands for Vrije Universiteit, has
been developed by Gerard Steen and colleagues and then applied to detect
the metaphors in large segments of different texts from varying genres.
These analyses have found some interesting results.32
First, across a diverse set of genres, prepositions were determined to be
the most metaphorical (43%), followed by verbs (29%), and then adjectives
(18%). Cognitive linguistic studies have long noted the complex metaphori-
city of prepositions, with some proposals suggesting that the meanings of
prepositions is best characterized in terms of family resemblances or as
radical categories (see Chapter 2). Traditional studies of metaphor in most
disciplines rarely refer to the metaphoricity of prepositions or see prepos-
itions as examples of the pervasiveness of metaphor in language and
thought.
Second, MIPVU showed that academic discourse exhibits the most
metaphorically used words (18%), followed by news stories (15%), ction
(11%), and nally conversation (7%). Many scholars typically suggest that
ction likely contains the most metaphorical language, but academic
discourse expresses more metaphoricity given the frequent reference to
abstract concepts in these writings.33 We are often explicitly taught to
believe that metaphor is ill-suited for academic language, especially in
the sciences, yet this is simply not the case at all.34
Not surprisingly, certain word uses are difcult to unambiguously
identify as expressing metaphorical meaning. Steen and colleagues discuss
borderline cases in their book on MIPVU and offer ideas on how to deal
with these instances (e.g., how to deal with compound words, phrasal
verbs, or cases where there is insufcient grounds to determine a words
contextual meaning). One strategy that MIPVU explicitly adopts is When
In Doubt, Leave It In (WIDLII), which recommends that it is better to
mark a word as metaphorical whenever analysts are uncertain about that
words metaphoricity in context. Only around 1% of all lexical units in the
entire MIPVU corpus, and 9% of all units identied as metaphor, was
classied as WIDLII.
Both MIP and MIPVU are generally recognized to be empirically
reliable, and possibly falsiable, methods for metaphorical word identica-
tion.35 Psychologists may use MIP and MIPVU to ensure that their meta-
phor stimuli convey metaphorical meanings in context, which may be
superior to simply asking nave speakers to vote on whether some word
or phrase is metaphorical or not. Discourse analysts and corpus linguists
can also use MIP to determine the frequency and distributions of meta-
phorical word meanings in speech and writing. Finally, related metaphor-
ical identication schemes are now being created and applied in the
analysis of gestural metaphor, pictorial metaphor, and music metaphor
(see Chapter 6).
Specic applications of MIP and MIPVU reveal several problematic
cases of metaphor identication. For example, Elena Semino considered
the following expression in her analysis of metaphors in politics, in this
case regarding discussions about trade among the G8 leaders: And as for
trade, even the prime minister conceded that he had failed to make
progress. The word make in this utterance appears to have a different
contextual meaning from its basic meaning of to create or produce
something by working, as dened by the Macmillan dictionary. However,
this putative difference between the basic and contextual meanings
depends entirely on what is implied by the terms by working. The verb
make has long been noted to be delexicalized because over time it is now
used to refer to any general, abstract sense of action. For this reason, it is
unclear whether make in the above example reects a difference, and
comparison, between its basic and contextual meanings. Nonetheless, the
use of make in make progress could be characterized as conveying the
idea of achieving something, from which one can draw a comparison to
achieving something in the abstract with physically creating an object. In
this manner, make would be identied as potentially metaphorical.
Similarly, the word progress in make progress could also been seen
as a metaphor given the comparison between the contextual meaning
referring to positive change and the basic meaning of forward physical

movement (which is listed in Macmillan as a mainly literary use).36
Although both MIP and MIPVU are explicitly theory-neutral, Semino
suggests that the third step of these procedures can also be characterized in
terms of CMT. Thus, the particular contrast between the basic and con-
textual meanings of any word may reect a classic cross-domain mapping,
such as CHANGE IS MOTION and PURPOSES ARE DESTINATIONS
regarding the meaning of progress. When using MIP, I personally have
often had the experience of immediately recognizing the possible presence
of a conceptual metaphor that motivates a contextual use of some word.
This recognition reinforced my judgments that the relation between a basic
and contextual meaning of some word in discourse may be driven by a
comparison process. Still, this inference, on my part, suggests how some
metaphor identications are not purely bottom-up but are surely inu-
enced by our past experience with language, and even our implicit, or
explicit, knowledge of metaphorical patterns.
In any event, the major attraction of procedures such as MIP and
MIPVU is that they offer metaphor scholars a eld guide for making
judgments about what may potentially express metaphorical meaning in
discourse. As Semino noted, The use of an explicit procedure such as MIP
can help analysts identify the main types of problematic cases, and deal
with them consistently and systematically.37
Of course, using MIP or MIPVU can be taxing, precisely because of the
need to follow a pre-ordained set of steps, many of which require complex
decisions (e.g., determining what are the basic and contextual mean-
ings of a word). Using several dictionaries can be very helpful in dealing
with difcult cases where it is unclear how to dene the basic meaning of
a word.38 Deciding whether the contextual and basic meanings are related
by a comparison process can also, as already noted, be difcult. Further-
more, making repeated decisions as to whether each word in a text conveys
metaphorical meaning may appear to involve isolated analytic judgments,
yet this is surely not the case. Analysts decisions about the possible
metaphoricity of one word always has some bearing on their past and even
future metaphor identications of other words in that same text.
At the very least, though, methods like MIP and MIPVU provide some
initial bases for identifying metaphor in language, which can serve as the rst
step in a procedure for inferring conceptual metaphors. Even if one does not
pursue quantitative studies on metaphor in discourse, MIP and MIPVU offer
excellent intuition pumps that scholars can use when making arguments
about whether words in discourse convey metaphorical meanings or not.
Reliable methods for identifying metaphor in language must also investi-

gate the potential metaphoricity of entire linguistic expressions, including
the conventional ones often studied by cognitive linguistics. At face value,
both MIP and MIPVU would generally identify most of the words seen in
the conventional expressions advanced by CMT as expressing metaphorical
meanings, assuming that these examples are encountered in real-life dis-
course contexts. Consider the statement Jake got sidetracked as he was
studying for his nal exams spoken in a situation where two friends were
talking about Jakes academic problems. The phrase got sidetracked would
surely be marked as metaphorical given that its contextual meaning may be
understood through comparison to its basic, physical journey, interpretation.
At the very least, empirical tests for identifying metaphorically used words
can be applied to show that many of the conventional expressions studied by
CMT potentially convey metaphorical meanings.
But how many metaphorically used words need be identied for a linguis-
tic expression to be judged as expressing metaphorical meaning? Most meta-
phor scholars are not simply interested in counting the number of
metaphorically used words, but wish to understand whether individual lin-
guistic expressions, and longer stretches of discourse, can be judged to be
metaphorical or not. Not surprisingly, the metaphoricity of any expression
may not be all or none, and it can more readily be seen as a matter of degree.
For example, Jonathan Dunn asks us to consider the following statements:39
(a) Mary disproved Johns argument with her newly found evidence.
(b) Mary demolished Johns argument with her newly found evidence.
(c) Mary demolished Johns stronghold with her newly found evidence.
(d) Mary demolished Johns stronghold with her newly found weapon.
Many analysts would agree that (a) does not convey metaphorical
meaning, while the verb demolished in (b) makes this expression some-
what metaphorical. The replacement of argument with stronghold in
(c) makes this statement even more metaphorical than is (b), and expres-
sion (d) seems the most metaphorical of all four in the above list (assuming
that people understand from context that Mary and John are engaged in a
verbal, and not physical, conict).
A different set of statements also vary in their degree of metaphoricity.
(e) Company prots continued to increase during the third quarter.
(f) Company prots soared to new heights during the third quarter.
(g) Company prots rose steadily during the third quarter.
Expression (e) does not appear to be very metaphorical, while (f) seems
to convey far more metaphoricity. Yet it may be more difcult to classify (g)
as conveying metaphor given that the conventional use of rose is seen in

many numerical contexts. Once again, determining the metaphoricity of any
individual statement depends on our judgments of its basic meanings in
other contexts.
Most generally, there exists signicant variability in the degree to which
any linguistic statement expresses metaphorical meaning. Scholars can use
MIP or MIPVU to make binary decisions about the potential metaphorical
meanings of individual words in discourse. But ordinary speakers may
experience metaphoricity as a matter of degree when they produce and
interpret language.
Jonathan Dunn argued that linguistic expressions with high metaphori-
city typically have the following characteristics.40 First, they often have
multiple metaphorical words as seen in the following example:
(h) Veterans of many an evening at the routine pursuit of duty in the

eld, their emotional sacs barnacled with cynicism and their minds
programmed for sardonic wit, sprang to their feet.
Many words in this statement express metaphorical meaning, such as sacs,

barnacled, and sprang to their feet. It is hard not to characterize this
expression as anything but metaphorical, especially given the critical contri-
bution these words have in our understanding the sentences main topic of
veterans.
Second, some metaphorical parts of expressions simply have high
metaphoricity given our common understanding of their underlying con-
cepts. For example, the verb marry in I dont marry myself to one belief
system, conveys high metaphoricity because the basic meaning of marry
refers to the union of two people. Using marry in reference to an abstract
mental action clearly links together two very different domains of experi-
ence by a process of comparison.
Third, grammatical metaphors also give some statements high meta-
phoricity. Compare, for instance, the following two statements:
(i) My normal sensations ooded back, although I had to migrate my

eyes to get them pointed forward.
(j) My normal sensations ooded back, as my eyes migrated
forward again.
Most speakers view (i) as expressing more metaphoricity than (j),

despite the fact that both utterances convey similar meaning. Unusual
and unexpected grammatical constructions, as seen in (i) may enhance
our impression of metaphoricity.
Many linguistic expressions, including those listed above, convey rela-

tively stable meanings that are understood in roughly the same way
regardless of their degree of metaphoricity. However, some linguistic
statements express metaphorical meanings that are far less stable. Consider
the following list of expressions, taken from the Corpus of Contemporary
American English (COCA):41
(k) The seasons have married into this gumbo culture thats something
that people love to come visit.
(l) The proliferating disguises and pen names through which Lorrain
would constantly migrate attest to a need for self-ctionalization
experienced as travel and change.
(m) I dont think the Bible describes our world; the Bible imagines it, and
by imagining it creates a world drenched with grace from God.
Each of these statements contains metaphorical parts (e.g., migrate or
drenched) that individual people will interpret quite differently, if they
are capable of understanding them at all. We may readily recognize these
statements as metaphorical without necessarily being able to paraphrase
these meanings in a completely non-metaphorical way. In some cases,
peoples judgments that a statement may be metaphorical depend on their
abilities to covertly paraphrase it without using metaphorical language.
The following empirical study provided evidence in support of this idea.
Native speakers of four languages (English, Spanish/Mexican, Russian,
and Farsi) were asked to identify metaphors in twenty short passages, each
of which averaged 100 words in length.42 These passages were taken from
newspapers and Internet websites, and each discussed the topic of govern-
ance. A group of psycholinguists earlier determined those utterances in
these passages that could be readily identied as metaphorical.43 These
metaphorical utterances were each related to one of four general source
domains for governance metaphors (BODY, FAMILY, BUILDING,
SEEING). Participants in each language group were asked to underline
all non-literal text and then later write a short explanation of why those
underlined texts were not literal.
The results showed that participants, averaged across the four language
groups, correctly identied the pre-selected metaphors around 80% of the
time (ranging from 76% for English to 87% for Farsi). However, while the
BODY metaphors (e.g., morbidly obese federal government) were con-
sistently identied across the different languages, metaphors related to the
FAMILY (e.g., government be a strict father or nurturing person) and
SEEING (e.g., invisible achievements of government) source domains
Corpus and Computational Studies 77
were not uniformly detected. Thus, even educated individuals sometimes

seem to fail to identify certain types of metaphor.
Part of the variation in peoples abilities to recognize metaphors in lan-
guage rests with the degree to which a metaphorical phrase lls a gap in the
lexicon. For example, the metaphorical phrase obese federal government,
which was successfully detected 95 percent of the time, may be readily restated
in a non-metaphorical way, such as the phrase excessively large federal
government. On the other hand, people had much more difculty detecting
the metaphoricity of the phrase murky foreign policy (40 percent of the
time), which is difcult to paraphrase in a manner that is not metaphorical
(e.g., unclear foreign policy is still metaphorical). Finding methods for
assessing whether any metaphor lls a gap in the language may be critical,
then, for future efforts to construct reliable metaphor identication systems.
corpus and computational studies

Corpus linguists have explored various procedures for identifying meta-
phors in discourse. The primary motivations for these efforts are rooted in
the variability seen in intuitionist studies of metaphor, as well as the sheer
difculty scholars encounter when trying to mark metaphors within very
large databases. Anatol Stefanowitsch outlined several strategies that guide
corpus linguistic work on metaphor identication.44
First, manual search requires that individual analysts closely read
texts and manually extract those words or expressions viewed as expressing
metaphorical meaning. This strategy is limited to metaphor identication
within relatively smaller corpora, and suffers from the variability in ana-
lysts intuitions about what constitutes metaphor.45
Second, searching for source domain vocabulary more specically
aims to select potential source domains that are thought to be relevant to
some metaphorical expressions. This method requires that analysts have
some a priori idea of those semantic elds typically drawn upon in creating
metaphorical language (e.g., analysts must already know that life is often
talked about in terms of physical journeys).
Third, searching for target domain vocabulary attempts to nd meta-
phors related to particular topics (e.g., emotions or politics). This approach
begins by seeking the specic words related to individual target concepts,
and then identifying the more general source domains from which these
lexical items emerge. One difculty with this strategy is that it may only
identify metaphorical expressions containing specic target domain
vocabulary (e.g., His pent up anger welled up inside him), and may miss
metaphorical phrases that do not contain mention of the target domain

(e.g., We got a rise out of him does not refer to anger per se).46
Fourth, analysts can combine the two previous methods by searching
for words related to both the target and source domains. Of course,
applying this procedure also requires having a complete list of the source
and target domains relevant to a particular topic. Still, this method has the
advantage of allowing analysts to conduct metaphor identications within
very large corpora that would be virtually impossible to examine manually.
Fifth, searching for metaphors based on markers of metaphor seeks
the presence of linguistic devices that sometimes accompany the use of
metaphor in discourse. For example, specic words, such as metaphoric-
ally, literally, so to speak, and like, as well as quotation marks, may
signal the presence of metaphor.47 One difculty, though, is that these
signals are also evident when people are clearly not using metaphor.48
Each of these methods may be combined in different ways to allow
analysts additional avenues for searching for metaphors. For instance, any
procedure listed above can be applied to texts that are already annotated
for particular semantic domains. This strategy may be especially useful
when a researcher wishes to identify the conceptual mappings underlying
any talk of restricted target domains that have already been exhaustively
studied and analyzed.
These corpus linguistic strategies have provided a rich body of empirical
results related to both metaphor identication in language and the possible
inferring of underlying conceptual metaphors (see Chapter 4). Corpus
studies are critical to assessing which overt language forms are primarily
used in metaphorical talk about particular target concepts. Most generally,
corpus linguistic research has found evidence that is quite consistent with
the main tenets of CMT. Many of the conventional expressions argued by
CMT to convey metaphorical meanings have been extracted from different
corpora using the research strategies listed above.
Still, detailed corpus analyses also reveal that several of the conventional
expressions advanced by CMT as support for the existence of specic
conceptual metaphors are not widely used in naturalistic discourse. For
instance, antonymous word pairs such as hot and cold, or light and
dark do not equally appear in talk of specic target domains (e.g., light
is relevant to HAPPINESS but dark is less used in reference to SAD-
NESS), contrary to what may be expected by CMT.49 Different inections
of the same word (or phrase) also appear in different evaluative patterns
when used metaphorically. Thus, the plural word ames conveys
negative meanings (e.g., His future crashed in ames), while the
singular ame mostly refers to positive evaluations (e.g., George still

carried a ame for Kelly).50 When used metaphorically, the word
rock conveys a positive meaning (e.g., The sanctity of human life
the rock on which our society is built), while plural uses of rocks
describe negative events (e.g., He lived in fear of his own marriage
ending up on the rocks). Both of these examples raise the possibility
that metaphorical mappings may be based on individual word forms
and not just any linguistic terms associated with a semantic domain.
Many other corpus linguistic studies also demonstrate signicant lex-
ical and grammatical constraints on metaphorical mappings, con-
straints that CMT have not always sufciently acknowledged.51
Corpus linguistic investigations have also detected that metaphorical
language is generally far more xed in its lexical and grammatical
forms than are non-metaphorical expressions.
These selective ndings suggest that the richness and complexities of
metaphorical language is greater than that evident from traditional intu-
itionist studies. Some scholars use the results of corpus linguistic research
to criticize CMT for its failure to note the greater diversity of metaphor-
ical language forms. Still, the overall data from corpus linguistic studies
clearly show the vast extent to which conventional expressions are indeed
metaphorical. But corpus linguistic results also remind us that many
factors, including idiosyncratic historical and conventionalization forces
(i.e., lexicalization and grammaticalization), play an important role in
the creation and use of metaphorical language. These factors should,
therefore, have an inuence on both metaphor identication and
interpretation.
The challenge of identifying metaphor in discourse has led to the
creation of automatic, computational systems for metaphor identica-
tion. These systems offer interesting insights into some of the complex-
ities associated with identifying metaphor. Building an automatic
system requires scholars to be quite detailed about the process leading
to a decision that some word or phrase is metaphorical. For example,
one system incorporated an algorithm that is capable of automatically
identifying three types of metaphor in discourse as follows:52
Type I A subject noun is associated with an object noun via a form of the copula
verb to be, such as in the case of God is a king.
Type II The verb is the focus of the metaphorical use representing the act of a
subject noun on an object noun, such as in the case of The war absorbed
his energy.
Type III An adjectivenoun phrase such as sweet girl.
The algorithm, called the concrete overlap algorithm (COO), is based

both on selectional preferences and the determination of abstractness (as
an indicator of whether a potentially metaphorical word is an extension of
a words embodied meaning). Unlike many other metaphor identication
systems, COO is learner and domain independent (i.e., it is not restricted
to particular knowledge domains such as FINANCE or SPORTS). COO is
fully automated and does not rely on handcrafted knowledge, and has been
applied to two large corpora. However, the algorithm has been initially
evaluated through the search of ve, somewhat related, target concepts
(e.g., governance, government, God, father, and mother).
A natural language parser rst identies grammatical patterns relevant
to each type of metaphor and discards phrases that are recognized as
idioms within Wiktionary.53 The algorithm appropriate to each type is
then applied to determine whether the word string is metaphorical or
literal. One test of COO rst had a group of four, trained analysts to rate
whether the word strings identied by COO as metaphorical were meta-
phorical or not. A majority of this group (3 out of 4) agreed that 19% of the
Type I form, 50% of Type II form, and 15% of the Type III form were
metaphorical. These ndings, again, suggested that human judgments of
whether a particular phrase was metaphorical are highly variable. But the
automated system was capable of recognizing those metaphors 71% of the
time, a precision that is also signicantly greater than observed when
alternative algorithms were applied. Moreover, the COO algorithm showed
a 24% improvement over a random guess whether a phrase is metaphorical
based on the metaphors prevalence in the corpus as a whole.54 Once again,
COO is capable of identifying three types of metaphor that represent only a
subset of the complex reality of metaphorical language. Still, programs like
this may be more consistently reliable than humans in identifying certain
metaphors and may catch some verbal metaphors that are not readily
recognized by even trained analysts.
One empirical evaluation of four metaphor identication systems, how-
ever, revealed great disparities in their abilities to successfully detect meta-
phors in a common data set (i.e., a set of 2000 utterances taken from the
COCA).55 The four systems were (a) a source-to-target mapping method,
(b) a word abstractness measurement method, (c) a semantic similarity
measurement method, and (d) a domain interaction method. These systems
varied considerably in their approaches to metaphor. Some methods pre-
sume that source-to-target mappings are explicitly present in metaphorical
language; others suggest that such mappings may only be indirectly present,
and others maintain that these mappings are not at all relevant to metaphor
or metaphor identication. Not surprisingly, the systems differ in their

ability to detect metaphors depending on the type of metaphor encountered
and the genre in which these metaphors were seen (e.g., conversations vs.
academic discourse).56 Thus, the particular linguistic properties of the
expressions seen in the corpus had a signicant impact on the success of
each system for identifying metaphors in the data set.
This evidence from several automatic systems is consistent with earlier
reported ndings showing that success in metaphor identication differs
depending on the number of metaphorically used words in an expression,
and whether a metaphor lls a gap in the mental lexicon. Different
methods may ultimately be required to properly identify different types
of metaphor in language.57 Alternatively, some synthesis of the various
systems may possibly be created to provide a broad, comprehensive
method for metaphor identication. For instance, a method for identifying
explicit source-to-target mappings may be rst applied, with a domain
interaction method then being used to identify cases in which the source-
to-target domain mappings may be less relevant.
Of course, a variety of procedures may be jointly applied to identify
virtually all of the potentially metaphorical instances of language within
different discourses. This possibility reminds us to again consider the main
goals of metaphor identication. Are we primarily interested in trying to
accurately detect all instances of metaphor in different languages, regardless
of the number of methods needed to do so? Or do we wish to create a single
procedure for metaphor identication that is both theoretically motivated
and capable of nding the highest proportion of metaphor in discourse?
At least one large project, sponsored by the US governments Intelligence
Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), has a practical goal of being
able to detect metaphors in different languages to understand the role
metaphor plays in how people from different cultural backgrounds make
judgments and decisions.58 This project, titled MetaNet, hopes to automat-
ically detect and understand the metaphors used in English, Persian, Russian,
and Spanish.59 The team of linguists and psychologists aim to create this
system by building a multi-lingual metaphor repository that represents the
network of conceptual metaphors and includes links to linguistic realizations.
One aspect of this MetaNet project specically tries to identify meta-
phors as part of the metaphor interpretation process, rather than seeing
identication as independent from metaphor understanding.60 Metaphor
interpretation is based on determining a literal paraphrase for a metaphor-
ically used word in discourse. Following this step, metaphor identication
occurs through symmetric reverse paraphrasing. For example, the literal
paraphrase of the verb stir in stir excitement, is provoke. But the

reverse paraphrase of provoke does not lead to the verb stir, suggesting
that stir has a non-literal meaning in the context of stir excitement. An
experimental test of this system, when applied to a 14,000 word subcorpus
of the BNC, showed that it successfully identied metaphorically used
verbs in verbsubject (e.g., stir excitement) and verbdirect-object (e.g.,
campaign surge) relations 68 percent of the time, which is seen as a
promising empirical nding.
This system will serve as the basis for further attempts to create
automatic metaphor extraction using seed metaphors that were previ-
ously identied by cognitive linguists as reecting specic source-to-target-
domain mappings. For example, the simple statement That at tire cost
me an hour has a metaphorical word cost that expresses the mapping of
the concrete source domain for money onto the abstract target domain
time. A large-scale metaphor extractions system will, therefore, use a
repository of information about different metaphorical frames to assist in
the identication of metaphorical language. In this manner, automatic
metaphor extraction uses a library of conceptual metaphors, earlier
inferred from texts, to enable more reliable metaphor identications.
Scholars embracing this approach to metaphor identication believe
that our conceptual metaphorical knowledge should have an important
role in extracting metaphorical language across several languages. It will be
interesting to see how successful this system will be, especially given the
explicit goal to identify metaphors in four different languages. In practical
terms, using extant conceptual metaphors to facilitate automatic verbal
metaphor identication may be a great idea. Still, using conceptual meta-
phors in a top-down manner to help identify what is metaphorical in
language does not allow for the clear separation of rst identifying meta-
phorical language, and only then inferring conceptual metaphors from
those previous identications. As noted earlier, MIP and MIPVU were
partly designed to specically separate the identication of metaphorical
language from any inferences about conceptual metaphors.
There is an incredible range of computational systems being developed
to automatically identify and interpret linguistic, as well as conceptual
metaphors. Ekaterina Shutova provided an extensive review of these
research efforts, and noted the important advances in the degree to which
these systems are accurate and robust. However, she also concluded that,
the lack of a common task denition, shared dataset, and evaluation
strategy makes the methods hard to compare, and thus hampers our
progress as a community in this area.61
Are Some Metaphors Deliberate? 83
More generally, though, automatic, computational systems may sur-

pass humans at reliably identifying metaphor, at least in certain contexts.
This conclusion should not be disheartening to metaphor scholars who
take great pride and pleasure in their own analytic powers to identify and
explicate metaphorical meanings in discourse. Nonetheless, individual
metaphor scholars should be cautious whenever they argue, based on
their own intuitions, that any given word or expression must necessarily
be metaphorical or not. At the very least, the results from both corpus
studies and different automatic systems for metaphor identication
should be taken into account in debates over the extent of metaphoricity
in language. These research efforts appear to nd a greater proportion of
metaphorical language than seen by individual analysts of metaphor,
including critics of CMT.
are some metaphors deliberate?

The strong focus on conventional metaphors within CMT, and their
possible relations to metaphors of thought, is seen by some critics as
leading research away from the most vital aspects of metaphoricity in
language. These scholars claim that certain verbal metaphors were deliber-
ately, consciously produced for their special communicative possibilities.
Consider Shakespeares famous metaphorical statement from Romeo and
Juliet where Romeo, upon seeing Juliet step out onto the balcony above,
said, It is the East, and Juliet is the sun. We have little idea what thought
processes Shakespeare went through before he determined that Juliet is
the sun was most appropriate for Romeos description of Juliet. Nonethe-
less, we can also imagine that Shakespeare did not come across these words
automatically or without some conscious thought. As such, producing
Juliet is the sun seems to be a perfect example of a deliberate metaphor.
Metaphor scholars have long argued that certain notable metaphorical
expressions in speech and writing may have been deliberately composed,
and quite consciously employed for their unique, didactic qualities and
sometimes poetic beauty. Gerard Steen has argued that deliberate meta-
phors are different from conventional ones, something that speakers and
listeners, authors and readers tacitly recognize when they engage in meta-
phorical discourse.62 For example, Steen boldly declared the following:
I propose that a metaphor is deliberately used when it is expressly

meant to change the addressees perspective on the referent or topic
that is the target of the metaphor, by making the addressee look at it
from a different conceptual domain or space, which functions as a

conceptual source. In such cases as Juliet is the sun, this is precisely
what is being asked of the addressee. The utterance expresses a blatant
falsehood, while drawing attention to the new information presented at
the end of the sentence that causes the falsehood, sun. It cannot be
anything but a deliberate invitation for the addressee to adopt a differ-
ent perspective of Juliet from a truly alien domain that is consciously
introduced as a source for reviewing the target. . .63
Steens suggestion that deliberate metaphors appear as blatant falsehoods

is essentially a restatement of the traditional, anomaly view of metaphor.
Viewing metaphor as anomalies implies that people rst sense the anomal-
ous falsehood when reading a metaphor, but continue processing until the
anomaly is resolved in some manner to create a sensible metaphorical
meaning. But much psycholinguistic research shows that people do not rst
recognize anomalies and only then derive appropriate metaphorical mean-
ings.64 If anomalous utterances are always rst analyzed as falsehoods, then
people should initially nd metaphors to be deviant utterances, and always
take longer to properly interpret than non-metaphorical statements. Some
metaphors may take considerable effort to interpret, but many kinds of both
novel and conventional verbal metaphors are quite easily understood in
discourse and do not take longer to comprehend than comparable non-
metaphorical expressions. These results pose a major problem for any
account of metaphor that assumes the immediate detection of anomaly as
mandatory in the metaphor interpretation process.
In any event, Steen continued his argument for deliberate metaphor
by distinguishing it from non-deliberate metaphor. Thus, immediately
following the above quote, he wrote,
However, when somebody utters we have come a long way to talk

about a relationship, it is quite dubious whether the addressee is in fact
being asked to actually change their perspective on the topic of the
sentence (the speakers relationship), or whether the speaker wishes to
change the perspective. Current cognitive-linguistic analysis of the
language and the conceptual structures would suggest that such a
perspective change might have to go from the domain of relationships
to the domain of journeys. Yet most language users might nd this an
odd and probably distracting suggestion.65
In making this last point, Steen placed himself in the company of critics
of CMT who believe that linguistic analyses of conventional metaphors are
not directly relevant to understanding the possible metaphorical nature of
language and thought. Under this point of view, many conventional

metaphors, such as We have come a long way, may have arisen in
language with active cross-domain mappings, but over historical time have
lost their metaphoricity and now express literal, non-metaphorical mean-
ings for contemporary speakers. Chapter 5 presents an extensive overview
of psycholinguistic evidence consistent with the idea that cross-domain
mappings are inferred during our contemporary understanding of conven-
tional verbal metaphors, contrary to Steens assertion.
Steen, nonetheless, maintained that the theory of deliberate metaphor
raises the question whether the conceptual power of metaphor is as great
and forceful as Lakoff and other cognitive linguists make it out to be. If
people do not activate many metaphorical models during regular discourse
processing unless these are used deliberately, the effect of metaphor on our
lives may be much smaller than is sometimes claimed, since most meta-
phor is indeed used non-deliberate.66
But consider the rest of Steens argument. Steen admitted that it is
quite possible for people to use conventional metaphor very deliberately. . .
where deliberate metaphor use is signaled by word play and other added
rhetorical devices.67 Most importantly, though, he wrote,
Deliberate metaphors are those cross-domain mappings that involve the

express use, in production and/or reception, of another domain as a
source domain for re-viewing the target domain. Deliberate metaphor is
a relatively conscious discourse strategy that aims to elicit particular
rhetorical effects.68
What are the possible textual clues for marking metaphors as deliber-
ate? One discussion of the signaling devices that often accompany meta-
phorical language cite terms such as metaphorically, guratively, or
even, ironically, literally; various intensiers, such as actually, quite,
or utterly; semantic metalanguage, such as more than one sense, and
meaning; the use of certain modals plus verbs, as in one might say; and
other expressions, such as so to speak, and as it were. These different
signals have varying effects on the communicative functions of metaphor,
and apply, to some degree, to both active and inactive metaphors, an
observation that does not restrict deliberateness to novel, active expres-
sions alone. These markers for metaphors are seen more in speech and
newspaper stories than in literary texts.69
Of course, most of the signals and tuning devices discussed in the
literature on deliberate metaphor are not at all specic to metaphor!
Words and phrases such as almost, just, and sort of are found
throughout spoken discourse, and are sometimes described as procedural

cues that, quite generally, assist listeners in understanding the conceptual
content of what speakers say. The fact that metaphors are sometimes
accompanied by different linguistic and paralinguistic signals does not
imply that these signals are consciously intended to mark some sequence
of words as being metaphorical. If people did interpret certain signals as
instructions to interpret what follows, or what just proceeded, as a meta-
phor, then many instances of language that nobody sees as conveying
metaphorical meaning should, at least initially, be interpreted as expressing
non-literal messages. But there is no evidence to support this claim. In fact,
one experimental study showed that reading a conventional metaphor,
such as We have come a long way since the wedding, in reference to
the progress on a relationship, with so-called signals of metaphor, not only
fail to increase readers awareness of any cross-domain mapping, but
sometimes interferes with peoples appreciation of speakers rhetorical
messages.70 This pattern of results is directly opposite to what would be
predicted by the deliberate metaphor theory.
Most generally, any attempt to establish a set of deliberate markers of
metaphor must explore a large range of discourses, including both meta-
phorical and non-metaphorical speech, before any conclusions can be for-
warded on the clues accompanying metaphor. People may certainly employ
tuning devices to assist listeners in understanding stretches of speech that
scholars understand as metaphor. Yet understanding that some words
have metaphorical meaning (as tokens) is not the same as determining that
these words were deliberately created as metaphors (as types).
These objections aside, metaphor scholars have gone on to outline the
exact set of indicators within texts that possibly signal the presence of
deliberate metaphor. For example, Tina Krennmayr suggests that research-
ers may search for deliberate metaphor in texts by considering the
following set of questions.71
(a) Is the metaphorical unit signaled (e.g., by a simile or other signaling

device)?
(b) Is the metaphorical unit in the form of A = B?
(c) Is the metaphorical unit expressed directly?
(d) Is the metaphorical unit novel?
(e) Is the metaphorical unit surrounded by metaphorical expressions
from compatible semantic elds, which are somehow connected?
(f) Is the metaphorical sense of the unit particularly salient through, for
example, alluding to the topic of the text?
(g) Does the metaphorical unit participate in word play?

(h) Does the metaphorical unit elicit rhetorical effects, such as, for
example, persuasion or humor?
Krennmayrs analysis of news reports showed, in fact, that people rarely
signal their metaphors. But at least one of the above signals may be
primary in the marking of deliberate metaphor, namely (e), the coherent
use of several metaphorical expressions from the same semantic eld.
Consider the following excerpt from a psychology professors lecture on
human aggression.72
And so, the thing you want to do to minimize violence is let people
dribble some of this stuff [aggression] out innocently. Lets prevent it
from building up to the point where its really heavy and drain it off
harmlessly a little bit at a time.
The boldface segments in this excerpt are presumed to be instances of
deliberate metaphor, because the professor earlier introduced the analogy
of the soul as a water reservoir in which aggressive impulse drips into. This
conclusion is not surprising, on the surface, because we view professors as
being thoughtful, or even deliberate, about what they say in their lectures.
His use of an analogy that is then further commented upon later in the
lecture surely reects his conscious desire to communicate a specic
metaphor for students to consider and understand.
One can still ask whether the professor, perhaps when talking to his wife
over dinner, would intend his metaphors deliberately if he said in reference
to the demands of his job: I feel all this heavy pressure building up and
I need to nd a way to drain it off harmlessly a little bit at a time. Does the
casual, non-academic situation in which the professor states his metaphor-
ical assertion make it less deliberate? As Anke Berger observed, we cannot
give a general answer to the question how deliberate metaphors can be
identied in discourse, since this seems to depend on the particular dis-
course context.73 Determining what is the particular discourse context
often demands that researchers make assumptions about what they believe
a speaker or writer is trying to do, which is very much a matter of individual
psychology, and not simply a matter of detecting overt signs in texts.
Quite curiously, Steen suggested that some instances of mixed meta-
phorical messages may also be marked as examples of deliberate meta-
phor.74 For example, consider the following excerpt produced by a British
Member of Parliament: Mr. Speaker, I smell a rat. I see him oating in the
air. But mark me, sir, I will nip him in the bud. Steen argued that this
example, along with many others, exhibits a clash of several images that are
each deliberately produced. Combining these metaphors within a single

narrative sequence highlights both their individual deliberateness and the
visibility of the overall message, which readers are being explicitly
instructed to attend to as a mixing of metaphors.
My reading of these arguments, and the examples cited to support
them, leaves me with a very mixed impression. On the one hand, the
analysis of how different metaphors appear to function in different texts
seems relatively correct. For instance, people may notice the clash of
metaphorical images in discourse, just as they may also notice the ways
that single metaphors are extended in a coherent manner in some texts.
We do not have empirical evidence, somewhat surprisingly, on whether
people even notice, in a conscious manner, different metaphor patterns
within language. Still, it is not unreasonable to conjecture that some
metaphors may be more visible than others because of either their coherent
or mixed quality. But as a general theory of metaphorical language use, the
idea of deliberate metaphor lacks any empirical validation, and indeed,
has several contradictory elements in regard to whether, for example, the
coherent or mixed nature of metaphor by themselves signal deliberateness
on the part of the speaker/writer, which audiences are to then recognize as
specic instances of the category metaphor.
There remains another problem with the proposal on deliberate meta-
phor that bears mention, which touches on many aspects of linguistic,
philosophical, and literary analyses of language. Consider again the brief
excerpt from the psychology professors lecture on human aggression:
And so, the thing you want to do to minimize violence is let people
dribble some of this stuff [aggression] out innocently. Lets prevent it
from building up to the point where its really heavy and drain it off
harmlessly a little bit at a time.
After re-reading this narrative, many readers may experience some sense
of metaphorical coherence, especially if attention is given to the relations
between the different boldfaced segments. But we should not mistake our
after-the-fact analysis of what may be occurring in some discourse as an
explanation of what people ordinarily do when they encounter some stretch
of language for the rst time. For instance, we can see the various conven-
tional metaphorical words and phrases above, and sit back to consider their
meanings and structure. We may even speculate about the possible inten-
tions, consciously held or not, that a speaker may have in talking as he or she
did. Ordinary language users, on the other hand, encounter speech or writing
in real time, and construe metaphorical meanings moment by moment.
The question, then, is whether people really make determinations of

deliberation word-by-word as they infer metaphorical, and other, mes-
sages. Would a student listening to the professor above make a decision
that dribble must be deliberately produced as a metaphor, and needs to
be understood as such? Perhaps students only make such decisions after
they have encountered several related metaphorical words or phrases, at a
point where the evidence really points to the fact that the speaker has
produced all these related metaphors and must be deliberately instructing
me to interpret these as cross-domain mappings. Under this scenario,
attributions of deliberation on a speakers part emerge only at selected
moments of discourse processing. But this possibility also assumes that
people accurately remember the specic words they heard earlier in dis-
course and keep these active so as to be able to re-interpret them at a later
time if some judgment of deliberation has been made.
None of these possibilities concerning explicit, or tacit, judgments about
deliberate metaphor make any sense from a psychological point of view.
I see no problem trying to discern the different ways that metaphor may be
instantiated in real discourse. Scholars can also easily determine what
metaphorical instances of language are novel to the extent that any indi-
vidual case is infrequent within either a particular context or within the
language as a whole. However, there are signicant problems with inter-
preting certain textual signals as necessarily reecting particular states of
mind (i.e., deliberative consciousness), especially when these signals are
used with others aspects of language.
Metaphor scholars may certainly study whether people draw unique
cognitive or rhetorical effects when hearing or reading certain metaphor
types including the possible conscious reection, Wow, that is an inter-
esting metaphor! Yet language always emerges from the interaction of
many subsystems, with none dominating control of what is stated, includ-
ing those related to any experience of consciousness or deliberation.
Speakers choices of words, and how they are expressed, and listeners
interpretations of linguistic utterances unfold from dynamical processes
that should not be reduced to the inner mental states of individual lan-
guage users. People have limited awareness of their habitual behaviors, and
more importantly, routine performances of all sorts often proceed inde-
pendently from peoples conscious intentions. Speakers may sometimes
even believe that they have created a metaphor deliberately, with their very
conscious thought processes being the initial, primary cause for the cre-
ation of the metaphor, yet be mistaken about the real reason they wrote or
said what they did.
Listeners and readers also sometimes falsely believe that certain meta-
phors may be deliberately created because of the skillful efforts of the
people who produced them. We marvel at artists, like Shakespeare, for
their wonderful, inspiring metaphors, and assume that their creations are
the result of brilliant minds doing things, at times, quite deliberately. But
most creative acts are anything but conscious and deliberate. In many cases
of creativity, psychological research has shown that individuals have the
sense that something is happening to them rather than sensing the action
being authored by those persons. Instances of insight appear to come out
of nowhere, with no foreshadowing or prediction, not through slow,
conscious deliberate reasoning. When a solution does arrive, it typically
feels completely uninvited by the thinker and is attributed solely to uncon-
scious processes.
Many unconscious cognitive forces shape the online production and
understanding of metaphors, which are simply not accessible to our
conscious intuitions, despite our strong beliefs to the contrary. We can,
for instance, imagine William Shakespeare in the moments of writing
Romeo and Juliet. Rather than envisioning him being highly conscious
and deliberate in his choice of words, including metaphors, it may be more
accurate to conceive of this writing as in the ow of experience where
words and phrases cascade from his ngertips without signicant con-
scious effort. Even if Shakespeare eventually, and thoughtfully, rewrote
what he rst drafted, this revision process probably involved making
choices that are not simply, and solely, guided by deliberate decisions to
create cross-domain mappings. Shakespeare may have had various aes-
thetic, communicative intentions in writing his poems and plays. But we
should not assume that some special parts of what he wrote were deliber-
ate, with all others being the product of his unconscious, automatic mind.
Similarly, the idea that only some metaphors are special because of the way
they are produced, with all other metaphors seen as being automatic and
not really understood metaphorically, embraces a simplistic, faulty view of
the psychology of human language production.
metaphorical thought without

metaphorical language
Does the existence of metaphorical language necessarily indicate the active
presence of metaphorical thought? This question is central to the meta-
phor wars in focus, and answering it again demands some way of assess-
ing what constitutes metaphorical language. For the moment, it is
Metaphorical Thought Without Metaphorical Language 91
appropriate to ask whether the newer human and computational proced-

ures for metaphor identication provide new insights into the possible
ubiquity of metaphorical thought in everyday life.
Lakoff and Johnson argued in Metaphor We Live By that most of our
ordinary conceptual system is metaphorical in nature and that metaphor
is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and
action.75 Still, how much of language, in purely quantitative terms, must
be metaphorical if we are to believe that most of our ordinary conceptual
system is metaphorical? Lakoff and Johnson have taken great pains over
the years to note how many aspects of human thought and experience have
little to do with metaphor. Nonetheless, if we are to believe that metaphor
is a prominent part of thought, then some measure of metaphors existence
within language and other expressive modes may be necessary.
Does counting the number of metaphorically used words or expressions
in language, or specic instances of discourse, provide an accurate reec-
tion of peoples in-the-moment metaphorical thinking? It is certainly
interesting to note, for example, that academic discourse employs more
metaphorical words than does ction. The fact that academic language
often focuses on abstract topics makes it unsurprising, especially from a
conceptual metaphor point of view, that this genre is signicantly meta-
phorical (but still only 18 percent of all words according to one MIPVU
analysis).76
My argument, however, is that simply identifying the number of meta-
phorically used words or expressions in different samples of language may
not offer a proper characterization of how different ideas are being meta-
phorically conceptualized in human life. Simply counting metaphorically
used words or expressions may actually underestimate the inuence that
metaphor has in structuring peoples thinking and communication.
Consider the following short narrative, which was used as stimulus in a
study on the embodied nature of metaphor understanding in narrative:77
Imagine that you are a single person. A friend sets you up on a blind
date. You really like this person and start dating a lot. Your relation-
ship was moving along in a good direction. But then it got even
better. The relationship felt like it was the best you ever had. This
continues to this day. No matter what happens, the two of you are
quite happy together.
This narrative contains 69 words but only 3 to 5 of these potentially

express metaphorical meaning. The bold-faced statement, for instance,
expresses a very conventional metaphor (ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS
ARE JOURNEYS) through the use of the phrase moving along in a good
direction. Even though the overall proportion of metaphorically used
words in this narrative is quite small (less than 7 percent overall), the use
of the relationships being journeys idea has a large inuence over
peoples interpretation of the entire narrative. When a group of university
students read this simple narrative, they easily drew several metaphorical
inferences about the nature of the romantic relationship.
For example, when questioned, the vast majority of the students stated
that the relationship had progressed to a signicant distance, was presently
progressing at a fast rate, was progressing along a straight line, and that the
two individuals in the relationship were both heading in the same direc-
tion. None of these assumptions were explicitly stated in the narrative, but
were reasonable metaphorical inferences given the simple moving in a
good direction statement. In this manner, even a small number of meta-
phorically used words can evoke a larger, dominant metaphorical concep-
tualization of some topic (e.g., a romantic relationship) that is further
elaborated upon by non-metaphorical language. The moving along in a
good direction narrative clearly illustrates the power of even a single,
conventional phrase to metaphorically structure an entire discourse event,
leading people to draw extended metaphorical inferences.
One place where the power of metaphorical thought is evident, apart
from direct uses of metaphorical language, is within linguistic expressions
that reect the entailments of metaphorical concepts. Alan Cienki examined
the language and gestures used by two candidates, George W. Bush and Al
Gore, during the US Presidential debates that occurred in October 2000. His
initial aim was to explore whether the two candidates relied on the Strict
Father (SF) and Nurturant Parent (NP) metaphorical models, as earlier
proposed by George Lakoff for explaining the ideological differences
between conservative Republican and liberal Democratic, respectively, polit-
icians.78 Very few metaphorical utterances were directly related to these two
models (43 expressions out of a corpus of 40,000 words). For example, Gore
once spoke actually using a SF metaphor when saying By giving parents the
tools to protect their children against cultural pollution. . . when talking
about controls on Internet access. Bush even used an NP metaphor when he
spoke of moral action as nurturing social ties in the following example, And
thats a case where we need to use our inuence to have countries in Africa
come together and help deal with the situation.
The most interesting ndings, however, were that both candidates
referred to entailments of the SF and NP metaphors. These non-
metaphorical expressions were seen as logical consequences of the
Metaphorical Thought Without Metaphorical Language 93
source-to-target domain mappings in both the SF and NP models. For

example, Bush once stated, We need to send 5 percent (of tax revenue)
back to you that pay the bills, which is motivated by the SF idea. On the
other hand, Gore said the following in a discussion about the role of
government in providing health care, So I want to proceed carefully to
cover more people, which is directly tied to the NP model.
Overall, 745 non-metaphorical expressions were viewed as being
entailed by the two metaphorical models (again, compared to forty-three
metaphorical expressions). As Cienki summarized, This provides rather
strong support for the argument that the SF and NP models as wholes, and
not strictly in terms of the metaphorical parts of their structure, played a
role in the logic of the two speakers arguments.79 One larger possibility is
that certain metaphorical models may inuence individual reasoning in
ways that are manifested as much, if not more so, in non-metaphorical
language than in metaphorical speech.
These observations raise the question, then, of whether simple counts of
metaphorically used words or even metaphorically used expressions neces-
sarily reect varying degrees of metaphorical thought within some dis-
course or across larger segments of language within different genres.
Determining the degree of metaphoricity in both language and thought
likely requires very different metrics than employed by the methods
developed thus far on individual metaphor identications.
The case of allegory also demonstrates how metaphorical meanings can
be inferred apart from the presence of metaphorical language. Many
famous instances of allegory in literature never explicitly refer to the target
domains that are the main topics. One of the most famous allegorical
poems in English is John Bunyans Pilgrims Progress. This poem is the
tale of Christian, and his journey to the Celestial City, which represents
heaven. The entirety of the poem is devoted to showing the various
stumbling blocks and challenges that Christian has to overcome to make
it to his destination. But Pilgrims Progress is simultaneously a story of
an individual man and his physical journey, and a wider allegory about the
Christian path to salvation. Similarly, Robert Frosts famous poem The
Road Not Taken describes a mans journey walking through the woods,
and ends with him considering the dilemma of which of two paths to
follow. The poem concludes with the following lines:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
As with Bunyans lengthy poem, Frost uses concrete language to refer to

broader symbolic themes regarding the choices people make in life and the
consequences that follow from these decisions. In both these poems, there
is little overt metaphorical language to be found, even if they convey larger
allegorical messages, which some CMT scholars argue refers to the
common LIFE IS A JOURNEY conceptual metaphor. Using and under-
standing allegory is, therefore, different than just using metaphorical
language per se. This book has primarily focused on the use, identication,
and interpretation of metaphorical language, but understanding allegory
requires a more general strategy where one applies a metaphorical reading
to some instance of language or a situation to obtain allegorical meaning.
Empirical studies demonstrate that ordinary readers are quite good at
drawing broader allegorical, and indeed metaphorical, inferences from
narratives, even those that make little or no references to the target
domains (see Chapter 5). This research shows, then, that people can readily
infer metaphorical meanings, and construe metaphorical understandings
of language, even without the presence of metaphorical language.80 Once
again, simply counting the number of metaphorically used words or
expressions in language fails to capture the diverse ways that metaphorical
thoughts are expressed in speech and writing.
some larger goals for metaphor identification

Questions about the relations between metaphorical language and meta-
phorical thought are also evident in some of the local wars over how to
infer metaphoricity in specic moments of human experience. Some
scholars argue that metaphors true power lies in the ways that metaphor-
ical language dynamically unfolds across time in the process of speaking
and writing, and not merely as a matter of counting up individual instances
of metaphorically used words or phrases.
Consider the following excerpt from a remarkable set of conversations
analyzed by Lynne Cameron.81 The dialogue is between a woman, Jo Berry,
whose father, Sir Anthony Berry, was killed by a bomb in 1984, and Patrick
Magee, who planted the bomb on behalf of the Irish Republican Army
(IRA) during their conict with the British government. Jo Berry had asked
to meet Pat Magee after he was released from prison in order to under-
stand more about why the bombing happened. This excerpt is taken from
the second recorded conversation between Jo and Pat, about twenty min-
utes into their talk. The words and phrases underlined are the source terms
of the metaphors (i.e., those used metaphorically in this context). Up to
Some Larger Goals for Metaphor Identication 95
this point, both Jo and Pat had talked about how the two of them came to
be together in a reconciliation meeting, using similar JOURNEY meta-
phors to those seen below.
644 Pat ...(1.0) 1984,

645 when your father was killed,
646 or when I killed your father,
647 ... when the republican movement killed your father.
648 ...(3.0) er,
649 my journey,
650 ...(1.0) preceded that you were catapulted into this struggle.
651 ... I think,
652 er,
653 ...(1.0) my journey preceded that.
654 ...(1.0) but,
655 ...(1.0) our journey began that moment.
656 ... and here we are.
657 ... today.
658 sixteen years later.
659 seventeen years later.
660 ...(1.0) its quite a remarkable journey.
661 I think.
662 er,
663 Jo ...(2.0) you
664 Pat [er]
665 Jo [you] said that,
666 ...(2.0) the price that er
667 ... you paid,
668 for taking up violence,
669 was part
670 ... partly losing some of your humanity.
671 Pat ... hmh
672 Jo ... and that now youre ... rending that.
673 ...(1.0) through ... other meetings with
674 ...(1.0) ehm,
675 other victims,
676 and loyalists,
Camerons interest is in the functions that metaphor plays to

express, and reect, different types of linguistic, cognitive, affective,
physical, and cultural ideas and meanings. These meanings are typically
manifested through successive metaphor sources that shift and develop
as people negotiate meaning, extend their ideas, or exploit potential
opened up by the use of a source term. The key focus here, then, is
metaphor vehicles, such as those underlined in the above conversa-

tional snippet.
For instance, the journey source was used previously in the talk to refer
to Jos effort to understand her fathers murder and, in the above excerpt, is
successively re-used and adapted to refer to two further targets:
Pats early history of politicization my journey 649, 653

the process of meeting and reconciliation our journey 655, 660
These micro-level shifts and changes in the dynamics of linguistic

metaphors concretely demonstrate the emergence of metaphor in
discourse interaction as an inherently social affair. One can track the
patterns of specic instances of metaphor in discourse to reveal the way
that metaphor shapes talking-and-thinking in the specic discourse
events, such as Jo and Pats above exchange. Camerons approach uses
metaphor identication, therefore, to understand linguistic and cognitive
phenomena as processes, ows or movements, rather than as objects.82
She emphasizes that Given the inherently fuzzy nature of metaphor
in discourse, metaphor identication is never entirely straightforward.83
Still, the discourse dynamic approach to metaphor sees metaphorical
language use as being dynamically re-created depending on the specic
histories of the participants at the very points in which their talk unfolds.
Although the metaphors are inseparable from the surrounding discourse,
in metaphor analysis we identify and pick out these metaphors as if they
were occasional lights or signals along the trajectory of the discourse
system.84 There is never a neutral position to which an individual speaker
retreats after discerning a specic use of a metaphor source, because each
word is spoken in an always changing dynamic context that constrains
what words may express metaphorical meanings.
This perspective sees metaphor identication only as a preliminary step
toward uncovering the social and cognitive positioning of discourse par-
ticipants as they attempt to reach personal and intersubjective goals.
Trying to identify, and then count up, all the metaphorically used words
in some discourse only scratches the surface of what metaphor allows
people to do in discourse, both spoken and written.
A different project also showed how metaphor develops across mul-
tiple instances of speech and language, something that would be missed
if we simply counted all the metaphors in some discourse or corpora.
Elena Semino, Alice Deignan, and Jeannette Littlemore investigated
how metaphorical expressions employed in one context get re-used,
and recontextualized, to serve different discourse functions and some-
times express novel metaphorical messages.85 One part of this study
looked at how one metaphor for the Italian politician Silvio Berlusconi,
created by the journalist, Indro Montanelli, was borrowed and adapted in
many other contexts. Montanelli wrote back in 2001 that he surprisingly,
given his many criticisms, hoped that Berlusconi would win the next
Presidential election for the following reason:
Because Berlusconi is one of those diseases that are treated with a
vaccine. And in order to be treated from Berlusconi we need a good
dose of Berlusconi vaccine.
Of course, vaccines are always given as a preventive against disease rather

than as a later antidote. Still, Montanellis metaphor captured his complex
view of Berlusconi as a disease from which Italian citizens deserve protec-
tion, or immunization.
Following this initial use of the vaccine metaphor, Montanelli
employed it in a few other articles, but by May 2012 a search of the phrase
vaccine Berlusconi Montanelli revealed over 700,000 hits on Google.
Semino and colleagues analyzed the top fty of these instances to see
how the vaccine metaphor had become recontextualized by left-wing
critics of Berlusconi to explain his continued electoral successes and
dominance of Italian politics.86
For example, one editorial noted that What Montanelli said was also
not true . . . When you have injected it, you run the risk of making a disease
chronic, rather than immunizing yourself against it.87 A 2009 online
forum showed several twists on the vaccine metaphor, such as, So the
country still has to complete its vaccination and the possible dangers need
to be neutralized and eliminated.88
A different argument from this forum stated:
After 5 years of Berlusconis government, we thought that the Unions
victory in 2006; however narrow, was the reaction of the necessary
antibodies. Antibodies in the country, not in then (and todays) oppos-
ition. Instead we saw dear pianograde that the disease is not just in the
Berlusconi infection but in our own side. It is here that among white
and red blood cells (of various kinds and ideologies) nothing has been
learnt and no antibodies have been produced to win against sectarian-
ism, localism, and provincialism.89
These few examples illustrate the widespread inuence of the vaccine

metaphor as people borrowed and reshaped the metaphor, often extending
its implications to convey something about the different reactions people
have to Berlusconi and his leadership. Revitalizing the vaccine metaphor
served many purposes, such as enabling critics to voice their opposition to

Berlusconi, and to do so in a way that puts their own spin on the situation,
all the while celebrating their beliefs with others using the intimacy that a
shared metaphor is most capable of affording. Once again, the vaccine
metaphor was not technically correct in its mapping of the idea of vaccines
onto opposing a political gure given that vaccines are used as preventa-
tives. Nonetheless, the fact that this simple metaphorical creation had such
enormous impact on the ways people thought about Berlusconi demon-
strates the social particularities of metaphorical ideas and the diverse ways
they get instantiated in both metaphorical and non-metaphorical language.
Even small stretches of metaphorical discourse, even a few words, can be
generative of large-scale metaphorical thought that is shared and expanded
upon by many people across time and space.
Another project focused on the ways that metaphor identication
changes as certain concepts become literalized over the course of even a
short historical period. Scientic ideas are often expressed in metaphorical
ways, as is evident from examining the discourses ranging from physics to
psychology. One academic discipline in which metaphors ourish is biol-
ogy. For instance, developments within molecular biology starting in the
1940s showed that DNA provides the blueprint and software of life.
Most metaphor identication methods would likely mark these word uses
as being metaphorical. In the 1990s, however, advances in biotechnology
brought together engineers and biologists not only to understand the
fundamentals of life, but also to be able to build new cellular systems that
direct cells in the ways that people program on computers.90 Biologists
started employing an assortment of engineering metaphors, referring to
switches, oscillators, and logic gates, among many other concepts, to
both design and construct synthetic cellular systems. Synthetic biology,
however, sees its metaphors not just as ways of understanding new con-
cepts, but as literal renditions to articially create new life.
For instance, one prominent researcher, Jay Keasling, testied before
the US Committee on Energy and Commerce how synthetic biologists
assemble standardized well-characterized components from existing well-
studied organisms, much like how one might assemble a computer from
standard components such as a hard drive, sound card, motherboard and
power supply.91 As one writer summarized developments in synthetic
biology,
When new technologies emerge, optimism and enthusiasm often trump

humility. In their excitement at making a discovery, many scientists,
engineers and entrepreneurs suddenly believe that they can predict and
control outcomes in complex physical and biological systems and they
frequently use metaphors to convey that belief.92
Yet critics also suggest that some of these metaphors give the impres-
sion that biological systems can already be built in ways that are both
reliable and controllable,93 which may over-literalize an idea that is still
very much metaphorical, therefore offering the public a false belief about
the efcacy of research in synthetic biology.
IIina Hellsten and Brigitte Nerlich analyzed a corpus of newspaper
articles that discussed these recent developments in synthetic biology from
the years 2008 to 2010.94 They generally found that descriptions of synthetic
biology were framed in terms of several metaphors, including computers
and computing; journeys; reading and writing; books; building and engin-
eering; as well as sewing and mapping. For example, computer metaphors
referred to codes, booting up, software, hardware, programming, executing,
and tagging. Hardly any instances of blueprint metaphors were detected.
Book metaphors were also frequent as seen in talk about reading or writing,
instruction books, languages, and phrases. Metaphors about sewing were
also common such as in descriptions about stitching and tailoring life, as
seen in the following statements: The scientists knew the order of the
1,089,202 DNA letters (nucleotides) of Mycoplasma mycoidess genome.
They built it in pieces, nucleotide-by-nucleotide. Then they stitched the
pieces together, and manufacturing life forms from scratch and eventually
creating tailor-made creatures. Finally, journey metaphors were prominent
in the corpus, referring to progress, steps, breakthroughs, leaps, crossing
boundaries, and paving the way to new knowledge, all of which are typically
found in many facets of scientic discourse.
But the most interesting part of this study concerned the frequent
mixing of metaphors and the ways that some metaphors over time became
literally true. Research in synthetic biology led scientists away from interest
in the blueprint of life to actually building life brick by BioBrick, as
evident in the following summary from 2008:
Building a new organism from scratch is possible. In January this year a

US team reported in Science magazine how it built the entire DNA code
of a common bacterium in the laboratory using blocks of genetic
material. The team synthesized small blocks of DNA before knitting
them together into bigger cassettes of genes. Large chunks of genes
were joined together to make the circular genome of a synthetic version
of a mycoplasma bacterium.
Altering genes isnt like editing a document in Word. DNA is an

invisibly thin molecule coiled upon itself with the millions of letters
that we cant see trying to alter just three letters without damaging
anything else is a truly daunting task. These dangers mean that designer
babies are not possible now and may never be.95
This passage mixes several metaphors together, referring to a computer

(Word program), books (DNA letters), and knitting materials into cas-
settes. Still, the text is coherent enough regarding the building of life such that
the writer can also express something about the prospects of designing babies
in the laboratory. Note, however, that various phrases in the above text, which
may have been metaphorical at one time, may now be direct literal descrip-
tions of events and processes. There may have been a period when DNA
pieces were conceived of as the building blocks of life in a metaphorical
sense of referring to how life emerges and self-organizes. But this old meta-
phor may now be literally read as scientists develop techniques to physically
construct new, synthetic organisms (e.g., BioBricks). The following excerpt
shows how the older metaphorical idea is now a practically reality:
At the heart of the competition is MITs Registry of Standard Biological

Parts, founded in 2003 as a physical repository and online catalogue of
DNA pieces whose function and behavior have been dened. Called
BioBricks, these are the building blocks that students use, Legolike, to
build new organisms. Students are constantly designing new BioBricks,
such as the DNA that arrived at U-Va.s lab last month, a tweaked
version of a gene that occurs naturally in plants.96
Overall, the rise of synthetic biology reects a new understanding of the

biology of life. The human genome project was earlier conceived as a way of
deciphering the book of life, but is now seen as a guide, or set of recipes,
for building, or cooking, new biological entities that are literally real and not
just metaphorical models. As one journalist suggested, these developments
show that humans have, for the rst time, the ability to evolve ourselves.97
Of course, there are many negative responses to some of the newer develop-
ments in synthetic biology, mostly associated with classic fears of scientists
creating unusual life forms (e.g., monsters) in the laboratory. Still, the
turning of past metaphors into physical realities is seen by many as a new
revolution in science and technology. As Hellsten and Nerlich commented:
The wider narrative of synthetic biology as yet another great revolution

provides the background against which the separate metaphors as well
as chains of mixed metaphors make sense. While in the genetics and
Conclusion 101
genomics debates the main narrative was conquering the unknown, i.e.,
gaining access to the map of DNA, or the book of life, in the debate on
synthetic biology, the main narrative not only covers the position of
synthetic biology as a particular type of revolutionary science, but
positions it within a historical context of standardization, automation,
assembly and control. The metaphors exploit knowledge of past tech-
nologies and technological revolutions to familiar audiences with what
is hoped to be a future revolution.98
This discussion of the recent developments in synthetic biology raises
the practical issue of whether many of its theoretical pronouncements
should even be marked as metaphors. But the larger, societal concern
focuses on whether peoples use of runaway metaphors is necessarily
identied as such by both scientists and the general public. None of this
should imply that the use of metaphors is inappropriate. At the same time,
the easy slippage from metaphorical to non-metaphor uses of different
words and concepts highlights the need for explicit methods for metaphor
identication. This need is critical if we are to understand the content and
larger implications of what both academics and laypersons say about
important societal issues.
conclusion
The metaphor wars are partly grounded in disputes over what is really
metaphorical in language and, therefore, by connection, in human thought.
Although various critics argue that the conventional expressions studied by
CMT are not really metaphors, empirical attempts to create metaphor
identication schemes now regularly mark these conventional instances
of language as conveying metaphorical meaning. This fact alone does not
necessarily entail that people always think in metaphorical ways when they
use and interpret conventional metaphorical expressions. Psychological
and neuroscientic studies are required to assess this latter possibility, as
will be reviewed in Chapter 5. Still, the systematic linguistic analysis of
conventional expressions, and the various corpus and computational
methods for metaphor extraction illustrate the richness of metaphoricity
in language, exactly as earlier suggested by CMT.
Nobody disputes the difculties, and nuances, associated with trying to
design human or automatic methods for identifying metaphor in language.
Still, these efforts have taught us a great deal about the complexities of
metaphor, prompted the construction of several methods for reliable
metaphor identication, and sharpened our questioning about how best
to evaluate the relationship between metaphor in language and metaphor

in thought. Anatol Stefanowitsch once wrote that the empirical efforts
devoted to identifying metaphors, including his own, are not particularly
dazzling and I mean that as a compliment. However, he went on to say,
We are grappling with a difcult issue of how to tell that we are dealing
with a metaphor and how to classify a metaphor once we have identied
it. Given the soaring heights of abstraction and generality at which the
theoretical discourse on metaphor takes place, this issue is bound to
seem dull and uninspiring. But it has to be done, if we are to make any
progress on the deeper questions concerning the relationship between
metaphorical language and metaphorical thought.99
I completely agree with this conclusion. At the same time, my argument

that human metaphor identication, in particular, involves many complex
unconscious factors should not imply that identifying metaphor is a
completely subjective enterprise which is always in the eye of the
beholder. Metaphor scholars may continue to debate whether or not
any specic word or expression is metaphorical. There may be differences
between the original metaphoricity of some phrase and how contemporary
speakers use and understand it in discourse. But textual analyses alone will
not be able to completely capture the psychology of real speakers, either
individually or collectively, when using language. Too much depends on
the particular language and context in which metaphor identication
judgments are made. Furthermore, methods for identifying metaphor in
language only provide the rst step in the analysis of how metaphors are
used for cognitive, social, and rhetorical purposes.
I have also urged that metaphor scholars should not assume that certain
metaphors were deliberately created and employed by people, with the
assumption that the conscious nature of these deliberative acts serves as a
cue to listeners and readers to somehow interpret these special cases in
particular, novel ways. This cautionary message is grounded in the empir-
ical evidence on the active metaphoricity of language, which is too often
mischaracterized as being non-metaphorical and processed automatically.
Furthermore, metaphor analysts should not assume that they can detect
deliberateness from small sets of textual cues, which in reality do not
distinguish some instances of language as being metaphorical in a unique
manner.
Finally, we must be very careful not to assume that the degree of
metaphoricity in thought can be directly observed through the simple
count of individual instances of metaphor in language. Many metaphorical
Conclusion 103
concepts can be briey stated in languages that are subsequently elaborated

upon by non-metaphorical discourse. People also have a strong allegorical
impulse to speak and write without using verbal metaphors in ways that,
nonetheless, express larger metaphorical schemes of thought. We will soon
see how metaphor arises in many aspects of experience apart from specic
metaphorical instances of language, ndings that add emphasis to the
claim that metaphors are a major part of how we live.
4
Inferring Conceptual Metaphors from Language
Individual verbal metaphors may reect the motivating presence of under-

lying conceptual metaphors, particularly when different linguistic expres-
sions appear to be systematically related. To take one small example, the
singer, and occasional actress, Madonna performed a series of concerts in
Chile in 2008. During her visit, Madonna was widely criticized for her
onstage behavior by local politicians and at least one member of the clergy.
Recently retired Catholic Cardinal Jorge Medina commented on these
events to his congregation by saying,
The atmosphere in our city is pretty agitated because this woman is
visiting and with incredibly shameful behavior provokes a wild and
lustful enthusiasm. . . Thoughts of lust, impure thoughts, impure acts,
are an offense to God and a dirty stain on our heart.1
What did the Cardinal mean by his statements that Madonnas
thoughts and acts were impure and that our hearts, or those of his
congregation, contained a dirty stain? Most people acknowledge that it
is impossible for immaterial entities like thoughts to be physically impure
or that a dirty stain could be imprinted onto a human heart. Still, people
readily recognize the metaphorical idea that impurity in thinking and
acting refers to immoral behavior, and that a dirty stain on our heart
describes the negative impact that Madonnas behavior may have upon
peoples souls (at least those in Cardinal Medinas congregation).
Why did the Cardinal choose these specic words to criticize Madonna
and her actions? The Cardinals verbal metaphors were not novel because
people often speak of immoral and unethical behaviors in terms of dirt or
impurities. Consider, for instance, some common English expressions that
reect an association between dirt and bad behavior or thoughts.2
104
Inferring Conceptual Metaphors from Language 105
the stain of guilt/sin/illegitimacy

impure thoughts/soul/character
a dirty mind/look/word/secret
an unclean thought/spirit/mind
to contaminate a relationship
to taint someones reputation
to pollute someones mind/thoughts
The existence of these related linguistic expressions to talk of immoral

and unethical thoughts and behavior may have emerged from the contrast-
ing metaphorical concepts CLEAN IS GOOD and DIRTY IS BAD. People
do not randomly talk about immoral or unethical behaviors, but do so for
highly motivated reasons stemming from their bodily experiences for clean
things being good and dirty ones being bad. In this manner, metaphorical
language arises from bodily activities and peoples cognitions about their
experiences.
How justied are scholars when they draw inferences about peoples
presumed conceptual metaphorical knowledge from an analysis of system-
atic patterns in language? Were the Cardinals words about Madonna
really motivated by GOOD IS CLEAN and BAD IS DIRTY conceptual
metaphors? Chapter 2 provided an overview of the cognitive linguistic
research that supports the existence of conceptual metaphors in human
language and thought. Systematic relations among many conventional
expressions are claimed to be primarily due to underlying conceptual
metaphors. However, for all its success in highlighting the relevance of
conceptual metaphors for metaphorical language, CMT has not provided a
reliable method for inferring the existence of different conceptual meta-
phors from the analysis of language. Some of the debate in the metaphor
wars focuses on whether one necessarily needs to infer the presence of
conceptual metaphors to explain systematic language use. In a related way,
critics also argue that conceptual metaphors do not provide the most basic
foundation for abstract thinking, but only reect peoples situated, rhet-
orical attempts to talk about ideas and events that are really understood in
non-metaphorical terms. Finally, other critics maintain that CMT fails to
properly acknowledge various other factors which play important roles
motivating the existence of certain metaphorical language. Each of these
criticisms is generally directed toward downplaying the signicance of
conceptual metaphors in human thought and language.
This chapter examines several possible problems with studies that posit
the existence of conceptual metaphors from the analysis of language.
106 Inferring Conceptual Metaphors from Language
Are conceptual metaphors inferred via circular reasoning in cognitive

linguistic research, making the theory incapable of being falsied? Are all
abstract concepts necessarily understood in metaphorical terms? Might
there be other factors (e.g., linguistic, social, cultural) that shape the
specic wordings of verbal metaphors apart from the inuence of tacit
conceptual metaphors? Do conceptual metaphors best reect individual
psychology or collective human cognition? My evaluation of these ques-
tions suggests, in most cases, that alternative explanations for conceptual
metaphors do not invalidate CMT. Still, a theory of conceptual metaphors
must be situated within a more comprehensive understanding of the
interacting forces that constrain peoples thinking and language use.
linking conceptual metaphors with

linguistic metaphors
Questions have been raised about the methods by which conceptual
metaphors are inferred in standard cognitive linguistic analyses. These
discussions have led certain scholars to claim that conceptual metaphors
have limited value in understanding how verbal metaphors work in
discourse.
cross-domain mappings or categorization

One of the most complex areas of disagreement in the metaphor wars is
the long-standing contrast between the ideas that metaphors are under-
stood in terms of cross-domain mappings as opposed to categorization
processes. CMT rmly embraces the view that verbal metaphors, such as
We need to retrace our steps in trying to solve this problem, arise and are
interpreted from the cross-domain mapping of knowledge from a source
(e.g., JOURNEY) to a target domain (e.g., LIFE). CMT sees these conven-
tional expressions, along with other linguistic patterns, as correlational
metaphors that provide evidence for the existence of cross-domain map-
pings, or conceptual metaphors.
However, as mentioned earlier, most of the attention in metaphor
studies address one-shot A is B, or resemblance, metaphors. Scholars
have long assumed that resemblance metaphors best reect peoples lin-
guistic creativity, even though these instances turn out to be relatively rare
in discourse. Understanding the metaphor, My job is a jail, for example,
was originally thought to depend on how listeners gure out the properties
that jobs and jails share. Psychological studies demonstrate, however, that
Cross-Domain Mappings or Categorization 107
the novel features emerging from metaphor comprehension are not salient
in ones separate understandings of the topic (e.g., my job) and vehicle
(e.g., is a jail). Instead, similarity in meaning is created as an emergent
property of metaphor understanding.3
Several theoretical proposals have been advanced to describe the pro-
cess by which emergent metaphorical meanings are inferred, all of which
have their roots in the interactive view of metaphor by Max Black.4 None
of these, however, consider the possibility that conceptual metaphors play
some role in how A is B metaphors may be interpreted. For instance, the
structure-mapping theory of metaphor, by Dedre Gentner and col-
leagues, argued that people begin processing a metaphor by rst aligning
the representations of the source and target domain concepts.5 Once these
two domains are aligned, further inferences are directionally projected
from the source to the target domain. These inferences reect relational,
and not just feature-specic, aspects of the metaphor comprehension
processes. For instance, when people read, Plant stems are drinking
straws, they infer that both plants and straws convey liquid to nourish
living things (a relational meaning) and not just that both plants and
straws are long and thin (i.e., feature commonalities). Metaphors express-
ing relational information (e.g., Plant stems are drinking straws) are
judged to be far more apt than those that only map object features (e.g.,
Her arms were like twin swans).6
To some extent, the structure-mapping view has rough similarities to
CMT, as well as conceptual blending theory, because both approaches see
metaphorical language as emerging from certain kinds of cross-domain
mappings.7 Unlike CMT, structure-mapping theory sees cross-domain
comparisons as beginning anew with each verbal metaphor encountered.
This view does not acknowledge the possibility that entrenched conceptual
metaphors, which arise from various non-linguistic and linguistic experi-
ences, actively constrain verbal metaphor production and interpretation.
Furthermore, structure mapping theory only addresses the comprehension
of resemblance metaphors and does not consider how other linguistic
expressions, such as conventional language, polysemy, and novel exten-
sions of conventional statements, are used and understood.
The major alternative to theories advocating the importance of cross-
domain mappings in verbal metaphor use suggests that verbal metaphors
are created and interpreted via categorization processes. For instance,
relevance theory has long maintained that metaphor is a form of loose
talk and can be understood through various pragmatic processes of
narrowing and broadening, all of which are guided by the presumption
of optimal relevance.8 Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, most generally,

claimed that relevance theory is a deationary account of metaphor,
which is bound to disappoint those who feel that verbal metaphor
deserves a full-edge theory of its own.9 Under their view, metaphors
are understood, similar to any other utterance, as listeners attempt to
maximize cognitive effects while minimizing cognitive effort. When people
encounter a verbal metaphor, they infer sufcient meanings to make the
speakers utterance most optimally relevant in the situation. Ordinary
pragmatic processes, such as narrowing or loosening, enable people to
create ad hoc categorizations, such that one can see how the statement
Your room is a pigsty is relevant in context given the loosening of our
typical understanding of the concept for pigsty. Relevance theory, there-
fore, does not assume that people engage in cross-domain mappings to use
or interpret metaphorical expressions.
Within experimental psycholinguistics, Sam Glucksberg and Boaz Keysar
also claimed that metaphors are better understood via categorization pro-
cesses as class-inclusion, and not cross-domain, or comparison, statements.10
For example, the word snake evokes different meanings in the phrases
My lawyer is a snake (i.e., the personality of a snake) and The road was a
snake (i.e., how a snake moves). Thus, in the context of talking about
lawyers, snake best exemplies the abstract category of unsavory personal-
ity attributes, while it reects something about the abstract category of
physical shapes of things in the context of roads. Experimental studies
show, in fact, that people do not consider the literal referents of metaphor
vehicles (e.g., real sharks) when reading metaphorical statements (e.g.,
Lawyers are sharks), because this irrelevant information is suppressed
during comprehension. These ndings are most consistent with the claim
that verbal metaphor understanding involves creating a new, ad-hoc
category and not merely comparing ones knowledge about topic (e.g.,
lawyer) and vehicle (e.g., snake) domains.
A different proposal, by Brien Bowdle and Dedre Gentner, titled the
career of metaphor theory, combined aspects of both the comparison
and categorization views.11 This theory asserted that a shift occurs in the
mode of mappings from comparison to categorization processes as meta-
phors become conventionalized. People preferred the metaphors (e.g.,
Faith is an anchor) to the similes (e.g., Faith is like an anchor) when
these statements increased from being novel to conventional. Novel similes
(e.g., Friendship is like wine) were read more quickly than metaphors,
while metaphors (e.g., Alcohol is a crutch) were read more quickly than
similes when these statements were conventional. Finally, giving people
Cross-Domain Mappings or Categorization 109
repeated exposures to novel similes using the same base term over time
provoked individuals to shift to using the metaphor form in subsequent
statements, indicating a shift from comparison to categorization processes
of metaphor understanding within the course of a single study.
Still, novel metaphors may not always be interpreted as comparisons, or
in terms of their simile counterparts, contrary to the career of metaphor
view.12 For example, one study asked participants to read very novel
metaphorical expressions, such as A newspaper is (like) a daily telescope,
in either categorical (i.e., is) or comparison (i.e., is like) form, and
found that the categorization versions were read much faster than were the
similes. The career of metaphor view is unable to deal with the idea that
novel apt metaphors can be understood as metaphors rather than similes.
Really good metaphors sound best as categorizations, and sometimes work
only as categorical assertions, such as My lawyer is a well-paid shark
(compared to My lawyer is like a well-paid shark).
One possibility is that comparison and categorization models may
reect different processing strategies for understanding metaphor, with
each one being better suited depending on the aptness of the metaphor.
When a metaphor is apt, it is typically understood via a categorization
process. Less apt metaphors and similes are interpreted via comparison
processes.13
Whats interesting about the debate between the cross-domain and
categorization views is that they rarely consider the relevance of conceptual
metaphors in resemblance metaphor understanding. Psycholinguistic
experiments, referred to above, only focused on A is B or A is like B
metaphors or similes when they argued over the merits of the comparison
vs. categorization views. Gentner, Glucksberg, and their colleagues have
occasionally offered criticisms of CMT, but they have not explicitly con-
trasted their favorite view against CMT using the metaphorical expressions
primarily studied within CMT. Within linguistics, relevance theory
scholars have also criticized CMT, yet always from the perspective of their
own interest in the understanding of resemblance metaphors. Lakoff has
briey suggested in two publications why CMT may be required to explain
how certain resemblance metaphors are used and understood.14 But most
cognitive linguistic discussions of resemblance metaphors adopt concep-
tual blending theory as the perspective that best accounts for the emergent
properties of resemblance metaphors.15 Complicating matters further, as
mentioned earlier, several scholars now suggest that primary metaphors
maybe better characterized as metonymies, rather than metaphors. This
move opens up the possibility that some of the cherished conventional
expressions within CMT could be explained via metonymically driven

categorization processes and not by cross-domain mapping principles.
These complexities in metaphor scholarship have created an uneasy set
of divisions between both psycholinguists and linguistics, and between
those favoring different versions of the cross-domain or categorization
perspectives, including theories which assume that either types of process-
ing may be employed depending on the specic linguistic metaphor (e.g.,
the career of metaphor theory). I agree that different processing strategies
may possibly be applied when people create and understand different
forms of metaphorical language. However, we must be careful to not
engage in blinded reverse-engineering when suggesting that one kind of
metaphor must necessarily be explained via one type of mechanism and
another processing mode must be adopted when people encounter a
different type of verbal metaphor. After all, people hear or read metaphor-
ical language, like all other forms of language, incrementally and so do not
look at an entire linguistic statement before deciding which mental process
to employ in order to understand the metaphor (in the way that metaphor
scholars do when engaging in their analysis of metaphorical language).
I do know this, however. Metaphor scholars should not simply
assume, as they too often do, that they can explain all aspects of verbal
metaphor use by only examining part of the wide diversity of metaphor-
ical language. People should not dismiss the relevance of conceptual
metaphors in verbal metaphor communication just because there are
other theories (e.g., career of metaphor or relevance theory) that may
be capable of explaining restricted aspects of verbal metaphor use (e.g.,
conventional A is B examples). For example, the fact that conventional
resemblance metaphors appear to be understood via categorization pro-
cesses, at least as suggested by the career of metaphor theory, implies to
some scholars that all the conventional metaphors studied within CMT
may also be interpreted via categorization, and not cross-domain map-
ping, processes.16 This argument, however, fails to account for the fact
that what is conventional in resemblance metaphors differs from con-
ventionality within CMT. Moreover, this argument also ignores the
extensive research showing that many facets of verbal metaphor are
interpreted in terms of cross-domain mappings. Chapter 5 describes
some of the large literature on the psychology of conceptual metaphor
understanding, and this evidence must surely be incorporated into any
theory of metaphor use. Finally, metaphor scholars who are primarily
concerned with how some verbal metaphors are understood must also,
in my view, acknowledge the questions of how particular kinds of
Do We Really Need Conceptual Metaphors to Understand Time? 111
metaphorical language come into being in the rst place and continue to
have currency within different linguistic communities. Answering these
questions may give proper recognition to the fact that peoples embodied
metaphorical experiences and concepts play a critical role in the creation
and communication of conventional metaphorical ideas.
do we really need conceptual metaphors to

understand time?
The concept of time is one topic that has generated much debate over
its possible conceptual metaphorical motivations. Lakoff and Johnson
explicitly argued in their book Philosophy in the esh that people do
not have a unique, sensory-perceptual system that perceives time apart
from space.17 Our experience of time, including the ability to measure
time, is understood primarily through motion. For example, the time it
takes for me to stand up from my desk and move over to the window is
assessed as a secession of moments experienced via my movements.
Time is directional, irreversible, continuous, segmental, and capable of
being measured.
There are three basic conceptual metaphors that capture the main facets
of our understanding of time in terms of motion. At a general level, the
TIME ORIENTATION metaphor places the ego at the center of a time
line, with the future being represented by objects and events lying in front
of the ego, and past objects and events being situated behind the ego. The
TIME ORIENTATION metaphor typically refers to cases in which there is
no movement, as when a speaker stands still, and says I am looking ahead
to some good times, or I am leaving the past behind me.
Two other basic time metaphors conceive of either the ego or time as
moving. The MOVING TIME metaphor sees the ego as stationary and
time as a moving object (e.g., Christmas is fast approaching). On the
other hand, the MOVING EGO metaphor conceives of time as stationary
and the ego in movement (e.g., Were fast approaching Christmas).
These different conceptual metaphors illustrate how our understanding
of time is based on our experiences of space and motion. Lakoff and
Johnson, and many others, have gone on to claim that the MOVING
TIME and MOVING EGO metaphors are common throughout the worlds
languages.18
Vyv Evans has argued that there are several problems with the con-
ceptual metaphor account of time.19 First, Evans suggested that time is an
unelaborated concept existing prior to its metaphorical structuring in
terms of motion. Lakoff and Johnson maintained that time may not exist
as a thing by itself, and only arises from event comparison. But the ability
to perceive duration may be a prerequisite to having an awareness of
change in the external world. Evans questioned whether there is a tight
correlation between experiences of time and motion, noting, for example,
that we experience time whether or not we experience motion (e.g.,
sitting in a chair without moving). Certain time expressions, such as
Were getting closer to the start of the school year (MOVING EGO)
refer to culturally relative events suggesting that some temporal concepts
are cultural constructs, and not primary concepts. The basic idea that
TIME IS MOTION does not explain why certain temporal expressions
seem odd. For example, it is permissible to say that The time for action
has come/arrived/reached us but not The time for action has own/
spun/turned around. In general, time may be understood in terms of a
range of different motion events, instead of a single motion concept (i.e.,
TIME IS MOTION).
Evans alternative proposal is that our understanding of the word
time may be related to several distinct temporal concepts. For example,
consider the expressions The time for action has arrived and Time
drags when you have nothing to do. The rst expression relates to a
distinct temporal moment, and the second to the magnitude of duration.
On the other hand, the statement The young womans time (for child
birth) is approaching is understood in terms of a particular frame of
reference, such as an entire pregnancy, which differs from other aspects
of temporality. Finally, the expression Time ows on forever relates to
an unbounded temporal entity, or a temporal matrix, within which all
experience unfolds. These various aspects of time are different enough to
suggest, once more, that time may not be a single, simple temporal
concept. There may be at least four distinct sets of temporal concepts
associated with the word time including a Moment sense, a Duration
sense, an Event sense, and a Matrix sense.
These points raise the possibility that the basic conceptual metaphor
TIME IS MOTION is an abstraction derived from many different lexical
concepts rather than being a phenomenologically basic experience.
Although much of the linguistic data support the conceptual metaphor
view, this alone does not necessarily imply that it constitutes the correct
level of generalization for describing peoples understanding of time and
their use of temporal expressions. As we will see in Chapter 5, peoples
metaphorical understandings of time are often based in their bodily,
phenomenological experiences.
Conceptual Motivations for Verbal Metaphors about Arguments 113
conceptual motivations for verbal metaphors

about arguments
One of the most notable, and widely debated, conceptual metaphors, rst
described in Metaphors We Live By, is ARGUMENT IS WAR. Lakoff
and Johnson listed several characteristics of arguments that are closely
linked to our understanding of wars. For both arguments and wars, one
participant continues a specic position, while the other participant
adopts a different position. Both positions matter because one participant
must surrender ground for the other to achieve victory, with differences
of opinion being understood as a conict. Both participants plan strategy,
marshal their forces, attack the others claims, defend their own, maneu-
ver to achieve a stronger position, and occasionally retreat when con-
fronted with a stronger argument. These correspondences suggest that an
argument can be metaphorically understood in terms of the concept
of war.
But several criticisms have been raised about linking conventional
expressions with specic conceptual metaphors, as has been done with
metaphors relating to ARGUMENT IS WAR. First, John Vervaeke and
John Kennedy argued that many conventional expressions related to
arguments also correspond to concepts of chess matches, bridge games,
and other competitive activities.20 Chess itself is often used as a metaphor
for war.21 The name of some chess pieces suggest a war metaphor (e.g.,
castle, knight), and war is frequently mentioned in the context of athletic
and business competitions. Most of the conventional expressions consist-
ent with the ARGUMENT IS WAR conceptual metaphor are consistent
with other metaphorical schemes, such as ARGUMENT IS PLAYING
CHESS and ARGUMENT IS BOXING.
These observations highlight the difculty with attempts to link specic
conventional expressions with particular conceptual metaphors. If a spe-
cic conventional expression relates to several different conceptual meta-
phors, we may not be able to clearly hypothesize underlying conceptual
metaphors from systematic linguistic analyses alone.22
A related problem is that CMT assumes that the source domains in
metaphor are more familiar than the typically more abstract target
domains. According to Lakoff and Johnson, for example, we understand
arguments in terms of war because the source domain of war, or physical
conict, is directly related to our past and present experiences. But the
reverse is actually true, at least for most Americans, in that our experi-
ences of arguments, which may occur daily, are more common in
everyday life than are wars or physical conicts.23 Even if children do not
have a well-formed concept of war, their schemas for physical and verbal
ghting, contests, and games could easily provide the basis for under-
standing arguments as war. In fact, Lakoff and Johnson more recently
recast their original formulation to suggest that ARGUMENT IS
STRUGGLE, as opposed to ARGUMENT IS WAR, may better reect
the underlying metaphor because All children struggle against physical
manipulations of their parents, and as language is learned, the physical
struggle comes to be accompanied by words.24 More generally, it is not
always clear which conceptual metaphor may directly, and solely, motiv-
ate a specic verbal metaphor.
A more general concern with CMT is that it may be impossible to
falsify. The strategy of linking conventional expressions with metaphor-
ical concepts implies that no linguistic statement can be brought forward
as evidence against the positing of a particular conceptual metaphor.
CMT is sometimes perceived as engaging in circular reasoning by rst
analyzing language, then inferring the existence of a tacit conceptual
metaphor to explain the systematicity in language, but then testing this
hypothesis by referring back to language for empirical support. This
language-to-concepts-to-language loop does not, in some critics view,
sufciently establish metaphor as an inherently conceptual, or cognitive,
phenomenon.25
For instance, Lakoff and Johnson cite the expression If you use that
strategy, hell wipe you out, as one of the linguistic instantiations for the
ARGUMENT IS WAR conceptual metaphor. A corpus analysis of strat-
egy and wipe out, however, reveals that most of their uses are related to
the domains of business, nance, police, and employment, in addition to a
few other special cases.26 Thus, the presence of the word strategy in an
expression like If you use that strategy hell wipe you out, does not
provide sufcient evidence for war being the motivating source domain
for this conventional expression. A corpus analysis of wipe out offers a
similar conclusion, and provides another reason why war may not be the
motivating source domain for the above conventional statement. Finally, a
search of the 365 million word Corpus of American English found no
instances of the expression Her argument was right on target, or any
related statement using other pronouns or tense markings, which also
raises doubt about the cognitive linguistic evidence favoring the ARGU-
MENT IS WAR conceptual metaphor.27 As Vervaeke and Kennedy sum-
marized in their critique of CMT, one cannot simply group some
metaphors, adduce a possible common base, and then expect derivations
Conceptual Motivations for Verbal Metaphors about Arguments 115
from the base to be apt.28 CMT may be unfalsiable if the only data in its
favor is the systematic grouping of metaphors linked by a common theme.
One response to these criticisms of CMT, offered by David Ritchie, is
that there may be multiple connections between verbal metaphors and
different conceptual metaphorical concepts.29 Conceptual metaphors,
such as ARGUMENT IS WAR, arise from a eld of interrelated concepts
that are available for metaphorical application and can be extended to
other topics such as business or politics. For example, American culture
has a large, complex, and densely interconnected set of schemes for
competition and conict, ranging from friendly, low ego-involvement
games through highly competitive games, shouting matches, sticuffs,
and brawls, all the way to full-scale wars.30 Within this conceptual eld,
we readily transfer experiences associated with one form of competition
or conict to another.31
When words such as attack, defend, or strategy appear in discus-
sions about arguments, we cannot be sure whether any particular person
will associate the term with chess, boxing, all-out war, or with nothing
beyond an abstract concept. The word attack may have multiple, but
independent, meanings, even if it originated from a single common meta-
phor. For example, the statement Jane considered his attack on her
argument as an attack on her intellectual integrity could substitute a
synonym such as refutation of for the rst use of attack and a different
synonym assault for the second use (e.g., Jane considered his refutation
of her argument as an assault on her intellectual integrity). However, these
substitutions would clearly change the meaning of the original statement.
An assault in an argument is not the same as an attack and a refuta-
tion of ones intellectual integrity doesnt make much sense. Thus,
attack may be both a synonym for assault and a synonym for attempt
to refute.32 The generality at which implicit metaphors can be identied,
and the family of metaphors to which a particular expression belongs, may
therefore be indeterminate. Different individuals may interpret the same
expression according to different implicit metaphors and derive different
entailments.33 This possibility does not imply that conceptual metaphor
theory (CMT) is circular or untestable. Nonetheless, there may not always
be singular correspondences between specic verbal metaphors and par-
ticular underlying conceptual metaphors.
Ultimately, it may not matter whether the conict metaphor originated
with war, childhood rough and tumble, or other forms of conict, because
they all carry a set of potential meanings that can be readily applied to talk
of chess, bridge, basketball, and school debate-tournaments. These
entailments, images, and responses may be available to people, but often

arise in slightly different ways for different people depending on contextual
circumstances. As the anthropologist James Howe once claimed, Lakoff
and Johnson show only that there is at least sometimes a congruity
between metaphor and action; they offer no proof that when participants
argue aggressively, their actions are motivated, compelled, or controlled by
the war metaphor.34
Many CMT scholars now argue that many kinds of complex knowledge
underlie the creation and use of verbal metaphors.35 Consider one analysis
of English and Chinese metaphors, by Ning Yu, in which people think of
and talk about prestige and dignity in terms of the human face, such as in
the English statement, With no option left, he was forced to borrow
money from others at the sacrice of his dignity, which is a translation
from the Chinese Chuyu wunai ta zhihao she-lian xiang ren jie qian
(which literally says out of no-choice he is forced sacrice-face from
others borrow money).36 Although the conceptual metaphor HAVING
DIGNITY IS KEEPING ONES FACE presumably motivates the meaning
of sacricing face as referring to dignity, the underlying conceptual
knowledge used to understand this metaphorical part of the sentence
includes, at the very least, the following:
a. DIGNITY IS FACE AS A VALUABLE POSSESSION (a complex
metaphor)
b. DIGNITY IS FACE AS A PHYSICAL OBJECT (a complex
metaphor)
c. DIGNITY IS A FEELING (a proposition)
d. FACE IS A PHYSICAL OBJECT (a complex metaphor)
e. A FEELING IS A PHYSICAL OBJECT (a primary metaphor)
f. FACE STANDS FOR A FEELING (a metonymy)
g. DIGNITY IS A DESIRABLE FEELING (a proposition).
This list of conceptual mappings and propositions may represent only a
part of what people infer when they hear ordinary language, and there
may, once more, be various other impressions, attitudes, and feelings that
listeners experience when encountering this, or any other, form of meta-
phorical expression. We simply do not yet know to what extent people
always, or ever, activate what kind of conceptual information during the
experience of verbal metaphor understanding. Nonetheless, Yus analysis
demonstrates the degree to which the understanding of simple metaphor-
ical words may be grounded in a rather rich set of non-linguistic, concep-
tual knowledge, some of which arises from and continues to be rooted in
The Need for Corpus Linguistics 117
embodied experience (e.g., in primary metaphors like A FEELING IS

A PHYSICAL OBJECT). Peoples experience of metaphorical meaning
must include rich layers of conceptual and embodied knowledge, ranging
from propositions to different sets of metaphorical and metonymic
mappings.37
In general, there may be strong linguistic evidence that metaphors are
fundamental principles guiding the ways people speak and think of their
experiences, especially those related to abstract ideas and events. However,
determining the exact conceptual motivations for a particular persons use
of any verbal metaphor likely requires evidence other than that obtained
from examining systematic linguistics.
the need for corpus linguistics

As noted in Chapter 3, a key development in cognitive linguistic research is
the emergence of corpus linguistic studies. The examination of actual
language patterns, as evident from the analysis of large-scale corpora,
provides a rmer basis for determining underlying conceptual metaphors
than can be provided by analyses that rely on dictionaries, thesauruses, or
decontextualized verbal metaphors. Part of the concern here is that stand-
ard CMT analyses are too often based on the intuitions of individual
analysts, which may be biased, inaccurate, or poor reections of how
metaphors are really used in discourse. Do corpus studies remedy this
problem?
For example, Anatol Stefanowitsch described one method for inferring
relevant conceptual metaphors through the organized search of large-scale
corpora.38 The analyst rst searches for a specic keyword that is repre-
sentative of a particular target domain (e.g., anger, fear, happiness).
Second, metaphorical uses of words in these contexts are identied. Finally,
metaphorical patterns are inferred. Metaphorical patterns are specically
dened as multi-word expressions from a given source domain into which
specic lexical items from a given target domain have been inserted.39
This Metaphorical Pattern Analysis (MPA) does not capture metaphor-
ical patterns that exclude explicit mention of the target domain (e.g., Im
on cloud nine when implicitly referring to being happy). Still, MPA is able
to identify metaphorical patterns that show how concepts expressed by
individual lexical items interact with large-scale mappings between whole
conceptual domains.40
Consider one project that compared the result of MPA with an intu-
itionist analysis of conceptual metaphors. Zoltn Kvecses had earlier
offered an intuitionist analysis of anger metaphors and suggested that

many conceptual metaphors motivate the creation of these verbal expres-
sions (e.g., ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER, ANGER IS
AN OPPONENT IN A STRUGGLE, and ANGER IS A NATURAL
FORCE). Stefanowitsch later on conducted a corpus analysis of 1000 uses
of anger in discourse and showed that the verbal metaphors for anger
identied by Kvecses amounted to only 14 percent of all the metaphorical
patterns observed by MPA. The primary reason for this discrepancy was
that Kvecsess analysis omitted any metaphor that was related to the
broader EVENT STRUCTURE metaphor, or metaphors that were relevant
to all emotion concepts (and not just anger). For instance, cases of anger
that were conceptualized as a location which people move in and out of
(e.g., run away from anger), or where anger is viewed as a moving object
(e.g., anger returned, anger swept through someone) account for
almost two-thirds of all metaphorical expressions with anger in the
MPA corpus.
When verbal expressions related to the EVENT STRUCTURE meta-
phors were included in the overall study of anger metaphors, the intuitionist
analysis did not refer to one-fth of the anger metaphors identied by
MPA. Some of these metaphors may reect slightly different mappings than
inferred by the intuitionist method, such as ANGER IS A SUBSTANCE/
LIQUID IN A CONTAINER and ANGER IS HEAT, noted by MPA, which
can be combined to form the mapping ANGER IS HEATED LIQUID IN
A CONTAINER. Similarly, ANGER IS LIGHT (e.g., anger ashed across
his face) could be related to ANGER IS FIRE, given that re often casts
light. The mapping INTENSITY OF ANGER IS HEIGHT (e.g., anger is
rising) could reect the more general metaphor MORE IS UP. Finally,
MPA observed ANGER IS A SLEEPING ORGANISM (e.g., John aroused
Marys anger) could be subsumed by the ANGER IS A FIERCE ANIMAL,
as noted by Kvecses and others.
In general, although there are many similarities in the ndings obtained
by an intuitionist analysis and a corpus study, the examination of large-
scale corpora often provides more nuanced analyses of conceptual meta-
phors underlying verbal metaphors.
An MPA analysis of happiness metaphors also showed many
overlaps with the results from one intuitionist analysis, also done by
Kvecses. Still various discrepancies between the two methods were also
evident. For example, Kvecses observed that the following fteen
conceptual metaphors are relevant to our understandings of happiness
(e.g., HAPPINESS IS X).41
The Need for Corpus Linguistics 119
UP We had to cheer him up.

BEING OFF THE GROUND I am six feet off the ground.
BEING IN HEAVEN That was heaven on earth.
LIGHT Lighten up.
VITALITY He was alive with joy.
WARM That warmed my spirits.
HEALTH It made me feel great.
AN ANIMAL THAT LIVES WELL He was happy as a pig in shit.
A PLEASURABLE PHYSICAL SENSATION I was tickled pink.
FLUID IN A CONTAINER He was overowing with joy.
CAPTIVE ANIMAL His feelings of happiness broke loose.
OPPONENT IN A STRUGGLE He was knocked out.
A RAPTURE/HIGH I was drunk with joy.
INSANITY They were crazy with happiness.
A NATURAL FORCE He was swept off his feet.
Stefanowitsch claimed that some of these metaphors may not be

entirely independent but are special cases of the more general HAPPINESS
IS UP conceptual metaphor (e.g., BEING OFF THE GROUND, BEING IN
HEAVEN). The metaphorical mapping HAPPINESS IS AN ANIMAL
THAT LIVES WELL (e.g., He was happy as a pig in shit) may also be
more related to the HAPPINESS IS A PLEASURABLE PHYSICAL SEN-
SATION conceptual metaphor.
An MPA analysis of joy, which is arguably more central to the idea
of happiness, showed, once again, that almost all of the conceptual
metaphors observed by intuitionist methods could also be identied by
an extensive corpus search. However, the mappings seen in the intuition-
ist analysis represent only seven percent of all metaphorical expressions
related to joy in the corpus sample. As shown previously, many of the
missing patterns are related to the EVENT STRUCTURE metaphor
referring, for example, to joy as a location or as a moving object. Other
previously unfound metaphors include HAPPINESS IS HEAT/FIRE
(e.g., sparks of joy), LIQUID (e.g., river of joy), SOMETHING IN
A PRESSURIZED CONTAINER (e.g., lled with joy, bursting with
joy), and HAPPINESS IS A MIXED/PURE SUBSTANCE (e.g., mixed
joy, pure joy).
Most generally, MPA has successfully identied conceptual metaphors
presumed to underlie the emotion concepts of anger, happiness, fear,
sadness, and disgust, as specically noted by traditional cognitive linguistic
intuitionist methods. But MPA has also shown that traditional intuitionist
analyses sometimes misanalyse or ignore several potential conceptual
metaphors because of insufcient data. Furthermore, MPA provides
specic information about the relative frequency of different conceptual

metaphors (e.g., ANGER IS AN OPPONENT IN A STRUGGLE is about
2 times more frequent than expressions related to ANGER IS
A NATURAL FORCE), something that intuitionist analyses are incapable
of detecting with any accuracy.
The increasing use of corpus linguistics methods enables scholars to
observe a more detailed picture of how different, sometimes overlapping,
metaphors motivate peoples use of different metaphorical language. How-
ever, intuitionist analyses of metaphor, which sometimes employ certain
corpora, such as dictionaries, have provided a major source of data and
empirical hypotheses that have been critical to further testing through
corpus linguistic methods. In this way, the rise of corpus linguistic studies,
by no means, signals an end to how linguists often do their research. At the
same time, even corpus linguistic studies rely on analysts intuitions as
seen, for example, in how scholars try to infer conceptual metaphors from
the examination of large corpora. Finally, corpus linguistic studies may
provide a more realistic sense of how metaphors are used in discourse,
showing that conceptual metaphors may indeed be motivating forces in the
ways people speak metaphorically. Still, this evidence alone does not
necessarily represent what specic speakers and listeners are thinking
when they produce or understand verbal metaphors in discourse. The fact
that people speak metaphorically in certain ways at sometimes is very
suggestive of the possibility of metaphorical cognition. Yet other kinds of
empirical evidence are likely needed to more rmly establish the hypoth-
esis that conventional metaphorical thinking underlies metaphorical
language.
does cmt ignore lexical and grammatical factors?

Several critics have argued that CMT ignores important lexical and gram-
matical factors which inuence word choice in verbal metaphors. As noted
in Chapter 3, Alice Deignan observed that some source-to-target domain
mappings emerging from conceptual metaphors do not give rise to mean-
ingful metaphorical language. Much earlier, Andrew Ortony argued that
even with wide co-occurrence between source and target domains, much of
the evidence for conceptual metaphor can best be explained on a lexical,
and not conceptual, level.42
Determining which verbal metaphors can be explained at the concep-
tual, as opposed to the lexical level, is complicated by the fact that
metaphorical strength varies from one word to another. For example,
Does CMT Ignore Lexical and Grammatical Factors? 121
Jan Svanlund advanced the idea that there are several ways in which
metaphorical strength can be measured.43
1. Width of activation (how many source domain concepts are recur-
rently activated by the metaphorical expression?)
2. Frequency of activation (how often are these source domain concepts
activated by the metaphorical expression?)
3. Intensity of activation (how strongly are these source domain con-
cepts activated by the metaphorical expression?)
4. Coherence of activation (how coherent are the source domain con-
cepts when activated by the metaphorical expression? To what
extent are the inference patterns preserved?).
One corpus linguistic study examined the width and frequency of
activation through analysis of two Swedish nouns vikt and tyngd, both
of which are used to describe physical objects of weight, as well as to
express metaphorical meaning (e.g., The issue has been given greater
weight). In general, this collocational analysis showed that vikt and
tyngd differ in metaphorical strength. Although vikt is predominantly
employed with specic metaphorical meaning referring to importance
(e.g., Private enterprising is of utmost importance), tyngd is used in a
variety of ways, indicating a greater width of activation. For instance,
tyngd is used in situations referring to human perception of weight
(e.g., I felt the words like a weight over me), forces with spatial properties
(e.g., I was pressed down into the chair by a great weight), and elements
associated with transportation (e.g., He had carried the whole weight of
the attack alone).
A different analysis of vikt, and vaga, (equivalent to weight, and
weigh) examined their conceptual coherence. Both terms are projected
from the same source subdomain, but are projected quite differently to their
target concept and not as correspondences of a single, presumably, coherent
conceptual unity. First, vikt and vaga frequently co-occur in non-
metaphorical contexts, but rarely do so when used metaphorically. Second,
vikt has less metaphorical strength than vaga which can be employed in
a variety of contexts when one is measuring the magnitude of some abstract
idea or event. For this reason, the cross-domain mappings emerging from
the conceptual metaphor IMPORTANCE IS WEIGHT may not be system-
atic. Svanlund argued that the metaphorical meanings of vikt, in particular,
are likely motivated by obsolete discourse functions that are unrelated to
concepts from the WEIGHT domain. CMT may be unable to account for
these specic lexical patterns in some metaphorical word usage.
Karin Sullivan claimed, however, that lexical choice in metaphorical

language partly depends on frame-based constraints.44 Under this view, the
frame semantics evoked by a words non-metaphorical sense plays an
important role in determining which lexical items may overtly express a
specic conceptual metaphor. The foundation for this approach is the
invariance hypothesis:
Metaphorical mappings preserve the cognitive topology (that is, the
image-schema structure) of the source domain, in a way consistent with
the inherent structure of the target domain.45
Sullivan suggested that the notion of cognitive topology be extended
to embrace frame semantics, along with image-schematic structure. Con-
sider the conceptual metaphor HAPPINESS IS LIGHT as instantiated in
the phrases bright disposition, looking on the bright side, and bright
outlook. The adjectives sunny and dark are also related to HAPPI-
NESS IS LIGHT as seen in sunny disposition and dark mood. Note,
however, that not all adjectives referring to light are appropriate for the
HAPPINESS IS LIGHT metaphor. English speakers never use brilliant to
mean happy (e.g., we rarely see brilliant disposition or look on the
brilliant side).
What explains the differences between the uses of brilliant compared
to bright or sunny in talk about happiness? Critics typically see these,
and other, variations in the possible mappings within CMT as direct
falsications of the theory. However, corpus research provides a motivated
reason for why bright works with happiness and brilliant does not.46
Sullivan showed that non-metaphorical uses of bright, sunny, and
dark typically modify the location of light, such as bright room, sunny
place, and dark corner. The adjective brilliant, on the other hand, is
rarely used to denote a light location, but is primarily employed when
referring to light emanating sources, as seen in brilliant star or brilliant
torch. These different features of light, as a location or as a source, explain
why there is variation in the lexical items seen in verbal metaphors. Any
phrase with sunny will evoke the idea of a lights location, which is
appropriate to use when expressing the metaphorical idea of HAPPINESS
IS LIGHT. But phrases with brilliant, which is inconsistent with the
location idea, will not acquire a metaphorical meaning relevant to the
domain of happiness.
More generally, the frame semantics associated with a lexical item con-
strains how that word may be used in metaphorical language. Variation in the
specic wording of metaphors should not be seen as evidence against CMT.
Does CMT Ignore Socio-Cultural Forces? 123
Instead, conceptual metaphors provide an important, but not exclusive,

constraint on verbal metaphor use. The meanings of particular lexical meta-
phors may have complex origins and motivations, including historical ones,
which are not always directly related to conceptual metaphors per se. As
Svanlund aptly concluded, conceptual metaphors do not govern lexical
metaphors, although they may sometimes guide them.47 For this reason,
Conceptual metaphors should probably be seen as cognitive tendencies,
rather than systematic and coherent structures that fully govern the semantics
of a group of lexical items.48
does cmt ignore socio-cultural forces?

CMT is often characterized as a purely cognitive theory. Empirical
research showing the embodied roots of many conceptual metaphors has
also been widely seen as a rejection of the possible social and cultural forces
that motivate metaphorical thoughts and communications. To be fair,
Lakoff and Johnson explicitly noted in 1980 that metaphors may create
realities, especially social realities.49 Some critics of CMT argue, nonethe-
less, that the theory cannot explain both the universality of conceptual
metaphor based on embodiment and the cultural variations in metaphor-
ical language use. For example, in her criticism of embodied realism within
CMT, Marina Rakova specically stated,
The claim that there are cognitively signicant cultural differences in
the conceptualization of spatial relations is incompatible with the nat-
uralistic stand that follows from the theory of image schemas.50
Zoltn Kvecses forcefully replied to this argument by noting that we
should not think of embodiment as a mechanical and automatic force
shaping conceptual metaphors (and conceptual systems in general) but as a
complex set of factors to which speakers can apply differential experiential
foci.51 Different cultures suggest different ways of experiencing events that
may lead to cultural variations in verbal metaphorical talk.
Still, critics have advanced different linguistic analyses to emphasize the
socio-cultural dimensions of metaphorical language use, which serve as a
major correction, to some, for CMT. For example, within the interdiscip-
linary world of metaphor scholarship, advocates of critical discourse
analysis (CDA) aim to highlight the socio-political-ideological functions
of metaphorical language use, often in contrast to the more presumed
cognitive motivations for metaphoric language.52 Much of this research
seeks to establish connections between cognition and metaphorical
language use as social practice. Within this approach, the analysis of

discourse not only uncovers important mental models and representations,
but also reveals how metaphor, among other linguistic devices, creates and
reproduces dominant social schemas.
For instance, Veronika Koller examined how metaphor within business
media discourse facilitates an aggressive, gender-biased working environ-
ment. Her analysis of merger and acquisition discourse showed that
metaphors referring to war, sports, and games were most frequent, but
still sometimes occurred along with metaphors related to marriage (e.g.,
MERGERS ARE MARRIAGES).53 These two conceptual metaphors seem
quite different, yet, according to Koller, marriage metaphors could be
euphemisms for rape metaphors.54 Consider the following example from a
news story titled A Marriage is Blessed: Its objections met, the FTC green-
lights Time Warners deal with Turner Broadcasting.
For 10 months, three men circled like prizeghters, lovers or vultures. . . .
Production married to distribution will allow a company to create . . .
new products for the digital age.
Note above how the metaphorical men are presented as dominant by
being agents of various processes, while metaphorical women mostly
represent affected entities (e.g., Germany is more fertile territory for
predators) (from another related news story).55 The use of certain meta-
phors, and their extensions, within business media discourse can be partly
explained in terms of the strong inuence that ideology has in the creation
of metaphorical ideas and language. Conceptual metaphors, such as
MERGERS ARE MARRIAGES, do not emerge simply from private, cogni-
tive minds, but are signicantly shaped by dominant ideologies, such as
seen in the above instances regarding male agency and female passivity.
Many source-to-target domain mappings in conceptual metaphors vary
depending on several socio-cultural factors. Lisa El Refaie studied the eco-
nomic metaphors employed in United Kingdom and Hong Kong discourse
and showed that both English and Chinese frequently employed bodily
movement metaphors (e.g., DOWN IS BAD and FORWARD IS GOOD),
all of which are variations of the more general conceptual metaphor THE
ECONOMY IS A LIVING ORGANISM.56 Nonetheless, the specic constru-
als of these metaphors differ across the two languages. English economic
metaphors exhibit more dynamic properties regarding bodily movement
than has been seen in the Hong Kong corpus (e.g., the economy took giant
leaps vs. the economy was in terrible shape). Moreover, economic meta-
phors in the United Kingdom focused more on the moving aspects of the
economy (e.g., plunging into a recession), compared to the greater focus

on locations within the Hong Kong corpus (e.g., The Hong Kong economy
will enter the low tide again). Finally, UK economic discourse often relies
on kinship metaphors, especially relating to marriage and divorce (e.g.,
increasingly divorced from the economies with which they are nominally
associated). Hong Kong discourse rarely employed marriage metaphors
and instead emphasized other kinds of relationships (e.g., the economy
and the politics always go hand in hand). These various differences in the
specic economic metaphors likely reect cultural preferences in the under-
standing of how bodily movement may be used in describing abstract
economic ideas. More generally, the hypothesis that complex metaphors
are more likely to be culture-dependent than primary metaphors (e.g.,
MORE IS UP, DIFFICULTIES ARE PHYSICAL BURDENS, KNOWING
IS SEEING) has been corroborated by several case studies.57 At the same
time, cognitive linguistic research shows that two languages may share a
conceptual metaphor, but that specic linguistic manifestations of these
metaphors can reveal subtle differences in the cultural-ideological back-
ground in which conceptual metaphors function. 58
One proposal that is critical of CMT claims that certain discourse
metaphors are quite different from conceptual, especially primary, meta-
phors given the formers tight linkages to socio-cultural, discursive situations.
A primary motivation for positing the existence of discourse metaphors
stems from the increasing interest in studies of metaphor in discourse, which
are clearly tied to the socio-cultural contexts in which they appear. To give
one example, the FRANKENFOOD metaphor arose when agricultural bio-
technology began to develop genetically modied (GM) foods in the 1990s.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, people immediately began thinking and talking of
GM-FOODS ARE FRANKENFOODS after Mary Shelleys Frankenstein
character. As consumer and environmental groups took on the ght against
GM-foods, the FRANKENFOOD metaphor rapidly spread to exert pressure
on governmental agencies to strongly regulate the production and distribu-
tion of these products. The metaphor was seen less frequently when the crisis
over GM-food abated in the 2000s. In general, metaphorical terms like
Frankenfood emerge within the social, cultural contexts in which they
function and not simply from purely conceptual metaphors.
A discourse metaphor is a relatively stable metaphorical projection
that functions as a key framing device within a particular discourse over a
certain period of time.59 For example, Joerg Zinken argued that meta-
phorical language may be best explained in terms of the local interactions
between the discourse participants, and not at the level of pre-existing
conceptual analogies or metaphors.60 Consider German speakers different

use of weg (i.e., path), and bahn (i.e., course) in metaphorical
contexts, with weg primarily referring to the effort used to attain goals,
while bahn refers to a pre-determined trajectory followed to reach some
metaphorical destination. Why do people employ these metaphorically
used words in different ways, despite their close similarity in basic mean-
ings? Zinken argued that closely similar words often have quite different
metaphorical functions because of specic formmeaning pairings negoti-
ated between speakers (i.e., conceptual pacts) in different conversational
interactions. Discourse metaphors, however, do not arise from habitual
analogies or conceptual metaphors per se.
Peoples conversational interactions are obviously important in the
ways words are used, metaphorically or otherwise, with participants some-
times clearly negotiating the way a word is to be used and understood in
specic situations. But nothing in Zinkens work actually explored the
details of peoples real conversational interactions or how various concep-
tual pacts were established for weg and bahn or any other vehicle
pairs studied. Zinken also limited his analysis to only so-called active
metaphors that required meta-lexical awareness as when an author
included a tuning device such as so to speak, or inverted commas.61
In this way, Zinken did not explore the full range of how any of the vehicle
terms he studied were more completely used in discourse. For these
reasons, Zinkens theoretical emphasis on conceptual pacts, and his neglect
of other possible constraints on metaphorical language use, misses a key,
intermediate level of analysis between abstract conceptual metaphors and
local discourse interactions.
Another project, using both an experimental study and a corpus
linguistic analysis, explicitly provided evidence for an intermediate level
of constraint on metaphor in terms of peoples imaginative, embodied
understandings of real-world artifacts. Marlene Johansson-Falck and
myself examined the ways the English words path and road are used
and possibly understood when used metaphorically.62 Read the two
statements below and consider whether path and road convey the
same metaphorical meaning.
(1) The Spaniard lost 108, 63, 26, and 86 to Charlie Pasarell in 1967.
And even if Agassi survives his rst test, his path to a second
successive nal is strewn with trip wire, with former champions
Boris Becker, Michael Stich top seed Pete Sampras and powerful
ninth seeded Dutchman Richard Krajicek all in his half of the draw.
(2) The learner who is well on the road to being a competent reader does
bring a number of things to the task, a set of skills and attributes
many of which are still developing. He or she brings good sight and
the beginnings of visual discrimination.
The word path seems appropriate in (1) because of the uneven nature
of Agassis journey toward winning the tennis match, while road seems
apt in (2) because the journey becoming a competent readers is well-
established, and one that many people have metaphorically travelled.
Do people understand path and road to be different when used as
metaphorical vehicles? We investigated this question by rst asking people
to form mental images for being on a road and being on a path. After
this, participants were given different questions and had to pick path or
road as the best answer to each one (e.g., Which is more likely to go
through problematic terrain?). People think of paths as being more
problematic to travel on, more up and down, more aimless in their
direction, something that you stop on more often, and something you
travel on foot signicantly more often than is the case for roads. On the
other hand, roads are viewed as straighter, wider, and paved, leading to a
specic destination, and something you drive along far more than is the
case for paths.
We next explored whether peoples intuitions about their embodied
experiences on paths and roads map onto their metaphorical uses of path
and road in discourse. In the second study, we selected a random sample
of 1000 uses of path and road from the British National Corpus (BNC),
and discovered that 284 of the path instances, and 49 of the road
instances were used metaphorically.
A closer analysis of the metaphorical target domains in the corpus
showed that there is a strong connection between the metaphorical uses
of path and road and peoples mental imagery for paths and roads.
For instance, the tendency for metaphorical uses of road to describe
peoples PURPOSEFUL ACTIVITIES/LIVES and POLITICAL/FINAN-
CIAL DEVELOPMENTS/PROCESSES is clearly in line with peoples
imaginative perceptions of the road as a more efcient means of trans-
portation than path. To someone who is eager to quickly reach a given
goal, travelling along a paved and straight road must be a better option
than travelling along an earthen path. Accordingly, the tendency to think
of paths as earthen artifacts on which we tread or walk makes path
more apt for structuring peoples experiences of COURSES OF ACTION/
WAY OF LIVING than road. Our manner of motion on an imaginary
path (i.e., we walk in a more haphazard fashion) is much closer to the

way we typically move around in our real lives (i.e., our lives are rarely
straight and fast) than is the case with road. Moreover, the imaginary
path, on which we sometimes stand, seems to better match the step by step
features of metaphorical paths in talk about complex COMPUTER/MATH-
EMATICS DEVELOPMENTS/PROCESSES.
Overall, peoples metaphorical uses of path and road are motiv-
ated by their imaginative, embodied understanding of these real-world
paths and roads, or in terms of what these artifacts afford. These data
are inconsistent with the claim that metaphor use is primarily deter-
mined by local discourse constraints. One lesson from the debate over
discourse metaphors is that we should not dismiss the relevance of
embodied conceptual metaphors in language unless we explicitly seek
to nd conceptual, and then possibly fail to do so. Peoples choice of
what to say metaphorically in discourse is motivated by several factors.
Still, it is clear that conceptual metaphorical knowledge provides a
crucial constraint on exactly how people speak and write metaphorically
in discourse.
does cmt ignore indeterminacy of

poetic understanding?
Cognitive linguists and others have claimed that conceptual metaphors
play a signicant role in peoples creation and interpretation of poetic
metaphor. Consider Robert Frosts poem The Road Not Taken, which
ends with the following stanza:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
This poem is one of the most widely discussed literary works in the
world of cognitive poetics. George Lakoff and Mark Turner argued that the
Frost poem evokes a general knowledge of life via the conceptual metaphor
LIFE IS A JOURNEY.63 Readers presumably infer the poets intentions in
part through their recruitment of this specic conceptual metaphor. As
Lakoff and Turner maintained, without a LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor,
there would be no explanation for . . . why we understand this passage to
be about life or why we reason about it as we do.64
Does CMT Ignore Indeterminacy of Poetic Understanding? 129
Some literary scholars complain, nonetheless, that CMT vastly

underestimates the complexities of literary meaning and interpretation.
For example, Reuven Tsur argued in a critique of Lakoff and Turners
analysis of The Road Not Travelled that, The proper response to
Frosts poem involves the uncertainty whether the image is metaphor-
ical or not. Readers of literature do not necessarily create a single
interpretation of a trope. The idea that any crossroads and journeys,
as in Frosts poem, demand a particular symbolic interpretation, such as
the evocation of the LIFE IS A JOURNEY conceptual metaphor, is a
conclusion that, for Tsur, becomes utterly trivial. A conceptual meta-
phor understanding of Frosts poem points out merely one possible
meaning in a wide range of images, and not necessarily the most
important one.
The primary difculty with the CMT analysis of the Frost poem,
according to Tsur, is that it is only concerned with comprehension, or
the moment-by-moment processes of creating an immediate under-
standing of the linguistic utterance. CMT ignores deferred conceptu-
alization that is often the focus of literary analysis through its primary
emphasis on the standard response or meaning for a literary work
(e.g., inferring that the LIFE IS A JOURNEY conceptual metaphor is
the meaningful basis of Frosts poem). According to Tsur, CMT
advances a theory with pre-established meanings that completely
ignores the indenite range of potential meanings emergent in different
contexts.
In a similar vein, Elena Semino and Gerard Steen also observed, While
cognitive metaphor theory in particular relates conventional metaphorical
patterns in a language to shared cultural and cognitive models, many
studies of metaphor in literature relate distinctive, idiosyncratic metaphor-
ical patterns in a writers works, a single text, or parts of a text to an
individuals particular cognitive habits, concerns, goals and worldview.65
Monika Fludernik, more generally, outlined a larger assessment of CMT
in regard to literary interpretation:
For literary critics, then, conceptual metaphor theory has been prob-
lematic on two accounts; one, universality or reductionism in oppos-
ition to textual specicity; and, two, its theoretical position regarding
the creativity or originality of metaphors. Traditional literary critics
insist on seeing metaphors as singular achievements in poetic creativity,
which opens a particularly direct access to a poets genius. Hence,
metaphor appears as the incarnation of creativity and aesthetic
achievement.66
James Swan offered a similar opinion:

Explaining metaphor as the activities of unconscious, basic-led schema
makes it difcult to account for the activity of a cultural subject acting
as an ethical, intuitive agent capable of judgment.67
My general response to these criticisms is that they simply misunder-

stand the aims of CMT. Nobody claims that conceptual metaphors offer a
complete account of how verbal metaphors are created and understood
either during the earlier moments of quick comprehension to long, reect-
ive acts of literary interpretation. However, conceptual metaphors offer a
signicant, enduring constraint on human meaning making. Consider, for
example, the poem by Christina Rossetti, titled Up-Hill.68
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the days journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.
Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.
Shall I nd comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall nd the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.
When discussing this poem in my book, The Poetics of Mind: Figura-
tive Thought, Language, and Understanding, many years ago, I wrote that
Rossettis words are intended to draw deeper comparisons between a days
journey and a persons life whereby the uphill road represents the course
we travel in life and the wayfarers inn the resting place after death.69
Although this general metaphorical theme, A LIFETIME IS A DAY, surely
provides part of the underlying motivating structure for the poem, Ros-
settis composition offers many more intricate understandings, including
questions as to whether death can hide the shelter, which is heaven, or if
there are other souls in death, which again is equated to night, and even.
if there will be rest and nality in heaven.70 We can also import some of
our knowledge about Rossetti, and her religious beliefs, to ask questions as
Are Cultural Models Partly Metaphorical? 131
to whether the implied narrator in Up-Hill may possibly be Jesus or God.

Still, each of these questions is parasitic with our conceptual metaphorical
interpretation of the poems general theme. Even if inferring conceptual
metaphors, along with their complex entailments, does not capture the
various meanings one can ascribe to any poem, conceptual metaphors,
once more, offer a critical constraint on our abilities to make sense of
poetic creations and respond to them in personal and aesthetic ways. As
Swan also noted, There is nothing to prevent a cognitive approach to
metaphor from joining a description of its systematic structure with
accounts of particular, situated acts of meaning.71 Many literary scholars,
working within the CMT framework, explicitly demonstrate how concep-
tual metaphors, at the very least, provide important meaning structures
upon which more elaborate, sometimes indeterminate, literary interpret-
ations may be understood (see Chapters 2 and 5).CMT has, nonetheless,
never been advanced as a complete theory of poetic understandings, or
even mundane, conventional ones either.
are cultural models partly metaphorical?

Doubts about whether conceptual metaphors are at the root of many
abstract concepts have also been raised in regard to our understanding of
culture. CMT claims that conceptual metaphors not only motivate peoples
use of linguistic metaphor, but also underlie larger cultural models shared
by speakers within different cultural communities. For example, George
Lakoff and Zoltn Kvecses outlined how cultural models for experiences
like anger are fundamentally structured in terms of metaphor.72 They
argued that the metaphors and metonymies associated with anger consti-
tute a cultural model for anger. One analysis of the metaphors and
metonymies in American English talk of anger gives rise to the following
cultural model for anger. This model is composed of ve temporally linked
stages that characterize how anger is provoked, expressed, and coped with.
1. Offending Event:
Wrongdoer offends self.
Wrongdoer is at fault.
The offending event displeases self.
The intensity of the offense outweighs the intensity of the retribution
(which equals zero at this point), thus creating an imbalance.
The offense causes anger to come into existence.
2. Anger
Anger exists.
The self experiences physiological effects (heat, pressure, agitation).

Anger exerts force on the self to attempt an act of retribution.
3. Attempt to control anger
The self exerts a counterforce in an attempt to control anger.
4. Loss of control
The intensity of anger goes above the limit.
Anger takes control of self.
The person exhibits angry behavior (loss of judgment, aggressive
actions).
There is damage to self.
There is danger to the target of anger, in this case, the wrongdoer.
5. Retribution
Self performs retributive act against wrongdoer (this is usually angry
behavior).
The intensity of retribution balances the intensity of offense.
The intensity of anger drops to zero.
Anger ceases to exist.
One piece of evidence in support of this model comes from the linguis-
tic but test. For example, the sentence He was angry, but he didnt lose
control sounds more natural than the sentence He was very angry, but he
lost control. This intuition is due to the fact that the conjunction but is
used to counter expectations. In this case, the expectation dictated by the
prototypical model would be that once we are very angry (stage 2), we tend
to lose control (stage 4). The but test can therefore be used to examine
the reality of this cultural model for anger.
How can metaphors create a cultural model for anger? Kvecses
asserted that a cultural model for anger emerges from a set of mappings
that characterize conceptual metaphors.73 Some metaphors play a cen-
tral role in dening a particular model for a concept. In the case of
anger, the central metaphor that provides structure to the model in a
variety of cultures is THE ANGRY PERSON IS A PRESSURIZED
CONTAINER. This conceptual metaphor gives rise to a variety of
mappings that critically dene our anger experiences. These mappings
include the reasonable inferences that the person who is angry experi-
ences the heat or pressure of the substance, that the intensity of anger
relates to the forceful substance in the container, that the anger is trying
to keep the forceful substance inside the container, and that explosion of
the substance out of the container refers to the involuntary expression
of the anger.
These mappings play a constitutive role in our folk understandings of

anger and its counterparts in different cultures. Without these metaphor-
ical correspondences (e.g., imposing the schematic structure of how the
force of a uid or gas behaves in a container onto anger), it is difcult to
see how anger and its counterparts could have acquired the structure they
possess. More generally, conceptual metaphors and metonymies systemat-
ically contribute to the structure and content of our prototypical cultural
models. As Kvecses argued, we can offer a satisfactory explanation of the
emergence of cultural models of emotions if we take into account the
possibly universal experiential basis of our emotion concepts, the concep-
tualization of this experiential basis by means of conceptual metonymies,
the conceptual metaphors that often derive from these metonymies, and
the broader cultural context.74
Critics have vigorously argued against the CMT account of cultural
models and aimed to rescue culture from metaphor. For example, Naomi
Quinn has analyzed many hours of discourse on the topic of marriage by
American couples and showed that there are only eight classes of meta-
phors underlying peoples talk of their marriages. These eight metaphors
referred to the following concepts:
Sharedness: I felt like a marriage was just a partnership. or Were
together in this together.
Lastingness: It was stuck together pretty good. or Its that feeling of
condence we have about each other thats going to keep us going;
Mutual benet: That was really something we got out of marriage. or
Our marriage is a very good thing for both of us.
Compatibility: The best thing about Bill is that he ts me so well. or
Both of our weaknesses were such that the other person could
ll in.
Difculty: That was one of the hard barriers to get over. or The rst
year of marriage was really a trial.
Effort: She works harder at our marriage than I do. or We had to
ght our way back almost to the beginning
Success or failure: We knew that it was working. or The marriage
may be doomed.
Risk: Therere so many odds against marriage. or The marriage was
in trouble.
The fact that the participants verbal metaphors in talking about
marriage can be reduced to eight distinct classes reects, in Quinns view,
which conceptual elements dene the single model of marriage held by
most Americans. For example, Americans expect marriage to be shared,

mutually benecial, and lasting. These expectations arise from the map-
ping of our cultural conceptions of love onto the societal institution of
marriage and the consequent structuring of marital expectations in terms
of the motivational structuring of love. People want to be with the person
they love and so expect marriage to be shared, they want to fulll the
loved persons needs and have their own needs fullled, they expect
marriage to be benecial to both participants, and they do not want to
lose the person they love and wish for that person to go on loving them.
Most importantly, according to Quinn, the verbal metaphors people use
to talk of their experience simply name parts of an underlying, non-
metaphorical cultural model. Metaphorical talk does not provide a direct
reection of how people actually think about their marriages. Consider the
following example from one participants discussion of marriage:
Accepting the differences that were there and that were going to, you
know, and that I would have to put up with some of the situations that
I didnt like and continue to until we had worked it out. But that
however long and stony a road it was, we had agreed to set out on it
and meet each small situation as it came.75
The long and stony road metaphor conveys something about the
difculty and lastingness of marriage. Quinn suggested that the speaker
adopted a particular verbal metaphor to highlight some non-metaphorical
thoughts already in mind, as opposed to being blindly led to his beliefs
given the previously unrecognized entailments of some conceptual meta-
phor (e.g., MARRIAGE IS A JOURNEY). Under Quinns view, journey
metaphors are quite popular to talk about marriage because they are
excellent cultural exemplars of a protracted activity having an ultimate
objective, beset with difculties that require effort to overcome, and that
can be undertaken with another person a cluster of factors that also
characterize marriage.76 Metaphors that can clarify many of the complex-
ities of concepts, such as marriage, will be most appealing and become
widely shared among speakers. In this way, metaphor does not constitute
how people grasp their marriages, but is simply a rhetorical device they use
when talking about different aspects of a non-metaphorical concept.
Consider also the following passage from Quinns interview with a male
participant about his marriage experience:
But it could be that the situation when we got married, that it was such
that we had lots of room to adjust. Because we didnt have any idea what
we were getting into. That gave us a lot of room to adjust. And by the
time we had been through the rst year we realized, you know, there
would have to be adjustments made. And a few years afterwards, when
things really got serious we were, you know, when the marriage was
strong, it was very strong because it was made as we went along, it was
sort of a do-it-yourself project.77
A conceptual metaphor analysis would claim that the chain of
reasoning underlying the husbands talk rests on an overlapping entail-
ment of two metaphors: MARRIAGE IS A CONTAINER (e.g., We had
no idea about what we were getting into) and MARRIAGE IS A MANU-
FACTURED PRODUCT (e.g., a do-it-yourself project). Although the
speaker starts out using one metaphor to make his point (i.e., the container
metaphor), he soon switches to another (i.e., the manufactured product
metaphor) to complete his momentary thoughts about marriage. On the
other hand, speaking metaphorically, like this, suggests to Quinn, that
people are not talking about a single, stable assemblage of ideas about
marriage. Instead, people use metaphor to momentarily illuminate differ-
ent parts of the completely non-metaphorical concept for marriage.
Quinns arguments against the metaphorical view of cultural experience
suffer from several problems. First, Quinn identies eight metaphors that
structure peoples marriage talk. But she summarizes these in entirely non-
metaphorical ways by calling them sharedness, lastingness, compatibility,
difculty, success or failure etc. Yet each of these concepts may be funda-
mentally understood via metaphor, such as our conceiving of sharedness
and compatibility in terms of different kinds of physical unity, difculty in
terms of physical progress, and success, or failure, in terms of physically
reaching specic destinations. Critics of CMT often resort to this rhetorical
substitution when they redene a metaphor into a more abstract linguistic
term and assume that the new term is not really understood via metaphor.
Second, it is by no means evident that people possess internally consist-
ent, stable mental representations for abstract concepts like marriage. The
fact that speakers often employ a variety of metaphors in talking about
marriage, sometimes switching quickly between tropes, does not imply that
these expressions only refer to parts of some non-metaphorical cultural
model. People use different metaphors, even within the same narrative,
because each verbal metaphor reects different aspects of their complex
metaphorical understanding of some experience. A persons cognitive
model for marriage may consist of various conceptual metaphors that
capture different aspects of their understanding of marriage such as com-
patibility, mutual benet, and marital lastingness. These metaphors may be
contiguously linked, perhaps as a kind of radial structure, yet these need

not be completely consistent with one another.
Imagine, for example, that I am thinking about my marriage. Several
metaphorical themes can help me do this, including the cross-domain
mappings of MARRIAGE IS A JOURNEY and MARRIAGE IS
A BUILDING, among many others. Both conceptual metaphors offer
concrete, even embodied, understandings for the abstract concept of mar-
riage. I may recruit either of these metaphorical concepts in different
contexts depending on my particular needs, such as when I sit and
consider whether or not I am satised with the present state of my
marriage. One metaphor, MARRIAGE IS A JOURNEY, highlights the
changing nature of marriage over time, with the people facing different
obstacles and making various choices on how to proceed as the marriage
continues. The JOURNEY metaphor also emphasizes how different cir-
cumstances shape the path that any marriage takes. On the other hand, the
MARRIAGE IS A MANUFACTURED BUILDING metaphor emphasizes
the stable nature of marriage and how the participants need to build a solid
foundation for their marriage as a more static entity. Adopting either of
these conceptual metaphors entails rather different consequences for me as
I evaluate the present status of my marriage and its possible future.
Conceptual metaphors serve intra-personal needs in enabling me to coord-
inate the various plans and goals that may be active at any moment in life.
If people really possessed an entirely non-metaphorical cultural model
of marriage and only used verbal metaphors to highlight different parts of
this model, we should expect people to use a tremendous variety of verbal
metaphors. Yet people dont talk about their marriages in just any manner.
For instance, people dont talk about their marriages in terms of mowing
the lawn, doing the laundry, reading books, going to the store, or mailing a
letter; they do talk about their marriages in terms of journeys, being in
good locations, and being balanced. The fairly limited range of conven-
tional metaphors that underlies peoples talk about marriage actually
reects the constraints of their metaphorical understandings of their vari-
ous marriage experiences.
None of this implies that peoples conceptual understandings of mar-
riages are totally metaphorical. Some of our conceptual understandings of
love, marriage, anger, and other abstract concepts may be non-
metaphorical, but a great deal of these abstract concepts appears to be
constituted by metaphor. We may be able as analysts to abstract away from
peoples metaphorical understanding of their experiences and provide a
detailed, idealized, even culturally sensitive model that appears
independent of metaphor. Still, the idealized, metaphorical model should

not be equated with what actually structures peoples in-the-moment
thinking about abstract concepts, even ones strongly infused with cultural
meanings.
The relationship between metaphor and culture is one of the most
widely debated topics in contemporary metaphor studies. Many studies
have shown, for example, that widespread primary metaphors, such as
UNDERSTANDING/KNOWING IS SEEING, may not be universal in
quite the way implied by some metaphor scholars. In fact, the presence
in various cultures of bodily based actions other than vision to conceptual-
ize how people understand objects, events, and concepts has led some to
propose that a better formulation of the primary metaphor is COGNI-
TION IS PERCEPTION, which avoids specication of the exact sense
modality.78 Nonetheless, even primary metaphors are not untouched by
cultural and environmental inuences.
Another way in which culture shapes metaphorical thinking and lan-
guage is seen in work on historical linguistics. Not only are there variations
in metaphorical language across contemporary cultures, verbal metaphors
often change over time within the history of a particular language. For
instance, Dirk Geeraerts and Caroline Gevaert conducted a historical
analysis of anger metaphors in Old English and other languages and
claimed that many of these could have arisen from a culturally based belief
in classic humoral theory, as opposed to universal conceptual metaphors.79
Humoral theory, which dates back to the ancient Greeks, maintained that
the human body was comprised of four humors: blood, phlegm, black bile,
and yellow bile. These humors have been applied to characterize different
human temperaments.
Consider, for instance, the following German idiom luft die Galle
ber, which literally states that someones gall/bile is overowing, and
guratively means that someone is getting very angry. A classic CMT
analysis would suggest that the gall is simply a container for the bodily
uid of anger (i.e., ANGER IS A HEATED FLUID IN THE BODILY
CONTAINER). But Geeraerts and Gevaert argued that the particular
German idioms here may actually be motivated by peoples pre-scientic
belief in the humoral theory, such that bile literally denotes the tempera-
ment of anger. Although the humoral theory is no longer valued, many
aspects of our contemporary metaphorical language, such as different
emotion metaphors, retain their historical roots. For this reason, the
existence of certain verbal metaphors for emotion may not be motivated
by embodied conceptual metaphors. As Geeraerts and Gevaert concluded,
(A)n exclusive focus on metaphorical conceptualizations (a fortiori, on

embodied metaphorical conceptualizations) is likely to distort the pic-
ture of actual cultural models at work. It is only by systematically
comparing the weight of the embodied and/or metaphorical conceptu-
alizations with the alternative ones that their true salience can be
assessed.80
I agree wholeheartedly with this methodological imperative. As with
other aspects of the metaphor wars, the ultimate answer in this debate may
lie in an expanded understanding of conceptual metaphors and how they
arise within experience. For example, Kvecses argued that variation in
metaphor across culture depends greatly on differential experiential
focus, in which people attend to different aspects of their bodies
depending on physical and cultural contexts.81 Many metaphor scholars
have embraced the general idea that all embodied metaphors are deeply
situated within culture, enough so that every conceptual metaphor is, to
some extent, inherently embodied.82 One vision of how this specically
works is offered by Iraide Ibarretxe-Antunano, in which she introduced the
notion of a cultural sieve.
This is dened as an active mediating device that makes our physical,
sensorimotor universal experiences shift through the complex and
socially acquired particular beliefs, knowledge, and worldview(s) intrin-
sic to belonging to one or several cultures. The cultural sieve is not a
passive element; it is not just a bunch of pieces of culture that add
contextual information to metaphor. The culture sieve has to be under-
stood as an active action in metaphor analysis. It manipulates culture
elements in two ways. On the one hand, it lters those elements that
are in accordance with the premises of a given culture, and on the other,
it impregnates the mapping with touches of a culture in contrast with
other cultural and social systems.83
I cite this particular paragraph because it is representative of the current
trend in metaphor research to view conceptual metaphors as closely linked to
cultural experience. It is simply inaccurate to criticize CMT for presumably
ignoring, or downplaying, culture in our experience and expression of
metaphor.
is mathematics metaphorical?
Mathematics is reputed to be the ideal case of disembodied thought. On
the surface, mathematics seems to reect highly abstract, transcendental
Is Mathematics Metaphorical? 139
ideas that have nothing whatsoever to do with poetic constructs like

metaphor. But George Lakoff and Raphael Nez, in their book Where
does mathematics come from? advanced the idea that many mathemat-
ical concepts are formed by two fundamental types of embodied meta-
phor: grounding metaphors and linking metaphors.84 Grounding
metaphors situate mathematical ideas in everyday embodied experience,
which allow us to conceptualize arithmetic operations in terms of
forming collections, constructing objects, or moving through space.
These metaphors preserve image-schematic structures so that inferences
about collecting, constructing, and moving are mapped onto the abstract
domain of arithmetic.
Consider some of the ways people talk about arithmetic:
A trillion is a big number.

How many 5s are there in 20?
There are four 5s in 23, and 3 left over.
How many times does 2 go into 10?
If 10 is on one side of the equation and 7 is on the other,
What do you have to add to 7 to balance the equation?
Lakoff and Nez contend that there is much systematicity in these

verbal expressions, which is motivated by two basic grounding metaphors,
referring to object collection and construction. These two conceptual
metaphors are presented below along with some of their important
entailments.
Arithmetic is Object Collection

numbers are collections of physical objects of uniform size
the mathematical agent is the collector of objects
the result of an arithmetic operation is a collection of objects
the size of the number is the physical size (volume) of the
collection
equations are scales weighing collections that balance
addition is putting collections together to form larger collections
subtraction is taking smaller collections from larger ones to form
other collections
multiplication is the repeated addition of collections of the same size a
given number of times
division is the repeated dividing up of a given collection with as many
smaller collections of a given size as possible
zero is an empty collection
Arithmetic is Object Construction

numbers are physical objects
arithmetic operations are acts of object construction
the result of an arithmetic operation is a constructed object
the size of the number is the size of the object
equations are scales weighing objects that balance
addition is putting objects together with other objects to form larger
objects
subtraction is taking smaller objects from larger objects to form other
objects
multiplication is the repeated addition of objects of the same size a
division is the repeated segmentation of a given object into as many
objects of a given smaller size as possible
zero is the absence of any object
These entailments, in particular, make a great deal of sense in terms of

the specic actions we engage in when doing arithmetic. Furthermore,
other linguistic expressions suggest differences between object collection
and construction, as seen in the following lists.
Object Collection
How many more than 5 is 8?
8 is 3 more than 5.
Object Construction
If you put 2 and 2 together, it makes 4.
What is the product of 5 and 7?
2 is a small fraction of 248.
A different grounding metaphor is ARITHMETIC IS MOTION, which
has the following entailments:
numbers are located on a path
the mathematical agent is a traveler along that path
arithmetic operations are acts of moving along the path
the result of an arithmetic operation is a location on the path
zero is the origin (starting point)
the smallest whole number (one) is a step forward from the origin
the size of the number of the length of the trajectory from the origin
to the location
equations are routes to the same location
Is Mathematics Metaphorical? 141
addition of a given quantity is taking steps in a given distance to the

right (or forward)
subtraction of a given quantity is taking steps in a given direction to
the left (or backward)
multiplication is the repeated addition of quantities of the same size a
division is the repeated segmentation of a path of a given length into
as many smaller paths of a given length as possible
Once more, everyday language illustrates the ARITHMETIC IS
MOTION metaphor, with statements such as the following.
How close are these two numbers?
37 is far away from 189,712.
4.9 is almost 5.
The result is around 40.
Count up to 20 without skipping any numbers.
Count backwards from 20.
Count to 100, starting at 20.
Name all the numbers from 2 to 20.
These examples show how a few conceptual metaphors underlie the
systematic talk of arithmetic and arithmetic operations. Lakoff and
Nezs book, along with further of their joint and individual publications,
greatly extends the above sort of arguments to explain the metaphorical,
and bodily, basis of many complex mathematical concepts.
As is seen in many aspects of the metaphor wars, several mathem-
aticians have taken issue with claims that mathematical ideas are, to a
signicant extent, related to embodied metaphorical thought. To take
just one instance of these criticisms, one mathematician published a
review of Where does mathematics come from?, which raised several
small complaints about the book, in addition to offering several posi-
tive comments. Still, the reviewer ended his review by stating the
following:
It may be that metaphors dont play a central role in formulating more
advanced mathematical concepts, or that if they do, they will need to be
of a different nature than those used on more elementary mathematics.
Mathematical concepts, once they develop, acquire a life of their own
and are dealt with directly. It is difcult for me to conceive of a
metaphor for a real number raised to a complex power, but if there is
one, Id sure like to see it.85
The statement that Mathematical concepts, once they develop, acquire

a life of their own and are dealt with more directly summarizes what
many scholars, from different disciplines, often believe when confronted
with evidence on the metaphorical nature of certain abstract knowledge.
Are conceptual metaphors only temporary scaffolds for what eventually
become non-metaphorical abstract understandings? This possibility
reects some peoples intellectual desires rather than empirical reality.
There is a large literature showing that scientists employ conceptual
metaphors when describing their solutions to different problems. For
example, students performance on solving math problems dramatically
improves once they are introduced to some of the metaphorical bases for
different math concepts.86 Some research even revealed that Ph.D. students
used conceptual metaphors ve times more often than did undergraduates
when solving different problems in thermodynamics.87 Conceptual meta-
phors were not devices that allowed people to attain mastery of difcult
science concepts which were then discarded once these concepts were
learned. Instead, novice students typically relied on formal physics rules
to solve problems but later relied on conceptual metaphors to a far greater
degree as they created more sophisticated understandings of thermo-
dynamic principles.88
The continued assertion that advanced knowledge of mathematics or
other scientic domains is inherently non-metaphorical may simply not be
true. At the very least, embodied conceptual metaphors provide both part
of the motivation for how mathematics comes into being and also, quite
critically, how sophisticated mathematicians engage in complex mathemat-
ical reasoning.
do conceptual metaphors emerge from language?

A related critique of CMT proposes that conceptual metaphors do not
emerge from human cognition, or from embodied experiences, but arise
entirely from verbal metaphors in discourse. For example, Daniel Sanford
argued that conceptual metaphors ultimately derive from the repeated use
of linguistic metaphor, and thus arise from communicative rather than
purely cognitive reasons.89 He observed that, the striking feature of
metaphor is not the productivity of conceptual metaphor far from it.
Rather the same words and expressions, with the same gurative meanings,
are repeated over and over. According to his usage-based account, called
Emergent Metaphor Theory (EMT), every instance of a linguistic meta-
phor is stored in long-term memory, with each example increasing in
Do Conceptual Metaphors Emerge From Language? 143
strength with greater frequency of use, and its proximity to other instances
depending on their degree of similarity.
More specically, different gurative expressions that indicate a specic
cross-domain mapping give rise to an emergent metaphorical schema.
Thus, the expressions Men are dogs, Shes a fox, John is a gorilla
all contribute to the creation of the metaphorical conceptual structure
PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS. As a person encounters further linguistic meta-
phors relevant to the PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS mapping, the schema
becomes strengthened, leading to speakers more frequent use of certain
verbal metaphors, and to listeners easier processing of their gurative
meanings. However, people may understand expressions such as John is
a gorilla without accessing the underlying conceptual schema, or concep-
tual metaphor, PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS, precisely because its gurative
interpretation is encoded as part of the conventional meaning for gorilla.
Sanfords position is one that various metaphor scholars have alluded to
in the past as a possible alternative to CMT.90 One of the great ironies
about CMT is its surprising neglect of the power of language to partly
shape peoples orientations to the world, including the strong inuence
that metaphorical language may have on the ways people ordinarily think.
Many conventional metaphorical concepts have surely been inuenced by
peoples exposure to, and use of, different verbal metaphors. This fact must
clearly be acknowledged and more thoroughly explored empirically in
contemporary metaphor research.91
Still, the idea that peoples use of verbal metaphor is either solely or
mostly responsible for the emergence of enduring metaphorical concepts
suffers from several major problems. First, why is it that people talk about
certain ideas and events in the specic metaphorical ways they do? Why do
people speak of impure thoughts and stain on our hearts when refer-
ring to immoral or unethical thoughts and behavior? Some metaphor
scholars assume that whatever historical motivations enabled certain meta-
phorical words and expressions to arise in language are not relevant to
contemporary speakers use of metaphorical language. Todays speakers
are presumed to have little explicit or tacit understanding of why verbal
metaphors typically have the meanings they do, simply because these are
historically obscure.
Of course, some metaphorical words and phrases have opaque mean-
ings, yet the important fact is that most do not. The enormous literature
from cognitive linguistics describes virtually hundreds of metaphorical
concepts, evident in a huge assortment of languages, which are partly
motivated, typically in terms of peoples ongoing bodily experiences.
Speakers use of impure and stain reect the inuence of ordinary

experience where people typically view things that are clean as being
healthy and good and dirty things to be unhealthy and bad, leading to
the existence of the primary metaphors GOOD IS CLEAN and BAD IS
DIRTY. Peoples frequent use of verbal metaphorical tokens increases the
salience of these primary metaphors, both in terms of their actual bodily
correlations, and their continued employment of certain metaphorical
language.
Even if the usage-based account tries to explain the existence of meta-
phorical concepts without reference to bodily experiences and other
experiential, non-linguistic factors, it never specically details what these
schemata are ever used for. Sanford acknowledges that there may be a
conceptual structure that governs the creation and use of specic meta-
phorical phrases. Emergent metaphorical schemas may be accessed to
derive certain metaphorical meanings, especially in unusual contexts. But
as Sanford also stated, The repeated use of a word or construction to
evoke a particular aspect of a source domain causes the form in question to
take on a degree of autonomy from its governing schema. For example,
the KNOWING IS SEEING schema may be activated when illuminate is
used to convey metaphorical meaning. Still, speakers dont need to use the
overall schema to reconstruct anew its metaphorical meaning every time
that the word is used or uttered in a gurative sense the word invokes a
direct connection between a particular concept within the source domain
(increasing lighting making something more visible) and a particular target
(making an idea more easy to understand).
These claims stand in stark contrast to the wide variety of psycholin-
guistic and neurolinguistic studies which show that peoples use and
understanding of different embodied metaphors actually recruit bodily
based concepts and sensorimotor based areas of the brain (see Chapter 5).
Together with the cognitive linguistic analyses of embodied metaphors, the
behavioral and neuroscientic evidence strongly implies that embodied
activity is not only critical to how certain linguistic tokens come into the
language, but also why certain metaphors continue to be employed and
understood as being meaningful to contemporary speakers.
A related difculty with the usage-based account of metaphorical con-
cepts is its inability to explain metaphor in non-linguistic expressions.
Much research now documents the extensive manner in which metaphor
pervades gesture, art, music, dance, and many other aspects of multimodal
performance and material culture (see Chapter 6). Bodily based conceptual
metaphors are not just evident in systematic patterns of language use, but
Metaphor in Politics, Business, and Illness 145
within many non-linguistic domains that express many similar metaphori-

cal concepts. Where do these non-linguistic metaphors come from? CMT
maintains that non-linguistic metaphorical expressions are motivated,
once more, by recurring patterns of bodily experience. It is again possible,
though, that frequent use of metaphoric tokens in language may have some
effect on the creation and continuous use of conceptual metaphors in non-
linguistic domains. At the very least, work on the non-linguistic expression
of conceptual metaphors must be explained in some manner by the usage-
based account if it is to succeed as an explanatory theory of metaphor.
Of course, one may argue that systematic patterns of linguistic meta-
phors would not really exist unless there were underlying conceptual
metaphors causing people to create, as a diachronic issue, and speak, as a
synchronic issue, in particular metaphorical ways. But the reality of human
experience suggests a more complex relationship between gures of
thought and gures of speech, such that metaphorical cognition and
communication are tightly coupled. Just as people speak metaphorically
because of recurring bodily and cultural experiences, so too do they think
metaphorically in specic ways, partly because of the guiding force of
metaphorical language. Rather than trying to claim that it must be either
metaphorical cognition leading to metaphorical communication or the
reverse, it is far more reasonable to construct theories of metaphor that
recognize the mutuality between thought and language (and between
bodily experience, thought, language, social, and cultural contexts).
agency and conceptual metaphorical thinking

One enduring, general complaint about CMT is that it pays little attention
to the importance of personal, communicative agency in the creation and
use of metaphorical language. CMT appears, to some, as a theory
demanding that people think in terms of conceptual metaphors and are
necessarily stuck with these specic metaphorical concepts. This criticism
is a signicant misunderstanding of the theory, because there is much
research showing the importance of social, communicative practices in our
conceptual metaphorical understanding of human life activities.
metaphor in politics, business, and illness

Politics is another domain that is a major battleeld in the wars over
metaphor. Similar to the debates over time and culture, scholars have
argued whether political metaphors reect underlying metaphorical
thought or are simple rhetorical devices for thinking about ideas that
are fundamentally non-metaphorical.
There is a long history of study on the role that metaphors play in
political discourse. Presidential politics is an almost constant theme in
American political life, and Fall 2015 represents a full-blown effort by many
Democratic and Republican candidates to replace President Barack Obama
when his term ends in early 2017. Consider one analysis of the public
debates among politicians running for the Republican nomination for
President and the challenge they will face in opposing the likely Demo-
cratic candidate Hilary Clinton:92
Preparing (to debate other candidates), may have a lot more to do with
the game plan itself rather than the particular issues. How can you know
what the game is?
Some games are obvious. Donald Trumps one-man show of coming
out swinging is clearly a boxing match. You might think the same of
Christie, but I have a hunch his game is Five-Card Stud. Ben Carson
keeps a poker-face and plays close to the chest. Jake Tapper, the dealer
(i.e., the moderator of several televised debates), might be preparing for
several of the candidates to be Blackjack players, but Carly Fiorina likely
is basing her game on Serena Williams and improving on that last
match. Jeb Bush, with the family castle to defend and the armies against
him, had best be good at chess. Only a fool would go to the roulette
table, so we will probably see a few of them do that. Other than that, its
a crap shoot.
To be ready to face Hillary Clinton, whichever candidate comes out of
these debates and primaries as the nominee ought to be brushing up on
bridge. Not only is Hillary a bridge builder, she plays the game . . . and
excels at it.
Bridge is a game of partners. No one develops partners like Hillary
Clinton does.
Bridge is Hillary Clintons signature game. The Republicans can prac-
tice any games they want to play with each other, but when it comes to
facing Hillary Clinton, if they do not hone their bidding and partnering
skills, Hillary Clinton will take every trick.
The verbal metaphors y fast and furious in this casual analysis of the
ongoing politics in seeking election to be the next US President. Each
candidate may be employing a specic strategy, or playing a different
game, in their attempt to obtain their respective partys nomination. This
analysis highlights both the diversity of ways that one can metaphorically
think about a topic and the important fact that our metaphorical choices
may have real consequences. After all, a candidate better be prepared to
acknowledge, and respond to, rivals different metaphorical styles if he or
she expects to win the November 2016 election.
George Lakoff has forcefully argued that conceptual metaphors are at
the heart of political debates. In one early essay, titled Metaphor and war:
The metaphor system used to justify war in the Gulf from 1992, Lakoff
wrote about then President Bushs metaphorical beliefs about Saddam
Hussein.
Metaphors can kill. The discourse over whether we should go to war in

the gulf is a panorama of metaphor. . . The President (George Bush)
says that the US is in the gulf to protect freedom, protect our future,
and protect the innocent, and that we must push Saddam Hussein
back. Saddam is seen as Hitler. It is vital, literally vital, to understand
just what role metaphorical thought is playing in bringing us to the
brink of war.93
Lakoff argued, more specically, that there were two central metaphors
advanced by President Bush in his speeches which underlay many of his
arguments for going to war in the Gulf THE STATE IS THE PERSON
and JUST WAR IS A FAIRY TALE. These two metaphors constitute our
basic understanding of relationships and war among nations. Indeed, it is
hard not to use this system when thinking about issues in international
politics. Like most conceptual systems, it is largely unconscious and auto-
matic and is not seen as metaphorical.
In later writings, Lakoff proposed that the conceptual metaphor THE
NATION IS A FAMILY plays a critical role in structuring political dis-
course.94 Conservative politicians in the United States adopt the strict
father model of the family, which assumes that stern discipline is neces-
sary to educate family members. This implies that there should not be a
welfare program or other governmental support because this will not train
family members to be independent and self-sufcient. Liberal politicians,
on the other hand, embrace the nurturant parent model of the family by
which family members grow through love, empathy, and caring. This
metaphorical view leads to advocacy for government programs that help
family members, or citizens.
Steven Pinker has offered a vigorous critique of Lakoffs arguments
about politics and the idea that metaphors underlie abstract thought. He
claimed that debates over politics, and, more broadly, the nature of
objective truth and rationality, are not just contests between competing
metaphors, as Lakoff appears to embrace in his writings on American
political discourse. For example, Pinker concluded in his book The Stuff
of Thought, that
Lakoffs theory of conceptual metaphor is a lollapalooza. If he is right,
conceptual metaphors can do everything from overturning twenty-ve
hundred years of misguided reliance on truth and objectivity in West-
ern thought to putting a Democrat in the White House.95
Pinkers main rebuttal was that people effectively transcend the meta-
phors implicit in their language.96 He proposed that people are quite
capable of ignoring verbal metaphors in discourse, and can, on other
occasions, analyze which parts of a metaphorical mapping may be relevant
to a situation and which are not. Lakoffs theory is, according to Pinker, a
condescending and cynical theory of politics, implying that average people
are indiscriminately gullible and that political debate cannot and should
not be about the actual merits of policies and people.97 Furthermore, even
if conceptual metaphors are an essential tool of rhetoric, ordinary conver-
sation, and thought itself . . . this doesnt mean that people are enslaved by
their metaphors or that the choice of metaphor is a matter of taste or
indoctrination.98 Most notably, Rival framings can be examined and
evaluated, not just spread by allure or imposed by force.99
Do people have the ability to ignore or reject the conceptual metaphors
by which they often think about abstract concepts? Of course they do!
Research on CMT has uncovered a vast number of conceptual metaphors
that have long shaped the ways people think about abstract topics, includ-
ing political ones. Yet people are often unaware of the metaphorical
foundations for many of their ideas, which is one reason why CMT has
been such an eye-opener in the worlds of both metaphor studies and
cognitive science. Still, CMT has never suggested that the metaphors we
live by are unchangeable, only that much of our thinking is fundamentally
metaphorical, a fact that often has direct consequences for the nature of
our beliefs and the actions we take. Pinker is surely right that many people
possess the skills to think hard about dominant metaphors in talking about
a specic topic, including politics. Indeed, Lakoff and others have explicitly
aimed to alert people to metaphorical thought patterns that underlie
political discourse and, in some cases, to facilitate the adoption of different
metaphors which may have a direct impact on policy.
Consider, for example, a debate over which conceptual metaphor is
best to think of an important political concept. Back in 1990, US Senator
John Heinz and US Trade Negotiator Carla Hills engaged in a heated

debate over possible US trade sanctions against the Japanese government.
Heinz, who was greatly critical of Japan, embraced the idea that inter-
national trade is a war and suggested that Japan was engaged in industrial
targeting.
Our real problem is not access to Japans markets but Japans destruc-
tion of ours. Were erecting tombstones over US industries semicon-
ductors, machine tools, robotics, computers targeted for extinction by
Japanese government-business collaboration. Our high-tech economy is
looking more like an industrial graveyard.100
On the other hand, Hills pushed for new negotiations with Japan and
adopted the TRADE IS A JOURNEY metaphor:
Down one path lie closed markets and gravely diminished prosperity.
Down the other lie open markets, expanded trade and economic
growth. Through our policy of global and individual negotiations, and
use of our new trade laws, we are determined to walk the path of
prosperity.101
Contrastive metaphors, like TRADE IS WAR and TRADE IS JOUR-

NEY, are often at the center of political debates, as well as many other types
of conicts (e.g., business, interpersonal relationships, illness). The fact that
we have these debates, and argue the merits of different metaphorical
concepts for abstract ideas, is excellent testimony to the exibility of
conceptual metaphorical thinking in everyday life.
Conceptual metaphors are now widely recognized as essential features
of how people understand organizations and engage in organizational
change processes. One proposal argues that there are four basic metaphors
for organizational change: repair processes/mechanic (x and maintain);
trainer/coach (build and develop); guide/explainer (move and relocate);
and liberator/visionary (liberate and recreate).102 One analysis of her lead-
ership discourse revealed several pertinent conceptual metaphors.103 For
example, one business leader described his role in the following way:
A successful business must have the right person at the helm. I must
navigate this company through the storm. We need direction, so I need
to know which way the wind is blowing.
After giving his overall view of his leadership role, the man was asked
several specic questions, each of which were intended to better under-
stand the leaders perspective. These inquiries included:
1. Did the leader feel alone at the helm?

2. Was his crew engaged in the sailing of the business?
3. How did he nd out which way the wind was blowing?
4. Was the storm a result of competition, the regulatory environment,
economic environment, or internal turmoil?
Answering these questions enabled the leader to better understand his
metaphorical perspective and to switch metaphors (e.g., A BUSINESS IS
A FAMILY) when appropriate for particular business situations (e.g.,
dealing with employees). Changing conceptual metaphors is not only
possible, but sometimes necessary when people strive to meet different
adaptive challenges.
Another arena in which the battle over metaphors is quite erce is
within studies of health communication. Many scholars and physicians
agree that metaphor can help patients impose order on a suddenly dis-
ordered world. For physicians, metaphors serve as time-efcient tools for
helping patients understand complex biological processes, which is one
reason why physicians often describe illness and the treatment of illness in
terms of waging war. One cancer patient, Cornelius Ryan, who was the
author of many war novels, adopted this perspective as seen in a letter he
once wrote to a close friend about being diagnosed with metastatic prostate
cancer:
About the best I can say is that I feel as though a half-track has rolled
back and forth across my stomach non-stop for several days. I have a
neat tattoo of the entire beachhead right across my abdomen. . . The
attack was successful, although I am expecting a counterattack any
moment from all sides, if any more of these nodes are malignant.
Notwithstanding, I have surrounded myself by barbed wire, land
mines, and several squads of infantry, and we are ready to take on
all comers.104
As with all metaphors, the WAR metaphor has important limitations,
and is often rejected by patients as inappropriate for their own struggles.
Susan Sontag famously criticized the war metaphor for cancer and blamed
health care professionals for the silent acceptance of these ideas:
There is the ght or crusade against cancer; cancer is the killer
disease; people who have cancer are cancer victims. . . Cancer cells do
not simply multiply; they are invasive . . . Cancer cells colonize from
the original tumor to far sites of the body. Rarely are the bodys
defenses vigorous enough to obliterate a tumor that has established
its own blood supply. . . Patients are bombarded with toxic rays.105
Sontag went on to argue that The metaphors and myths . . . make

people irrationally fearful of effective measures such as chemotherapy,
and foster credence in thoroughly useless remedies such as diets and
psychotherapy.106 Patients sometimes voice dismay with the WAR meta-
phor for its implied suggestion that winning the war (defeating the cancer)
depends on ghting hard enough and that the metaphor ignores the
existential, psychological, and social facets in their experience of cancer.
One patient with colon cancer, who was a Vietnam War veteran, stated in
this context: The standard comparison of cancer as a war to be fought a
battle with cancer was less than palatable. I had already experienced real
war in Vietnam and was not anxious to repeat anything closely resembling
that.107
Journey metaphors are frequently embraced by patients precisely
because this opens up discussion about their own goals, directions, and
progress, with physicians serving as trusted guides rather than as authori-
tative generals in a war scenario.108 Many other metaphors for illness are
created by patients, referring to source domains like chess matches, a
monster, a dream, and a dance. As one patient wrote in his own protest
against the WAR metaphor:
Doctors, I think, dont get the nuts and bolts. I have to look at my
whole life, not just the disease, but my family, my job, my nances, my
psyche. What concerns me, then, when the patient loses the battle,
then they (the physicians) withdraw, they turn it over to someone else,
and the patients left ghting the rest of the war by themselves and
I want them to stick there, all the way to the end. Just because were
going to lose the war, doesnt mean that everyone has to leave the
eld.109
This patients metaphorical vision of his illness placed cancer into the
wider context of his lifes journey, which may enable them to cope better
with the disease. Lance Armstrong, the once famous cyclist, once wrote
about his own cancer experiences and talked about in a way that made
most sense given his own life when he began to positively respond to
chemotherapy:
I had opened up a gap on the eld. I knew that if I was going to be

cured, that was the way it would go with a big surging attack, just like in
a race. . . [the tumor markers HCG and AFP] . . . were my motivator,
my yellow jersey. . . I began to think of my recovery like a time trial in
the Tour [de France]. . . I wanted to tear the legs off cancer, the way
I tore the legs off other riders on a hill.
All these examples highlight the fact that the metaphors we live by are
not necessarily dictated to us in ways that are unchangeable. People can
resist dominant metaphorical concepts and come to discover alternative
conceptual metaphors that better meet with our needs and goals. Even if
we live by metaphors to a signicant degree, our adoption of different
metaphorical concepts is not xed. Indeed, one of the great pleasures in life
is to come to new metaphorical realizations about ourselves and the world
in which we live.110
Pinkers critique of CMT did not end with his misunderstandings about
the exibility of conceptual metaphorical thinking. He more boldly argued:
Thinking cannot trade in metaphors directly. It must trade in a more

basic currency that captures the abstract concepts shared by the
metaphor and its topic progress toward a shared goal in the case
of journeys and relationships, conict in the case of argument and
wars while sloughing off irrelevant bits.111 Conceptual metaphors can
be learned and used only if they are analyzed into more abstract
elements like cause, goal, and change which make up the cur-
rency of thought.112
Pinkers complaint ignored the fact that many conceptual metaphors

are grounded in image schemas. Image schemas can generally be dened as
dynamic analog representations of spatial relations and movements in
space. For instance, our BALANCE image schema emerges through our
experiences of bodily equilibrium and disequilibrium and of maintaining
our bodily systems and functions in states of equilibrium. The BALANCE
image schema supports the understanding of literal expressions such as
He balanced the weight on his shoulder and is metaphorically elaborated
in a large number of abstract domains of experience (e.g., psychological
states, legal relationships, formal systems), as seen in expressions like He
was psychologically imbalanced and The balance of justice.113
Image schemas have an internal logic or structure that determines the
roles these schemas can play in structuring various concepts and in
patterns of reasoning. It is not the case that a large number of unrelated
concepts (for the systematic, psychological, moral, legal, and mathematical
domains) all just happen to make use of the same word balance and
related terms. Rather, we use the same word for all these domains because
they are structurally related by the same sort of underlying image schemas,
and are metaphorically elaborated from them. In this way, many aspects of
metaphorical meaning are image-schematic in nature and therefore are
experientially grounded.
Competing Visions of Metaphorical Thought 153
Finally, one of the great ironies in Pinkers criticisms of CMT is that the
very concepts he believes must be at the root of human cognition, such as
cause, goal, and change, are really understood as embodied primary meta-
phors (e.g., CAUSATION IS A PHYSICAL FORCE, GOALS ARE DES-
TINATIONS, and CHANGE IS MOTION)! The embodied metaphorical
foundation of what many believe are semantic or conceptual primitives
offers another reason to view human cognition as fundamentally struc-
tured in terms of conceptual metaphors. As noted in earlier chapters, many
facets of both linguistic meaning and abstract thinking emerge from our
bodily capacities and abilities to metaphorically project these experiences
to create concrete understandings of abstract cognition. One rule of thumb
that perhaps all language scholars should embrace, in this regard, is to not
immediately assume that some meaning or concept is non-metaphorical
unless its possible metaphorical foundations have been rst empirically
investigated.
competing visions of metaphorical thought

CMT has had a major inuence on metaphor theory, in part because it has
led to new, alternative proposals on the nature of metaphorical thought,
language, and communication. For example, critics have complained that
most conceptual metaphor analyses embrace a top-down strategy in which
a metaphor analyst rst examines some discourse, identies metaphorical
expressions, and then determines the underlying conceptual metaphor
partly through recall of conceptual metaphors inferred from other analyses
of discourse from the same domain. This method stands in contrast to a
bottom-up strategy in which an analyst aims to identify a specic concep-
tual metaphor from only the local discourse context being examined.
A bottom-up approach does not, therefore, assume that some conceptual
metaphor must be at work simply because that same mapping had been
identied for similar languages in other contexts.
One proposal that adopts a bottom-up perspective claims that it is
possible to specify potential cross-domain mappings in ve steps. Gerard
Steen argued that a propositional analysis, similar to that employed by
psychologists studying text comprehension, can readily be applied to
infer specic cross-domain mappings.114 The ve steps include identica-
tion of:
1. metaphorical focus
2. metaphorical idea
3. non-literal comparison
4. non-literal analogy
5. metaphorical mapping
The rst step aims to identify the metaphorical focus where the term
focus follows Blacks terminology where a metaphorically used word
compared to a literal focus. In Step 2, metaphor idea identication expands
on the metaphorical focus. The third step, non-literal comparison, details
the source and target domain comparison through which some similarity
may be exhibited. Step 4, non-literal analogy, lls in the specics of the
open comparison to create a completed, determinate metaphorical ana-
logy. This analogy consists of two references to their states of affair via
their implicit propositions. Finally, Step 5 identies the metaphorical
mapping.
Elena Semino, John Heywood, and Mick Short applied Steens ve-
step procedure to selected examples from a corpus of conversations
between patients and physicians about cancer.115 Consider one segment
from a cancer patient reporting something she said earlier to a
doctor.116
So I mentioned to him last time, I went; I said come on thats nearly
double, galloping away; he said oh no its the way they measured it.
The words galloping away, refer to the speed of the cancers develop-
ment. Semino and colleagues analyzed this metaphor in the following
manner.
Step 1: galloping away metaphorical focus

Step 2: P1 (GALLOP-AWAY CANCER)
Step 3: (GALLOP-AWAY (EF) (Ey { sim (f (CANCER), GALLOP-AWAY (y)]}
CANCER)
Step 4: (GALLOP-AWAY (EF) (Ey { SIM [DEVELOP FAST (CANCER);
CANCER) GALLOP-AWAY (HORSE))]}
Step 5: Either
FAST DEVELOPMENT OF CANCER IS GALLOPING AWAY

The cancer corresponds to a horse.
The speed of development of cancer corresponds to the horses speed
when galloping.
The body corresponds to the ground on which the horse moves.
or
Cancer is a Horse
The speed of development of cancer corresponds to the speed of the
horses movement.
The fast development of cancer corresponds to the horse
galloping away.
The body corresponds to the ground on which the horse moves.
There are several things to note about this explication of the metaphor-
ical meaning for galloping away in reference to cancer. First, Step
2 represents the inference that galloping away referred to the cancer.
Step 4 used the phrase developing fast as the literal paraphrase of
galloping away, although other phrases like grow unchecked, spread
very fast, or develop out of control could have worked too, perhaps with
slightly different implications for the metaphorical correspondences deter-
mined in Step 5. Finally, Step 5 offers the possible conceptual metaphor
that may underlie the use of galloping away, both of which conforms to
key correspondences between CANCER and HORSE. More generally, the
ve-step procedure enables analysts to both describe metaphorical thought
in source and target domains as explicitly mentioned in a text, and
metaphorical ideas in which either the source or target domains must be
inferred.
One difculty with this proposal is that it aims to provide a completely
bottom-up analysis of metaphorical mappings for individual verbal meta-
phors. But analysts may be using tacit conceptual metaphors when
determining the actual mappings, as in Steps 4 and 5. For example, there
may be a superordinate conventional metaphor CANCER IS AN
ANIMAL that has HORSE and (HIBERNATING) ANIMAL as basic-
level categories, which give rise to the submapping CANCER IS
A HORSE and CANCER IS A HIBERNATING ANIMAL. People may
very well quickly infer these different conceptual metaphors when
encountering a verbal metaphor in the context of the cancer galloping
away discussion. The research from experimental psycholinguistics cer-
tainly supports this possibility (see Chapter 5). Metaphor scholars may be
making judgments about the metaphorical mappings underlying verbal
expressions and may be inuenced by their unconscious recruitment of
conceptual metaphors, even if they maintain that their analyses are
immune from other conceptual metaphor mappings.117
A different approach to inferring metaphorical thought is the theory of
metaphorical scenarios. Andreas Musolff argued that a main metaphor-
ical domain such as JOURNEY contains many subdomains or
submappings (e.g., travelers, modes of travel, destinations) that separately

construct different aspects of the JOURNEY domain. These subdomains
collectively form a metaphorical scenario that reects a persons under-
standing of the main metaphorical domain JOURNEY. A metaphorical
scenario is specically dened as, a set of assumptions made by competent
members of the discourse community about typical aspects of . . . situ-
ations, for example, its participants and their roles, the dramatic storylines
and outcomes, and conventional evaluations of whether they count as
successful, unsuccessful, normal, or abnormal, permissible, or illegitimate,
etc. These scene-based assumptions are mapped . . . onto the respective
target concepts.118
Metaphorical scenarios capture a signicantly broad range of know-
ledge regarding different source domains, more so than is typically
acknowledged within CMT. For example, the source domain of JOURNEY
in the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY is not a barren, image-
schematic structure referring to SOURCEPATHGOAL, but a more
complex scenario regarding peoples beliefs and varying experience about
the socio-cultural nature of journey-taking experiences.
Musolff conducted a large-scale analysis of how Europe and the European
Union (EU) are described by the European press and found that authors
consistently refer to and elaborate upon different metaphorical scenarios. For
example, consider the following newspaper description of the roles that
Germany and France had in one economic project within the EU:
In the long gestation of Europes Economic and Monetary Union

conceived in Maastricht 1991, to be delivered in Frankfurt 1999 it
suddenly seems likely this week that the anxious parents, Germany and
France, are expecting a soft baby euro.119
This excerpt illustrates how different entailments of the metaphorical

concept A NATION IS A FAMILY underlie talk about Germany and
Frances role in the EU economic project. More specically, Germany
and France are depicted as marriage partners who are the parents of a
child (the EU project). People frequently understand a great deal about a
source domain, such as FAMILY, which may be exploited for different
rhetorical purposes.
To take another example, a 1996 newspaper article observed about the
EU:
The reality behind the will they wont they, pre-nuptial dances among
aspirant members of Europes monetary union club is that as long as
the . . . economic slowdown doesnt turn into a gull-blown recession the

project will probably go ahead.
Once again, specic subdomain knowledge regarding families and

marriages has been used to better understand the complexities of EU
economic strategy. Two other examples also highlight the MARRIAGE
subdomain of the FAMILY metaphor:
The economic marriage that the eleven partners are about to embark
upon would have needed a longer engagement period. That was not to
be. Lets hope this marrying in haste does not lead to regrets at leisure.
While Europeans from 11 other countries celebrated the birth of a single

European currency, an ICM poll found Brits unmoved by the euros
launch.
It may be unusual for a marriage to include the union of eleven
partners, but the birth of a baby of multiple parents that underlies these
examples serves as the source input to a blended conceptual space.120
More generally, metaphorical scenarios may be a necessary complement
to the study of source domains and of domain-mappings in metaphorical
language use.121
Another alternative to CMT also emphasizes the importance of rich source
domain information in metaphorical thought and language. John Barnden
has argued that peoples reasoning about source and target domain mappings
extends beyond the single conventional parallel mappings typically seen in
CMT.122 There are other non-parallel systems operating concurrently with
conceptual metaphors, such as affective and socio-cultural factors, which
critically shape how people create and understand particular tropes. Under
this view, many metaphors in discourse obtain their meanings less from
systematic parallel mappings from source to target domain (i.e., the invariance
hypothesis), and more from compensatory within source domain reasoning.
For example, consider the metaphorical expression We are driving in
the fast lane on the freeway of love. This novel metaphor is partly
motivated by the underlying conceptual metaphor LOVE RELATION-
SHIPS ARE JOURNEYS, which gives rise to various source-to-target
mappings including the idea that the lovers are traveling in a vehicle
together. But people typically interpret this novel metaphor as suggesting
that the lovers are in the vehicle together and experiencing great emotional
excitement during this part of the journey, possibly because of the speed in
which they are moving on the fast lane of a freeway. These ancillary
assumptions about the nature of the love journey alluded to by this novel
metaphor are not specic to the particular conceptual metaphor at work

here, namely LOVE RELATIONSHIPS ARE JOURNEYS. For this reason,
ancillary assumptions, called value neutral mapping adjuncts (VNMAs)
help create lower-order submetaphors related to peoples reasoning about
source domains. More specically, VNMAs are non-parallel adjuncts that
relate tacit social and cultural knowledge to conceptual metaphors.
This analysis points to the possibility that many metaphors arise not
from source-to-target domain parallelism, but from extensive, contextually
driven source domain inferences. Consider the following excerpt from the
Nick Hornsby novel High Fidelity.123
I tried not to run down Phil too much I felt bad enough as it was what
with screwing his girlfriend and all. But it became unavoidable because
when Jackie expressed doubts about him, I had to nurture those doubts
as if they were tiny, sickly kittens, until eventually they became sturdy,
healthy grievances with their own cat-aps, which allowed them to
wander in and out of our conversation at will.
How do we understand the creative use of metaphor in this example,

where grievances were rst conceived of as sickly kittens, and soon
became healthy with their own cat-aps? Consider the case of cat-
aps, which generally conveys the idea that the grievances about the
boyfriend could freely enter the conversation as a kitten may enter and
leave a house at will through the cat-ap doors. There does not seem to be
a single source-to-target domain mapping between cat-aps and the idea of
freely talking about the boyfriends problems. Instead, cat-aps contribute
to the further development of the source domain of grievances as kittens,
or cat-like entities, and they provide a richer scenario for thinking about
the grievances as kittens, with their own free will.
Even if people initially attempt to establish clear source-to-target domain
mappings for interpreting creative metaphors, people may fail to draw these
inferences, and still extract additional information from the source domain
(i.e., all things related to kittens and their behaviors) to create contextually
relevant interpretations of the metaphors. More importantly, though, the
ubiquity of non-parallelism in metaphor, both conventional and novel, also
suggests that understanding metaphorical language is not a matter of nding
some independent meaning for each and every bit of target domain meaning.
Whenever a metaphorical view of some topic is provided, as in the Hornsby
passage, only some of the word choices may have direct relations to the target
domain, with others acting to ll out, often in creative ways, our understand-
ing of the source domain. As Barnden correctly, in my view, concluded:
Context opportunistically selects which aspect of a source-domain

scenario ends up being mapped or transferred to the target domain,
and thereby when metaphorical sentences or parts of sentences end up
with target-domain meanings of their own, leaving other related meta-
phorical chunks merely to contribute toward building the source
scenario.124
Similar to many other critics, Jonathan Charteris-Black contended that
CMT too often ignores the rhetorical, ideological motives for peoples
metaphorical language use. He has offered a variation of the theory, called
critical metaphor analysis (CMA) that combines three different aspects
of metaphor analysis corpus linguistics, CMT, and critical discourse
analysis. Most generally, the aim of CMA is to broaden the scope of
metaphor analysis to acknowledge the ideological, social, and political
forces that directly inuence peoples choices of metaphorical words in
context.
CMA rst searches texts, such as for example those produced by
politicians, journalists, and religious leaders, for instances of metaphorical
language. The guiding criterion for linguistic metaphor is the presence of
incongruity in semantic terms either at linguistics, pragmatic, or concep-
tual levels resulting from a shift in domain use.125 Metaphors used
frequently are viewed as conventional metaphor, which are the primary
focus of Charteris-Blacks analysis, as these more directly reect different
rhetorical and ideological strategies.
The metaphorically identied words are then searched for in a larger
corpus to examine their more typical meanings. For example, after the
9/11 attacks in the United States, President Bush talked of the nation
having to engage in a crusade against terrorism. When the keyword
phrase crusade against is searched within a larger corpus, various
collocates are readily found, such as slavery, each of which conveys a
negative evaluation of the discourse topic. From this, one may infer that
Bushs statement provides evidence of the POLITICS IS RELIGION
conceptual metaphor, which is related to the CONFLICT IS RELIGION
metaphor implicit in many of Osama Bin Ladens earlier comments.
Charteris-Black argues that the general shift toward religious metaphors
in political discourse leads to the inference that some political state-
ments should be interpreted as incontrovertible religious texts. Studies
like this, again, hope to elicit some of the social forces that motivate
metaphorical talk.
Lynn Camerons research also aims to situate metaphorical language
within the very specic conversational contexts in which verbal metaphor
arises. She conducts metaphor analyses by working inductively from the

data rather than assuming that particular conceptual metaphors are active
when a speaker produces a related linguistic metaphor. Metaphor perform-
ance is typically manifested through successive metaphor sources that shift
and develop as people negotiate meaning, extend their ideas, or exploit
potential opened up by the use of a source term.
Consider again the following excerpt from the reconciliation conversa-
tions, discussed in Chapter 3, between Jo Berry and Patrick Magee. Once
more, Jo and Pat had talked earlier about their coming together for a
reconciliation meeting, using similar JOURNEY metaphors to those
seen below.
644 Pat ...(1.0) 1984,

645 when your father was killed,
646 or when I killed your father,
647 ... when the republican movement killed your father.
648 ...(3.0) er,
649 my journey,
650 ...(1.0) preceded that you were catapulted into this struggle.
651 ... I think,
652 er,
653 ...(1.0) my journey preceded that.
654 ...(1.0) but,
655 ...(1.0) our journey began that moment.
656 ... and here we are.
657 ... today.
658 sixteen years later.
659 seventeen years later.
660 ...(1.0) its quite a remarkable journey.
661 I think.
662 er,
663 Jo ...(2.0) you
664 Pat [er]
665 Jo [you] said that,
666 ...(2.0) the price that er
667 ... you paid,
668 for taking up violence,
669 was part
670 ... partly losing some of your humanity.
671 Pat ... hmh
672 Jo ... and that now youre .. rending that.
673 ...(1.0) through .. other meetings with
674 ...(1.0) ehm,
675 other victims,
676 and loyalists,
The journey source was used previously in the talk to refer to Jos effort to
understand her fathers murder and, in the above excerpt, is successively
re-used and adapted to refer to two further ideas, namely Pats early history
of politicization and the process of both meeting for these reconciliation
dialogues.
The question, though, is whether or not these varied uses of metaphor
sources, in this case revolving around the idea of journey are driven by
the activation of some pre-stored conceptual metaphor, such as LIFE IS
A JOURNEY. Cameron argued that the micro-level shifts and changes in
the dynamics of linguistic metaphor, as seen above, concretely demonstrate
the emergence of metaphor in discourse interaction as an inherently social
affair. Conventional metaphors do not have similar meanings in different
contexts, but are dynamically re-created depending on the specic histories
of the participants at the very points in which their talk unfolds. There is
never a neutral position to which the cognitive system retreats after each
use of a metaphor source, because each word is spoken in an always
changing dynamic context that constrains what words, and metaphors,
will come next. For this reason, conceptual metaphors may be better
characterized as emergent stabilities, termed systematic metaphors, that
become actualized as people solve different problems for themselves and
coordinate their actions with others.126
Camerons alternative vision of metaphors in thought vitally depends
on the speakers specic discourse circumstances. She resists attributing
conceptual metaphors as motivating forces in how people use metaphors,
because these entities are typically found in discourses other than those in
which speakers and listeners are currently engaged in. The fact that
someone utters a conventional metaphor in some context does not imply
that this verbal utterance was motivated by a conceptual metaphor seen
from other discourse analyses.
These different alternative approaches to inferring patterns of meta-
phorical thought in discourse all emphasize the communicative dimen-
sions of verbal metaphor use. Particular verbal metaphors emerge in
language not simply because people necessarily, and blindly, think in
metaphorical ways. Instead, metaphorical discourse expresses ideas that
have specic rhetorical motivations. Verbal metaphor, in this way,
exhibits a far greater degree of individual and collective agency than is
typically acknowledged in standard conceptual metaphor analyses.
My own view is that verbal metaphorical language does emerge from
particular cultural, social, and interpersonal contexts, but still underesti-
mates the larger complex of factors which motivate any specic instance
of metaphorical behavior. For example, peoples vast experiences of

thinking and speaking with metaphor give rise to rich conceptual meta-
phors that serve as a signicant constraint on what some individual is
doing in the moment when using metaphor in some context. Metaphor-
ical thinking in discourse may be emergent, and quite specic, as sug-
gested by different systematic metaphors, for instance. Nonetheless,
entrenched conceptual metaphors play an important part in the
context-sensitive shaping of metaphorical behaviors, including verbal,
gestural, and other non-linguistic extensions. It is not surprising, then,
that systematic metaphors, as shown by Cameron, appear to be very close
in character to traditional conceptual metaphors as studied by cognitive
linguists and others.
One other, different, extension of CMT suggests that the source
domains within conceptual metaphors are themselves often quite meta-
phorical, and even convey allegorical meanings. Consider, again, a brief
spoken narrative given by the American journalist Chris Matthews where
he described an upcoming televised debate in 2012 between President
Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney:
Let me nish tonight with next weeks rst debate in Denver.
Ill be out there to watch the two of them go at it. I have no real idea
what to expect. I think Romney will take some hard shots; he may spend
the whole 90 minutes blasting away at the President, serving him with
one indictment after another, hoping that something will stick.
I think Obama will play with him, parry the assaults, block the blows,
try to keep his head clear so he can avoid getting hurt. I think it will start
slow with both men trying to be cautious, neither able to land a punch,
not hard enough to register with the tens of millions watching.
Then it will happen: Romney will deliver what is clearly a pre-rehearsed

moment, a sound byte. It will be something about Obama not delivering
on a promise, something about the economy he said hed do but hasnt.
He will expect the President to defend himself.
When he does, pointing to what he inherited from Bush, Romney will
pounce. Hell say that Obamas not running against Bush. This will be
the Romney strategy: get Obama to pass the buck on the tough eco-
nomic recovery and then land his Sunday punch.
I suppose President Obama knows this is all coming and is preparing to
deal with it. The good news is this: a month ago, all his rival had to do
was say that Obamas done his best he got his stimulus, got his
healthcare program . . . and here we are. I think that might have nailed
it a month ago.
Somethings changed. It could have been something as denite as Bill
Clintons speech but people dont feel stuck like they did, dont think all
we need is some other president.
A traditional CMT analysis of this narrative would suggest that the
verbal metaphors are mostly organized around the conceptual metaphor
POLITICAL DEBATES ARE BOXING MATCHES. The assumption here
is that people use their concrete, physical understanding of boxing matches
to metaphorically structure the more abstract idea of political debates.
However, the source domain of boxing matches may itself be understood
metaphorically! One study asked people to read the Matthewss narrative
and then answer questions, including ones asking them to describe how
political debates and boxing matches may be similar.127 A remarkable set of
responses indicated that some participants saw boxing matches as political
events. Boxing matches are not just physical encounters between two
people, with one eventually overcoming the other through physical expert-
ise. Instead, boxing matches are often symbolic in the sense of the two
combatants representing different types of people (e.g., experience, per-
sonal appearance, boxing styles, national or ethnic backgrounds, and
geographical locations). Audiences cheer for one boxer, as opposed to
another, for a wide variety of reasons, including many that have little to
do with a performers physical abilities alone.
If people see boxing matches in highly symbolic terms, then it is quite
possible that many source domains in political metaphors are themselves
metaphorical! We do not, therefore, map physical source domains onto
more abstract target domains, as in POLITICAL DEBATES ARE BOXING
MATCHES, to create conceptual metaphors, but may just see the isomorph-
ism between the metaphorical qualities of both boxing matches and political
debates. Many common conceptual metaphors identied within cognitive
linguistic studies, for example, such as LIFE IS A JOURNEY, also have rich
affective and cultural meanings which suggest that they too are highly
allegorical and not just purely cognitive mappings.
Finally, another extension of CMT suggests that basic sensorimotor
experiences are far more complex, and deeply imbued within socio-
cultural meanings than typically acknowledged by CMT.128 Elisabeth El
Refaie observed that within CMT, the body is still often conceptualized as
a normative and unchanging object, and insufcient attention is paid to the
ways in which our physical experience itself is shaped by socio-cultural

models, and to how it may vary over time and in accordance to our
changing personal circumstances.129 This complaint is echoed by others
who note that I am dissatised when an approach to metaphor assumes
that the building blocks of language are formed by able bodies and are
transferred to those with disabilities by contagion contact.130
A dynamic view of embodiment seeks to recognize how bodily experi-
ence is constantly changing depending on available socio-cultural meaning
resources. In many cases, the body is not the source domain from which
metaphorical thoughts emerge, but serves as the target. Consider one
description of how concrete physical illness in the body is viewed as the
enemy:
After the cancers invasion of the body, the immune system launches
an offensive to beat the disease. The army of killer T cells and stealth
viruses ght the tumour cells. However, this is not enough to wipe
out or eradicate the invader completely. . . Thus, a bigger arsenal of
weapons, consisting of magic bullets and blunt instruments, target
the enemy. If the cancer is still resistant to the cancer-ghting tools,
other weapons are injected to attack the disease or to boost the
bodys own defences. This attack may eventually lead to defeating
the disease. . .131
When speaking metaphorically, people tap into readily available socio-

cultural ideas that are related to bodily experiences, even if they have not
previously experienced these in a directly embodied manner. Metaphor
allows individuals to discuss corporeal realities, as seen in patients with
cancer that differ from typical, non-ill experiences.
Another instance of how metaphor shapes how people experience
illness or disability is seen in a graphic memoir, titled Cancer wisdom
by the cartoonist Marisa Acocella Marchetto. This memoir described one
womans obsession with her illness as she received her cancer diagnosis
and began chemotherapy. One comic depicted her breasts in place of her
eyes, as she described her struggle to complete a writing assignment before
her chemotherapy began. This visual metaphor conveys a novel twist on
the typical UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING primary metaphor, because
Marchetto apparently sees/understands everything through the distorting
lters of her disease.132 Marchetto is essentially claiming that she is unable
to understand anything given her cancer diagnosis and the prospects of her
upcoming treatment. The breasts for eyes switch shows how a traditional
body part and activity (e.g., eyes and vision) serve as the target of the
Are Conceptual Metaphors Based on Psychology? 165
metaphor rather than the source domain. When the body is foregrounded,
as in illness, the direction of metaphorical mapping from embodied
perspectives to more abstract experiences is often reversed.133
are conceptual metaphors based on individual or

collective psychology?
A caricature of CMT assumes that conceptual metaphors originate solely
from the inner minds of individuals as constrained by unconscious cogni-
tive processes, embodied experience, and neural activities. Many of the
criticisms of CMT outlined in this chapter, and elsewhere in this book,
maintain that many other forces besides conceptual metaphors work to
shape the ways people speak and write with metaphorical intention.
Conceptual metaphors alone, so the critics claim, are simply insufcient
to explain where verbal metaphors come from and how they are linguistic-
ally expressed in complex ways in discourse.
For these reasons, metaphor scholars have raised important questions
about the locus of conceptual metaphors. Do verbal metaphors constitute
evidence of what a person was thinking when speaking? Should conceptual
metaphors be understood as being in the minds of the actual speakers?
Does the fact that conceptual metaphors motivate many verbal metaphors
necessarily imply that all listeners and readers infer these as part of their
understandings of what other people communicate? Might conceptual
metaphors only serve as reections of a specic language system (e.g.,
English) as a whole?
Metaphor scholars have offered various responses to these questions.
Lynne Cameron distinguished between two levels of metaphor analysis.
Level 1, the theory level, refers to the level at which theoretical analysis
and categorization of metaphor takes place. Level 2, the processing level,
is concerned with individuals online processing of metaphor.134 Zoltn
Kvecses argued that there are three main levels at which conceptual
metaphors may be found.
In a nutshell, the supraindividual level is one at which linguists identify

conceptual metaphors mainly on the basis of decontextualized linguistic
examples. The individual level is one at which metaphors exist in the
heads of individual speakers, as studied, for example, by psycholinguists
in various experimental situations. Finally, the subindividual level is one
at which we nd universal sensorimotor experiences that underlie and
motivate conceptual metaphors.135
Kvecses also raised the critical question of how these three levels
interact, and whether a specic conceptual metaphor necessarily must be
found across the three realms. But Kvecses went on to note that metaphor
research has, over the last several decades, identied metaphor within
language, thought, culture, the body, and the brain. One possibility is that
this sequence (i.e., from language to the brain) reects the temporal
ordering of the discovery of metaphor in human experience through
interdisciplinary scholarship. Nonetheless, Kvecses boldly concluded that
Ultimately, it is in the brains neurons where metaphors reside and where
we produce metaphorical thought.136
Gerard Steen has proposed that recent developments in metaphor
scholarship suggest at least four distinct approaches to how metaphors
are used in language, and noted specic scholars whose research embraces
each approach:137
1. The semiotic approach focuses on the linguistic and conceptual
structures and functions of metaphor in text and talk (Semino).
2. The psychological approach examines the mental processes and
products of metaphor use in, typically, text comprehension (Gibbs).
3. The social approach studies metaphor patterns in, typically, face-to-
face interactions in order to examine the way metaphors are shared
between language users (Cameron).
4. The historical approach addresses metaphor patterns across distinct
discourse events in order to trace the evolution of metaphor over
time (Musolff).
However, Steen generally views these approaches as being distinct, and
it is not clear how, if at all, they may be merged to create a more
comprehensive theory of human metaphor use.
How do we evaluate these various proposals on where conceptual
metaphor is located in human experience? There are two related difcul-
ties that, in my view, plague discussions about this question. First, many
scholars who embrace aspects of CMT still typically assume that concep-
tual metaphors really originate at one particular level of experience, as
opposed to others (e.g., the supraindividual level but not the individual or
subindividual). Second, other scholars may recognize that conceptual
metaphors may be related to many different systems (e.g., the semiotic,
psychological, social, historical systems), but assume that these can, or even
should, be studied independently with each system requiring its own
respective methodological tools to investigate and understand. In both
cases, however, there is little attempt to integrate the different levels,
Are Conceptual Metaphors Based on Psychology? 167
approaches, or systems into a more comprehensive theory of metaphor.

After all, collective systems are obviously related to what individual
people do.
My claim is that conceptual metaphors are not the mere ctions of
cognitive linguists because they play a major role in human thought,
language, and action. Many of the critiques of CMT have led to research
that signicantly expands our theoretical understanding of conceptual
metaphors. We no longer simply see conceptual metaphors as purely
cognitive entities. Instead, conceptual metaphorical thinking emerges from
a complex interaction of forces, ranging from history and culture to
cognition and neural activities. Conceptual metaphors specically incorp-
orate rich socio-cultural, embodied knowledge which shape peoples sensi-
tive, in-the-moment metaphorical actions. The process of inferring
conceptual metaphors from language provides a signicant body of evi-
dence to support this conclusion. However, extensive research from psy-
cholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience enables us to esh out the
prominence of conceptual metaphors in how specic individuals meta-
phorically think and communicate.
5
Psychology of Conceptual Metaphors in Verbal

Metaphor Use
The previous chapters provide linguistic evidence showing that conceptual

metaphors are a critical, but perhaps not exclusive, motivating force in the
creation and continued use of many verbal metaphors in language. How-
ever, many critics are skeptical about the linguistic evidence, and demand
different, scientic proofs that people really think via conceptual meta-
phors when they produce and understand metaphorical language. After all,
speakers may appropriately employ certain clich, conventional expres-
sions without any sense, consciously or unconsciously, as to why these
words and phrases mean what they do.
Consider the following brief narrative from a client in psychotherapy
who elaborated on his difculty in expressing emotions:1
I keep things inside me until they blow out instead of like a normal
progression. This is bothering me now and I just overlook it and one
day itll get so big Mount Vesuvius will blow up. . . To just keep things
tied up inside me until they get so much and then I just blow them all
out at one time.
Several conventional expressions in this narrative (e.g. keep things
inside me, I just overlooked it, I just blow them all out at one time)
are widely thought within cognitive linguistics to be motivated by enduring
conceptual metaphors (e.g., EMOTIONS ARE FLUIDS IN A CON-
TAINER, SEEING IS UNDERSTANDING, ANGER IS HEATED FLUID
IN A CONTAINER). It is not clear, though, that the speaker either knew
these conceptual metaphors, or if known, accessed them as part of the
cognitive and linguistic processes involved in formulating what he said.
A person may simply understand, for example, that I just overlooked it
means I didnt attend to it. This possibility seems reasonable given that
many aspects of linguistic meaning are arbitrarily determined, such that
168
Psychology of Conceptual Metaphors in Verbal Metaphor Use 169
contemporary speakers may not know, even unconsciously, any motivated

explanations for why words and phrases have the meanings they do. The
methodological difculty here is that one cannot necessarily know what
underlies, or motivates, a speakers use of a verbal metaphor simply by
examining the language alone. As Dominik Sandra and Sally Rice once
asked, whose minds were cognitive linguistic studies uncovering the
linguists or the language users.2
Cognitive linguists may respond to this question by noting that their
work focuses on detailing the contents and structure of human conceptual
systems in general, rather than on what specic individuals may be think-
ing on particular occasions. Thus, the aim of positing the existence of
conceptual metaphors is to suggest a fundamental principle for how people
typically conceive of ideas and events and, as such, provide a major
contribution to cognitive theories of language and mind. Determining
whether particular individuals use conceptual metaphors in different cir-
cumstances is another matter, even if cognitive linguists tacitly assume that
the use of many conventional expressions must be motivated in some
manner by individual speakers metaphorical thoughts.
Psychologists, and many others, are, again, skeptical of claims about
human thought based solely on the analysis of linguistic patterns. They
strongly argue that nding metaphors in thought must be accompanied
by evidence that shows exactly what people were thinking, or how they
ordinarily conceive of different topics, when they speak metaphorically or
when they employ clichd, conventional expressions. How best to study
ordinary peoples conceptual metaphorical understanding of verbal meta-
phor is, however, a matter of much debate. Nonetheless, psychologists
agree that experimental tests of conceptual metaphors must be examined
with ordinary people, unaware of the hypothesis, and conducted in con-
trolled situations, if we are to ever understand how people really think and
use language. Of course, even psychologists are rarely interested in the
specic people they study (e.g., university students), and employ different
statistical tests to generalize the ndings obtained from any experiment to
make conclusions about populations of people. In this way, both cognitive
linguists and psychologists are interested in general principles and con-
straints on human thought and language, but they differ in their beliefs
about the kind of data needed to properly understand the nature of the
metaphorical mind.
Several empirical methods have been applied to uncover the psychology
of conceptual metaphors in verbal metaphor use. Most of the empirical
techniques discussed here examine peoples use, understanding, and
170 Psychology of Conceptual Metaphors in Verbal Metaphor Use
reactions to various forms of metaphorical language as a window into the

possible existence of conceptual metaphor.
several possible hypotheses

The general claim that conceptual metaphors are part of the process of
using verbal metaphors represents a very broad idea, and as such cannot be
entirely examined, and potentially falsied, within a single experimental
test. Instead, the possibility that conceptual metaphor really affect verbal
metaphor use suggests several specic hypotheses, each of which may be
experimentally examined under varying conditions using different psycho-
logical measures. Consider some of the possibilities.
(a) People have an ability to engage in metaphorical thinking, but this
cognitive ability is only applied momentarily in very specic situ-
ations without any long-term impact on ordinary conceptual repre-
sentations or in real-time verbal metaphor communication.
(b) Peoples repeated metaphorical construals of certain, mostly
abstract, concepts result in these concepts being represented in
long-term memory in metaphorical terms. This conceptual meta-
phor knowledge provides part of peoples unconscious motivation
for why various words and phrases express metaphorical meanings.
However, conceptual metaphors may not be automatically recruited
during most aspects of verbal metaphor use.
(c) Peoples tacit knowledge of conceptual metaphors not only motiv-
ates their understanding of various words and phrases, but it also
plays a direct role in their use of metaphorical language.
These hypotheses spell out how some concepts may be spoken of meta-
phorically in discourse, but suggest different means by which such metaphor-
ical talk arises. Cognitive linguistic evidence alone may be limited in
distinguishing between, and empirically evaluating, these hypotheses.
Testing, and potentially falsifying, these particular hypotheses requires dif-
ferent experimental methods. Some of these methods seem quite common-
sensical, and easy to apply, while others are based on more sophisticated
indirect techniques from psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience for
assessing the structure and functions of the unconscious mind. The empirical
research described in the rest of this chapter represents a range of potential
techniques for uncovering different aspects of conceptual metaphors in
producing and understanding metaphorical language. My conclusion is that
there is an abundance of experimental evidence to support the claim that
Describing Our Thoughts After Speaking Metaphorically 171
conceptual metaphors are an essential part of verbal metaphor use, but that
future research requires greater sophistication regarding the degree to which
conceptual metaphors inuence speaking and understanding metaphor.
describing our thoughts after

speaking metaphorically
One might imagine that a good method for understanding the ways people
think is simply to ask them to describe their thoughts when engaged in
some activity. We do this all the time in conversation, and in written
exchanges, when questions arise about the reasons for why someone acts in
particular ways, including using different verbal metaphors.
Consider an example of metaphor in psychotherapy in which a client,
Jake, commented that Marriage is a cocoon.3 This metaphor, by itself, is
rather ambiguous, or indeterminate in meaning, and could refer to mar-
riage as being a safe place, a place to develop, a place of constraint, a place
to escape from, or some combination of these possibilities. There are
situations, of course, where the context, or the common ground between
speaker and addressee, constrains the meaning understood from Jakes
metaphor. But in this specic instance, the Marriage is a cocoon meta-
phor functions as an invitation to the listener to negotiate with the speaker
exactly in what ways marriages are cocoons.
In fact, the therapist asked Jake to say more about what he was thinking
after producing the Marriage is a cocoon metaphor, and Jake tried to
clarify what he meant. Yet the talk that occurred here may not specically
indicate everything Jake had in mind before stating his cocoon metaphor.
Even if we are never sure whether the ultimate meaning understood
reects Jakes thoughts prior to speaking, the dialogue surely produced a
clearer understanding of at least one reasonable version of how Jake was
metaphorically thinking about his marriage.
In other cases, speakers appear to have some denite metaphorical
concept in mind that motivates what they say. For instance, later on in
the above conversation, Jake described to his therapist, Bonnie, some of the
problems he faced in his current job:4
jake: . . . its all looking real bad and Im saying Well, its not going to be
much longer and Im going over the hill. . . and its gonna be downhill.
I dont have. . . Im just trying to hang on till that time.
bonnie: When you say over the hill, what do you, what do you mean?
jake: Oh, probably feeling sorry for myself. You know, just thinking,
everything is happening, everything is going wrong with me.
bonnie: Mm
jake: Well, I think theres good things if you can
bonnie: So, the hill is really not bad, but good.
jake: Yeah, about the time you think youre at the peak of it. . .
The therapist initially misunderstood Jakes use of the conventional

metaphor over the hill, and they then attempted to resolve the miscom-
munication to arrive at Jakes personal understanding that life is a hill,
uphill is hard, but downhill is easy, and you need to get to the peak in order
to get to the easy part. Note that Jake did not respond to the therapists
request for clarication by better explaining the meaning of over the hill.
Rather, he described thoughts he had in mind that prompted him to use
this metaphorical phrase when discussing this aspect of lifes journey. Only
when he said, I think theres good things did the therapist recognize that
Jake had a particular metaphorical conception of the LIVING LIFE IS
CLIMBING OVER A HILL idea.5
Consider now a different case where a person was asked to describe his
thoughts after producing a verbal metaphor. This example is taken from an
anthropological study of how people make sense of major life crises, in
which metaphor, not surprisingly, plays a signicant role. The main
narrative is produced by Sam, who with his wife was struggling with
infertility given their strong desire to start a family:6
It (infertility) became a black hole for both of us. I was happy when
I was getting married, and life to me was consistently getting better. And
she was continually depressed. Everything was meaningless because she
couldnt have a baby. And so it was a tremendous black hole, it was a
real bummer. . . it seemed like every time I was, like, taking off, and
feeling good, and she was dragging me down. . . It ruined our sex life. It
was just like everything was going down the black hole.
At this point, the interviewer interjected Theres something about the

symbolism of that to which Sam immediately responded:
The notion of the black hole is that its this magnet this negative
magnet in space through which all matter is irretrievably drawn that
was the image I had of it. It was just sucking everything down out of our
lives. Down this negative hole. It was bad.7
Sams metaphor aptly characterized the depression that he, and his wife,
experienced through the rich image of infertility as a black hole. The
interviewers comment prompted Sam to further explain his thoughts in
Reecting on Metaphorical Meaning 173
regard to the metaphor, which revealed the possibility that the conceptual
metaphor BAD IS DOWN may have been part of his previous thoughts.
Once more, it is difcult to determine with certainty whether meta-
phorical language was motivated beforehand by a clear metaphorical
conception or thought about the topic under discussion. Still, asking
people to explain their thoughts when using verbal metaphors provides
one kind of empirical evidence on the existence of conceptual metaphors in
a way that simply looking at individual verbal metaphors alone does not
provide. Peoples further explications of the structural correspondences
that arise from metaphorical mappings, as was illustrated in each of the
above cases, offer relevant insights into the structure and content of
peoples metaphorical thoughts about what they have just said.8
reflecting on metaphorical meaning

Another way to assess the extent to which people employ conceptual
metaphors in verbal metaphor use is to have them explain the meanings
of metaphorical language produced by others. There are several ways in
which this has been done. For instance, one small study simply asked
people to explain the meanings of three conceptual metaphors that are
central to economics.9 The primary aim here was to explore individual
differences in conceptual metaphor understanding in relation to peoples
varying cognitive styles. Students who had been tested as being either
analytic or holistic in their cognitive styles toward processing infor-
mation were given three metaphors (e.g., ECONOMIC COMPETITION IS
RACING, AN ECONOMY IS A MACHINE, ECONOMICS IS HEALTH
CARE), and asked to explain what each one meant. Analysis of the verbal
protocols showed that over 40 percent of the participants explained the
metaphors by referring to structural correspondences between the source
and target domains (e.g., Economic competition is like racing in the sense
that entrepreneurs correspond to the athlete and markets correspond to
physical exercise). Thirty-ve percent of the participants also explained
one of the three metaphors by referring to elements that were not part of
the source domains, but were part of participants understanding of the
target domains (e.g., Economic competition is talked about in terms of
racing because it is a merciless jungle where the ttest survive).
At the end of the explanation task, participants were asked to list the
ways that the target domain differed from the source domain. For example,
participants listed things like economic competition is not really a race
because there is no denitive nish line in economic competition. Most
importantly, participants whose main cognitive style was holistic devi-

ated from the source domain in their explanations of the metaphors more
so than did the analytic participants, especially when attributing to the
source domain features that were more characteristic of the target domain.
This suggested that analytic participants were more aware of the source
and target domains as separate entities, compared to the holistic ones
who tended to view the two domains as an integrated entity.
This research offers an important lesson for conceptual metaphor
theory (CMT), namely that there are signicant individual differences in
how people conceive of common conceptual metaphorical mappings. But
does the evidence showing that 40 percent of the participants could explain
the structural relations underlying the three special conceptual metaphors
necessarily imply something about the generality of conceptual metaphors
in human cognition? Answering this question, however, requires that
criteria be established for what counts as sufcient, general success in
explaining metaphorical meanings of conceptual metaphors, or more
narrowly, peoples understandings of these specialized conceptual meta-
phors about economics. At the same time, the fact that many people failed
to describe the mappings for conceptual metaphors does not imply that
participants were incapable of thinking metaphorically in these specic
ways. Simply asking people to explain conceptual metaphors may be a
difcult task in exactly the way that paraphrasing any verbal metaphor can
be quite challenging.
The problem with making assertions about the psychological reality of
conceptual metaphors by looking at peoples explications of isolated verbal
metaphors is also seen in the extensive literature on proverb understand-
ing. Some work suggests that people can explain the metaphorical mean-
ings of many isolated proverbs, which is often seen by many as evidence of
abstract, metaphorical thinking abilities.10 Participants in one study were
asked to explicate the meanings of different isolated proverbs, which
revealed several levels of metaphorical inference in how people make sense
of these expressions.11 For example, the greatest number of paraphrases for
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence focused on the
act of misjudgment or misperception of a situation. People suggested that
things either seem better, look better, or appear more attractive on
the other side of the fence. Some participants extended the metaphor of
sight into their paraphrase as in Other peoples situations sometimes look
better than they really are. Things look better with other people.
Things appear to be more attractive or better when you are not involved.
Other informants simply stated that things seem better as in Things
Reecting on Metaphorical Meaning 175
which are unobtainable always seem better. Once we make our choices,
the choice not taken always seems better. These paraphrases reveal how
people appear to use conceptual metaphors (e.g., UNDERSTANDING IS
SEEING) to make sense of what proverbs specically mean.
There are several problems, however, with using explanations of meta-
phorical sayings as direct indicators of metaphorical thought processes.12
First, explaining the metaphorical meanings of isolated proverbs, for
example, can be difcult even for educated adults. College students often
simply state a different metaphorical expression that has similar gurative
meaning when they are asked to explain what various idioms and proverbs
mean (e.g., let the cat out of the bag means spilling the beans). The
problem schizophrenics and others sometimes experience explaining the
meanings of proverbs is not that they necessarily lack an ability to think
abstractly or metaphorically, but they have difculty engaging in atopical
thinking. Because participants have difculty nding some context in
which to illustrate an isolated proverbs meaning, they instead focus on
more personalized associations to a proverb or to certain words in these
sayings. In fact, schizophrenics are often quite capable of explaining the
meanings of groups of proverbs that have the same gurative meaning
(e.g., Strike while the iron is hot, Hoist your sail when the wind is fair,
Grab with a quick hand the fruit that passes). Patients improvements in
explaining the meanings of multiple proverbs suggest an input decit
rather than a decit in abstraction ability.
Second, it is not clear that providing a metaphorical interpretation of
any verbal metaphor necessarily indicates that people truly understand
why the saying expresses that meaning. After all, people know the mean-
ings of many words and phrases without necessarily understanding, con-
sciously or otherwise, the motivations for these interpretations. People may
simply learn the meanings of proverbs in a rote manner where they
arbitrarily match a proverbial saying with its accepted meaning. This
associative linking is quite commonly thought to explain how people learn
many kinds of speech formula such as idioms, proverbs, slang, and other
conversational gambits.
Another possibility is that people may at rst tacitly recognize certain
metaphorical connections between verbal metaphors and their gurative
meanings. But through continued use of these conventional expressions,
people may forget the original conceptual metaphorical motivation for why
any verbal metaphor means what it does and simply recall its gurative
interpretation in a rote fashion. For example, an elderly patient may
respond that A rolling stone gathers no moss means It is better to keep
moving than to stand still even though he or she exhibits a limited ability
to engage in abstract thought as measured by other tasks.
In summary, the evidence from psychological tests that many people
can explain the meanings for certain verbal metaphors does not rule out
the above alternative explanations in regard to these individuals meta-
phorical thinking abilities. We might very well be judged to be competent
speakers through our ability to explain the meanings of verbal metaphors
and in matching these with their correct paraphrases. Yet these abilities do
not necessarily reect the cognitive processes by which people make sense
of why metaphorical expressions mean what they do through their appli-
cation of enduring conceptual metaphors.13
generating metaphorical mappings

Getting people to think metaphorically on demand is not always an easy
task to accomplish. There are, however, a few interesting psychological
studies that have asked people to produce metaphorical relations in specic
experimental contexts. For example, one project used a version of a talk-
out-loud method to specically investigate how pre-existing conceptual
metaphors constrain peoples interpretations of literary metaphors in love
poetry.14 A rst study employed cognitive linguistic methods to analyze
college students folk notions about the concept of love in addition to how
they metaphorically conceptualized of their own love experiences. Partici-
pants in this study wrote their own denitions of love and then described
the feelings they experienced when they rst fell in love. Consider just one
womans denition of love.15
The overall concern for another person. Sharing of yourself but not
giving yourself away. Feeling like you are both one, willing to com-
promise, knowing the other person well with excitement and electrical
sparks to keep you going.
Not surprisingly, students protocols revealed patterns of conventional
expressions that seem clearly motivated by a relatively small set of endur-
ing conceptual metaphors for love, such as LOVE IS A UNITY, LOVE IS
A NATURAL FORCE, LOVE IS PHYSICAL CLOSENESS, LOVE
IS A VALUABLE RESOURCE, LOVE IS A JOURNEY, and LOVE IS
INSANITY. Some of these conceptual metaphors, such as LOVE IS
A UNITY, LOVE IS A NATURAL FORCE, and LOVE IS PHYSICAL
CLOSENESS, were employed in conventional expressions by more than
50 percent of the participants. The presence of this fairly limited number of
Generating Metaphorical Mappings 177
conceptual metaphors in participants discourse, at the very least, illus-

trates the dominance of metaphor in how people talk about love and their
love experiences.
A second experiment investigated whether people could generally rec-
ognize the presence of conceptual metaphors in various instances of love
poetry. Participants read ten fragments of love poetry, each of which was
followed by a list of ve conceptual metaphors (e.g., LOVE IS
A NATURAL FORCE). The participants task was to read each fragment
and select the conceptual metaphor that best reected the underlying
theme about love in that poem. Overall, participants were very accurate
in choosing conceptual metaphors that motivated the poetic fragments
they had just read. A third experiment had a different group of participants
read the same poetic fragments and then pick from a list of ve the
conventional expression (e.g., We were sick with love) that best reected
the concept of love described in the poem. Once again, participants were
quite good at picking the conventional expressions that were motivated by
the same conceptual metaphors underlying the poetic fragments.
A nal study in this series employed a written version of the talking-
out-loud task to see whether the inferences readers drew about the mean-
ings of poems reected their conceptual metaphorical understanding of the
poets own conceptions about love. Consider these lines from the poem
titled Ode and Burgeonings, by Pablo Neruda:
My wild girl, we have had

to regain time
and march backward, in the distance
of our lives, kiss after kiss,
gathering from one place what we gave
without joy, discovering in another
the secret road
that gradually brought your feet
close to mine.
An analysis of the participants interpretations generated while reading

the poems in a line-by-line manner provided good evidence that concep-
tual metaphor structured their understanding of the poems. Across all the
poems and the participants, 78 percent of all statements in the talking-out-
loud protocols referred to the entailments of the underlying conceptual
metaphors that partially motivated the meanings of the poems participants
had read. For example, when participants read the fragment from Nerudas
poem, they referred to entailments of the LOVE IS A JOURNEY metaphor
such as the path (e.g., They learned a better path to happiness, They had
to retrace their steps to nd true love, They found a special road that they
could travel together on in the same direction), the goals (e.g., The future
of their love lay ahead of them, They had to catch up), and the
impediments to travel (e.g., They managed to get over the rough places,
rediscovering what was missed). Readers were processing the poems in
light of these different conceptual metaphors about love. At the very least,
peoples conscious, reective interpretations of poetry seem strongly con-
strained by their conceptual metaphorical knowledge.
A very different empirical project that elicited peoples conceptual
metaphorical knowledge is seen in marketing research. The Zaltman
Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET) is a qualitative methodology
that uses in-depth interviews to probe peoples metaphorical thoughts
and impressions of advertising.16 Informants were rst asked to bring in
visual images, in this case from advertising, and describe how each picture
related to their impression of advertising (i.e., storytelling). Later on,
informants described their impressions of advertising using the different
senses of sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, as well as emotional feelings that
arose from these impressions. Informants then imagined a short movie
that described their thoughts and feelings about advertising. Finally, the
informants created a composite of their thoughts and feelings about
advertising. This was done by rst having informants select specic images
from the various pictures that they wanted to include in the summary
image. A graphic artist then scanned these images into a computer, and
worked collaboratively with the informant to create a summary image.
The verbal protocols were analyzed to determine the conceptual meta-
phors that structured peoples knowledge and impressions of advertising.
First, researchers searched through the protocols for instances of meta-
phorical words, phrases, and expressions. Next, these verbal metaphors
were compiled and analyzed to identify a set of thematic categories that
indicated something about peoples overall impressions of advertising. The
next step linked the thematic categories to specic conceptual metaphors.
Finally, a smaller set of deep metaphors were identied that represented a
higher level of abstraction from conceptual metaphors.
One study using ZMET revealed that there were three deep metaphors
(resource, force, and the essence) that structured peoples broad interpret-
ations of advertising. Under these three deep metaphors were several
groups of specic conceptual metaphors. The deep metaphor of resource,
for example, was organized in terms of ve conceptual metaphors: adver-
tising as a hostess, teacher, counselor, enabler, and magician. For instance,
Reasoning and Problem Solving 179
the hostess metaphor is associated with the thematic category of advertis-

ing serving to introduce how products and services have different benets
and values, as seen in one informants comment in reference to an ad for
motor oil, in an ad I read that I need certain oil in the summer and certain
oil in the winter. I feel good. . . knowing that I am going to using the right
product at the right time. Advertising as a counselor goes beyond the
hostess metaphor to suggest emotional and cognitive benets with a
product or service, as seen in the comment advertising helps me to know
which products will and will not reect the sort of person I am. The
magician metaphor describes advertisings ability to make people think
differently, beyond the ad content, as seen in the comment that ads
stimulate your imagination or suggest avenues, open doors of
thought, or evoke memories of happy things.
The deep metaphor of advertising as a force refers to advertisings
powerful presence in contemporary culture, with conceptual metaphors
(i.e., advertising as omnipresent being, a noisy neighbor, a broken record, a
con-man, and a seducer) mostly expressing negative views about advertis-
ing. For instance, informants commented that ads are things you just cant
get away from (omnipresent being), or are like a horse sticking his nose
through the fence (nosy neighbor), that are on again, and again, and
again. . . pretty soon you tend to tune out (broken record), or can set a
trap for you to get you to do what they want (con-man), and encourage
me to buy things that I do not need (seducer).
The nal deep metaphor evident in this analysis was of advertising as an
essence, providing idealized images of people and products. The main
conceptual metaphor at work here is advertising is an evil therapist, as
seen in the comment that ads create within the individual feelings of
anxiety, need, longing, desire, hunger, loss, helplessness, and anger that can
only be relieved through the consumption of the product or service being
offered.
In general, ZMET elicited a wide range of metaphors, suggesting how
peoples understandings of ads are deeply organized around different
conceptual metaphors. The beauty of the technique is that it systematically
prompts people to creatively think and say more about what they concep-
tualize of particular conceptual metaphorical ways.
reasoning and problem solving

Solving problems often involves analogical and metaphorical reasoning
that may be shaped by conceptual metaphors. There is a large literature
showing that scientists employ conceptual metaphors when describing

their solutions to different problems.17 Experimental studies have also
illustrated the ways that conceptual metaphors can shape reasoning and
problem solving. Consider rst a study that asked college students to solve
everyday dilemmas as presented in stories that are structured around one
of two different conceptual metaphors. For example, the argument over
whether or not nations should impose trade tariffs may be structured by
two different conceptual metaphors, as shown in the following texts.18
Trade is War
International trade is a war. Tariffs, or trade rules, are barricades that
shield the vital interests of countries from harm. Victory is achieved
when a country maintains its own safeguards but is able to penetrate the
markets of its adversary. The trade decit means that we are losing
ground on the battleeld of the trade war. Tariffs would shield us from
such loss and help us reclaim our trade territory.
Trade is a Two-Way Street

International trade is a two-way street. Tariffs, or trade rules, are
obstacles in the road that impede the ow of trade trafc. Success in
trade is achieved by removing all obstacles on both sides of the
street allowing the free passage of goods. The trade decit means that
these obstacles are causing stop and go trafc on the road of trading.
Tariffs would prevent us from speeding up again and reaching our
trading destination.
These two metaphorical frames offer different solutions to the trade

tariff dilemma. College students were presented with stories like these and
were asked their opinion about, in this case, the effectiveness of trade
barriers. As expected, individuals resolutions of dilemmas described in
these short stories were inuenced subtly by the particular conceptual
metaphors used to frame the debate (i.e., the metaphor framing effect).
For example, more people who read the TRADE IS WAR story favored
tariffs than those who read the other vignette. Interestingly, only a few of
the participants were at all aware, when questioned, of the underlying
conceptual metaphors inuence on their reasoning.19
One line of research on conceptual metaphor and abstract problem
solving explored the metaphoric t hypothesis: If an embodied meta-
phor focusing on an abstract problem prompts people to reason about it
using their knowledge of a bodily problem, then they should positively
evaluate candidate solutions that are themselves framed metaphorically as
addressing that bodily problem.20 A test of this hypothesis asked people to

read one of two articles about a new medication for dealing with clinical
depression. One story described depression in metaphorical terms, specif-
ically comparing depression to being down (e.g., Depressed individuals
feel that while other peoples lives have both ups and downs, their life was
constantly down). The other story was the no-metaphor condition (e.g.,
Depressed individuals feel that while other peoples lives have both
positive and negative periods, their lives have considerably more negative
periods). After reading either the metaphorical or non-metaphorical
story, people read a brief news item about a new medication for treating
depression. This description talked about the drugs possible benets in
metaphorical terms (e.g., has been shown to uplift mood). Finally, people
rated what they believed to be the likely effectiveness of the new
medication.
People who read the earlier metaphorical description of depressions
(e.g., DEPRESSION IS DOWN) rated the new drug to be more effective
than when they rst read the non-metaphor story. Similar results were
found when different metaphors were used (e.g., DEPRESSION IS DARK-
NESS), and when the drugs benets were described in similar metaphor-
ical ways (e.g., has been show to brighten mood). These ndings indicate
that presenting problems in metaphorical frames can often lead to particu-
lar ways of thinking about the issue and help individuals to be open to
certain solutions.
A similar set of experiments examined whether a single metaphorical
statement can inuence reasoning. University students read a report about
the crime rate in a ctitious city, named Addison.21 Some of the students
saw the report in which the crime was early on described as a beast
preying on Addison, and the other students saw the crime report with a
metaphor of a virus infecting Addison. Both stories contained identical
information, presented after the metaphor, about crime statistics. After
reading their respective stories, the students had to propose a solution to
the Addison crime problem.
The specic metaphor people read inuenced their proposed crime
solutions. Participants reading the beast preying metaphor suggested
that harsher enforcement should be applied to catching and jailing crim-
inals. But participants who read the virus infecting metaphor proposed
solutions that focused on nding the root causes of the crime and creating
social programs to protect the community. Once again, peoples problem-
solving solutions was covert as students did not mention the metaphors
when asked to state what inuenced them the most in coming up with
their crime solution (i.e., most people focused on the crime statistics). Even
a single verbal metaphor can activate conceptual metaphorical knowledge
that tacitly constrained peoples subsequent problem-solving choices.
A more complex empirical project showed how peoples metaphorical
understandings of one social problem led them to favor different social
policies.22 The rise of obesity, and the possible causes for this, is widely
discussed in contemporary American life, ranging from blaming individ-
uals (e.g., obesity is the result of sinful behavior) to seeing obesity as
something that just happens to certain individuals (e.g., obesity is genetic,
or an addiction), to obesity being blamed on the food industry and
governmental indifference (e.g., obesity is caused by the promotion of
unhealthy foods and poor public treatment programs for overweight
people). Not surprisingly, metaphors are rampant in these debates, with
people adopting several different metaphorical ideas for thinking about
obesity.
One large-scale survey gave people a list of different conceptual meta-
phors related to obesity. For example, consider two metaphorical concepts
about obesity that differ in the extent to which the blame is placed on the
overweight individual.23
Obesity is Sinful Behavior
A big problem with America is that people are unwilling to work hard
or control their impulses. People who are overweight arent even trying
to get healthier. Fat people cant do their jobs well and cost us all the
more for their health care. So its unfair when those people make others
pay for their lack of effort. When I see people who are overweight, they
disgust me.
Obesity is a Toxic Food Environment

A big problem in this country is that were surrounded by choices that
are cheap and easy but not good for us. We have become so used to
eating fatty, sugary foods that healthy foods are lost in a sea of
unhealthy alternatives. So people are overweight because processed
foods displace natural foods and large restaurant portions replace rea-
sonable meals. Its not fair that its become so hard to nd healthy foods
at a reasonable price. When I see a person whos overweight, I get angry
at our society for allowing bad food choices to drive out the good ones.
People read seven of these metaphorical scenarios, which included

obesity as sinful behavior, addiction, time crunch, eating disorder, disabil-
ity, industry manipulation, and toxic food environment. After reading each
scenario, participants were asked to answer the question, Out of every
100 Americans with weight problems, for how many do you think this
accounts for or explains a lot about why they are overweight? Following
this, people rated their agreement with sixteen obesity-related policy state-
ments about what the government might best do to address the situation,
ranging from providing treatment programs, outlawing unhealthy foods,
taxing certain foods, asking overweight people to pay higher health insur-
ance premiums, and offer legal protections against discrimination for
obese individuals. Finally, people completed surveys asking about their
health, political beliefs, and political afliations.
The study results showed that people saw all seven metaphors to be
useful explanations of obesity, with about half of all participants suggesting
that four or more of the metaphors were important causes of obesity in the
United States. Moreover, there was a signicant relationship between
peoples perceptions of the different conceptual metaphors and their sup-
port for different social policies for dealing with the obesity crisis. For
example, people who agreed with mid- and low-blame metaphors (e.g.,
obesity as disability, eating disorder, addiction) positively rated policies
that required governmental support for patients suffering from obesity. On
the other hand, these same people negatively evaluated more punitive
price-raising policies such as having higher taxes on unhealthy foods or
requiring overweight people to pay higher health insurance premiums.
People who embraced metaphors involving eating disorders and toxic food
environments agreed most with policies requiring employers to pay for
workers gym memberships or give them time off each workday for
exercise. Yet people who adhered to obesity as sinful behavior argued
against these same policies and agreed more with policies charging over-
weight people higher fees for insurance.24
Media depictions of obesity clearly play a critical role in suggesting
different metaphorical possibilities for thinking about the causes and
consequences of being overweight. But studies like this highlight how
differences in peoples conceptual metaphors inuence their particular
beliefs about political action and governmental policies.
Imagine now a different reasoning task in which people are asked to
arrange objects on a table in temporal order. Would you do this by
arranging the objects in a horizontal, left-to-right, manner or in a vertical,
up-down way? One study examined this question with groups of English
and Mandarin speakers.25 Both English and Mandarin use horizontal
front/back spatial terms to talk about time. For example, English speakers
use expressions such as We can look forward to the good times ahead
and We are glad that the difcult times are behind us. However,
Mandarin speakers also use vertical metaphors, so that earlier events are
said to be shng or up, and later events are described as xi or
down. About one-third of all time expressions in Mandarin use the
vertical metaphor. Experimental studies show that when asked to arrange
objects on a table in temporal order, one-third of Mandarins did so along
vertical dimension, yet English speakers never used the vertical dimension
in completing this time task. These results show how peoples temporal
judgments are inuenced by their most salient conceptual metaphors.
Studies like these demonstrate some of the ways in which different
conceptual metaphors shape peoples reasoning, and decisions about,
ordinary problems. It is unclear from this work whether people spontan-
eously engage in creative metaphorical thought or merely access concep-
tual metaphors relevant to a particular experimental task. Still, the above
research indicates that conceptual metaphors can have an important role
in leading people to certain problem solving solutions.
mental imagery
Looking at the way people form mental images for verbal metaphors has
been shown to provide an excellent window into the use of conceptual
metaphors in understanding why many verbal metaphors have the mean-
ings they do. Consider the idiom spill the beans. Try to form a mental
image for this phrase and then ask yourself the following questions.26
Where are the beans before they are spilled? How big is the container?
Are the beans cooked or uncooked? Is the spilling accidental or inten-
tional? Where are the beans once theyve been spilled? Are the beans in a
nice, neat pile? Where are the beans supposed to be? After the beans are
spilled, are they easy to retrieve? Most speakers can form mental images for
idioms like spill the beans and answer these questions about their mental
images without difculty.
One set of studies used mental imagery to investigate the hypothesis
that the meanings of many idioms are specically motivated by different
conceptual metaphors.27 People formed mental images for twenty-ve
idioms, ve of which expressed gurative meanings about anger (e.g.,
blow your stack), ve about exerting control or authority (e.g., lay down
the law), ve about secretiveness (e.g., keep it under your hat), ve
about insanity (e.g., lose your marbles), and ve about revelation (e.g.,
spill the beans). Each participant described their mental image for an
idiom and then answered a series of questions designed to reveal their
beliefs about the causes of actions in their mental images.
Mental Imagery 185
Analysis of participants protocols revealed that they had very similar

schemas underlying their mental images for idioms with similar meanings.
On average 75 percent of participants mental images collapsed across
different groups of idioms, which described similar general images. These
general schemas were not simply representative of the idioms gurative
meanings, but captured more specic aspects of the events within an
image. For example, idioms such as ip your lid and hit the ceiling
both guratively mean to get angry, but people specically imagined
some force causing a container to release pressure in a violent manner.
There is nothing in the surface forms of these different idioms to tightly
constrain the images subjects reported. After all, lids can be ipped and
ceilings can be hit in a wide variety of ways, caused by many different
circumstances. Still, participants protocols revealed little variation in the
general events that took place in their images for idioms with similar
meanings.
Peoples general images for idioms with similar meaning only revealed
part of what they understood about their mental images. More specic
information is seen in participants highly consistent responses to different
probe questions about their mental images for idioms. For example, for the
anger idioms, people responded that the cause of the anger was internal
pressure, that the expression of anger was unintentional, and that it was
done in a forceful, irreversible manner.
The mental images people reported for idioms within each group were
structured by a very small set of conceptual metaphors. For example, the
anger idioms are structured by two basic conceptual metaphors: THE
MIND IS A CONTAINER and ANGER IS HEAT. The MIND IS
A CONTAINER metaphor is part of the more general CONDUIT meta-
phor,28 and the ANGER IS HEAT metaphor comes from the common folk
theory that the physiological effects of anger are increased body heat,
increased internal pressure, and agitation. As anger increases, so do its
physiological effects. We also know that when uids get hot and begin to
boil, the uid goes upward. So, when the intensity of anger increases, the
uid rises as seen in the expressions His pent-up anger welled up inside
him, My anger kept building up inside me, and We got a rise out of
him. When anger builds beyond the point at which a person can control
it, we imagine that the uid or heat escapes violently from the container
holding it. This is exactly the kind of image that participants had for anger
idioms so that, for example, participants images for blow your stack and
ip your lid often consisted of a persons head blowing up from internal
pressure with steam coming out the top of the head as it violently blew off.
Conceptual metaphors, more generally, form part of the link between

an idiom and its gurative meaning (e.g., the link between spill the beans
and reveal secret) and constrain peoples understanding of the events
within their conventional images for idioms. Peoples knowledge about
their mental images for literal phrases, such as spill the peas, was far less
denite and more variable than was the case for corresponding idiomatic
expressions, such as spill the beans. The greater variability in mental
images for literal phrases is due to their meanings not being constrained by
underlying conceptual metaphors in the way seen for metaphorical idioms.
A different series of experiments explored whether peoples mental
imagery reveals anything about their embodied understandings of verbal
metaphorical phrases.29 These studies specically compared peoples
mental images for concrete (e.g., chew on the gum) and metaphorical
(e.g., chew on the idea) phrases. Unlike imagining non-metaphorical
action statements (e.g., chew on the gum), where peoples images should
focus on the procedural characteristics of the concrete actions (i.e., moving
their mouths as they chew the gum), peoples mental images for metaphor-
ical phrases should show an analogical understanding of how abstract
domains, such as ideas or concepts, can be metaphorically structured in
terms of embodied source domains (i.e., chewing on something to get more
out of it).
Participants were rst presented individual phrases, which were either
metaphorical or non-metaphorical, and then had ten seconds to form a
mental image for each phrase. They were then asked, What is particularly
noticeable in your image? Peoples responses were divided into two
groups. The rst set of answers made some specic reference to the
participants actually performing the action mentioned in the statement.
For example, My jaw goes up and down as I chew, was one response
given to chew on the gum. People gave far more of these specic
references to participating in the action responses for the non-metaphors
(63%) than to the metaphors (29%). But for the metaphors, people gave
signicantly more conceptualized descriptions of the action (71%) than
they did for the non-metaphors (37%). For instance, for the metaphor
stretch for understanding, one person said that the most noticeable thing
in this image was there is much stretching going on both in terms of the
ideas being stretched out to see if they are true and me stretching to better
see or examine the idea. The participant essentially noted that IDEAS
ARE OBJECTS which can be physically inspected by stretching them out
to more effectively examine them, and that UNDERSTANDING IS
GRASPING enables the person to extend his or her body to better control
Episodic Memory Tasks 187
the object, and thus better understand it. This response concretely illus-
trates how embodied metaphors constrain the mental images people con-
struct when interpreting metaphorical action statements.
Participants were also asked, Why is this concept (e.g., idea) sometimes
associated with this action (e.g., chewing)? as in regards to the phrase
chew on the idea. Once more, people could give a concrete explanation
of the relevant process or action, such as That is what you do with gum,
chew on it for chew on the gum. But for the metaphors, people
specically provided analogous, conceptual explanations as to why some
concept was sometimes associated with some action or process. For
example, for the metaphorical phrase chew on the idea, one person said,
Chewing is related to a slow methodological activity and it could be
related to turning something over in your mind to better understand it.
Overall, people gave analogous, conceptual explanations far more often to
the metaphors (77%) than to the non-metaphors (36%), showing that
peoples mental images for metaphorical action phrases were constrained
by their embodied, metaphorical understanding of the target domains
referred to in these expressions (e.g., ideas, concepts, feelings).
These studies on mental imagery for conventional metaphors do not
imply that people always form mental images during idiom comprehen-
sion, or that conceptual metaphors are automatically activated during
immediate idiom comprehension. But it is clear that peoples existing
knowledge of embodied conceptual metaphors motivates their understand-
ing of why conventional metaphors have the complex gurative meanings
they appear to possess.
episodic memory tasks

Several episodic memory studies have explored the automatic activation of
conceptual metaphors in verbal metaphor understanding. A rst set of
experiments, by Albert Katz and Tamsen Taylor, examined peoples under-
standing of a single conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY.30 Partici-
pants rst wrote down life events in terms of a course followed until one
reached the age of seventy. The analysis of the events listed showed high
agreement both in terms of their sequential order and the specic age at
which one was likely to experience an event. Another study explored
peoples more detailed understanding of the LIFE IS A JOURNEY meta-
phor, and found that several submetaphors emerged, including LOVE IS
A JOURNEY and OBTAINING ONES INDEPENDENCE IN LIFE IS
A JOURNEY. These submetaphors help organize life events into several
thematic clusters. A nal study employed an episodic memory task in

which participants were presented with a random list of forty events
related to the JOURNEY metaphor. After a ten-minute delay, participants
then recalled as many of the forty items as possible in whatever order they
preferred. People recalled the events primarily around submetaphors (e.g.,
PARENTING IS A JOURNEY) and not in the order in which they were
originally presented. However, peoples recalls did not simply follow a
general, sequential LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor. These ndings sug-
gested that peoples understandings of life events were structured around
the specic themes associated with the general conceptual metaphor LIFE
IS A JOURNEY, rather than being organized in a strict linear order starting
at birth and ending at age seventy.31
A different episodic memory test employed a phenomenon known as
release from proactive interference (PI).32 Proactive interference refers
to situations in which previously encountered material interferes with the
memory of more recently viewed information. For instance, if people see
the words robin, hawk, and chickadee, they will later on be poorer at
recalling a fourth word, such as seagull, if it comes from the same
conceptual category (e.g., birds), than if the fourth word refers to an
entirely new category (e.g., tulip for the category of owers). Thus, the
build-up of information of an underlying conceptual category (e.g., birds)
makes this a less effective retrieval cue when people have to recall all four
items from the same category. However, when the last, or fourth, item
represents a new category (e.g., owers), there is a release from PI, which
enables people to more readily recall the last word (e.g., tulip) compared
to when the last item comes from the same category as instantiated earlier
(e.g., birds).
This same technique was applied to study the build-up of conceptual
metaphorical information over time. People read three conventional meta-
phorical statements (e.g., Waiting has cost me an hour, I invested a lot of
the day working on that project, and This saved me hours of work),
each of which were motivated by the same conceptual metaphor (e.g.,
TIME IS AN EXPENDABLE RESOURCE). One group of people then read
a fourth statement from the same conceptual metaphorical category (e.g.,
Please budget your time wisely), while another group saw an expression
motivated by a different conceptual metaphor (e.g., Her love cast a spell
over me, for LOVE IS MAGIC). People saw the four statements, then
engaged in a distractor task for 15 seconds (i.e., counting backwards by
threes from a certain number), and then recalled, as accurately as possible,
the four statements presented earlier. The results revealed a classic effect
Speeded Processing and Production of Verbal Metaphors 189
off release from PI in that people recalled the last item better when it was
motivated by a different conceptual metaphor than the same conceptual
metaphor underlying the rst three statements. This nding demonstrated
that people were implicitly accessing the conceptual metaphor TIME IS
AN EXPENDABLE RESOURCE when understanding the rst three con-
ventional metaphorical expressions. In summary, these data provide
support for the unconscious arousal of conceptual metaphor when people
read conventional metaphorical language.33
speeded processing and production of

verbal metaphors
Measuring the time to understand the meanings of verbal metaphors has
been one of the most commonly used techniques in psycholinguistics to
explore the moment-by-moment processes by which people comprehend
metaphorical meaning. Related studies investigate peoples speeded
responses to words referring to conceptual metaphors after they have read
a verbal metaphorical phrase in context. In a sense, then, many experi-
mental studies have examined peoples speeded reactions to metaphorical
language as a way to see whether conceptual metaphors are quickly,
perhaps automatically, recruited during understanding both conventional
and novel metaphors. Psycholinguists have sometimes argued that con-
ceptual metaphors are not accessed during understanding of some verbal
metaphors,34 but the vast empirical evidence shows this contention is
not true.
There are many factors that affect peoples speeded comprehension of
verbal metaphors. One possibility is that people should nd it relatively
easy to read verbal metaphors whose meanings are motivated by concep-
tual metaphors identical to those structuring the previous discourse or text.
Under this hypothesis, people automatically access conceptual metaphors
as they read and make sense of discourse. The activation of a specic
conceptual metaphor should facilitate peoples comprehension of a verbal
metaphor if that expression is motivated by the same conceptual metaphor,
compared to reading a verbal metaphor motivated by a different concep-
tual mapping.
First, studies demonstrate that people recognize that some idioms, but
not others, are appropriate in certain contexts because of the congruence
between the motivating conceptual metaphors of these phrases and how a
context metaphorically describes some topic. For example, participants
were quite good at linking idioms (e.g., blow your stack) with their
underlying conceptual metaphors (e.g., ANGER IS A HEATED FLUID IN

THE BODILY CONTAINER), suggesting that they have tacit beliefs of
conceptual metaphors that motivated their understanding of some
idioms.35 These ndings showed that people use their tacit conceptual
metaphor knowledge to make sense of why some idioms and conventional
metaphors convey specic metaphorical meanings.36
Second, several psycholinguistic studies showed that conceptual meta-
phors affect the online processing of verbal metaphors. For example,
people read euphemistic metaphors (e.g., Shes turning my crank
motivated by SEXUAL DESIRE IS AN ACTIVATED MACHINE) more
quickly in contexts that depicted similar conceptual metaphors than in
contexts that conveyed different conceptual metaphors.37 Other studies
showed that people were faster to judge two words (e.g., captain and
soldier) as being semantically related when these were presented in a
canonical spatial order (e.g., captain presented above soldier) than
when seen in the reverse position (e.g., soldier above captain)38. This
pattern of result is consistent with the idea that people tacitly inferred a
conceptual metaphorical understanding of the two words which inu-
enced their speeded decisions about the semantic relatedness of the two
words. Thus, the conceptual metaphor CONTROL IS UP provides some
structure to the relationship between a captain and a soldier such that it
makes greater spatial sense to have captain being above soldier than
the reverse.
Third, the presence of consistent conceptual metaphors enhanced
readers abilities to link together elements of a brief narrative.39 Consider
the following passage instantiating the metaphor ANGER IS HEAT.
Edward was boiling with anger.

The sales clerk has completely screwed up his order.
The manager saw there might be trouble and rushed over.
Hoping to prevent a scene, she tried to lower his thermostat.
(Novel schema-instantiating priming sentence)
Hoping to prevent a scene, she tried to cool him off.
(Conventional schema-instantiating priming sentence)
Hoping to prevent a scene, she tried to x the problem.
(Neutral priming sentence)
Participants read a passage, like the above, on a computer screen, one

line at a time, and immediately afterwards were presented with a test word
(e.g., boiling) that related to the metaphorical schema in the story. These
test words were related to the dominant metaphorical schema in the story
(e.g., boiling for ANGER IS HEAT). Participants were faster at recogniz-
ing the test words after having just read conventional schema-instantiating
priming sentences than after neutral sentences. This result suggests that
people actually instantiated an underlying conceptual metaphor, such as
ANGER IS HEAT, when reading conventional expressions, such as
Hoping to prevent a scene, she tried to cool him off. Interestingly, the
participants were not faster at recognizing the test words after reading the
novel schema-instantiating priming sentences.40 Novel metaphorical
expressions (Hoping to prevent a scene, she tried to lower his thermo-
stat) were not immediately seen as being related to the general metaphor-
ical schema for the story (ANGER IS HEAT), at least as measured by this
word recognition task.
In contrast to these experimental ndings, Boaz Keysar and colleagues
report psycholinguistic results showing that conventional metaphorical
expressions may not be understood through the recruitment of conceptual
metaphors. Specically, Keysar et al. found that when novel metaphors,
such as Tina was currently weaning her latest child, were read in the
context of related conventional metaphors (e.g., talk of Tina as prolic and
conceiving new ndings, all related to the conceptual metaphor IDEAS
ARE PEOPLE) they were comprehended no more quickly than when read
in the context of non-metaphoric language. However, people were faster to
read the same novel metaphors when seen in contexts containing related
novel metaphors (e.g., Tina thinks of her theories as children, she is fertile,
and giving birth to new ideas). This pattern of results suggested that
understanding novel metaphors activates a deeper conceptual metaphor-
ical base, while reading conventional expressions do not, contrary to the
claims of CMT.
However, a more recent corpus analysis revealed that many conven-
tional metaphors used by Keysar et al. did not appear to be related to
similar underlying conceptual metaphors as well as the novel metaphorical
expressions.41 Paul Thibodeau and Frank Durgin rst replicated the same
ndings obtained by Keysar et al. using their original stimuli. But a second
study employed new stimulus materials that had consistent relationships
between conventional and novel metaphors in terms of their being motiv-
ated by identical conceptual metaphors. The results of a second reading
time study with these revised stimuli demonstrated that reading
conventional metaphors facilitated understanding of novel metaphorical

language, contrary to the conclusions of Keysar et al. A third study in this
series compared pairs of conventional metaphorical scenarios that depicted
different metaphor families for a target domain (e.g., ANGER IS HEAT
I was fuming and ANGER IS A DANGEROUS ANIMAL I was brist-
ling), with non-metaphorical expressions (e.g., I was furious). Once
again, novel metaphors were comprehended more quickly when they were
read after a story containing conventional expressions motivated by the
same conceptual metaphor than when they followed conventional expres-
sions motivated by a different conceptual metaphor. One conclusion of this
work is that conventional metaphors remain productive, and that fam-
ilies of conventional metaphors. . . can facilitate the mappings of relevant
conceptual structures when interpreting novel metaphorical language.42
Part of the challenge in conducting psycholinguistic experiments on
verbal metaphors is to determine whether any individual expression is
conventional or novel. Another study, conducted in Persian, rst per-
formed an extensive corpus search to assess the degree of conventionality
for metaphorical statements. Using these stimuli, one experiment showed
that reading conventional metaphors (e.g., They take positions against
each other in reference to an argument) within a story facilitated the
processing of novel metaphors (e.g., He doesnt have enough weapons and
ammunition to continue the battle) seen later in a passage.43 However,
rst reading conventional metaphors did not speed up the processing of
subsequent novel metaphors as much as when people rst read non-
conventional metaphors. (e.g., They built trenches against each other
when referring to an argument). This latter nding suggests that concep-
tual metaphors may not be activated as strongly, or to the same degree,
when people read conventional metaphors than when they see non-
conventional expressions.
A different research project also measured reading times to assess
peoples conceptual metaphorical knowledge when understanding very
specic metaphorical meanings.44 Participants read stories that described
different human events, such as revealing secrets, getting angry, losing
control of themselves, and so on. These stories contained information
about the causes of the event, the intentionality of the action performed
by each storys protagonist, and the manner in which the actions were
performed. Some stories depicted this information in a manner that was
consistent with the entailments of particular conceptual metaphors (the
no-violation contexts). At the end of each story, readers saw either an
idiomatic phrase, which was motivated by the same conceptual metaphor
depicted in the context, or a literal paraphrase of the idiom. Presented

below is an example of a no-violation story:
John heard some interesting gossip about Paul and Mary.
Even though Paul and Mary were married to other people,
they had recently started having a passionate affair.
John was very surprised when he found out about the affair.
So John called up another friend who knew Paul and Mary
and quickly blurted out what he knew.
The friend commented to John that he had really
spilled the beans
(or)
revealed the secret
Note that each of the entailments about the cause, intentionality, and
manner in which a secret was revealed is stated explicitly and correctly in
this story, each of which arises from the conceptual metaphors THE MIND
IS A CONTAINER and IDEAS ARE PHYSICAL ENTITIES.
Now consider a story from one of the violation conditions in which one
of the original entailments (Intentionality) has been altered.
John heard some interesting gossip about Paul and Mary.
Even though Paul and Mary were married to other people,
they had recently started having a passionate affair.
John was very surprised when he found out about the affair.
John fully intended never to say a word to anyone.
One day he was talking to someone who knew Paul and Mary,
when John accidentally said something about what he knew.
The friend commented to John that he had really
spilled the beans
(or)
revealed the secret
Do people understand idioms and their literal paraphrases in different

ways depending on whether a story context was consistent or inconsistent
with the specic entailments of the conceptual metaphors that motivate the
meanings of those idioms? In a rst study, participants simply rated the
appropriateness of each nal phrase given the preceding story. The results
showed that the participants rated the idioms (e.g., spill the beans) and
their literal paraphrases (e.g., reveal the secret) as being equally appro-
priate in the no-violation story contexts. However, the participants judged
idioms as being less appropriate in the different violation conditions than
they did literal paraphrases in these same contexts. Literal paraphrases are
not constrained by conceptual metaphors in the way idioms are limited.
Consequently, phrases such as reveal the secret were seen as appropriate
in most story contexts regardless of the cause of the revelation, the
intentionality of the act, or the manner in which it is done. This was not
the case for spill the beans.
A second experiment showed that idioms took longer to read when
they were seen at the end of violation contexts than in the no-violation
stories, whereas the literal paraphrases were roughly as easy to process in
the violation stories as in the no-violation conditions. These ndings
demonstrated that idioms are not equivalent in meaning to their simple
literal paraphrases. Idiomatic phrases have very specic metaphorical
meanings that arise from the source-to-target domain mappings of their
underlying conceptual metaphors. Literal phrases, such as reveal the
secret, are not motivated by the same conceptual metaphors and con-
sequently are less specic in meaning. The fact that idioms were seen as
less appropriate and read slower in the different violation contexts
strongly suggests that people accessed the underlying conceptual meta-
phors for idioms when they quickly read these metaphorical expressions
in context.
A lexical priming set of studies has also demonstrated that people access
conceptual metaphors during online processing of idiomatic metaphors.
For example, peoples reading of idiomatic phrases (e.g., John blew his
stack) primed their subsequent lexical decision judgments for word strings
related to the conceptual metaphors motivating the gurative meanings of
the idioms (e.g., heat for ANGER IS A HEATED FLUID IN THE
BODILY CONTAINER).45 Furthermore, people took less time to make
lexical decisions to a word like heat after reading John blew his stack
than after John jumped down his throat, which was motivated by a
different conceptual metaphor (e.g., ANGER IS ANIMAL BEHAVIOR).46
Although these ndings show that conceptual metaphors immediately
shape even conventional metaphor understanding, it is unclear whether

people compute the conceptual metaphor mappings at the time when they
interpret the idioms or simply retrieve them en bloc from memory.
Several of the above studies were based around the widely noted
observation that many abstract domains (e.g., ANGER) are structured in
terms of multiple conceptual metaphors (e.g., ANGER IS A HEATED
FLUID IN THE BODILY CONTAINER and ANGER IS ANIMAL
BEHAVIOR). The concept of time is another example of an abstract
domain that is organized around more than one metaphor. For instance,
English has two separate metaphors to sequence events in time. The rst is
the ego-moving metaphor in which the ego or observers movement
progresses along the time-line toward the future (e.g., Were coming up
on Christmas). The second is the time-moving metaphor in which a
person is standing and the time-line is conceived as a river or a conveyer
belt in which events are moving from the future to the past (e.g., Christ-
mas is coming up).
These two conceptual metaphors assign different roles to the front and
back in our understanding of time. In the ego-moving metaphor, front is
assigned to a future or later event. For instance, The revolution is before
us implies that the revolution is a later or future event and is said to be
before because it is further along the observers direction of motion. When
an observer moves along a path, objects are ordered according to the
direction of motion of the observer. In the time-moving metaphor, front
is assigned to a past or earlier event (e.g., The revolution was over before
breakfast). Revolution is the earlier event, and is said to be before because
it is further along in the direction of motion of time. Once again, an
analogous system exists for ordinary objects in space. When objects with-
out intrinsic fronts are moving, they are assigned fronts based on the
direction of motion.
Are ego-moving and time-moving expressions understood through
different conceptual schemes? If this is true, switching from one conceptual
metaphor to another in reading temporal expressions may require add-
itional cognitive effort over that needed to understand time expressions
motivated by the same conceptual metaphor. There have been several
experimental tests of this idea, employing different methods.
In one study, by Dedre Gentner and colleagues, people at an airport
(Chicago OHare) were presented a priming question in either the ego-
moving form (e.g., Is Boston ahead or behind in time?) or the time-
moving form (e.g., Is it earlier or later in Boston than it is here?).47 After
answering, the participants were asked the target question So should
I turn my watch forward or back? that was consistent with the ego-
moving form. The experimenter measured response times to the target
question with a stopwatch disguised as a wristwatch. Once again, response
times for consistently primed questions were shorter than for inconsist-
ently primed questions. Switching schemas caused an increase in process-
ing time. These results are consistent with the idea that two distinct
conceptual schemes are involved in sequencing events in time.
A different experiment in this series more precisely measured process-
ing time for various similar or different temporal expressions. Participants
were presented with a block of temporal statements that were either
consistent with one scheme, or switched between ego-moving and time-
moving schemes. For each statement (e.g., Christmas is six days before
New Years Day), participants were given a time-line of events (e.g.,
past . . . New Years Day . . . future), and had to place an event (e.g.,
Christmas) on the time-line. People read these statements, one line at a
time on a computer screen which measured the time it took participants to
read each sentence and push a button indicating that they understood its
meaning. Participants took more time to do this when the temporal
statements switched between the two metaphors. These ndings also imply
that understanding metaphorical expressions about time activates their
respective conceptual metaphors, which when switched add an extra
burden to processing.48
One set of experiments examined peoples understanding of TIME IS
MOTION by rst asking people to read ctive motion sentences, as in
The tattoo runs along his spine, where the motion mentioned is not read
(e.g., the tattoo does not actually run).49 Participants read either ctive
motion statements or sentences that did not imply ctive motion (e.g.,
The tattoo is next to the spine), and then answered the classic ambiguous
time, or move forward, question (e.g., The meeting originally scheduled
for next Wednesday has been moved forward two days. Which day is the
meeting now scheduled for.). People gave signicantly more Friday than
Monday responses after reading the ctive motion expressions, but not the
non-ctive motion statements. This result demonstrated that people
inferred motion when reading the ctive motion expressions which primed
their responses to the ambiguous move forward question.
A follow-up group of studies had participants ll in the missing
numbers in an array that either went in ascending (e.g., between 5 and
17) or descending (e.g., between 17 and 5) order. When the participants
then answered the move forward question, they gave far more Friday
responses after lling in the numbers for the ascending condition and gave
more Monday answers having just lled in the numbers for the descending
order condition. A similar pattern of results was observed when partici-
pants rst lled in the missing letters in the forward sequence (e.g., G to P)
or backward (e.g., P to G) sequences. In a nal study, participants read a
story that described the start of an eating contest with either a forward
(e.g., one, two, three, four, ve, start) or backward (e.g., ve, four, three,
two, one, start) sequence. As expected, people gave more Friday responses
after reading the forward sequence, and more Monday responses after
reading the backward sequence. One other set of experiments showed that
hearing ctive motion expressions implying metaphorical motion, such as
The road goes through the desert, inuences peoples subsequent eye-
movement patterns while looking at a scene of the sentence depicted.50
This suggests that the simulations used to understand the sentence involve
a particular motion movement of what the roads does, which interacts with
peoples eye movements. Overall, these studies show that temporal
reasoning can be inuenced through abstract motion. People appear to
understand the metaphorical meaning of time expressions through a
mental simulation of the implied motion.
Several other studies have also explored peoples various metaphorical
understandings of time. For instance, the spatial metaphor TIME IS
MOVEMENT ALONG A PATH raises the possibility of time moving
from left to right, although there is no linguistic evidence of the left-right
axis being used in talk about time (e.g., the rightward month). Nonetheless,
understanding of a left-right ow of time does appear in cultures whose
language has a left-right writing direction. One psychological study
explored the automatic activation of the left-right axis in processing of
temporal concepts.51 Participants made speeded categorizations of individ-
ual words and phrases as to whether they referred to the past or future
(e.g., after, next, I will then, before, recently, I thought). These
words and phrases, however, were visually displayed on either the right or
left side of the computer screen, and participants made their speeded
responses by pushing a button with either the left or right hand.
In general, participants were faster when past and future time was seen
on the left and right sides of the screen, respectively, and when the left and
right hands made the responses, respectively. This pattern of data suggests
that irrelevant parts of the judgment task (e.g., speeded processing of words
on the screen and hand response) played a role in peoples immediate
judgments of temporal concepts, a view that is consistent with the predic-
tions of a specic conceptual mapping between past time and left space
and future time and right space.52 Peoples experience in the left-to-right
writing direction, and reading, provides some of the experiential motiv-

ation for the existence of this spatial understanding of past and future
along the left-to-right axis. These ndings are especially interesting because
they suggest how time can be spatialized in ways that have no corres-
ponding reection in language. Although it is not clear when and how
people immediately adapt different spatial time metaphors, and resolve
possible conicts between them, attention surely plays an important part in
highlighting the relevant spacetime metaphor for particular individuals in
different cultural contexts.
These various studies, employing different methods, provide a signi-
cant source of evidence on the constraining inuence of conceptual meta-
phors on verbal metaphor understanding. But conceptual metaphors also
may affect verbal metaphor production. Participants in one study were rst
presented two pictures that both related to a specic abstract concept (e.g.,
an apple in a box for CONTAINMENT, and a boy holding an apple for
POSSESSION), or they could be shown a neutral prime (e.g., a boy using a
computer).53 After they saw the two pictures, participants were then shown
a linguistic prompt, consisting of a name and state (e.g., Sally, trouble).
Their task was to produce a related linguistic expression. An analysis of the
sentences produced showed that they were typically closely related to the
previously seen pictures. Thus, seeing CONTAINMENT pictures led to a
greater number of related metaphorical statements such as Sally was in
trouble, while seeing POSSESSION pictures signicantly prompted the
production of metaphorical statements such as Bob kept a good relation-
ship with his girlfriend. These metaphorical priming effects were not
found when people rst saw neutral pictures unrelated to the source
domains in enduring conceptual metaphors.54 Overall, being in a particular
conceptual metaphorical frame of mind can lead people to produce certain
kinds of linguistic metaphors that are consistent with these frames.
inferring metaphorical entailments

Do people draw metaphorical entailments when understanding verbal
metaphors that are motivated by conceptual metaphors? CMT posits that
we understand the conventional expression I was strengthened by her
love via the instantiation of the conceptual metaphor LOVE IS
A NUTRIENT. This same conceptual metaphor motivates the conven-
tional expressions I am starved for affection, with the entailment in this
case being that the hungry person is one who desires love. She is sustained
by love, which expresses the entailment that effects of nourishment
Embodiment in Verbal Metaphor Understanding 199
correspond to the consequences of love, and She is love-starved, where

the entailments expressed comes from the idea that hunger corresponds to
the desire for love.
One study examined whether a person who read I was given strength
by his love, and other verbal metaphors from different target domains,
actually recognize that the various entailments associated with the LOVE
IS A NUTRIENT are implied.55 On the other hand, if a person read I was
given much strength by his love, do they see expressions such as Their
relationship is really going somewhere or They are making great progress
in their marriage as being unrelated because these remarks are motivated
by a different conceptual metaphor (e.g., LOVE IS A JOURNEY)? The
answer to both these questions is yes. Participants in one experiment rated
whether different conventional verbal metaphors implied various entail-
ments that were consistent (same conceptual metaphor same entail-
ment), related (same conceptual metaphor different entailment), or
unrelated (different conceptual metaphor). People gave equally high
ratings to the consistent and related statement than they did to the unre-
lated expressions. These data suggest that people can recognize that a
verbal metaphor implies certain meanings that are related to the under-
lying conceptual metaphor motivating the existence and continued use of
that linguistic expression. However, understanding verbal metaphors does
not directly imply entailments about the target domain (e.g., LOVE) that
arise from different conceptual metaphors for that topic (e.g., JOURNEY as
opposed to NUTRIENT).
The results of this study do not indicate whether people always infer
relevant entailments when encountering verbal metaphors. Testing this
possibility would require a more sophisticated, online experimental meth-
odology. Drawing entailments when processing verbal metaphors may
likely depend on the context and task (e.g., fast conversation vs. slow
literary reading). Nonetheless, there is at least some evidence to suggest
that people can clearly distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate
entailments of underlying conceptual metaphors which may be recruited
during some aspects of verbal metaphor interpretation.
embodiment in verbal metaphor understanding

Cognitive linguistic research reveals that speakers often talk about abstract
concepts using embodied metaphor.56 For example, we conceive of ideas
as physical entities that we can grasp, juggle, hold on to, chew, swallow,
digest, and spit out given a wide-spread conceptual metaphor IDEAS ARE
PHYSICAL ENTITIES. This embodied metaphor maps source domain

knowledge of our bodily experiences with physical entities onto the target
domain of ideas, a mapping that gives rise to a range of meaning entail-
ments, such as that ideas can be possessed, hard to handle, deliberately
examined, accepted, and rejected.
There is a voluminous literature within cognitive linguistics that
advances the idea that conceptual metaphors often have embodied foun-
dations. The question remains whether people recruit bodily based meta-
phors as part of their understanding of verbal metaphors. Several
hypotheses can be identied on the role that embodiment may play in
linguistic metaphor use:
(a) Peoples bodily experiences are critical to the formation of concep-
tual metaphors, but conceptual metaphors are not, once established,
linked to continued sensorimotor activity. Verbal metaphor use is,
therefore, not an embodied process.
(b) Peoples bodily experiences get recruited during the creation of
certain metaphorical source domains, and continue to be essential
in maintaining various conceptual metaphors, even if peoples
bodily actions have no immediate effect on metaphorical
language use.
(c) Peoples bodily experiences get recruited during the creation and
continued maintenance of source domains for many conceptual
metaphors. Moreover, bodily activity can have a direct effect on
peoples production and understanding of verbal metaphors.
Lets now review some of the behavioral research related to these
hypotheses. My contention is that there is signicant evidence to suggest
support for hypothesis (c), above, although there remain important ques-
tions regarding what CMT specically claims about the embodied nature
of conceptual metaphor processing.
One project examined whether embodiment inuences peoples inter-
pretations of metaphorical expressions about human desires.57 Consider
how one American college student, Margo, described her romantic desires
as hunger in the following narrative:
Back in high school, I had this HUGE crush on this guy, James, who was
a total hunk. He would irt with me when wed talk, but I didnt get a
chance to know him very well, never mind ever be alone with him. I was
dying to get closer to him, and felt starved for his attention. I walked
around for over ve months feeling silly and empty because I wanted
him so bad. I wanted to eat him alive! He was yummy!
Margo uently referred to what must be a highly correlated experience

for people of all cultures, namely, the correlation between hunger and
desire (i.e., the primary metaphor DESIRE IS HUNGER). Asserting this
metaphorical relationship is not just a conventional or arbitrary way of
speaking about desire, because there appears to be rich, systematic corres-
pondences between feeling hunger and feeling different aspects of desire.
One series of studies showed how both Americans and Brazilians previous
bodily experiences of hunger (e.g., its effects on body parts, overall body
sensations, and its psychological impacts) partly predict their use and
understanding of metaphorical expressions referring to different forms of
desire, as seen in more abstract statements like I hunger for fame or I
craved her affection.58 People have specic metaphorical conceptions of
abstract ideas (e.g., desires for affection or fame) that are shaped by
recurring bodily experiences (e.g., bodily experiences of hunger), mappings
that are quite similar across two cultural contexts (e.g., California and
Brazil). These data indicate how certain kinds of bodily experience motiv-
ate why people speak metaphorically in specic ways about particular
abstract topics.
Psycholinguistic studies also show how immediate bodily experience
shapes verbal metaphor interpretation. For example, Lera Boroditsky and
Michael Ramscar explored how peoples very recent embodied actions
affected their understanding of time metaphors.59 Students waiting in line
at a cafe were given the statement Next Wednesdays meeting has been
moved forward two days and then asked What day is the meeting that
has been rescheduled? Students who were farther along in line (i.e., who
had thus experienced more forward spatial motion) were more likely to say
that the meeting had been moved to Friday. Similarly, people riding a train
were presented with the same ambiguous statement and question about the
rescheduled meeting. Passengers who were at the end of their journeys
reported that the meeting was moved to Friday signicantly more than did
people in the middle of their journeys. Although both groups of passengers
were experiencing the same physical experience of sitting in a moving
train, they thought differently about their journeys and consequently
responded differently to the rescheduled meeting question. These ndings
indicate that peoples thoughts about spatial motion, and not just the
physical experiences themselves, inuence their metaphorical understand-
ing of temporal events.60
Consider now an example of verbal metaphor in which the physical
action noted is incapable of being performed in the real world. A yer
posted on a university bulletin board invited people to attend a meeting
with the statement You have feet. Use them to stomp out racism in your
scene. Do people infer bodily actions when understanding the phrase
stomp out racism, which cannot be physically enacted? One set of studies
examined the possible inuence of bodily action on speeded processing of
simple metaphorical phrases, such as stamp out a feeling, push an
issue, sniff out the truth, and cough up a secret, each of which denote
physical actions upon abstract items. These metaphorical expressions are
physically impossible to perform, unlike non-metaphorical action state-
ments such as grasp a spoon, chew on the gum, swallow your food,
or push the carriage.61 If metaphorical concepts are understood via
bodily actions, then performing a related physical movement should facili-
tate speeded sensibility judgments for a gurative phrase that mentions
this action.
Participants rst learned to perform various specic bodily actions (e.g.,
throw, stamp, push. swallow, cough, grasp) given different non-linguistic
cues. Following this, participants were individually seated in front of a
computer screen. The experiment consisted of a series of trials where an
icon ashed on the screen, prompting the participant to perform the
appropriate bodily action. After doing this, a string of words appeared
on the screen and participants had to judge as quickly as possible whether
that word string was sensible.
Analysis of the speeded sensibility judgments showed that participants
responded more quickly to the metaphorical phrases that matched the
preceding action (e.g., the motor action kick was followed by kick around
the idea), than to the phrases that did not match the earlier movement (e.
g, the motor action chew was followed by kick around the idea). People
were also faster in responding to the metaphor phrases having performed a
relevant body moment than when they did not move at all. In short,
performing an action facilitates the understanding of a gurative phrase
containing that action word, just as it does for literal phrases. A second
study showed that same pattern of bodily priming effects when partici-
pants were asked to imagine performing the actions before they made their
speeded responses to word strings. This result reveals that real movement
is not required to facilitate metaphor comprehension, only that people
mentally simulate such action.
These experiments do not distinguish between the possibility that
sensorimotor activity is actively recruited in metaphor comprehension
and the idea that functionally independent conceptual representations
are activated when metaphors referring to abstract concepts are under-
stood. But the data are consistent with the idea that many aspects of verbal
metaphor processing are tied to what the body is doing at any one
moment. People create embodied simulations of speakers messages that
involve moment-by-moment what this must be like processes that make
use of ongoing tactile-kinesthetic experiences. These simulation processes
operate even when people encounter language that is abstract, or refers to
actions that are physically impossible to perform. In this way, processing
metaphorical meaning is not just a cognitive act, but involves some
imaginative understanding of the bodys role in structuring abstract
concepts.
An extension of the above line of research investigated how bodily
action affects ofine metaphor interpretation.62 Participants in a rst
study rode a stationary bike and then read a text while standing in front of
a computer terminal. One group of participants read the text with one leg
advanced 40 centimeters in front of the other, while a second group read
the text with both feet parallel to one another. The text participants read
was an adapted version of US President Lyndon Johnsons famous Great
Society speech given back in the 1960s. This speech contained several
metaphorical phrases that implied forward movement (e.g., We will break
the wall of hesitation to safely navigate our vessel to a better future).
Afterwards, participants quickly judged whether certain statements cor-
rectly summarized the texts meaning. Following this, participants quickly
judged whether they previously saw individual words in the previously
read text (e.g., advance, follow, pursue).
An analysis of peoples speeded responses indicated that they made
quicker judgments to both the summary statements and the individual
words when they had rst read the text with one foot advanced in front of
the other than when their two feet were aligned. These ndings support the
claim that interpreting verbal metaphors in discourse is based on the
construction of relevant embodied simulations of the events described in
the text. The results also show how these sensorimotor effects extend to
discourse understanding, and not simply the understanding of isolated
metaphorical words or phrases.
The embodied simulations people engage in when understanding meta-
phorical statements may also affect their subsequent bodily behaviors. One
study revealed that people walked further toward a target when thinking
about a metaphorical statement Your relationship was moving along in a
good direction when the context ultimately suggested a positive relation-
ship than when the scenario alluded to a negative, unsuccessful relation-
ship.63 However, this same difference was not obtained when people read
the non-metaphorical statement Your relationship was very important in
the same two scenarios. People appear to partly understand the metaphor-
ical statement from building an embodied simulation relevant to LOVE
RELATIONSHIPS ARE JOURNEYS, such that they bodily imagine taking
a longer journey with the successful relationship than the unsuccessful one.
Finally, studies show that reading novel metaphors may subsequently
affect peoples sensory judgments. People in one study read novel meta-
phors referring to time or weight (e.g., The past carries particular weight
for where you are today).64 Afterward, participants made judgments
about the real physical weight of a scientic book, in addition to estimating
its age and popularity. People who rst were exposed to a metaphor that
the past was heavy, or burdensome, judged the book to be physically
heavier than did participants who read a different metaphor. These behav-
ioral results are consistent with the idea that comprehending an embodied
metaphor may alter ones understanding of the abstract concept alluded to
in order to include sensorimotor information.
One other production study explored whether people modulate their
prosody when speaking about both concrete (e.g., fast driving) and
abstract, metaphorical (e.g., fast career progress) events.65 Participants read
aloud stories referring to fast rates of speed more quickly than they did
slow stories for both the concrete and metaphorical events. They also read
both types of stories in lower pitch when these referred to events that were
physically heavier (e.g., lifting a heavy object) or metaphorically more
important (e.g., having an important meeting). These ndings suggest that
peoples metaphorical understanding of events inuences the spoken qual-
ity of their speech when talking about these events. For example, noting
that a metaphorical event refers to a fast LIFE IS A JOURNEY or a heavy
IMPORTANCE IS WEIGHT situation alters the vocal quality of their
language productions.
Many of these studies are consistent with the claim that people engage in
embodied simulations during their production and understanding of verbal
metaphors. However, as I will elaborate upon soon, one must be careful to
not assume that people necessarily create rich, full-blown embodied simu-
lations when they encounter every linguistic metaphor in each context.
Dave Ritchie, for example, has described some of the linguistic and context-
ual conditions under which richer as well as more impoverished embodied
simulations are likely to arise during verbal metaphor use.66 Thus,
embodied simulations vary in their intensity and richness and may involve
different types of simulators. My claim, therefore, is that embodiment has a
critical role in the ways verbal metaphors are created and interpreted, but
that embodied simulations may vary according to various constraints.
Cognitive Neuroscience Evidence on Embodied Conceptual Metaphor 205
cognitive neuroscience evidence on embodied

conceptual metaphor
Do people access sensory representations in relevant brain areas as part of
their comprehension of verbal metaphors? If people engage in embodied
processing of many verbal metaphors, then there should be activation of
relevant source domains in specic sensory areas of the brain. Many
cognitive neuroscience studies provide evidence that this possibility may
be true. For example, one study employed functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) to investigate peoples comprehension of literal (e.g., Sam
had a bad day) and metaphorical (e.g., Sam had a rough day) sentence
pairs.67 Participants lay in a scanner, read the different sentences as they
individually appeared, and pushed a response button as soon as they
understood each statement. The analysis of the fMRI data showed clear
evidence of localized, domain-specic cortical areas during the processing
of metaphor, but not literal paraphrases. Thus, there was evidence of
activation for somatosensory areas of the brain related to touching when
people read Sam had a rough day as if they were almost feeling a rough
texture.
A different study explored the sensory activation related to peoples
understanding of taste metaphors (e.g., She looked at him sweetly)
compared to non-gustatory paraphrases (e.g., She looked at him
kindly).68 An analysis of the brain areas most associated with gustatory
perception showed increased activation in these areas when people read
the metaphorical expressions than when they saw the non-metaphorical
paraphrases. Once again, some metaphor processing activates selective
parts within the brains somatosensory region that are related to the source
domains from which the metaphors originated (e.g., sweetly is related
to taste).
Cognitive neuroscience studies have also explored the neural processing
of metaphorical action phrases, such as grasp the concept, and showed
nearly identical activation in motor areas of the brain as when people
interpret literal action statements (e.g., John grasped the straw).69 Similar
ndings have been reported when people comprehend idiomatic phrases
such as kick the bucket. Both neuroimaging and neurostimulation
experiments have demonstrated that understanding many idioms, such
as kick the bucket, involves the activation of relevant motoric brain areas
(i.e., related to the action of kicking).70
Experiments in support of an embodied account of metaphor under-
standing have been extended to metaphors based on auditory (e.g., Her
limousine was a privileged snort) and motion (e.g., The editorial was a
brass-knuckle punch) modalities.71 An analysis of event-related potentials
(ERPs) collected when participants read these different metaphors showed
divergent patterns of activation. Thus, auditory regions of the brains
sensorimotor cortex were activated when people read Her limousine
was a privileged snort, while motion areas were activated when reading
The editorial was a brass-knuckle punch. This pattern of ndings is
consistent with the idea that metaphor understanding involves modality-
specic neural processing.72
The neuroscience research is mostly consistent with the theoretical
claims of CMT, and provides some data that aligns with the neural theory
of metaphor. To be fair, there is some neuroscience research that fails to
nd activation of relevant sensorimotor brain areas when people interpret
aspects of metaphor comprehension.73 At the same time, the time-course
of brain activations in verbal metaphor understanding experiments have
proven to be somewhat inconsistent. For example, one experiment meas-
uring participants ERPs asked them to read either literal (e.g., ascend or
descend) or metaphorical (e.g., inspire or defeat) as they concur-
rently made upward or downward arm movements.74 The analysis of the
ERPs showed that there were strong congruency effects (e.g., moving an
arm upward while reading ascend) for both types of words, although the
effects for metaphorical words were delayed in time compared to the literal
words. These ndings suggest that metaphorical language does activate
relevant parts of somatosensory cortex, but that metaphor brain relations
were later developing, with participants most likely using embodied pro-
cesses to draw pragmatic inferences rather than engaging in rapid, bottom-
up word comprehension.
Several debates have risen in the literature regarding whether embodied
metaphor processing necessarily requires the early activation of relevant
sensorimotor brain areas.75 Part of the difculty in evaluating the idea that
verbal metaphor processing involves activation of sensorimotor cortex is
that some modality-specic areas of the brain are also involved in other
perceptual and cognitive processes. Daniel Casasanto and Tom Gijssels
argued that source-domain representations are implemented in multi-
modal or amodal brain areas not in modality-specic simulations.76
This possibility raised doubts in their minds as to whether conceptual
metaphors are truly embodied.77
Still, Casasanto and Gijssels also correctly observed that CMT typically
assumes that the source domains in conceptual metaphors are image-
schematic. Image schemas are analogue entities that arise from recurring
Cognitive Neuroscience Evidence on Embodied Conceptual Metaphor 207
bodily experiences across different sensory modalities, such as CONTAIN-

MENT, BALANCE, and SOURCEPATHGOAL. A critical point, how-
ever, is that image schemas are often viewed as being abstracted away from
the body and exist in a disembodied manner. If this is true, then it is not
clear whether CMT necessarily demands that sensorimotor brain areas
must be activated during processing of verbal metaphors, even if these
metaphors were originally motivated from embodied source domains.
My argument, though, is that image schemas retain close connections
with ongoing bodily experience, both within specic modalities and the
body overall.78 Consider again the single metaphorical expression Sam
had a rough day. Our experiences of roughness may be more closely
related to the modality of touch, yet we also have sensations of roughness
for taste, vision, audition, and even smell, similar to the way that smooth
can be used metaphorically to talk about a smooth taste, a smoothing
tone of voice, and so on. To take another example, consider the meta-
phorical statement John had an unbalanced personality. Balance may be
primarily related to kinesthetic equilibrium, yet this concept can also be
readily used to refer to taste, sight, audition, and smell (e.g., A balanced
tasting soup, The picture frame is not properly balanced, The stereo
speakers are not balanced).
Each of these image-schematic concepts is manifested across several
bodily modalities and is not restricted to a single dimension of neural
experience. This possibility poses a challenge for neuroscience studies
that insist on modality-specic effects if verbal metaphor processing is
believed to be embodied. Experimental ndings showing the activation of
specic sensorimotor brain areas when people encounter verbal meta-
phors may, therefore, seek to uncover more distributed effects across
several regions of sensorimotor cortex. Indeed, there is neuropsycho-
logical evidence that primary and complex conceptual metaphors have
different neural realizations.79 Understanding primary metaphors seems
to involve a greater binding of neural assemblies, whereas understanding
complex conceptual metaphors relies more on exchanges between differ-
ent neural assemblies, some of which cut across modality-specic
brain areas.
One can still conclude that there is signicant experimental evidence
showing that verbal metaphor interpretation involves extensive activation
of sensorimotor brain areas even if there are uncertainties about the time-
course and modality-specic nature of this neural activity. These neural
activations are generally consistent with the idea that embodiment is part
of both conceptual metaphorical thinking and verbal metaphor use.
experimental evidence contrary to cmt

Some psycholinguistic studies have presented data that may contradict
aspects of CMT as a psychological theory of verbal metaphor
comprehension.
I earlier described the debate between Keysar et al. and Thibodeau and
Durgin over the role that conceptual metaphors may have in conventional
metaphor understanding. Right now, the evidence seems to support the
possibility that conceptual metaphors are recruited during online conven-
tional metaphor understanding, as well as when interpreting novel
expressions.
But other psycholinguistic studies report ndings that disagree with the
putative predictions of CMT. For example, one set of studies appears to
raise questions about the validity of mental imagery research in favor of
conceptual metaphors in verbal metaphor use, described earlier. Cristina
Cacciari and Sam Glucksberg used a procedure similar to that of Gibbs and
OBrien, and asked people to form mental images for different idiomatic
phrases.80 Participants overwhelmingly produced images based on the
idioms concrete literal meanings. Cacciari and Glucksberg argued that
these images do not directly offer information about idiomatic meanings or
conceptual metaphors that might underlie many idioms, contrary to the
claims of Gibbs and OBrien.
However, Gibbs and OBrien never claimed that ordinary speakers
mental images for idioms were simply based on what these phrases gura-
tively mean or even the conceptual metaphors underlying these metaphor-
ical phrases. Indeed, similar to Cacciari and Glucksberg, we found that
people primarily form very concrete mental images for American idioms
(e.g., blow your stack). More interestingly, though, peoples mental images
across different idioms (e.g., blow your stack, ip your lid, and hit the
ceiling) were highly consistent (e.g., some force acts to release the internal
pressure of a container in a violent manner). We showed that this consist-
ency is not due to these phrases having similar gurative meanings, but can
be explained in terms of the idea that each idiom is motivated by a similar
conceptual metaphor (e.g., ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A CON-
TAINER). These conceptual metaphors form part of the link between
idiomatic phrases and their overall metaphorical meanings. For this reason,
the data from Cacciari and Glucksberg may actually provide a conrmation
of Gibbs and OBrien, and can possibly be seen as support for CMT.
For instance, one possibility is that ordinary peoples intuitions about
the meanings of idioms depend on their knowledge of the stipulated
Experimental Evidence Contrary to CMT 209
(i.e., historically given) gurative meanings of the phrases, and not on

recognizing the possible conceptual metaphors that give rise to idioms and
conventional expressions in the rst place. Boaz Keysar and Brigitte Bly
tested this idea by rst having people learn either the original or opposite
meanings of unfamiliar idioms (e.g., for the idiom The goose hangs high
meaning either things look good, its original meaning, or things look
bad).81 Later on, when participants were asked to rate whether an idioms
meaning made sense, the learned meanings were generally perceived as
being more transparent than the non-learned meaning. Importantly, this
result was obtained regardless of whether the original meaning of the
idiom was stipulated or not. In other words, if people were told that the
meaning of The goose hangs high is things look bad, when in fact its
original meaning was things look good, they believed that the meaning
presented to them originally made more sense as best capturing what the
phrase The goose hangs high could mean. Keysar and Bly interpreted
these ndings to suggest that intuitions alone about why idioms mean what
they do should not be trusted as evidence for CMT.
The major problem with Keysar and Blys ndings, however, is that the
vast majority of the idioms they studied are based on metonymy and not
metaphor. Thus, the phrase The goose hangs high means things look
good because the act of hanging a dead goose up for all to see metony-
myically stands for an entire sequence of events leading up to the success-
ful slaughter of the goose for food. Contemporary speakers often have great
difculty explaining why metonymically based idioms mean what they do,
even for widely used expressions (e.g., kick the bucket). Furthermore,
Keysar and Blys results may be due to the fact that all of their idioms had
low transparent meanings (i.e., had opaque relations between their surface
forms and gurative meanings). Studies that examined second-language
learners understandings of more transparent meanings found that partici-
pants could give highly consistent and correct denitions for these phrases,
even when these were encountered for the rst time.82 Thus, Keysar and
Blys use of low-transparency idioms in highly biasing contexts and forced
denitions choices may have preempted the partial reliance of participants
on idiom-inherent features to form their interpretations.83 This possibility
casts further doubt on the Keysar and Bly studies as evidence against
CMT.84
Another set of studies, by Mathew McGlone, whose results may also be
contrary to CMT, asked people to paraphrase verbal metaphors, such as
The lecture was a three-course meal, to see if these may reveal the
presence of conceptual metaphors in peoples processing of these linguistic
expressions.85 The analysis of these paraphrases revealed that only 24 per-

cent contained any references consistent with underlying conceptual meta-
phors, such as IDEAS ARE FOOD. Even when participants were more
specically asked to give gurative paraphrases of the verbal metaphors
in a second study, they still only did so 41 percent of the time. (i.e.,
mentioning source domain terms, like food related to the conceptual
metaphor IDEAS ARE FOOD). A follow-up study found that people do
not perceive expressions motivated by conceptual metaphor to be any
more similar in meaning than they did expressions motivated by different
conceptual metaphors. These data were interpreted as showing that
peoples interpretations of verbal metaphors might not be related to their
putative, underlying conceptual metaphors.
As suggested earlier, asking people to verbally paraphrase a novel
metaphor may not be the best indicator of the possible underlying presence
of conceptual metaphors in interpreting these novel expressions. Given the
long-noted difculties people have in paraphrasing metaphors, the fact
that 41 percent could provide interpretations that seem to meet some
criteria for conceptual metaphor may be a positive nding in favor of
CMT. Moreover, the specic metaphors examined in his studies may not
be related to conceptual metaphors, as most were classic A is B resem-
blance metaphors. Some of his examples, such as Dr. Morelands lecture
was a three-course meal for the mind, are examples of XYZ metaphors
(e.g., Religion is an opiate of the masses), which are not typically
motivated by single conceptual metaphors, and likely produced and under-
stood through complex conceptual blending processes.86
A different psycholinguistic study whose ndings were interpreted as
contrary to CMT examined peoples understanding of temporal metaphors.
People took less time to comprehend temporal metaphors (e.g., The
meeting originally scheduled for next Wednesday has been moved forward
two days), when these were seen in contexts with consistent temporal
perspectives (e.g., time is moving while an observer is still or an observer is
moving while time is still both different versions of the TIME IS
MOTION metaphor), compared to when these same verbal metaphors
were read in contexts with inconsistent metaphors (e.g., moving-observer
and moving-event metaphors juxtaposed). However, these data were inter-
preted as being most parsimonious with the idea there is some abstract
similarity, and not metaphorical mapping, between time and space (or
motion through space). Under this view, the idea that time can move, as
in moving a date forward, is grounded in those abstract features that are
common to both time and space, or movement through space.
Preliminary Conclusions 211
The difculty with this explanation, however, is that time and space
generally have a directional relationship such that time is understood in
terms of space, but space is not typically understood in terms of time.
Thus, the directional relationship between time and space suggests that
time is metaphorically understood (e.g., TIME IS MOTION), which is
exactly the claim of CMT. One can argue, then, that the abstract similarity
position is untenable as an account of verbal metaphor understanding,
For this reason, these results on understanding temporal metaphors (e.g.,
the moved forward statement) may actually be consistent with the tenets
of CMT.87
preliminary conclusions
One of the ercest attacks that have been advanced by critics of CMT is
that the theory lacks empirical support. This claim is primarily directed
against the cognitive linguistic ndings on conceptual metaphors. But
many critics, especially from psychology and cognitive science, also argue
that insufcient experimental evidence exists to support any suggestion
that conceptual metaphorical knowledge either exists or plays any mean-
ingful role in peoples use of verbal metaphors. Several scholars, in par-
ticular, only cite evidence that they interpret as being contrary to the claims
of CMT, while others ignore the large body of psycholinguistic and
neuroscience literature surveyed in this chapter when they advocate alter-
native views of metaphor (e.g., deliberate metaphor theory).
My review of the literature on CMT clearly demonstrates a wealth of
empirical data showing that conceptual metaphors are a critical part of
verbal metaphor use. These many dozens of studies have employed a
variety of experimental methods and examined different kinds of verbal
metaphor. Crowning the winner of the metaphor wars cannot be done
simply on the basis of which side has more empirical ndings in its favor.
One cannot help but be impressed, nonetheless, with the diversity of
experimental research that is consistent with the idea of conceptual meta-
phor compared to the very few studies that argue against the theory. It is
patently absurd, then, to glibly claim that CMT has no evidence to support
its claims as a psychologically real theory of verbal metaphor use. Critics of
CMT can continue to be selective in their citation of experimental studies
on metaphor understanding or persist in assuming that no adequate data
exists to support any role for conceptual metaphors in human thought and
language. My plea, though, is for a fair hearing of all of the experimental
and linguistic data on conceptual metaphor as we continue to debate the
merits of CMT. Only through a complete analysis of the extant empirical

research will we ever come to broader theoretical agreements about the
complexities of metaphor use and understanding.
Nonetheless, questions remain regarding the role that conceptual meta-
phors may have in the determination of metaphorical meaning and in
using verbal metaphors in discourse. First, the experimental evidence
reviewed in this chapter suggests, at the very least, that people recruit
conceptual metaphors at least some of the time when comprehending
and more deeply interpreting certain verbal metaphors. Still, it is not clear
from the evidence presented above, or from cognitive linguistic work,
precisely how conceptual metaphors work in the understanding process.
Even if conceptual metaphors are active during metaphor processing, this
fact alone does not specify whether this knowledge is accessed as pre-
stored chunks of information or computed in the moment as a person
creates, or recreates, the source-to-target domain mapping during each
instance of verbal metaphor understanding. Furthermore, if conceptual
metaphors are activated as holistic units from long-term memory, are all of
their entailments accessed as well, or might these be computed online after
the basic conceptual metaphor structure has been accessed? Are there
constraints on the number, or types, of entailments that are accessed or
computed during verbal metaphor processing? Each of these questions is
asked given the assumption that activating conceptual metaphors facili-
tates what a particular verbal metaphor means in context.
A different possibility suggests that people do not recruit conceptual
metaphors, either by accessing them as pre-stored units or computing
these from scratch, to construct an interpretation of some verbal metaphor.
Instead, conceptual metaphors arise as emergent products of the under-
standing process so that a person may tacitly see how the specic meaning
of a verbal metaphor points to other higher-order conceptual structure,
namely a particular conceptual metaphor. For instance, people would then
interpret a conventional phrase like John blew his stack to mean get
very angry in specic ways, and then, at a later moment in the understand-
ing process recognize some connection between this phrase, its meaning,
and the conceptual metaphor ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN
A CONTAINER. Drawing this inference about the relation between a
verbal metaphor and its underlying conceptual metaphor may be particu-
larly useful for coherent processing of narratives or discourse.
A nal suggestion is that conceptual metaphors may be accessed or
computed during linguistic processing or even emerge as later products of
verbal metaphor understanding, yet does not assist people interpretations
The Way Forward: Interacting Constraints in Verbal Metaphor Use 213
of metaphorical language. People may know many conceptual metaphors

as part of their ordinary conceptual systems, and even tacitly know that
many verbal expressions are systematically linked to this knowledge. How-
ever, conceptual metaphors may not play a role in how a person constructs
what a linguistic expressions means in different discourse contexts. Under
this view, conceptual metaphors, at least in some cases, are passively
encoded remnants of prior thought processes that are brought along for
the ride, so to speak, during verbal metaphor interpretation. There may be
instances when conceptual metaphors become revitalized and help struc-
ture the interpretation of language. Still, conceptual metaphors, even if
they are recruited during language processing, do not operate to determine
specic metaphorical meanings in discourse.
These different questions are worthy of consideration for future
experimental research studies. Different metaphor scholars likely have
their own opinions about the extent to which experimental research
directly bears on these various hypotheses. Still, I raise these ideas in
the hope of expanding the scope of theoretical debates on CMT. We
should not simply argue whether conceptual metaphors really exist or
not, nor struggle only with whether conceptual metaphors play a role in
verbal metaphor use or not. It is now time for a more sophisticated
approach to thinking about the role that conceptual metaphors play in
human life, and part of this discussion must acknowledge the empirical
complexities associated with peoples use and understanding of verbal
metaphors.
the way forward: interacting constraints in

verbal metaphor use
The main problem in the wars over metaphor is that scholars typically
propose various alternatives to CMT and assume that only one theory
must ultimately be correct. If an alternative theory is seen as having certain
explanatory advantages, then CMT is presumed to be completely invali-
dated. The most notable instance of this is seen in the extensive research on
A is B or resemblance metaphors (e.g., My job is a jail). After noting
specic characteristics of these resemblance metaphors, and showing dif-
ferent experimental ndings on how these expressions may be understood
(e.g., career of metaphor and property attribution theories), CMT is
presumed to be refuted because of its inability to explain the empirical
data.88 These arguments, however, fail to note that very different meta-
phors are being studied in various research traditions (e.g., resemblance
metaphors vs. ones based on correlations). Still, the assumption is that one
theory should explain all aspects of metaphorical language use.
Another case where scholars advance different explanation from CMT is
seen in the extensive research from Relevance Theory (RT), which aims to
account for all pragmatic language use and not just metaphor alone.89
I have personally talked with many younger metaphor scholars who, in
the course of pursing their Ph.D.s, have reported being urged to focus on
one of these theories (e.g., RT), and not the other (e.g., CMT), when they
conduct their respective linguistic and psychological research. However,
Markus Tendahl, sometimes in collaboration with me, has explored various
ways in which CMT and Relevance Theory may be complementary theories
rather than contrasting ones.90 Peoples understanding of verbal metaphors
in discourse have been empirically shown to follow various pragmatic
principles, such as the principle of optimal relevance, which guides the
extent to which people aim to expend cognitive effort to recover cognitive
effects during verbal metaphor use.91 Some combination of CMT and RT
may go a long way toward explaining different facets of verbal metaphor
use and understanding in context, including different experimental results
on speeded metaphor comprehension and the meaning products inferred
when people encounter verbal metaphors in different situations.
Other alternative proposals on metaphor understanding are also
advanced as a way of eliminating the need for CMT. For example, under-
standing conventional verbal metaphor is sometimes presumed to operate
entirely according to lexical disambiguation processes.92 As Gerard Steen
argued, lexical (and conceptual) disambiguation can nish the job of
utterance processing much more efciently than what may occur if
embodied source domain knowledge is accessed to infer speakers context-
ual meanings as presumed by CMT. However, there is simply no empirical
foundation for this alternative proposal. First, the idea that lexical disam-
biguation alone can produce understandings of metaphorical meanings via
the passive look-up of entries in the metaphor lexicon cannot explain the
experimental evidence showing that cross-domain mappings are often
inferred during verbal metaphor interpretation. If the theory of lexical
disambiguation is to replace CMT, then that theory must explain why the
experimental literature demonstrates cross-domain mappings in the ways it
does. Second, the research on lexical disambiguation has never explicitly
examined whether embodied metaphorical knowledge is recruited during
peoples online interpretation of verbal metaphors. In fact, many experi-
mental studies have already tested and rejected the idea that lexical priming
between words in contexts and the words in verbal metaphors best explains
speeded metaphor comprehension, to take one widely studied phenom-

enon.93 In this way, the lexical disambiguation proposal cannot be used to
refute the massive body of evidence showing that the embodied roots of
metaphorical source domains are routinely activated as part of peoples
ordinary interpretations of metaphorical discourse.
Of course, lexical disambiguation processes are a critical part of linguis-
tic understanding, and surely have a role in online verbal metaphor
interpretation. The debate here is not between CMT and a theory of lexical
disambiguation. Instead, the question is whether verbal metaphors are
entirely understood via lexical disambiguation processes without any acti-
vation of their conceptual metaphorical roots. I see no reason to believe
that this may be the case. Alternative accounts of conceptual metaphor
ndings must test these hypotheses against the predictions of CMT in the
context of experimental studies. Casually tossing out an untested alterna-
tive in some critical discussion of CMT simply does not pass muster in the
scientic world of metaphor studies.
There is no doubt, as discussed in Chapter 4, that peoples use and
understanding of metaphorical discourse relies on lexical, grammatical,
and socio-cultural information. But the existence of these constraints on
verbal metaphor use does not imply that conceptual metaphors are irrele-
vant to how specic verbal metaphors are created and used in discourse.
Peoples performances in different psycholinguistic tasks, such as speeded
reading of metaphors in context, are likely shaped by multiple interacting
constraints.
To give one example illustrating this possibility, consider two very
different perspectives on metaphorical language, CMT and Walter
Kintschs theory of metaphor predication based on latent semantic analysis
(LSA).94 On the surface, these two theories seem radically different, with
CMT emphasizing the grounding of meaning in embodied action, and the
predication model claiming that patterns of metaphorical language and
understanding are best explained by the distributional patterns in which
words appear in discourse. Rather than viewing these two broad
approaches as being incompatible, with one eventually emerging as most
relevant to psychological accounts of metaphor understanding, both the-
ories may have something important to contribute to a comprehensive
theory of verbal metaphor use. More interestingly, peoples experiences
with word co-occurrence and their recurring bodily experiences in the
world may feed off one another to create complex webs between language
and experience. Research shows, for example, that certain word co-
occurrences in discourse may be closely linked to peoples spatial,
embodied experiences.95 Thus, attic followed by basement is more

frequent than basement followed by attic, at least partly because of
the spatial bias toward a top-to-bottom iconic relationship. Our embodied
experiences with attics being above basements seem to have caused those
two words to have a bias in their typical word order. But there is a bi-
directional ow between word co-occurrence information and embodied
experience. Peoples experiences with the statistical distributions of words
inuence their understandings of spatial experience in terms of reinforcing
their conceptualizations of how different events relate to one another in the
real-world.
The important conclusion to be drawn for these examples is that very
different approaches to metaphor and thought may not be opposing, but
quite complementary both in their real-world realizations and in our
scientic characterization of how bodies, thoughts, and language interact.
More locally, different variables often seen as completely independent in
theories of metaphor may have closer linkages than we imagined and can
jointly affect metaphorical discourse behaviors.
Peoples verbal metaphor behaviors may better be characterized as the
in-the-moment outcomes of dynamical processes where many sources of
constraint interact to give rise to an emergent meaning product, one that is
always specic to the person, language, task, and social situation. Consider
just a few of the constraints that together produce verbal metaphorical
behaviors:
Evolutionary forces (bodily, cultural, cognitive, linguistic)

Present cultural conditions (beliefs, customary actions, ideologies)
Present social context (who, what, where, when)
Knowledge of language (lexical, grammatical, pragmatic)
Present bodily states (gestures, postures, eye gaze)
Present motivations and cognitions (needs and desires, communicative
aims, interactional goals)
Immediate linguistic processing (production and reading of words,
utterances, longer discourses)
Neural processes (brain activities at both the local and global levels)
Each of these factors operate at different time-scales, with forces toward

the top of the above list moving at very slow speeds, and with those forces
toward the bottom of the list moving at very fast speeds. The various time
scales are not independent, but are hierarchically organized, and nested
within one another such that various forces affecting metaphoric experi-
ence are coupled in complex, non-linear ways. Most importantly, any
specic meaningful behavior, such as speaking in some metaphorical
way, emerges from the interaction of all these factors. Conceptual meta-
phors may emerge from the interaction of various factors in human
experience and are not simply located, or mentally represented, at what
is traditionally believed to be the purely cognitive level.
Embracing the idea that metaphorical language behavior emerges from
the interaction of multiple, interacting constraints sets the stage for a more
sophisticated explanation of verbal metaphor use. Different experimental
results that are now seen as contradictory may actually reect different
dynamical outcomes which changes depending on people, language, task,
and method of understanding assessment. Briey consider how these
different factors may shape the a few ways people use verbal metaphor,
including having reliance on putative conceptual metaphors.
People: Individuals differ from one another along a vast number of
dimensions, and research on metaphor has shown that these affect aspects
of how metaphors are used and interpreted. A partial list of these different
factors includes the following: age, language experience, gender, occupa-
tion, social status and culture, political background/beliefs, cognitive dif-
ferences (e.g., IQ, working memory capacity), bodily action, geographic
origin, personality, social relationship, and common ground.
Language Materials: The kinds of metaphor studied within the linguis-
tic and psycholinguistic literatures reveals numerous differences, including
the following: specic language, conventionality (e.g., novelty, creativity,
sophistication), frequency, familiarity, prototypicality/salience, discourse
coherence, grammatical structure, prosodic and intonation patterns (e.g.,
accent, speed of delivery), collocations and word co-occurrences, relation
to enduring conceptual metaphors, relation to embodied experience, genre,
discourse and text contexts, and gesture/bodily movements.
Understanding Goal/Task: Interpreting metaphorical meaning is not a
singular, monolithic activity but differs depending on a persons goals or
the task he or she has undertaken. Consider some of the understanding
goals that people face with metaphor: quick comprehension in conversa-
tion/reading, explicit recognition that some word or phrase is a metaphor,
reective interpretation in reading, solving problems/making decisions,
arguments/persuasion, memory, appreciation/explicit aesthetic judgments
(e.g., humor, creativity, mastery), hypothesis or expectation conrmation,
valence judgments (e.g., metaphors as having positive or negative conno-

tations), and emotional reactions.
Methods of Assessing Metaphor Understanding: Given that people often
have different goals or tasks during metaphor understanding, what are the
best methods for assessing both the cognitive effort and cognitive effects in
metaphor interpretation? Consider some of the ways that psychologists
have examined peoples ability to understand metaphor: whole sentence
reading-time (and paraphrase judgments), word-by-word parsing (e.g.,
moving window), priming, eye-tracking, brain activity/scanning, compre-
hensibility ratings, memory, open-ended interpretation, sentencepicture
matching, meaning preference, picture drawing, summarization, transla-
tion, problem-solving, and discourse analysis/naturalistic observation.
These four general factors, and their individual components, all affect
the empirical ndings obtained in psycholinguistic and neuroscience stud-
ies on metaphor use.96 Not surprisingly, the recruitment of conceptual
metaphors in verbal metaphor use may also depend on the people, the
specic metaphorical language, the task, and method for assessing meta-
phorical understanding. Various studies, for example, illustrate how differ-
ent personality differences and variations in metaphorical thinking styles
affect the degree to which conceptual metaphors immediately inuence
verbal metaphor interpretation.97 Of course, differences in the types of
verbal metaphors encountered, and whether they are also motivated by
other schemes, such as metonymy, also clearly lead to possible inconsist-
encies in the degree of conceptual metaphorical activations. Finally, some
experimental and real-world tasks may better elicit conceptual metaphor-
ical knowledge than others.
My general argument is that debates over whether conceptual meta-
phors do, or do not, shape verbal metaphor use depends on the interaction
of all these factors. I advance this claim because debates about CMT
typically ignore these real complexities in metaphorical experience.
We should not expect, however, that an ultimate theory of metaphor
use will necessarily demand that conceptual metaphors are always, auto-
matically employed in each and every instance of verbal metaphor use.
Conceptual metaphors are a major force, or constraint, on the ways people
produce and understand verbal metaphors. Still, this conclusion is not
falsied if some instances arise when verbal metaphors are used without
any evidence of conceptual metaphorical thinking.
This new vision of the debate over conceptual metaphors in linguistic
metaphor use and understanding suggests an even more nuanced way of
thinking about how conceptual metaphors unfold in metaphorical
f i g u r e 5 . 1 Sequential activation of conceptual metaphors
experience. My suggestion here is that conceptual metaphors are used in

probabilistic ways, often in complex interaction with other conceptual meta-
phorical knowledge given the prior discourse and ongoing gestural actions.
Consider a brief conversational exchange between two scientists dis-
cussing one of their theories in which one person states that, I cant see
the point of your argument. Your theory needs more support.98 Figure 5.1
presents a schematic description of how a listener understands these
conventional metaphoric expressions, according to a standard analysis
within CMT.
Under this model, a listener hears an utterance and then automatically
searches for relevant conceptual knowledge to understand what the
speaker means. For the rst expression, I cant see the point of your
argument, people search for and then access the conceptual metaphor
UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING. Afterward, listeners apply this meta-
phoric concept to infer that the speaker meant he could not understand
what his addressee was previously trying to say by his argument. Similarly,
listeners next access the relevant metaphorical concept THEORIES ARE
BUILDINGS to interpret Your theory needs more support. In this
manner, enduring conceptual metaphors are sequentially retrieved from
long-term memory and then applied to create contextually sensitive inter-
pretations of speakers metaphorical utterances one-by-one.
But the complex reality of human interaction suggests that multiple
forces simultaneously constrain peoples understanding of verbal
f i g u r e 5 . 2 Interacting subsystem of constraints
metaphors. Peoples interpretation of Your theory needs more support

may be inuenced by conceptual metaphors recruited during understand-
ing of previous verbal metaphors and metaphorical gestures, as well as by
conceptual metaphors that are most relevant to the particular utterance
currently being processed (i.e., UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING), along
with any other presently enacted metaphorical gestures (e.g., imagine the
speaker placing a cupped hand outward signifying the foundation for
THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS). Figure 5.2 presents a schematic represen-
tation of this account.
Under this theoretical model, conceptual metaphors are not necessarily
accessed en bloc, with all their possible entailments spelled out, but can
contribute partial constraints on peoples metaphorical behaviors. This
dynamical view does not deny that conceptual metaphors are an
entrenched part of human cognition, yet sees the inuence of conceptual
metaphors in thought and language as a continually emergent process,
serving multiple adaptive purposes in everyday life.
The challenge now is for CMT scholars, and others, to create more
dynamical explanations of how people in real-time use and understand
verbal metaphors in complex discourse situations. At the very least, we
need to begin describing the interacting constraints that give rise to
metaphorical language and interpretation rather than simply, and end-
lessly, arguing about whether conceptual metaphor are, or are not,
recruited in verbal metaphor use. Creating experimental paradigms to
explore systems of interacting constraints in metaphorical language will be

difcult, yet the existing data can also be re-analyzed to assess when and
how conceptual metaphor shape verbal metaphor use given different
circumstances.
We are not yet done understanding the complex realities of conceptual
metaphor experience and will now turn to the extensive linguistic and
experimental research on metaphor in multimodal contexts. This fascinat-
ing body of research unveils an even richer portrait of the conceptual
metaphorical mind in action.
6
Conceptual Metaphors in Multimodal Experience
Can people experience metaphor without language? Consider the case of an

art performance, titled The Artist is Present that was held from March till
May 2010 at the New York Museum of Modern Art. Marina Abramovi, a
Serbian born artist, created a 736-hour and 30-minute static, silent piece, in
which she sat immobile on a bare chair in the museums atrium, while
spectators were invited to take turns sitting opposite her. Over the course of
the 10-weeks, 7-hours per day, 1576 people individually sat silently with
Abramovi, for as long as they desired, as she gazed at each person with full
attention. Some visitors sat for just a few minutes, many others up to one
hour, with one woman sitting with Abramovi for more than six hours.
One man returned to sit with Abramovi 21 times over the 10-week period.
This incredible feat of physical and emotional endurance received con-
siderable attention in the art world and beyond. One interesting part of the
exhibition was seeing peoples visible reactions as they sat there, which were
recorded by a photographer, with some sitters smiling, others crying, as did
Abramovi on occasion, and many staring blankly. The sitters photographs
provide one kind of evidence on their cognitive and emotional responses as
they sat looking at Marina. But some sitters even wrote about their time
with Marina. Here are several examples of their comments:1
She looks up. I start with the obvious question about whether this is art
and why. I think of the common saying that art only becomes art
through the eyes of the viewer. Never is this more true than in this
self-portrait by Marina Abramovi.
I found Marina conveyed such a non-judgmental and accepting atti-

tude. She embodied a welcoming presence that drew not only the
person on the other side of the table, but all who were viewing the
exhibit at the time.
222
Conceptual Metaphors in Multimodal Experience 223
At certain times I thought that we were really in sync. Other times

I didnt. Other times I was totally hallucinating. She looked like a
childhood friend I once had. Then she looked like a baby. [. . .]
I thought time was ying by. Then time stopped. I lost track of
everything. No hunger. No itching. No pain. I couldnt feel my hands.
I am drained, and marvel at the intensity of the experience, which is

unlike any other engagement with art that I have ever had.
These reminisces offer valuable insights into peoples understandings of

their non-linguistic experience sitting with the artist. Not surprisingly,
though, many visitors employed metaphors to describe what it was like
to be present with Marina, with some sitters articulating their feelings
using specic metaphorical comparisons, such as one who wrote, She is
a blank slate, a giant canvas of projections onto which the audience can
assign their own meaning to her work.
One gentleman, known as The Unknown Hipster, wrote about his
sitting with Marina using even more explicit metaphorical terms.2
I did my best to sit in front of the artist with the appropriate seriousness.
But when she lifted up her eyes, Marina didnt seem particularly
enthusiastic. I felt like a forgotten lump of clay on a sculpture stand,
half-dry, and not very enticing, so that after a little consideration the
artist nally decides not to use it. I felt like another mile in the endless
journey of a truck driver.
This Unknown Hipster was clearly disappointed in his little moment

of time with Marina. The question, though, is whether his metaphorical
descriptions really reected what he actually experienced. Did the
Hipster genuinely feel like a forgotten lump of clay on a sculpture stand,
half-dry, and not very enticing or like another mile in the endless journey
of a truck driver?
These similes may only be linguistic means to describe non-verbal
experiences that are truly not metaphorical. After all, metaphor is presum-
ably one of our greatest weapons for talking about ideas and experiences
that are difcult to articulate using more literal language. This sitter may
not have really felt like a forgotten lump of clay, but his metaphorical
words still capture something apt about his immediate reactions to sitting
down with Marina. Peoples non-metaphorical experiences of sitting with
Marina were transformed into metaphorical ones through the sitters
attempts to verbalize into words what it was like to participate in The
Artist is Present.
224 Conceptual Metaphors in Multimodal Experience
Another possibility is that peoples use of metaphorical language when

speaking of their sitting with Marina may accurately convey their in-the-
moment metaphorical experiences, even if no words were spoken. People
later spoke metaphorically of their sitting with Marina precisely because
they conceptualize their experiences in thoroughly metaphorical ways,
both in the moment and later on. The Unknown Hipster, to take one
example, did not think whatever he thought and then simply wrote about
this via a forgotten lump of clay and another mile in the endless journey
of a truck driver, but actually understood his experiences as being infused
with metaphorical meanings. Metaphor pervades our meaningful under-
standings of many mundane and artistic life moments, and enables us to
make sense of what is otherwise inchoate. This is not just a matter of
providing linguistic labels to organize certain vague experiences, but a
continual, instinctual impulse to conceptualize what is happening now in
terms of what we already understand more directly.
This chapter explores the ways that embodied conceptual metaphors are
manifested in different non-linguistic, and multimodal, experiences. Multi-
modal metaphors are those whose terms are represented exclusively or
predominately in different modes.3 Conceptual metaphors are not just evi-
dent within language, but also structure the creation and understanding of
many life events, including those pertaining to categorization, memory, emo-
tion, and different social judgments, as well as our experiences of static images,
lm, gestures, music, dance, and other forms of material culture. These
demonstrations are not surprising given the hypothesis that metaphors are
part of how we live. Still, the research described here offers a compelling
rebuttal to critics who dismiss the linguistic data related to conceptual meta-
phors, and demand non-linguistic evidence to truly establish the psychological
reality of conceptual metaphors. For example, back in 1996 Gregory Murphy
argued in regard to conceptual metaphor that the empirical base for this
theory needs to be expanded beyond linguistic phenomena.4 Much has
changed over the past twenty years, as many studies from psychology, linguis-
tics, and other disciplines have emerged showing that conceptual metaphor
shapes many aspects of our non-linguistic, and multimodal, experience.
conceptual metaphor in categorization

and creativity
Are tomatoes fruits or vegetables? Answering this question requires that
people make a categorization judgment, such as Tomatoes are a member
of the category of fruits. This judgment implicitly taps into the idea that
Conceptual Metaphor in Categorization and Creativity 225
individual categories are containers which hold different instances of

the category (e.g., the fruit container holds apples, oranges, pears, and even
tomatoes).
Do people actually recruit the bodily idea of CONTAINMENT when
they engage in categorization tasks? Experimental evidence suggests a
positive answer to this question, even when people are presented with
non-linguistic stimuli. For example, one study asked participants to judge
as quickly as possible whether two pictures were from the same or different
categories (animals and vehicles).5 The picture contained a rectangle form
that bounded either one item or both items. On some trials the two items
from the same category were completely within the rectangle, and in other
cases the two items were positioned within different rectangles. Results
show that the rectangular frame inuenced peoples speeded category
decisions even though the frames were irrelevant to the specic judgments
they were asked to make. People were faster to judge two items as
belonging to the same category when both were presented inside the same
container or rectangle. These ndings are consistent with claims that
the concept of categories is metaphorically represented in terms of
containers, as seen in the conceptual metaphor CATEGORIES ARE
CONTAINERS.
Consider now a different categorization task in which people were
asked to judge as quickly as possible whether two stimuli were similar or
not. Linguistic examples show that people often express their thoughts
about similarity in terms of spatial distance as in Their opinions in this
case couldnt be further apart, which many interpret as being motivated
by the primary metaphor SIMILARITY IS CLOSENESS. One study
presented participants pairs of abstract words (e.g., grief and justice)
and asked them to rate their similarity/dissimilarity in meaning.6 The
two words were presented side-by-side, horizontally on a computer
screen, where the distance between the words was either quite close,
or somewhat separated, or far apart. People judged the words as
being more similar when they were closer to one another than more
distant.
A different study asked people to judge whether two squares were
similar or dissimilar in color.7 Participants decided that two colored
squares were similar in color faster when the squares were closer together,
while dissimilar colors were judged faster at longer distances apart. More-
over, when people made similarity judgments for pairs of unfamiliar faces,
they saw faces presented further apart as being less similar than those
presented closer together. These data provide additional support for the
idea that the SIMILARITY IS CLOSENESS conceptual metaphor is part of

how people make categorization judgments and not just a metaphor they
use when they speak about similarity.
Another form of non-linguistic, spatial categorization is seen in the
ways people think about political afliations. A common way of distin-
guishing between peoples political views associates liberal beliefs with the
left (or left-wing) and conservative opinions with the right (or right-wing).
This leftright separation originated in seventeenth-century France where
the Assembly sat different political groups in the left or right of the hall. Do
people now conceptualize political ideologies along a leftright spatial
orientation? One study examined this idea by asking participants to
quickly categorize photos of well-known politicians as either conservative
or socialists.8 They made these judgments faster when the photos appeared
in a spatially consistent position (i.e., conservatives to the right, socialists to
the left). Thus, the spatial metaphors widely associated with political
positions shape one of the ways individuals think about politics.
Daniel Casasanto has proposed the body specicity hypothesis that
claims people with different body characteristics have different mental
representations for highly abstract conceptual domains.9 For example,
studies show that right- and left-handers associate positive ideas such as
intelligence, attractiveness, and honesty with their dominant side, and
negative ideas with the non-dominant side. An extension of this work
had people watch the nal debates in the 2004 and the 2008 United States
presidential elections.10 Participants viewed right-handed gestures as being
more positive than left-handed gestures when they viewed the two right-
handed candidates (Bush, Kerry). Yet people viewed the left-handed ges-
tures as being more associated with positive speech than right-handed
gestures when they observed the two left-handed candidates (McCain,
Obama). Further studies demonstrated that temporarily changing peoples
primary uency with the right or left hand through wearing of a cumber-
some glove can quickly alters peoples association of right with good and
left with bad.11 Peoples responses to left and right spatial orientations
generally reect their embodied metaphorical knowledge and belief, some
of which apparently are shaped by their own left- or right-handed
experiences.
Conceptual metaphor also plays an important role in creative cognition.
One set of studies revealed that physical and psychological embodiment of
metaphors for creativity facilitates peoples problem solving abilities.12 For
example, the expression think outside the box is frequently employed as
a way of urging others to come up with atypical, novel solutions to
Conceptual Metaphor in Social Cognition 227
problems. But does physically thinking outside of a box enhance creativity?

One test of this idea had participants sit comfortably inside a ve-foot
square box, sit outside of the box, or sit in a room without any box, and
then complete a 10-item Remote Associates Test (RAT). The RAT pre-
sented people with three clue words (e.g., room, blood, salts) and
asked them to think of a word (e.g., bath) that was related to each one of
the clues. Participants who were physically sitting outside the box gener-
ated more correct associates to the clue words than did people who sat
either inside the box, or in a room without a box.
A related study in this series asked students to walk along a xed
rectangular path, similar to being inside a box, or to walk freely, or simply
to sit down before they gured out solutions to two divergent thinking
problems. The Droodle task had people generate captions for a drawing
while the Lego task asked people to come up with object names for three
novel Lego block assemblies. People who walked freely generated more
original solutions on both the Droodle and Lego tasks than did people who
walked in a xed manner along a path or who merely sat. The ndings of
both of these studies are consistent with the idea that peoples experiences
of embodied metaphors for creativity, such as thinking outside the box
can facilitate their creative problem solving abilities.
Nobody claims that the experimental data described in this section
showing the relevance of certain embodied conceptual metaphors offers a
complete theory of how people behave given different categorization or
creativity tasks. Nonetheless, these experimental ndings are a small part
of the empirical foundation demonstrating that certain conceptual meta-
phors play an important role in non-linguistic thinking.13
conceptual metaphor in social cognition

Some of the most exciting sources of empirical evidence on non-linguistic
conceptual metaphor come from research in social psychology. These
studies explore how non-linguistic, metaphorical associations in experi-
ence inuence peoples social perceptions and judgments. For example,
there is the widespread set of metaphors suggesting that GOOD IS UP and
BAD IS DOWN (e.g., He is feeling up today, and There was a downturn
in his luck). Experiments suggest that these correlations in experience can
lead to different evaluative judgments. Thus, people evaluated positive
words faster when these were presented in a higher vertical position on a
computer screen and recognized negative words faster when they appeared
in the lower part of the screen.14 People judged a groups social power to be
greater when these judgments were made at the top of a computer screen
than when presented in the lower part of the screen.15 Participants remem-
bered emotionally positive images better when these were shown at the top
of a computer screen, with negative images being recalled better when they
were seen toward the bottom of the screen.16 Depressed individuals are also
more likely to attend to lower regions of vertical space, perhaps given their
downward affective experiences.17 Finally, in a different situation, people
can mimic a smile better when they hear a high-pitched tone, and a frown
when hearing a low-pitched tone.18
These ndings are consistent with the linguistic evidence showing that
people conceive of good and bad as being spatially located along a vertical
dimension, a concept that arises from good experiences being upward (e.g.,
being alive and healthy) and bad ones being downward (e.g., sickness
and death).
When people physically engage in certain actions, this can also lead
them to adopt metaphorical concepts that inuence their social judgments.
Having people hold warm, as opposed to cold, cups of coffee, for a few
minutes led them to subsequently judge another persons interpersonal
traits as being warmer,19 a nding that is consistent with the primary
metaphor AFFECTION IS WARMTH. Feeling something warm, com-
pared to feeling something cold, also increases peoples trusting others
when playing cooperation games.20 In this way, simply experiencing an
embodied source domain (e.g., feeling warm) can automatically prime
people to think about a specic target domain (e.g., affection).
Social context also affects peoples evaluations of other individuals
using tacit embodied metaphors. Participants in one set of studies rst
wiped their hands using either a hot or cold wet paper cloth.21 Afterward,
they read a neutral description of a hypothetical person who would later
be either an adversary or a teammate on a computer game. Following this,
participants rated the hypothetical person on several kindness scales.
Similar to earlier ndings, participants who rst experienced warmth (i.e.,
the hot cloth) rated the hypothetical person to be kinder than those who
wiped their hands using a cold wet cloth. However, participants also gave
higher kindness ratings to the target person when they had been told that
this individual would be a teammate (i.e., a member of an in-group)
than when told he would be an adversary (i.e., a member of an out-
group) in the computer game. These results suggest that social context
has a role in modulating the effect that automatically experienced
embodied metaphors (e.g., KINDNESS IS WARMTH) have on social
judgments.
Within a different experiential domain, having people, sitting in a dirty

room, make judgments about a ctitious individuals behavior caused them
to rate the behavior as more immoral than when the same judgments were
made in a clean work area.22 Similarly, asking people to recall an immoral
deed, as opposed to an ethical one, made them more likely to choose an
antiseptic wipe, rather than a set of pencils, as a free gift after the experi-
ment.23 Law students who chose to use dirty evidence in a mock trial
were more likely to accept a bottle of hand sanitizer, compared to a pen, as
a gift for their participation than did students who did not rely on dirty
evidence.24 People who exhibit a greater desire for cleanliness even have a
stronger association between morality/immorality and the colors white/
black than do people with less interest in cleanliness.25 Clean people are
viewed as being better cooperative partners than are physically dirty
individuals.26 Finally, ethical behavior also relates to the metaphors GOOD
IS LIGHT and BAD IS DARK. After recalling an unethical transgression,
people judged a room to be darker than after remembering an ethical act.27
Simply sitting in a dimly lit room, or wearing sunglasses, enhanced the
likelihood of engaging in unethical conduct.28
These different empirical results are entirely consistent with peoples
understandings of the primary metaphors GOOD IS CLEAN and BAD IS
DIRTY, as well as the closely related pair GOOD IS LIGHT and BAD IS
DARK.29
Other bodily actions also affect peoples social judgments. When asked
to determine whether a ctitious person is suitable for a job, people judged
job applicants to be better if they were also holding a heavier, rather than a
lighter, clipboard,30 which surely reects the common idea that IMPORT-
ANCE IS WEIGHT. Studies also showed that sitting on a hard, as opposed
to a soft, chair when reading criminal scenarios led participants to recom-
mend harsher sentences for criminals (e.g., SEVERITY IN JUDGEMENT
IS PHYSICAL HARDNESS).31
Research on conceptual metaphor and social judgments has been
extended to gustatory and olfactory experiences. English speakers some-
times talk about people as being sweet when they are especially pleasant.
Experimental studies indicate that people rated others, as described in
short narratives, as being more agreeable if these strangers were reported
to like sweet food (e.g., candy, chocolate cake), compared to those liking
other kinds of food (e.g., salty peanuts, peppers).32
Within the olfactory domain, one study with English speakers exam-
ined whether smelling something shy would raise peoples suspicions
about others when playing a trust game (e.g., There was something shy
about Johns new business scheme).33 People were led to a room that had
been sprayed with sh oil, a fart spray, or odorless water. When these
participants smelled something shy, as opposed to the other smells, they
were less willing to contribute money toward a publically shared resource,
indicating greater social suspicion in the shy smelling condition. Partici-
pants who sat in a clean-scented room exhibited greater reciprocity in a
trust game, and donated more money to a non-prot organization than did
people who sat in a neutral smelling room.34 These results are consistent
with the conceptual metaphor SUSPICION IS A FISHY SMELL. Interest-
ingly, inducing social suspicion also improved peoples abilities to correctly
identify a smell as being shy.35 This shows that the mapping between
SUSPICION and FISHY SMELL has become bidirectional.
Peoples experiences of different tastes inuence their social judgments
regarding harmful acts. One study asked participants to rst ll out a
questionnaire about their eating behaviors, and then had them rinse their
mouths for 10 seconds with either sweet avored water or neutral tasting
water. They then swallowed the liquid.36 Following this, participants read a
story about someone committing a harmful act that was either motivated
by revenge or not. When asked to judge the avenger and his actions, people
who just tasted the sweetened water rated the offense more leniently than
did those who tasted the avorless water. A second study replicated the
rst and suggested that the avenger was not motivated by revenge, but by
schadenfreude. In this case, however, rst tasting the sweetened water did
not enhance people rating the person more leniently. Tasting something
sweet does not indiscriminately increase participants willingness to rate
just any (aggressor) story more leniently. For this reason, the idiomatic
phrase revenge is sweet only applied to situations in which the person
was motivated by revenge and not to any circumstances in which a
harmful event is desired (e.g., this is why we do not have the phrase sweet
schadenfreude). Activating the source domain for something, via direct
bodily experience, clearly increases the application of the sweet revenge
metaphor when judging a harmful act.
One arena of human life in which verbal metaphors ourish is in
peoples talk of emotions. Speakers describe their anger experiences, for
example, through reference to their blood boiling, blowing their stack,
getting hot under the collar, seeing red, or that someone is hot-
headed. Do these verbal metaphors reect peoples actual felt experiences?
For instance, do people really see red when they are sometimes angry? Eric
Schwitzgebel explicitly argued that talk of seeing red when angry is, well,
just talk and does not reect anything meaningful about peoples inner
experience.37 But experimental research lends credence to the claim that

people really can see red when angry. Studies indicated that people strongly
associate anger with heat, and related bodily responses, such as seeing
red or being hot-headed.38 When people made judgments as to whether
a word was a member of the category anger or furniture, they were
faster to see anger related words (e.g., annoyed, mad, outraged) when
these appeared with a campre background, as opposed to an igloo, and
when the words font looked like ames rather than icicles. Furthermore,
reading anger words promoted people to estimate the rooms temperature
as being higher than when people read furniture words. Temporally
making people feel anger led them to offer higher estimates of average
annual temperatures for unfamiliar cities. Finally, people rated ambiguous
facial expressions as being more angry when they rst saw a picture of a
campre as opposed to an igloo. These various experimental ndings
demonstrate that peoples non-verbal experiences of anger are closely
related to experiences of heat, which is one reason why speakers in many
languages talk of anger using heat metaphors.
Studies have also shown that making social judgments about a person
can subsequently inuence their attention to different regions of space. For
example, when people were asked to state whether a king was powerful
or not, they were quicker to identify a letter as being a P or Q when it was
presented at the top of the screen than when it was shown toward the
bottom of the screen.39 Similarly, people could make the P or
Q identication faster when these letters were shown at the bottom of
the screen right after they had judged whether a servant was powerful or
powerless. Thus, even thinking about a persons power quickly prompts a
metaphorical sense of that individual along a vertical axis, which shifted
their attention upward or downward.40 All these experimental results make
sense given the conceptual metaphors POWER IS UP and LACK OF
POWER IS DOWN.
Finally, engaging in certain bodily actions also prompts people to think
of their own experiences in metaphorical ways. Having people physically
move backward or forward prompted their recollection of past events or
thoughts about future events, respectively. These, results demonstrated the
existence of the primary metaphors THE FUTURE IS FORWARD and
PAST IS BACK.41 Another set of experiments asked participants to recount
positive or negative autobiographical experiences as they moved marbles
upward or downward between two cardboard boxes.42 People spoke more
quickly about positive memories when moving the marbles up and nega-
tive memories when they moved the marbles down a result that is
consistent with two conventional metaphors for positive (e.g., His spirit
rose) and negative (e.g., Her hopes fell) emotions. Moving marbles
upward also facilitated people talking more about positive experiences
(e.g., GOOD IS UP) and moving them downward more about past nega-
tive experiences (e.g., BAD IS DOWN). Overall, peoples bodily actions are
signicantly tied to their abstract conceptualizations of emotions and the
specic metaphors they employ in talking about their past lives.
The social psychological research described in this section offers exten-
sive scientic evidence that embodied metaphors emerge in everyday
experiences and not just language alone.43 But to what extent are these
social judgment ndings due to peoples previous exposure with metaphor-
ical language? For example, people employ many linguistic statements that
refer to an association between affection and warmth such as He greeted
them warmly, The college reunion had a warm atmosphere, He antici-
pated a warm reception when he got home, and She was given the cold
shoulder. Peoples experiences with these linguistic statements may
prompt them to implicitly evolve the primary metaphors AFFECTION
IS WARMTH and DISLIKE IS COLD in addition to their embodied
experiences per se. Embodied and linguistic experience may both continu-
ally contribute to the emergence of different embodied metaphors.44
gesture
One of the greatest developments in metaphor studies is the dramatic rise
in research on gesture. Conceptual metaphors play a signicant role in
peoples use and understanding of gestures. Metaphorical gestures depict
semantic content through metaphorical mappings, such as when a speaker
cups her hands to express holding an idea, which is motivated by the
IDEAS ARE OBJECTS conceptual metaphor.45 As Alan Cienki and
Cornelia Mller argued, Abstract gestures are inherently metaphoric by
virtue of rendering a non-physical idea in terms of a physical, spatial
temporal representation.46
Consider several examples of how gestures may be motivated by con-
ceptual metaphors, and concretely articulated through physical move-
ments. First, even simple beat gestures can express metaphorical
meaning. For instance, when a speaker says that things are getting better
and quickly moves his hand slightly upward, the gesture provides a
concrete instantiation of metaphorical idea GOOD IS UP.47 One study
showed that people used upward beat gestures more so when talking about
the weather getting better and employ downward gestures when speaking
Gesture 233
about buying a car for a cheaper price (i.e., LESS COST IS DOWN).48
These observations suggest that beat gestures occasionally reect speakers
in-the-moment metaphorical thinking.
One exploration of teachers and students gestures in discussions of
mathematics demonstrated how many metaphorical gestures reect body-
based conceptual metaphors.49 For instance, one professor described a
sequence that oscillated between two values, while also moving his right
arm back and forth. Another professor referred to an unbounded mono-
tonic sequence that goes in one direction while simultaneously moving
his hand in a circular motion and walking forward in front of the class-
room. Both gestures reect the conceptual metaphor NUMBERS ARE
LOCATIONS IN SPACE.
A different study showed a middle-school teacher using gestures based
on the conceptual metaphor of ARITHMETIC IS A GROUP OF
COLLECTIBLE OBJECTS.50 The teacher was using a pan balance, with
objects on each side, to illustrate the concept of balanced equations. At one
point, she mentioned removing identical objects from both sides of the pan
balance by saying I am going to take away a sphere on each side, while
making a grasping handshape over the spheres on each side of the pan
balance. Following this, the teacher said, Instead of taking it off to pan
balance, I am going to take it away from this equation. After stating this
utterance, the teacher removed a sphere from each side of the pan balance
and then made the grasping handshape gesture over the S symbol on the
two sides of the equation. In making this last gesture, the teacher concep-
tualized the metaphorical idea of taking objects away from both sides of the
equation, again consistent with the ARITHMETIC IS A GROUP OF
COLLECTIBLE OBJECTS conceptual metaphor. These metaphorical ges-
tures are crucial to how teachers embody abstract knowledge for their
students, and emphasize the importance of body-based conceptual meta-
phors in mathematical concepts and reasoning.
Some gestural performances can be accompanied by conventional meta-
phorical speech. For example, a speaker (talking in German) was describing
her rst romantic relationship said Well there I did already realize, well,
while repeatedly touching her two open palms together. She then continued,
This is pretty clingy, while her at hand repeatedly touched and moved
apart as if the partners were standing together.51 In this case, the speakers
gestures enacted the metaphorical source domain before the verbal expres-
sion pretty clingy was spoken. The metaphor here was waking because it
was active in the speakers imagination as part of a cognitive realm of rich-
image information at the very moment of speaking and gesturing.52
Speakers can express metaphorical ideas using gestures even when their
co-occurring speech is non-metaphorical. Alan Cienki examined students
discussions about honesty when taking exams. In one case, a student said
Like dishonest suggests, like, um, not truthful, the truth is what like.
When saying truth, the student made a at-hand gesture with her left
hand in the vertical plane, ngers pointing away from her body.53 This
gesture seems motivated by the conceptual metaphor of TRUTH or
HONESTY IS STRAIGHT (e.g., straight talk) even though nothing in
the speech denoted this metaphorical idea. Metaphorical gestures are not
simple duplications of metaphorical lexemes, but reect an independent
mode of expression that is grounded in embodied conceptual metaphors.54
Another example from a different study showed an American student
making a metaphorical gesture when uttering a non-metaphorical state-
ment.55 The student rst said, as far as an abstract thought of honesty is,
and simultaneously lifted both hands from front of her chest and placed
them next to each other with the palms facing her, with slightly curled
ngers, as if she was holding and squeezing a ball. This suggests that
abstract thought was metaphorically conceived as a physical object
although none of the speakers words expressed metaphorical meaning.
Later on, the same speaker said, there, there is no gradation. Either your
right, youre wrong, yre blackm rwhite, yknow. When she said, there is
no gradation, she enacted a gesture that began with both palms at
together, and then she pulled up her right hand and used her ngers to
tap back and forth across the outer edges of her left palm. The speaker
verbally described the opposition between white and black, right or wrong,
but the gesture taps on the left hand indicated different spatial locations for
the concepts of right and wrong, black and white. Thus, the gesture
and words structure the same thought, but represent different source
domains. These examples are instances of verbalgestural metaphoric
compounds.56
Irene Mittelberg and Linda Waugh presented a different case of non-
metaphorical speech accompanied by metaphorical gesture in a study of
how linguistic lecturers refer to the syntactic structuring of sentences.57
Many abstract linguistic concepts (e.g., nodes, branches, semantic roles,
subordination) are structured in terms of image schemas that are enacted
gesturally with the ngers, hands, and arms.58 In one instance, the instructor
said, while theyre made up of words, while her two hands, palms open
and upright, were far apart. She continued by saying arent made up of
words. Although the speaker does not say something metaphorical, her
gesture enacts the conceptual metaphors IDEAS ARE OBJECTS,
Gesture 235
CONTENTS ARE CONTAINERS, and CONCEPTUAL STRUCTURE IS

A GEOMETRIC PHYSICAL STRUCTURE. Note, however, that to under-
stand the conceptual metaphors, a viewer must engage in metonymic
reasoning from the kinds of imaginary objects (e.g., the conceptual meton-
ymy ACTION FOR THE OBJECT INVOLVED IN ACTION), followed by
a metonymic reference that the imaginary concrete entity maps onto the
abstract entity, in this case the sentence. This example illustrates how
metonymy is often needed to access a conceptual metaphorical idea.
One investigation of conversations among German literary critics dis-
cussing books demonstrated that their narratives were systematically
rooted in spatial language, which was exhibited by their use of both
linguistic metaphors (e.g., the work sometimes lets ash up a smart
thought) and metaphorical gestures (e.g., quick one-hand upward sweep),
which typically accompanied story summarization and commentary.59
These metaphorical enactments reect different conceptual metaphors for
literary narratives including TIME IS A PATH, CAUSALITY IS A FORCE,
and THEMATIC REALMS ARE SPACES/PLANES/CONTAINERS.
Although metaphorical gestural patterns are roughly similar across
languages, there exist important variations across some cultures. For
example, Raphael Nez and Eve Sweetser interviewed Aymara speakers
from South America about their use of various time expressions and found
that they typically gestured backwards to talk about the future and forward
when speaking about the past.60 The interviews rst revealed that Aymara
speakers use nayra (meaning eye or sight) when talking about the
past and qhipa (meaning back or behind) when referring to the
future. Moreover, Aymara speakers, especially older ones who were not
uent in Spanish, gestured by pointing or waving their thumbs over their
shoulders when describing a future event. They also swept their hands or
arms in front of them while speaking of the past and did so by keeping
their hands closer to their bodies for events in the recent past while making
wider hand or arm gestures when talking about the distant past. These
metaphorical gestures, and speech patterns, are likely motivated by the
Aymara cultural epistemology that conceive of the past as something
which is already known, and therefore has been seen (i.e., in the front),
with the future being unknown and as of yet unseen (i.e., in the back), as
motivated by the KNOWING IS SEEING conceptual metaphor.
Finally, what happens if people are unable to gesture when speaking
about abstract concepts? One study asked university students to discuss
scenarios concerning justice and honorable behavior, either when they
were free to gesture or when they were prevented from gesturing (i.e., they
held down two keys on a laptop when speaking).61 An analysis of the talk
exchanges showed that people prevented from gesturing used signicantly
less spatial language (e.g., honest is very close to righteousness, the truth
was covered by lies) than did those who were free to gesture. This
empirical nding is consistent with the general hypothesis that some
metaphorical conceptualizations arise from spatial imagery which under-
lies both gesture and speech.
The cognitive linguistic research on metaphorical gestures highlights
the ways gestures offer concrete, physical enactments of conceptual meta-
phors even when no metaphorical language is spoken. In some cases,
peoples gestures reveal different conceptual metaphors than those that
motivate their verbal metaphors.
static and moving images

Paintings, photographs, and other static images often express metaphorical
meanings. For instance, our friend The Unknown Hipster, mentioned at
the beginning of this chapter, created a series of four drawings, posted on
his website, which depicted something of his experience in sitting with the
artist Marina Abramovi.62 The rst drawing simply showed him sitting
upright in a chair, similar to what he did went he rst began to be present
with the artist, but the next three pictures depicted him successively falling
backwards in his chair until he was sprawled over the oor. Thus, the
hipsters drawings offered a visual conception of his metaphorical experi-
ence of feeling used and abandoned by the artist, something which he
clearly was no longer able to tolerate or stand (e.g., STANDING ERECT IS
PERSISTING OR STAYING ALIVE AND ALERT).
One place where conceptual metaphors are evident in static images is
within comics that convey information about the characters emotional
experiences. Comics use different graphical devices to denote various
human sensations and emotions, such as squiggly lines above a turd to
allude to its repugnant smell, jagged lines around a thumb just struck by a
hammer to represent pain, and spirals around a persons head to suggest
dizziness or confusion.63 Similar pictorial devices are frequently employed
to depict anger. Charles Forceville presented an analysis of anger in the
Asterix album La Zizanie, a French series, well-known in Europe, which
focuses on a small Gaul village during the Roman Empire in conict with
Caesar.64 The humor in the series stems from Caesars continued failure to
conquer the village because of the inhabitants drinking of a druids magic
brew that briey induces super, physical strength.
Static and Moving Images 237
Several elements of the comic series include visual ideas about anger.
These include bodily actions such as bulging eyes, often accompanied by a
V-shaped brow, plus frown lines or an extra line under the eyes, opened
mouth, red/pink face, arm/hand positions, such as a sted hand, or
pointing toward someone with the index nger, shaking, spirals emanating
from an angry persons head, and straight lines emanating from a persons
mouth, suggesting the great force by which something is said, as well as
boldface, jagged lines in the text balloons.
The analysis of 103 angry devices in La Zizanie showed that 85 of these
signaled anger through eyes, mouth, and arm/hand motion, while 45 of the
103 cases had spirals emerging from their heads. Most generally, these
pictorial devices for anger were entirely consistent with the conceptual
metaphor ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A PRESSURIZED CONTAINER.
Nonetheless, individual signs may also exemplify other anger metaphors,
such as ANGER IS AGGRESSIVE ANIMAL BEHAVIOR, or ANGER IS
INSANITY. Some of these elements of anger are not typically observed in
linguistic studies, such as the loud voice of anger, the intensity of the eyes,
and the positions of the mouth and hand/arm position in angry persons.
Note, however, that the connection between the graphic devices marking
anger and our experiences of anger are far from arbitrary: both are
embodied, metaphorical, as well as metonymic (e.g., eyes bulging out).
A different study of emotions in static images examined political meta-
phors of emotion in Japanese comics.65 Many linguistic metaphors for
emotion in Japanese are motivated by the traditional idea that the heart
is a microcosm for our emotions with inner emotions being understood in
terms of natural, meteorological events. One analysis of contemporary
Japanese (manga) comics showed for the emotions of anger, happiness,
love, anxiety, surprise, and disappointment that (1) the conceptual meta-
phor ANGER IS A HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER is shared by
verbal and visual modalities, (2) even if a conceptual metaphor is seen in
different modalities, different properties of that concept may be manifested
in the different modalities, and (3) the culture-specic aspects of Japanese
verbal metaphors for emotions are also evident in Japanese comics. But
there are other, more culture-specic metaphors in these political comics.
For example, meteorological phenomena, such as thunder, wind, rain,
clouds, or fog, express a persons emotional states, often in the scenes
background. More specically, thunder is anger, lightening is surprise,
darkness means disappointment, birds refer to happiness, owers to love,
and drooping petals on owers shows disappointment. The general con-
ceptual metaphorical motivation for these correspondences is EMOTIONS
ARE EXTERNAL, METEOROLOGICAL/NATURAL PHENOMENA.

These metaphors are, therefore, experientially motivated, even if this may
not necessarily be universal.
Print advertisements also frequently offer visual instantiations of con-
ceptual metaphors. Veronika Koller presented several examples showing
how corporate branding uses personication in their commercial images to
evoke their customers loyalty to the brand.66 For example, IBMs webpage
has a DNA double-helix, with the statement referring to The DNA of a
company, which made explicit reference to the conceptual metaphor
BRANDS ARE LIVING ORGANISMS. One analysis of a large corpus of
corporate ads, mostly of company websites, showed that multimodal
metaphors are dominant in several ways, such as when IBM presents
pictures of children and nature on its website to facilitate peoples under-
standing of the company as nurturing possibility, which in turn brings
IBMs value to life. This multimodal message conveys the basic metaphor-
ical idea that CORPORATE BRANDS ARE LIVING ORGANISMS or
CORPORATE BRANDS ARE PEOPLE. Although people do not typically
associate technology companies with nature or with soft-hearted human
beings, IBM aims to create a more humane vision of the company through
multimodal conceptual metaphor.
An extreme version of the attempt to humanize a multinational corpor-
ation is seen in a print ad for the energy company Total, which presented
a logo on its company website of an open ball in red, yellow, and light blue
colors intertwined. The companys website included the following text
accompanying the image:
The logos spherical shape suggests both the Earth and the international
scope of our business. Constructed from a set of colored, curving lines,
it symbolizes the diversity and complexity of an ever-changing world.
As the company explicitly suggests, its logo symbolizes multiple ener-
gies. The colors chosen naturally evoke the idea of heat. The intersecting
curving lines convey an impression of movement. The logo is airy and
light, signifying that energy is more than just a natural resource, but the
product of humankinds ingenuity and exchanges. The uid font uses
stick characters with rounded angles and ends to convey our ability to
listen and take into account the human factor. The uppercase letters
emphasize the brands stature. The smaller letters after the initial T add
movement and life, strengthening the feeling of openness.67
Koller rightly questioned whether casual readers of this ad will infer all
these metaphorical messages. Still, even as a failed attempt, the Total logo
and text again highlights the lengths to which corporations will go to take
control of their public image through conceptual metaphors (e.g.,

ENERGY IS A HUMAN PRODUCT, FLEXIBILITY IN THINKING IS
CURVED VISUAL IMAGES).
Filmmakers also employ conceptual metaphors when they express
different abstract concepts. Consider the conceptual metaphor TIME IS
MOTION, and the specic mappings of time leaping forward to the future
and ashing back to the past.68 For example, one scene from Michelangelo
Antoninis lm The Passenger has the protagonist, Jack Nicholson,
sitting at a table, when the camera moves horizontally from right to left,
at which point another man appears representing someone from the
protagonists past. As a dialogue emerges between the two men, the camera
swings back from left to right, focusing on Nicholson in the present, and
then back to the man from the past. The moving image reects the
common metaphorical idea of left and right indicating past and present,
respectively. Moving the camera to capture left-to-right and back again
movement embodies the TIME-MOVING metaphor.69
Time can also be understood in terms of the EGO-MOVING metaphor
in which time is represented as a landscape through which a character
moves. An excellent purely visual illustration of this metaphor is seen in
the lm The Traveling Players, where in one scene a group of fascist
collaborators leave a nightclub party in 1946.70 As they move down a street
about 300 yards, the group slowly transforms from a collection of singing,
drunken right-wing individuals to a full-edge fascist group marching in
lockstep to martial music. The group ends up marching into a crowd, as
was done at a famous Papagos rally in 1952. This seven-minute sequence
metaphorically elaborates on the SOURCEPATHGOAL schema as the
characters proceed and change from one location and time (1946) to a
different destination and time (1952). Once again, lmmakers visually
represent different time metaphors through entirely non-linguistic means.
Charles Forceville presented other examples of how movies depict
various beliefs and attitudes through non-linguistic conceptual meta-
phors.71 For example, the primary metaphor BAD OR EVIL IS DARK is
seen in many lms in which a character is portrayed in dark or dark
lightning to convey doubts or suspicion about the person, often in
contrast to other characters in the same scene who are depicted in light.72
In director Orson Wells Citizen Kane, the main character, Kane, is
mostly seen in shadows and dark lightning. In Mike Nichols The
Graduate, a much younger Benjamin informs his older lover, Mrs.
Robinson, that his encounters with her are the only thing he looks
forward to each day, and does so with a darkened face, suggesting that
these thoughts emerge from his dark side in contrast to the lighted
image of Mrs. Robinson in the same scene.
Earlier in The Graduate, when Mrs. Robinson rst tries to seduce
Benjamin, she prevents him from leaving her house by asking him to bring
her handbag up to her as she stands prominently at the top of a staircase
looking down at the much smaller image of Benjamin. This image conveys
the primary metaphors of IMPORTANCE IS SIZE and CONTROL IS UP,
which emphasizes how Benjamin is coming under the control of
Mrs. Robinsons desires. Later on, Benjamin tries to tell his girlfriend,
Elaine, that he has been having sex with her mother, but does so awk-
wardly. As Elaine listens, her image is at rst blurred, but as she begins to
understand the import of what Benjamin is really saying, her face comes
into greater focus on camera, which is an obvious visual manifestation of
the UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING primary metaphor.
The conceptual metaphor AN INTENSE MENTAL STATE IS AN
UNSTOPPABLE FAST TRAIN is illustrated in Francis Ford Coppolas
lm The Godfather 1.73 In one scene, Michael, played by Al Pacino,
wishes to do better in his familys business and arranges a meeting with
his primary opponents at a familiar restaurant. He earlier placed a gun in
the restaurants toilet, and when he goes to fetch the gun during the
meeting, the soundtrack features a rumbling sound, readily understood
as a moving train. As Michael walks back to the table, now carrying the
gun, you continue to hear the train sound, but it stops when the camera
pans to his opponents, only to begin again when the camera moves back to
Michael. This sound effect suggests that Michaels present mental state
should be understood metaphorically as AN INTENSE MENTAL STATE
IS AN UNSTOPPABLE FAST TRAIN. Even if viewers do not consciously
link the sound track with a train, they may still unconsciously apprehend
the something is rumbling sound and map this auditory image to better
apprehend Michaels disturbed state of mind.
Ning Yu offered a detailed analysis of one commercial on Chinese
educational TV to demonstrate how the prominent conceptual metaphors
LIFE IS A JOURNEY and LIFE IS A STAGE are exemplied in both
language and moving images.74 The commercial depicts a Chinese coun-
try girl who dances all the way from a rural village to a modern metropo-
lis.75 The girl ends up standing on top of a tall building gazing into the
distance at the shape of a modern city skyline. As she stands there, the TV
screen displays the linguistic message In everyones heart there is a big
stage, however big ones heart is, thats how big the stage is. Most
generally, the girls physical journey represents her subjective experience
of advancing in life, similar to the way that China, as a nation, has

advanced in the modern world.
This commercial evoked several messages that are grounded in two
widespread conceptual metaphors, each of which composed of various
primary metaphors and metaphorical entailments. First, the LIFE IS
A JOURNEY metaphor carries with it the cultural beliefs that people
should have goals in life, and should act to achieve these goals. Several
primary metaphors also structure our understanding of the commercial,
including STATES ARE LOCATIONS, CHANGE IS MOTION (from
one location to another), CAUSES ARE FORCES, ACTIONS ARE
SELF-PROPELLED MOTIONS, and PURPOSES ARE DESTINATIONS.
Together, the conceptual metaphors and cultural beliefs create a complex
understanding of the girls own journey and that of China, more
generally.
But the LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor is combined with the idea that
LIFE IS A STAGE as the girl changes stages from small village to big city,
which are accompanied by changes in her dress and the type of music
played in the background (from peasant folk songs to contemporary
music) along the way. In the nal scene, the girl stands on the building
top representing SUCCESS IS UP and the specic instantiation of
A SUCCESSFUL LIFE IS PERFORMING ON A BIG STAGE. Several
metonymies help structure the commercials metaphorical meanings refer-
ring to the girls changing clothing, the different dances she performs, and
the different music played, including STYLE OF CLOTHING STANDS
FOR CULTURE, STYLE OF DANCE STANDS FOR CULTURE, and
STYLE OF MUSIC STANDS FOR CULTURE.
Once again, we understand changes in the girls clothing, dance, and the
music as a conceptual metonymy for Chinese cultural development. This
TV commercial demonstrates how conceptual metaphors are infused with
different primary metaphors, various metonymies, and specic cultural
beliefs to create a larger symbolic, even allegorical interpretation of a
mostly non-linguistic event.
Different visual images can also trigger the emergence of conceptual
metaphors in lm.76 For example, Nicolas Roegs lm Bad Timing,
describes the twisted love relationship between a woman (Milena) and
her psychotherapist (Alex). The lm presents a series of interspersed visual
images showing Alex and Milena making love and Milena undergoing a
tracheotomy operation. There is an implied link between sexual penetra-
tion and the image of a speculum being inserted into Milena during her
tracheotomy. Milenas closed eyes are similar during ecstatic love making
and her laying in a coma on the operating table. A soundtrack presents

echoes of both the sounds of pleasure and those of great pain. Finally, there
is an implied link between images of the operation table (i.e., the death
bed) and the bed in which Alex and Milena make love.
These pairings of image metaphors give rise to a series of source-to-
target domain correspondences, which allude to a more global, and poetic,
conceptual metaphor of LOVE IS DEATH.
Scene in the hospital Scene in the bedroom

Source domain Target domain
Thanatos Eros
Source Image Target Image
Operating table (Death bed) (visual) Bed (Love bed) (Visual)
Closed eyes (Coma) (visual) Closed eyes (Ecstasy) (visual)
Applying speculum (visual) Penetration (visual)
Echoes of pain (sound) Echoes of ecstasy (sound)
Tactility of operation (visual) Tactility of corporeal expressions (visual)
These complex metaphorical mappings would be quite difcult to evoke

using one modality (language, sound, picture) alone. Even though many
lm metaphors help us understand abstract concepts in terms of bodily
experiences, examples such as that from Roegs lm demonstrate meta-
phorical ideas in which the concrete is better structured and understood
through the concrete.
One approach to multimodal metaphor explores the dynamic orches-
tration of audio-visual compositions in different media, such as TV news
reports, advertisements, and lm. Herman Kappelhoff, Cornelia Mller,
and colleagues have proposed that Expressive movement shapes the same
kind of felt experiences in a spectator as a bodily expressive movement that
accompanies speech. In doing so, expressive movements provide the
experiential grounds for the emergence and construction of metaphor.77
Their work offers an important advance in metaphor studies by not
focusing solely on the instantiations of conceptual metaphors in different
audio-visual formats, but reconstructs the dynamic emergence of meta-
phorical meaning through the temporal unfolding of audio-visual
composition.
For example, one study analyzed the metaphor dynamics in a six-
minute TV news report on the nancial crisis in Germany back in
2008.78 A central metaphorical theme that underlies, and orchestrates,
the news report is that WINNING AND LOSING ARE EXPERIENCED
AND UNDERSTOOD AS OPPOSITIONS OF MANY KINDS. Early on in
the report, there is a scene of a group of business consultants at a reception.

As the voice-over commented that business runs brilliantly, the camera
focused on the consultants, standing close together in a circle, lifting their
sparkling glasses of champagne high into the air in celebration of their
successes. The image of the sparkling glasses lifted high nicely matches the
verbal metaphor of brilliantly in the voice-over comment, which evoked
a specic sensory-motor experience of success as sparklingly light moving
upward.
A follow-up scene presents an interview with one businessman who
commented on those bankers who have not succeeded. These people,
who, in fact, high, from high have fallen, and then . . . actually, they want
to dive away and not be seen, while he made a downward gesture. These
words and gesture create the strong metaphorical impression of losers being
down and away from those who have succeeded during the nancial crisis.
Later on, a group of upset small investors are shown marching down a
narrow path, approaching a door on the ground oor of a tall building,
ringing the bell, and then talking to someone over an intercom, yet not being
allowed into the building. At the end of the scene, the camera pans upward
to higher oors and windows, implying that the successful winners are
upward and inside, compared to the losers who are down and outside.
Most generally, this research program demonstrates how audio-visual
metaphors are dynamic forms of meaning making and are affectively
grounded in the sensory experiences of the cinematic expressive move-
ments.79 Our experience of metaphor in multimodal contexts is emergent
and deeply felt across many sensory domains. We do not simply interpret
verbal and nonverbal metaphors one-by-one, but understand these, and
experience them with our bodies, in intricate, dynamically-linked ways that
temporally unfold over time as orchestrated movements.
Finally, Charles Forceville has argued that metaphor in lm exhibits
several unique qualities.80
1. Films have more opportunities at their disposal to create metaphors

and blends than written texts.
2. Whenever the sequential nature of the elements in a visual metaphor
or blend requires unfolding, the elements in a visual metaphor/blend
can be cued simultaneously.
3. Some non-verbal modalities do not have a grammar in the way
language has and the construal of metaphors that do not draw on the
verbal modality tends to be more open to interpretation and
controversy.
4. Non-verbal modalities in lms trigger emotions quicker, and per-

haps more subtly, in audiences than the verbal modality, and this
characteristic is inherited by multimodal metaphors.
It is not at all surprising that so many static and moving images are
motivated by conceptual metaphors, ones that also ground both conven-
tional and novel instances of metaphorical language. The demonstrations
of conceptual metaphors in images offer powerful testimony on the ubi-
quity of entrenched metaphorical concepts in human thought and expres-
sion. Static and moving images may, again, express embodied conceptual
metaphors in subtle ways that differ somewhat from their instantiations in
verbal speech. Pictorial manifestations of conceptual metaphors may have
unique cognitive and affective effects precisely because they provide con-
crete analogs of familiar human experiences.
music
People often talk of their experiences listening to music in thoroughly
metaphorical terms. Consider a review written in 1810 of Beethovens Fifth
Symphony:
Beethovens instrumental music unveils before us the realm of the
mighty and the immeasurable. Here shining rays of light shoot through
the darkness of night, and we become aware of a giant shadow swaying
back and forth, moving ever closer around us and destroying within us
all feeling but the pain of innite yearning, in which every desire,
leaping up in a sound of exultation, sinks back and disappears. Only
in this pain, in which love, hope and joy are consumed without being
destroyed, which threatens to burst our hearts with a full-chorused cry
of all the passions, do we live on as ecstatic visionaries.81
This passage illustrates, from a nineteenth-century perspective, a critics
appreciation of the sublime, organic character of Beethovens music,
mixing together different metaphorical statements about the musical con-
tent and its emotional effects on the audience. As noted earlier, metaphor
is frequently found in musical discourse, and this review of Beethovens
Fifth provides numerous, poetic examples of linguistic metaphors in action
(e.g., shining rays of light shoot through the darkness).
A project investigating peoples metaphors for music asked music
students to use specic words or images to describe short excerpts of
music.82 The words provided included polar opposites, such as moving
static, updown, and attractingrepelling. The images also showed
Music 245
polar opposite concepts, such as a picture of a full glass or of an empty box.

Participants listened to each musical piece and then discussed it with one
another, and were urged to employ some of the earlier provided words and
images. An analysis of participants discussions showed that their musical
descriptions were clearly related to several image schemas, such as
SOURCEPATHGOAL, CONTAINER, MOMENTUM, and VERTI-
CALITY. These data highlight the idea that the language of music offers
compelling insights into music structure, especially regarding the import-
ance of embodied conceptual metaphors in music conceptualization and
understanding.
Still, do people experience music in metaphorical ways apart from how
they may later talk about what they have heard? One response to this
question claims that musical experience is not metaphorical. Michael
Spitzer offered one opinion along this line.83
Metaphor theorists who assume that we conceptualize music in the

same way we conceptualize language are nave, or at least ill versed in
aesthetics. The watchword of aesthetics is particularity, which means
that art affords a richly grained mode of experience that is valuable
precisely because it cannot be subsumed by concepts.
If Spitzer is correct, musical experience is not conceptual. Inferring the

presence of widespread conceptual metaphors as motivating musical pro-
duction and experience may, under this view, constitute a vast over-
interpretation of musical compositions.
However, even though musical experience may sometimes feel tran-
scendent, and convey particular aesthetic impressions, this should not
imply that music is non-conceptual. As Larry Zbikowski observed, musics
primary function is to represent thought patterns via various dynamic
processes that are common in human experience, especially in regard to
emotion regulation, and the movement of bodies through space.84
Part of the struggle in debates over metaphor and music is that scholars,
including composers, write about music using many different verbal meta-
phors.85 Should we take these verbal metaphors as evidence of what the music
alone expresses or communicates? Many people suggest that the answer to
this question is a clear yes. For instance, Mark Johnson and Steve Larsen
argued that peoples understanding of musical motion is metaphorical and
grounded in three pervasive bodily expressions of physical motion.86
The MOVING TIME metaphor conceptualizes a musical event as an
object that moves past the stationary listeners from front to back. Thus, a
future musical event exists as a musical space in front of the listener and it
moves toward the listener (e.g., Here comes the recapitulation, or The
refrain comes in soon). Once the event arrives, it is experienced as heard,
as it now exists in the present moment. After the music has been heard, the
musical event is behind us and exists in the past. This analysis is similar to
how we experience seen objects as things move in physical space. Just as
moving objects trace out an imaginary path of motion, segments of a
musical path are called passages. Moreover, just as objects can creep,
crawl, y, speed up, slow down, etc., so too does music move slowly,
abruptly, gently, or forcefully.
A second relevant metaphor for musical concepts is the MUSICAL
LANDSCAPE metaphor. People have the experience of moving from a
starting point along some path, through intermediate stages, to reach some
destination. In a similar way, listeners experience music as traveler in a
music landscape, where what has already been heard is understood as a
landscape behind us and music not yet heard is in the front part of the path
that we will experience later (e.g., Were coming up to the coda, The
melody rises up ahead). One can experience music as an observer or as a
participant. A participant moves over the music landscape (e.g., You can
approach the refrain or Pass the dissonant part). Adapting the partici-
pants perspective enables one to strive, seek, push ahead, and so forth as
actors with a piece of music. An observers perspective, frequently employed
by musicians analyzing a score, is conceived as a distant standpoint from
which one can observe the path through a music landscape. One advantage
of the observer perspective is that it enables a person to conceive of the entire
musical piece at once, as if it is an object that can be visualized from afar.
Finally, the third metaphor for musical experience is MUSIC AS
A MOVING FORCE. People ordinarily experience physical motion when
physical forces like wind, water, and large objects move us from one point
to another. Music may be thought of as a metaphorical force that has
causal effects such as when someone is moved, pushed, pulled, bowled
over, blown away, or dragged down by a musical piece. Indeed, much
research demonstrates that our experiences of music are quite embodied,
and not transcendent of ordinary thought and experience. For instance, the
relationship between the VERTICALITY schema and our characterization
of musical pitch with reference to the spatial orientation updown is
fairly universal. When we make low sounds, our chest resonates, when we
make high sounds, out chest no longer resonates in the same way, and the
source of the sound seems located nearer our heads. This updown of
musical pitch thus correlates with the spatial up and down the
vertical orientation of our bodies. The VERTICALITY schema offers a
Music 247
straightforward way to explain why our characterization of musical pitch is

in terms of high and low. Note also that pitch is graphically represented in
musical notation by placing notes that are the result of very rapid vibra-
tions of the sounding mechanism higher on the page than notes that result
from less rapid vibrations.
Different empirical studies lend support to the idea that people conceive
of music in conceptual metaphorical terms. Steve Larson showed that
listeners identied a number of patterns within musical scores as being
related to metaphorical concepts such as MUSICAL GRAVITY, MUSICAL
MAGNETISM, and MUSICAL INERTIA, each of which are partly shaped
by peoples earlier sensorimotor experiences.87 Mihailo Antovi studied
eleven-year olds verbal descriptions of different musical sequences (e.g.,
high and low tones, soft and loud tones, major and minor triads, fast and
slow tempos) and also found that participants metaphorically conceptual-
ized various musical relations.88 Even blind children describe musical
relations using conventional musical metaphors (e.g., PITCHES ARE
HEIGHTS, MUSICAL SCALES ARE VERTICAL MOVEMENTS).89 Stud-
ies also show that people make faster meaningfulness judgments for
statement such as The soprano sang a high aria when making an upward
motion to press the yes key than when making a downward movement.90
This nding makes sense given peoples conceptual metaphorical under-
standing of MUSICAL SCALES ARE VERTICAL MOVEMENTS. Finally,
musicologists also claim, more specically, that several image schemas
(e.g., CONTAINER, CYCLE, CENTERPERIPHERY, BALANCE, and
SOURCEPATHGOAL) structure our understanding of harmonic rela-
tionships, such as a cycle of fths and the resolution of unstable patterns.91
In this way, pitches are correlated with points in space the succession of
focal pitches correlates with movement along a path.
Research in whole body computing has also explored embodied meta-
phorical experience in the context of creating musical sequences. One
study used an interactive audio environment, the Sound Maker, in which
the system sensed peoples location and movements to produce different
sound effects.92 Pairs of people were asked to make different sounds
through their body positions and movements in this space. The system
was designed so that it would produce sounds given embodied metaphor-
based mappings, or mappings that did not follow standard body and sound
correlations. For the embodied metaphor-based mappings, for example,
speed was linked with tempo (fast is fast, slow is slow), activity with
volume (more is loud, less is quiet), proximity with pitch (near is high,
farther is low), and ow was linked with rhythm (smooth is rhythmic,
choppy is chaotic). For the non-embodied mappings, ow was linked to

tempo (smooth is fast, choppy is slow), proximity with volume (farther is
quiet, near is loud), speed with pitch (slow is high, fast is low), and activity
with rhythm (more is rhythmic, less is chaotic).
The participant pairs were given a series of sounds to make that varied
along a single parameter (e.g., volume, tempo, pitch, and rhythm), or
combined two parameters at once (e.g., volume and tempo). They also
had to verbally explain their movements after completing the desired
sound sequence. Most generally, people were far more able to bodily
demonstrate and explain correct sound sequences when using the
embodied metaphorical mappings than with the non-embodied mappings.
Some of this success using the embodied metaphors was through peoples
reective thinking about the mappings required and not just through their
body movements alone. Still, the embodied metaphor based system facili-
tated a proportional mix of experiential and reective intuitions that
resulted in users more successfully learning to control and understand
the system.93 Once again, peoples intuitive discovery of how to make
certain music sounds in Sound Maker was signicantly based on their
bodily actions facilitated by their past experiences of embodied metaphors.
These observations and ndings lead to the conclusion that We hear a
sonic representation of the dynamic processes associated with these
actions, and thus understood the actions through sound.94 For example,
one may interpret pitches as being analogous to points in space and
yet also conceive of the movement through space via the dynamic pro-
cesses set up by a succession of pitches. More generally, as Larry Zbikowski
has also argued, language and music may simply offer different resources
for structuring thought: language excels at capturing objects, events and
the relations that hold between them, but is less good at representing
dynamic processes; music, by contrast, excels at representing dynamic
processes, but represents objects, events, and relations only under the most
contrived circumstances.95 In this way, musical metaphors arise from
pervasive conceptual metaphors underlying metaphorical language, but
also express slightly different facets of those metaphorical experiences,
especially in regard to dynamic movement.
metaphors in computing experience

Most people think that computers are far from metaphorical or are not
related to metaphor in any substantial way. Yet in describing their multi-
modal experiences with computers, people have particular metaphorical
Metaphors in Computing Experience 249
ways of talking. For example, when searching for information on the

internet, people say things such as Lets go to your web site, I returned
to that place with the information about skin cancer, I wandered around
the Apple web site, or Do you remember how you got there? Each
statement mentions physical spaces (e.g., that place or web site) or
motion (e.g., go, returned, or wandered around) to refer to infor-
mation sources and information actions. Interestingly, these common
expressions are systematically used by both experts and novice
computer users.
Beginning in 1996, before the internet had become so immensely popu-
lar, a series of psychological studies interviewed people about their experi-
ences using the web. The results of one study by Paul Maglio and Teenie
Matlock showed a high degree of consistency in the description of their
actions.96 For example, people (a) often referred to themselves as actively
moving along trajectories toward information objects even though they did
not travel anywhere at all (e.g., I went from Yahoo to Altavista),
(b) rarely referred to themselves as passive recipients (e.g., I waited, and
then it brought me the information), which seems more likely considering
that in reality the information actually does travel to the users computer
over physical wires and signals, and (c) consistently used language refer-
ring to self-directed motion along a path, more typically along a horizontal,
but not a vertical direction.
More recent studies by Matlock and colleagues examined whether
peoples metaphorical experiences in computing have changed over the
last two decades. For instance, one study had university students use the
web for a ten-minute period and then describe what they had just done, in
as much detail as possible.97 The analysis of what students reported showed
that they now almost exclusively employed the motion verb go (and
corresponding words went and gone), as when a student stated I went
to NBA.com, or Then I went to some, like, fraternity sites. This nding
contrasts dramatically with the 1996 study which observed that web users
employed a far greater variety of motion verbs, with go being stated just
over one-half of the time. Furthermore, the 2013 study showed no examples
of passive language (e.g., It brought me to. . .), which differed from what
was seen in 1996. Participants in 2013 also no longer referred to their
internet use in terms of backing out, surng, or oating.
Early web users, back when the internet rst became popular in the late
1990s, conceived of their activities in terms of the conceptual metaphors
A WEB PAGE IS A PHYSICAL SPACE and OBTAINING INFORMA-
TION IS MOVING THROUGH PHYSICAL SPACE. Even though these
metaphors are still relevant to contemporary internet use, people have

widely adopted go related lexical items for several possible reasons. First,
go is easily seen as expressing a metaphorical meaning, especially as
related to mental states and functioning (e.g., I need to go over that idea
again). Second, improvements in computer technology have enabled
people to worry less about the mechanics of their interfaces. Third, and
most obviously, people have gotten much better at navigating to a variety
of internet sites, along with using other mobile devices (e.g., smartphones
and tablets) that make computing experience so much easier. Most gener-
ally, there is no need to speak of computing experiences in various
metaphorical terms of surng (or even literal terms like I clicked on
that site). Spatial metaphor such as go readily reect both the immedi-
acy and ease of information access. People still think of internet use in
enduring metaphorical ways, but have narrowed their conceptions of what
specic actions best specify their virtual moving through physical space.
A related aspect of computing experience is our understanding of new
concepts referring to big data, cases where massive amount of infor-
mation collected usually through social media for purposes of predictive
modeling. One analysis suggested that two key conceptual metaphors are
central to our present understanding of big data.98 The rst states that
BIG DATA IS A FORCE OF NATURE TO BE CONTROLLED, as mani-
fested in the following narrative:
Data is a powerful natural resource that if used wisely can drive U.S.
economic competitiveness and lead to rewarding careers in the future
dedicated to building a smarter planet.99
A second conceptual metaphor for big data is BIG DATA IS NOUR-

ISHMENT OR FUEL TO BE CONSUMED. One example of this metaphor
in action is seen in the following statement:
Beyond that, however, lies the promise of a style of computing that
more closely mimics the functioning of the human mind as it takes in
data from many different sources, forming thoughts and making deci-
sions in real time.100
These alternative metaphorical conceptions of big data are by no

means neutral in their implications for social and political policy about,
for example, the ways private information is gleaned off of social media for
use by governments and corporations. As with many evolving concepts,
the numerous ways that we metaphorically understand them can, and
often should, be discussed and debated. Yet it is impossible to think of
Conceptual Metaphors in Dance 251
big data and many other abstract ideas in the domain of computing
without embodied conceptual metaphors rushing in to help us more
concretely understand what at rst seems vague and unfamiliar.
conceptual metaphors in dance

Does dance sometimes express metaphorical meanings? Some philoso-
phers are deeply skeptical of the idea that the meaning of dance can be
understood through non-verbal, conceptual metaphors.101 Part of this
reaction stems from a worry that metaphors must always be verbal because
to insist that there is such a thing as non-verbal metaphor . . . has
stretched the concept of metaphor so far that it might be said to use
the concept, at most, metaphorically.102 As was the case with debates
about metaphor and music, this criticism arises from the traditional belief
that conceptual knowledge must necessarily be tied to verbal language. For
example, Eva Kittay argued that We can have metaphor in dance but that
only through its expression in some representational system can we grasp
the structure of metaphor, and the most elaborated representational system
to us is linguistics.103
These critical statements about metaphor and dance, once again, raise a
challenging question. Does the fact that people can talk about their experi-
ences using conventional verbal metaphors imply that they are thinking in
entrenched metaphorical ways? One possibility is that verbal metaphors
emerge in the context of peoples bodily actions, as with gesture, and not
simply as after-the-fact reections about what is really a completely non-
metaphorical experience. Herman Kappelhoff and Cornelia Mller asked
groups of psychology students, dance movement therapists in training, and
clinical patients to bodily improvise some aspect of their life in a short ten-
minute period.104 After doing so, the participants had to select one feature
of their movements, repeat it several times, and then talk about the
movement as they continued enacting it. For example, one participant
enacted the movement pattern in which she swung her upper body to
the left and then to the right, eventually swinging her arms in the same
direction. As she started the second swinging motion she verbally described
her present life circumstances as being like a wave (e.g., ones life is like a
wave). Thus, the swinging motions preceded the verbal metaphor suggest-
ing that the metaphorical concept of ones life is like a wave arises from felt
bodily movements of the swinging motions of her arms and body.
As the participant continued to swing back and forth, she elaborated on
her multimodal metaphor by noting in reference to her life that
sometimes it goes up and sometimes it goes down, and coordinated

these comments precisely with her body actions such that the upward
movement reached its peak as she said it goes up and the downward
movement was synchronized with the statement it goes down. The
participants speech and actions do not merely reect an outward mani-
festation of an inner, previously encoded conceptual metaphor because she
is both conceptualizing and expressing life as a wave in the very moment of
her movements and speech.
Later on in the sequence, the same participant enacted a spiral move-
ment downward with her left hand. Soon after that, she said and to spiral
downward to provide a verbal metaphorical description of her multi-
modal experience of the course of life as moving downward in a specic
spiral manner, and, as she continued to make the same gestural motion,
said, it always goes from up to down I have just noticed. Finally, the
participant moved her hand upward, again in a spiral manner and said,
doesnt go from down to up suggesting that her coordinated enactment
of the upward spiral was not appropriate for her momentary conceptual-
ization of life. In fact, after completing the upward gestural movement, she
held her hand above her head, looked at her hand and laughed, then
focused her eye gaze with the person observing her so as to insure that
her enactment has been fully understood by her audience.
Overall, the sequence of bodily actions and speech are dynamically
composed and visibly expressed by the participant so that what we see
is a metaphoric process of meaning construction which oscillates between
verbal, gestural, and verbo-gestural realizations of metaphoric content.105
Embodied metaphors, such as life is a wave, which are related to the
primary metaphors GOOD IS UP and BAD IS DOWN, represent ideas
in the minds of individuals, which are recruited to motivated speech and
bodily actions. As listeners and observers, one might argue that our
understanding of peoples metaphorical meanings demands some infer-
ences about the causal bases of these overt behaviors. Positing the existence
of some specic conceptual metaphor, even an embodied conceptual
metaphor, is what many metaphor scholars presume how metaphorical
meanings are interpreted.
A different perspective maintains, however, that the bodily actions
enacted by a person are the way metaphorical conceptualizations are
created. Peoples speech, gestures, and dance are themselves metaphors
and not just outward manifestations of private, inner mental processes of
metaphorical thought. The interplay of language with gestures and actions
highlights the degree to which metaphor is spread out across the entire
Conceptual Metaphors in Dance 253
body in action. In this way, embodied metaphor is an aesthetic and

affective process that unfolds over time and is not passively encoded in
language or bodily action.
Another demonstration of embodied conceptual metaphors in expres-
sive actions is seen in contact improvisation dance. I have earlier written
about how dancers express metaphorical ideas, which audiences, to some
degree, recognize, in a piece titled Hilary, by Julyen Hamilton and Alito
Alessi originally performed as a part of Cappella Motion (1995).106 Julyen
and Alitos performance begins with the two dancers walking onto the
stage and Julyen lying face down on the oor, arms extended in front.
Alito moves over to squat on the back of Julyens thighs. Julyen then
raises his head and shoulders and looks behind to observe Alito, simul-
taneously extending his arms in front of him. Julyen lies back down and
Alito moves upward onto Julyens back, balancing himself, arms
extended, then standing on Julyens back as Julyen once more rises, this
time to his hands and knees. Alito sits on top of Julyen, riding him. Soon
Julyen couples his hands around Alitos feet as Alito wraps his legs
around Julyens trunk. Julyen stands, walks around the stage and twirls
Alito around in circles as Alito twists on Julyens back, extending arms
and legs outward in different directions, sometimes using Julyens one
extended arm as a guide. Julyen then stops his walking and slowly pulls
Alito around in front of him, and while still standing, cradles Alito in
his arms.
Even within these rst few minutes of Julyen and Alitos duet, move-
ments across the stage reect aspects of the LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor
with embodied experiences of physical journeys as the source domain.
Here the movement from point A along some path to point B expresses
progress toward some concrete or abstract, sometimes personal, goal. One
sees the struggle when the dancers rst begin a journey (some movement
from point A to point B), the obstacles they encounter along the way, how
they try, and sometimes fail, to support each other, the times when they
seem to be spinning their wheels (including one moment later in the
performance when Alito actually walks briskly in place) until they break
free and almost y toward their long-anticipated goal.
Other aspects of Julyen and Alitos performance also make use of body-
based metaphors. Upward movements, following the conceptual meta-
phors of HAPPINESS IS UP, GOOD HEALTH IS UP, and HAVING
CONTROL IS UP, are suggestive of positive affect and of greater conscious
control of ones body and, more generally, ones life. For instance, there are
many moments in Julyens and Alitos dance, when their upward
movement (both while on the ground and while standing) signies positive
emotions, especially when they are in balanced positions of contact.
On the other hand, downward body postures and movements reect the
metaphors SADNESS IS DOWN, SICKENSS IS DEATH, SICKNESS AND
DEATH ARE DOWN, and BEING SUBJECT TO CONTROL FROM
PEOPLE IS DOWN, suggesting negative affect when individuals are under
stress, experience poor health, and have little control over their movements
and their lives. The opening of Julyen and Alitos performance, when
Julyen lies prone with Alito on top of him, suggests, even if for a moment,
Alitos control over Julyen. At the very beginning, Julyen lifts his head and
looks over his shoulder at Alito as if to question this control. Some of their
unsteady movements and positions reect the metaphor of NEAR FAIL-
URE IS UNEASINESS and suggests uncertainty. Falling reects the FAIL-
URE IS FALLING metaphor, and represents lack of control, illness, and
feelings of debasement. At a later moment in Julyen and Alitos dance,
Alito runs toward Julyen and leaps into his arms, as if wishing to establish
a more personal bond between them. But the movement fails because the
dancers are immediately unbalanced and the two dancers tumble onto the
stage very gracefully and start anew to establish contact.
The movements Julyen and Alito perform are not interpreted by obser-
vers simply as arbitrary physical acts with no sense of purpose or commu-
nicative meaning. Instead, the basic images in their dance are movement
structures that are imaginatively patterned and exible, both in terms of
their physical instantiations and their symbolic interpretation. The beauty
of contact improvisation is that the embodied metaphors are enacted in-
the-moment as the dancers react to their immediate bodily situations. It
seems unlikely that the dancers movements are directed by internal,
private embodied metaphorical concepts, as their metaphorical meanings
emerge throughout their full-bodied actions. Conceptual metaphors unfold
over time in course of embodied actions.
As is the case with other aspects of the wars over metaphor, not
everyone agrees with the kind of conceptual metaphorical analysis pre-
sented above on Julyens and Alitos contact improvisation performance.
Karen Schaffman wrote that In Contact Improvisation, the moving body,
dened by momentum and touch, dees traditional Western codes, though
not through an inversion of conceptual metaphors. Instead, as a practice,
Contact Improvisation presents alternatives to those conceptual metaphors
that we hold as common language.107 For instance, in contrast to
my discussion of GOOD IS UP and BAD IS DOWN and their relations
to aspects of the dancers movements, Schaffman replied, Contact
Conceptual Metaphors for the Artistic Process 255
Improvisation celebrates failing and in doing so proposes an embodied

alternative to the metaphors of space and failure that Gibbs adheres to.
She continued, The question of failure in Contact Improvisation remains
valid, but it is not measured in terms of stability or instability. Rather, it has
to do with issues as reluctance, manipulation, and lack of attentiveness to
the moment.
I applaud these responses to my conceptual metaphor overview of the
Hilary performance. Schaffman rightly highlights the possibility of alter-
native metaphors being created in the moment of the dancers joint
actions, some of which may, as she put it, supersede some of Gibbss
conceptual metaphors.108 Conceptual metaphorical analyses are not
intended as stating exactly what any human artifact necessarily means.
My analysis only points to the constraining presence of particular
embodied conceptual metaphors in the creation and understanding of
specic human experiences. There will be occasions when people actively,
even consciously, aim to subvert common metaphorical concepts, or
engage in expressive actions that supersede entrenched conceptual meta-
phors. As one Contact Improvisation dancer once said to me, I never feel
so free as when I am crawling across the oor on my hands and knees.
One may supercially argue that the action of crawling on the oor
represents powerlessness, or instantiates the BAD IS DOWN metaphor.
But people have the agency to sometimes express new twists on pervasive
conceptual metaphors, as perhaps was evident in the dancers performance
in Hilary. This recognition, however, does not invalidate conceptual
metaphor theory (CMT), but acknowledges the human tendency to think,
speak, and act in creative ways which are very much tied to the conven-
tional metaphors we live by.
conceptual metaphors for the artistic process

Karen Sullivan proposed that CMT may be a tool for understanding the
artistic process.109 She advanced several conceptual metaphors that cap-
ture what artists do. For example, a primary metaphor for the artistic
process is ART IS MONOLOGUE in which the range of techniques (e.g.,
brushstrokes) is understood as vocabulary. This metaphor underlies why
artworks can be seen as conveying a message, a protest, a statement,
or an argument. Artworks may even be truthful in exactly the same
ways in which certain speech acts may be believable. Special cases of
ART IS A MONOLOGUE are ART IS STORYTELLING, (e.g., Degas was
once praised for painting a prose . . . articulating a new . . . observation),
and ART IS WRITING (e.g., the abstract artist Calvin Seibert called his
paintings a diary, a visual text).
Viewers of artworks sometimes feel as if they are in conversation with
artists, and vice versa, leading to the conceptual metaphor ART IS CON-
VERSATION. Performance artworks, such as Marina Abramovis The
Artist is Present, explicitly aim to bring viewers reactions into dening an
artworks meaning or signicance. To give another example of the ART IS
CONVERSATION metaphor, one performance piece exhibited a series of
blenders containing live goldsh which museum visitors could either blend
or refrain from blending. This artwork clearly relied on peoples reactions
to the possibility of using the blender to pose questions about human
nature and our responses to the environment. Projects like this represent
a conversation more so than do traditional artworkobserver
relationships.
Some artists consider themselves as having conversations with their art-
making materials (e.g., canvases, clay), rather than with human observers.
The contemporary artist Masako Kamiya embraced this idea when she
wrote, I engage in a dialogue with paint. My statement is each dot I make
with the brush; then I respond intuitively to each unexpected play of
dots. . . This process is an interchange with the painting activity.110
Abstract art takes the conceptual metaphor ART IS CONVERSATION
in a slightly different direction when talking about how the materials
interact with one another as if in a spontaneous dialogue. The artist Annie
Neely claimed that her artistic goal was to examine how color, paint and
form meet and respond to one another.111
These varying conceptual metaphors for artistic endeavors describe
some of the ways that both artists and art observers think about the
processing of making and appreciating artworks. As is true with most
other abstract target domains, several embodied source domains are
explored to offer different perspectives on what artists are doing and what
artworks may partly mean to audiences. These conceptual metaphors are
not optional to understanding the artistic process, but provide a funda-
mental framework for understanding how art speaks and conveys
meaning.
enacting conceptual metaphors in material culture

Another demonstration of conceptual metaphors in multimodal experi-
ences is seen in studies on material culture. Christopher Tilleys book,
Metaphor and Material Culture, presented an analysis of several
Enacting Conceptual Metaphors in Material Culture 257
archeological and ethnographic studies that highlight the role of metaphors

in the creation and interpretation of various material forms (e.g., texts,
sculptures, canoes, tools, settlement designs, rock carvings, pottery, cave
drawings, animal gures, and ceremonial practices).112 Tilley strongly
argued that Solid metaphor cannot be reduced to a series of linguistic
metaphors, and that the interconnectedness of different material artifacts
reveals the power of the metaphorical mind to create and appreciate
varying cultural forms. Let me summarize his argument through quoting
the following passage:113
The artefacts work as prompts to perform processes of conceptual
mappings between them. Perhaps the most common case of this is the
perception of shared parts or elements such as bodies and pots and
houses having openings or orices or being containers, thus permitting
them to be linked, or shared aspects of physical structure (e.g., houses
and axe blades having a trapezoidal form), sharing the same shape or
form. Technological processes such as weaving or potting or smelting
may provide the dynamic images of movement and change which may
be compared with the movements of kin or animals or the seasons.
Basic ideas such as a distinction between something being covered/
uncovered can be used to liken clothing with house decoration or spatial
distance to create analogies between forms of animal and human life.
Colours may be mapped by virtue of their being shared and so on. Such
metaphoric and metonymic mappings work because of the almost
limitless proliferation of detail in the world of things in which a source
image is mapped onto a target domain that is also an image.
Research on material culture unveils the ubiquity of metaphorical
thinking and how the study of human artefacts offers compelling evidence
against critics who argue that conceptual metaphors only emerge from
language use.
Lets consider, though, a specic example of how conceptual metaphors
can be enacted in material culture. Rob Wiseman examined why hunter-
gathers build their dwellings close to people who are typically their kin and
argued that these buildings are material examples of the SOCIAL DIS-
TANCE IS PHYSICAL DISTANCE metaphor.114 Although linguistic evi-
dence provides support for this metaphorical mapping (e.g., I am feeling
very close to you), case studies within ethnoarcheology offer additional
credence for the impact of metaphor SOCIAL DISTANCE IS PHYSICAL
DISTANCE.
A large-scale analysis of 1792 examples from 117 hunter-gatherer soci-
eties showed a positive correlation between kinship distance and spacing
between shelters. Closer examination of these living arrangements indi-

cated a progressive expansion with parents and dependent children being
closest, followed by grandparents and dependent grandchildren, adult
parents with adult siblings, and then elders with elder siblings. These
spatial living arrangements cannot be explained by presumed functional
reasons such as sharing food or protection against predators, because these
goals could readily be achieved through many different spatial organiza-
tional schemes.
However, the prominence of correlations in bodily experiences, such as
AFFECTION IS WARMTH and EMOTIONAL DISTANCE IS PHYS-
ICAL DISTANCE give rise to the SOCIAL DISTANCE IS PHYSICAL
DISTANCE metaphor, as well as its associated DIFFERENT IS DISTANT.
These embodied metaphors offer a motivated explanation for why people
construct their settlements in the regular ways they do, both within
prehistoric and contemporary societies. The fact that settlements are
routinely created, torn down, and rebuilt in a different location, especially
in certain hunter-gatherer societies, shows how the SOCIAL DISTANCE
IS PHYSICAL DISTANCE metaphor is being continually enacted over
time.115 The archeological record provides a distinct kind of empirical
support for the real-world signicance of conceptual metaphors, even apart
from ordinary language use.
One extensive analysis of prehistoric pottery and pleated basket design
from the American Southwest demonstrated important correspondences
between these artifacts and different conceptual metaphors.116 For example,
many features of pottery and woven baskets, along with other stitched
fabrics, were quite similar, all of which were suggestive of the possibility
that the conceptual metaphor POTTERY IS A TEXTILE was a widely
shared idea among Southwest American potters. Thus, the pottery and
textiles were connected to metaphorical expressions of an earth-bowl and
sky-basket cosmos. Creative artworks not only reveal aspects of contem-
porary conceptual systems, but also show important continuities between
the metaphorical minds of archeological cultures and modern ethno-
graphic groups.
Modern history also reveals the presence of conceptual metaphors in
human artifacts, including, not surprisingly, contemporary architecture.
Rosario Caballero has studied the discourse of architecture and observed
the prominence of verbal metaphors both in terms of how architects talk of
their creative processes and how reviewers of completed structures
describe their aesthetic judgments of these artifacts.117 As Caballero
observed, Not only do architects often think in metaphors when
Enacting Conceptual Metaphors in Material Culture 259
approaching a new design, but such metaphors are translated into visual
and graphic forms.118 Architects often work with a range of conceptual
metaphors, including, BUILDINGS ARE LIVING ORGANISMS, ARCHI-
TECTURAL PRACTICE IS CLOTH MAKING, BUILDINGS ARE
CLOTH, ARCHITECTURE IS LANGUAGE, BUILDINGS ARE TEXTS,
BUILDINGS ARE MACHINES, ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE IS
MUSIC MAKING, and BUILDINGS ARE MUSICAL PIECES.119
Consider one review of a building, designed by Steven Holl, and called
Cite de LOcean et du Surf, that is structured around the idea of
BUILDINGS ARE LIVING ORGANISMS.
Holl understands the visceral thrill of continuing with the oceans

rollicking power. Such experiences feed through in the muscular yet
sensuous architecture, which cups and cradles visitors with the concrete
wave. The curved platform also acts as a belvedere rising up to address
the site and frame views to the distant western horizon where sea meets
sky. This sense of compression and release is intended to suggest the
experience of surng. is analogous to being on a rolling sea says Holl,
when you dip down in a valley of water and are spatially enclosed (. . .)
then the sea lifts you up and you can see in every direction.120
Reading this review reinforces the idea that our experiences of certain
buildings are like interacting with a living being, an impression that
strongly emerges given the human predisposition to understand objects
and events in life, even very concrete ones, in familiar metaphorical terms.
Kshmiri Stec and Eve Sweetser have asserted that metaphor, meton-
ymy, and other blends are literally built in to the architecture and art to
structure the experiences of people in these spaces.121 They considered two
religious architectural wonders, the ninth-century Buddhist monument of
Borobudur in Indonesia and the medieval cathedral church of Chartres in
France. Visitors to these holy sites often engage in ritual bodily acts as they
move through and up these shrines. For example, the physical act of
circumambulating up the Borobudur is seen as enabling the walkers to
attain nirvana, which emerges as a specic instantiation of the correlation
between vertical height and status, power, and authority (i.e., STATUS IS
UP, POWER IS UP). These conceptual metaphorical conceptualizations
become spiritually charged given the LOTUS metaphor, in which differ-
ent stages of life development correspond to the image of the lotus ower.
Thus, by traveling from the owers roots (the base of Borobudur), along
the stem (the central vertical section), and up to the ower (the crest), one
acquires the perfection that the lotus metonymically symbolizes.122
In a similar way, the vertical structures of Chartres, a classical gothic

cathedral with very high ceilings and tall towers, were constructed to
reach upwards toward the sky of Gods metaphoric home in heaven.123
Inside the church, visitors encounter an altar up on a platform which the
congregation must look upward to observe. Suspended above the altar is
the cross, signifying Christ, while breaded wafers sit on the altar, standing
for the body of Christ. Both the congregation and priests must genuect
(i.e., drop to one knee and bow) when approaching the altar and cross,
creating an even greater distance between humans and material symbols.
Peoples experiences of the cathedral is, therefore, imbued with symbolic
meanings that are structured around widely shared embodied primary
metaphors, namely STATES ARE LOCATIONS and CHANGE OF
STATE IS MOTION, each of which is immediately felt as one moves from
a distant location to enter Chartres. On the cathedrals oor is a unicursal
labyrinth that one can literally follow, as if walking on this path will enable
the person to let go of personal agency with respect to direction of
movement, trusting that the journey will lead to the right goal.124 Walking
along the labyrinth also enacts KNOWING IS SEEING as one progres-
sively arrives at places within the church where different religious symbols
(e.g., stained glass window with religious narratives) can be examined and
understood, until one arrives to the cathedrals essence (i.e., ESSENTIAL IS
CENTRAL).
This study of peoples interactions with Borobudur and Chartres illus-
trates how architectural structures offer material anchors for complex
cultural constructs that are deeply rooted in conceptual metaphorical
thinking. These holy sites were designed many hundreds of years ago to
enable visitors an embodied sense of widely shared metaphorical ideas, but
crucially within the context of fostering profound religious experiences.
conclusion
The wealth of research on multimodal experience represents some of the
most exciting, new developments in the study of the metaphorical mind.
Long-time critics of CMT have argued that conceptual metaphors must be
demonstrated within non-linguistic domains. This plea emerges from
skepticism about the circularity in cognitive linguistic analyses on concep-
tual metaphors and the concern that enduring metaphorical concepts may
arise from language alone.125
However, the diverse topics explored in this chapter clearly illustrate the
extent to which metaphor inltrates, and gives structure to, different kinds
Conclusion 261
of conceptual reasoning, social judgments, gesture, artworks, music, dance,

and material culture. Of course, scholars interested in these non-linguistic
aspects of experience do not conduct their research studies simply to refute
the critics of CMT. The studies described above, nonetheless, point to
signicant commonalities between the conceptual metaphors underlying
language with those that motivate other facets of human expression. Still,
some of the research on multimodal metaphors and metaphors in com-
pletely non-linguistic experiences has slightly different manifestations than
are seen within language.
Moreover, studies on non-linguistic metaphors enables us to recognize
variations in metaphorical thinking, such as seen in gradation in concep-
tual metaphorical activation within gesture, music, or dance. The beauty of
this research, both for scholars and laypersons, is the analogue nature of
metaphoricity in many multimodal forms. Because many of the domains
examined in this chapter unfold in real time, metaphor scholars have
begun to increasingly acknowledge the importance of dynamic move-
ments, even when objects are still, in our understanding of their meaning
and value. Most notably, metaphorical experiences are inherently multi-
modal and should always be understood as emerging from, and enacted by,
the entire body in action.
There is clearly room for future empirical research that explores in
more detail the extent to which people infer conceptual metaphors as part
of their interpretation of gestures, artworks, and material cultural artifacts.
Similar to debates over the cognitive linguistic evidence on conceptual
metaphors, we still need better experimental data showing that metaphor-
ical concepts not only motivate aspects of multimodal expressions, but also
shape how participants (both creators and observers) understand the
metaphorical basis of what is meaningful in different bodily and artistic
enactments. For the moment, though, it is more than fair to assert that the
empirical evidence, once again, points to the constraining presence of
conceptual metaphors in many complex particularities of human life.
7
Conclusion and the Future
There was a time, not very long ago, when it was almost preposterous to
suggest that metaphor had a major role in human life. Most everyone
recognized that metaphors may occasionally burst forth, typically because
of the poetic genius of very special people. Creative writers and artists
possess imaginative gifts that enable them to spin words into novel meta-
phorical constructions. Certain verbal metaphors can pull us away from
clichd, mundane reality and let us briey experience a transcendent,
aesthetic world. All of us have some potential for appreciating the wonders
of metaphor as a linguistic or artistic creation. Still, the world of metaphor
has always traditionally been viewed as a special refuge that has little to do
with ordinary human cognition.
Metaphor wars have been fought over a new vision of metaphorical
language and thought. Contrary to the traditional view, articulated above,
metaphor is a fundamental part of human conceptual systems and not just a
special facet of speech and writing. The astonishing idea that metaphor may
be a basic scheme of human thought has been proposed by several scholars
over the centuries. It was, however, only with the publication of Metaphors
We Live By in 1980 that empirical research began appearing in support of
the conceptual metaphor hypothesis. The present book presented an over-
view of the vast literature demonstrating that metaphor is a critical part of
how we ordinarily think and talk. These studies reveal how conceptual
metaphors are not the mere ctions of cognitive linguists, but are psycho-
logically real features of human thought and expression. At the same time,
many research programs described in this book have been motivated by a
desire to expand conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) so that it can be more
inclusive of the incredible mosaic of human experiences beyond those that
are narrowly seen as within the cognitive domain. For example, concep-
tual metaphors are now widely understood to have signicant roots within
262
Conclusion and the Future 263
human embodied activity, something that few scholars would have

anticipated back in 1980. Furthermore, and quite importantly, conceptual
metaphors have now been shown to structure many non-linguistic expres-
sive experiences and, indeed, are indicative of various social, cultural, and
even neural inuences on human thought and language.
My primary aim in writing this book was to gather in one place many of
the arguments and empirical evidence supporting the possibility that
conceptual metaphors are crucial in dening human life. Describing this
research is necessary because metaphor wars have too often been fought by
people who simply do not know the complexity of the data that lend
credence to CMT, as well as offer renements to the theory. I am hopeful
that future debates about conceptual metaphors in human life will be more
informed about the empirical contents of CMT. My plea for a fair reading
of the literature is intended as a cautionary warning to those who glibly
dismiss the theory in its entirety, because of different linguistic intuitions,
selective readings of the experimental data, or because of the theorys
embrace of the terms conceptual and cognitive. Productive arguments
over conceptual metaphors must acknowledge all of the empirical evidence
from a variety of academic elds that directly addresses the ways concep-
tual metaphors add meaningful structure to human life.
One of the most forceful criticisms of CMT is that the theory is
reductionist and fails to capture many of the specicities of meaningful
metaphorical experience. These complaints stem, to a signicant degree,
from the rendering of conceptual metaphors as short, schematic pairings of
words in small caps, such as LIFE IS A JOURNEY, UNDERSTANDING IS
GRASPING, and ANGER IS HEAT. Critics view these simplistic summar-
ies as the presumed entirety of conceptual metaphorical experience, almost
as if these words alone represent metaphorical concepts, rather than
serving as shorthand for complex, dynamic webs of thoughts and feelings,
each of which are continually dened and bodily enacted. We must
recognize that the labels for conceptual metaphors are only communicative
devices employed in scholarly discussions and are not reections of actual
metaphorical concepts and experiences. Moreover, our understanding of
every conceptual metaphor changes in each moment of real life, bodily
action (i.e., linguistic and non-linguistic). Conceptual metaphors do not sit
individually in some mental cabinet, waiting to be activated and then
mechanically applied in a generic way for each and every interpretive act.
Instead, conceptual metaphors are always articulated in slightly different
ways in each context. Just as each snowake may be unique, despite the
fact that all snowakes are made of the same substances, the precise
264 Conclusion and the Future
conditions under which each conceptual metaphor emerges make then all
exquisitely particular.
It is really important to acknowledge the specicity of metaphorical
experience when talking about conceptual metaphors and their functions
in everyday cognition and expression. Each CMT analysis of a particular
verbal metaphor, literary work, gestural action, artwork, or musical com-
position may suggest that one or more conceptual metaphors partly motiv-
ate what is meaningful about different communicative and expressive
actions. But nobody claims that the meanings of a linguistic metaphor or
a literary creation, to take two examples, are completely dened by concep-
tual metaphors, or that interpretations of human artifacts can be reduced to
conceptual metaphors (and their embodied and/or neural roots). Still, the
empirical evidence overwhelmingly validates that embodied conceptual
metaphors are enduring constraints which motivate why we act in meta-
phorical ways and interpret human artifacts as expressing different meta-
phorical meanings.
The original proposal that metaphor was part of our ordinary concep-
tual system was never intended to dismiss the historical, cultural, social,
and aesthetic dimensions of metaphorical experience. Yes, metaphor is not
just a linguistic device, and has many roots in pervasive patterns of
cognitive and embodied activity. However, this claim, which offered a
major reorientation to the ways that metaphor had traditionally be con-
ceptualized and studied, is consistent with the fact that speaking, writing,
gesturing, and creating artworks are all human actions that are clearly
shaped by a conuence of factors ranging from historical and cultural
forces, operating at slower time-scales, to cognitive and neural forces,
working along fast time-scales. Metaphors in thought are not just static
entities within an isolated cognitive system.
Contemporary debates over what is the right level of analysis or best
empirical method to adopt when studying metaphor has led to unproduct-
ive stalemates because researchers too often quickly dismiss, or are even
completely ignorant of, the general perspective and empirical ndings
offered by those working from different points of view. For example, some
criticisms of CMT focus entirely on whether or not a cognitive approach is
best to study and explain metaphor. I think this debate really focuses on
the wrong question. Our attention should be directed toward how different
types of knowledge and experience interact with one another to give rise to
particular metaphorical actions. Investigating this issue demands that
scholars not assume that they can simply study one facet of metaphor in
some domain of experience from their own, autonomous, point of view
(e.g., the cultural, social, linguistic, cognitive, neural perspectives). Instead,

metaphor scholars must realize, and openly acknowledge that metaphor-
ical actions always emerge from the interaction of a constellation of forces.
What happens at the level of culture is shaped by actions at linguistic level.
What happens at the social level is always inuenced by embodied actions
and experience. What happens at the cognitive level is partly determined
by neural and evolutionary constraints. The discourse level is always partly
embodied, and, indeed, bodily experience is itself shaped by cultural and
discourse factors. Mark Johnson nicely captures this idea of the intercon-
nectedness of thought and language with many other dimensions of our
social experience:1
Since thought is a form of coordinated action, it is spread out in the

world, coordinated with the physical environment and the social, cul-
tural, moral, political, and religious environments, institutions, and
shared practices. Language and all other forms of symbolic expres-
sion are quintessentially social behaviors.2
Most generally, every level of analysis is always in interaction with every

other level, such that human metaphorical actions should be properly
characterized as dynamical and emergent, and not merely an assortment
of isolated perspectives or properties of mind.
Despite the abundance of empirical research in favor of CMT, there is
certainly room for new advances. Let me mention four topics that are ripe
for scholarly attention.
First, CMT requires greater precision in reliably identifying conceptual
metaphors from the systematic analysis of language patterns. Develop-
ments in corpus linguistics and automatic conceptual metaphor identica-
tion studies will be especially critical in this regard. At the very least,
though, scholars should always outline the exact steps they engage in when
drawing inferences about underlying conceptual metaphors from samples
of language or other expressive modalities (e.g., gesture, art, music, dance).
How did you rst determine what was metaphorical in your sample? How
did you then explicitly infer that certain conceptual metaphors, but not
others, were the motivating force for overt metaphorical expressions?
Furthermore, we all need to explore in greater detail how conceptual
metaphors are elaborated upon through non-metaphorical language and
media. The constraining presence of conceptual metaphors is not just
manifested in metaphorical language and actions. As Lakoff and Johnson
earlier noted, for example, We live our lives on the basis of inferences we
derive via metaphor,3 and my suggestion is that some of these inferences
are often characterized in non-metaphorical ways. This possibility should

be one focus of new work in metaphor studies.
Second, a classic interpretation of conceptual metaphors is that these
are created from the mapping of usually concrete, often embodied, source
domain knowledge which is projected to better structure target domain
concepts, typically referring to ideas from a dissimilar aspect of experience.
Consider the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY where the JOUR-
NEY source domain is understood as having image-schematic structure, as
in the SOURCEPATHGOAL schema. CMT usually assumes that
embodied source domains within conceptual metaphors are non-
metaphorical given their direct relations to recurring patterns of bodily
experience across different bodily modalities.
However, our experiences of journeys, and the emergence of image
schemas, such as SOURCEPATHGOAL, are rarely untouched by other
symbolic meanings. Our physical journeys in life, again across different
bodily modalities, always are imbued with existential, social, and cultural
meanings, often in the form of allegorical themes. When we walk from
point A to point B, our journey is dictated by our desires and goals. The
obstacles we face along the path as we move toward our physical destin-
ation are interpreted given varying cultural beliefs and personal ideals. For
these reasons, many recurring patterns of bodily experience are deeply
socialized, enculturated, and may even be metonymic in the sense of
standing for larger metaphorical, and allegorical, themes in our lives. The
most important implication of this idea for CMT is that metaphorical
meanings do not necessarily arise from the mappings of purely embodied
knowledge onto abstract concepts. Instead, the source domains in concep-
tual metaphors are themselves metaphorical in nature. Of course, the
metaphoricity of source domains may arise via feedback from source-to-
target metaphorical mappings, especially as seen in the various entailments
or correspondences created by conceptual metaphors. After all, we may
understand many aspects of LIFE from our concrete, physical experiences
of JOURNEYS, but the association of JOURNEYS with LIFE can clearly
create a metaphorical interpretation of journey-taking activities in life.
The most important implication of this metaphorical source domains
hypothesis is that metaphoricity in experience will not be restricted to what
we typically view as abstract concepts, but will extend more massively into
concrete bodily experiences and actions. Some of the experimental results
from social psychological studies, reviewed in Chapter 6, offer support for
this claim. If this is true, metaphor will be recognized as emerging in a far
greater range of human life experiences than has generally been
acknowledged so far. This is surely another topic that requires much

further study and discussion.
Third, CMT needs to further explore the ways conceptual metaphors
may be organized and applied within different dimensions of human life.
This imperative does not imply that a system of conceptual metaphors
must be completely logical or internally consistent. As Lakoff and Johnson
aptly observed, Our conceptual systems are not consistent overall, since
the metaphors used to reason about concepts may be inconsistent.4
Nonetheless, greater attention should be given to showing how conceptual
metaphors may interact with one another, as well as with many other kinds
of gurative and non-gurative schemes of thought. Conceptual meta-
phors are not fully, and discretely, recruited in each instance of their
application. Rather, conceptual metaphors are articulated in partial, prob-
abilistic, ways, which exactly dene the particularities of metaphorical
experience. Some work consistent with this idea is already ongoing within
cognitive linguistics (e.g., gesture studies), and research from psycholin-
guistics and cognitive neuroscience will be especially useful in detailing
gradations in the emergence of conceptual metaphors.5 The partial nature
of conceptual metaphorical experiences vary, given the people studied, the
languages they use, the particular forms of metaphorical language
employed and encountered, and the specic, adaptive challenges they all
face when a metaphor arises. Metaphor wars have too often been a ght
over whether conceptual metaphors are necessarily always present or
completely absent in various moments of thought, language, and other
human expressions. These dichotomous arguments should diminish once
scholars embrace a more nuanced, dynamic vision of how metaphor
actually contributes to real-world meaningful experience.
Finally, conceptual metaphors do not dictate all aspects of thought and
language, but should be properly understood as signicant, but not exclu-
sive, constraints on how we create metaphorical experience in human life.
For example, CMT is not a complete theory of how language is under-
stood, because conceptual metaphorical knowledge must be complemented
by a diversity of other linguistic, cognitive, and social-cultural processes.
CMT proponents would do well to explore the ways that enduring con-
ceptual metaphors interact with social, pragmatic information within the
constraints of real-time cognitive processing to offer more comprehensive,
and psychologically real, models of metaphorical language use. Similarly,
conceptual metaphors may not be a motivating or an emerging force for
every instance of verbal metaphor understanding. Champions of CMT
need to explicitly describe what the theory can and cannot explain, and
not simply present isolated analyses that are always consistent with the
theory.
Let me briey summarize some of my personal thoughts about concep-
tual metaphors. My claim is that conceptual metaphors are best under-
stood in the following ve broad ways:
1. Conceptual metaphors are emergent in context from the interaction of
many cultural, social, linguistic, cognitive, and neural forces. No single
force, or level of experience, entirely explains where metaphorical ideas
come from or continue to shape everyday metaphorical experience.
2. Conceptual metaphors are important constraints on metaphorical
experience, but do not completely dene all aspects of how people
create metaphorical meaning.
3. Conceptual metaphors are not fully activated, one-by-one, in every
instance of their application within human life. People often experi-
ence conceptual metaphors in partial, probabilistic ways depending
on their past experiences, the languages they speak and types of
verbal metaphors they use, their bodily actions, and adaptive chal-
lenges (e.g., their personal and social goals, the contexts they inhabit,
the physical world etc.).
4. Conceptual metaphors often have source domains that are them-
selves understood in symbolic, metaphorical ways.
5. Conceptual metaphors, because they are emergent, are always
dynamic and exquisitely particular within each context. They are
sensuous, multimodal, often arise in non-linguistic experience, and
are much more embodied, communicative articulations than small
recipes or linguistic symbols inside peoples heads/brains.
Wars can be terrible to be part of, and I admit frustration with the ways
the wars over conceptual metaphors have sometimes been waged in schol-
arly circles. Nonetheless, certain long-time struggles about important intel-
lectual ideas can be instructive and benecial to all participating
combatants. The theory of conceptual metaphor represents a paradigm
shift in the study of metaphor and mind. We have learned a great deal
about the diversity of metaphorical experience as a result of CMT. There is
still much to be discovered. My desire is that this book may provide a new
starting point for metaphor research, one that leads forward to a less
contentious journey than has been travelled in the recent past. Let us all
take great pleasures in our scholarly studies of metaphor as we move
toward a more nuanced, sophisticated theory of the ways that conceptual
metaphor helps create meaning in human life.
Notes
d e d i c at i o n
1. Pragglejaz Group (2007)
chapter 1
1. http://hardballblog.msnbc.com/_nv/more/section/archive?author=chrismatt
hews.
2. Ortony (1975).
3. Gibbs (1994); Lakoff & Johnson (1980, 1999).
4. Lakoff & Johnson (1980: p. 4).
5. Booth (1978).
6. Lakoff & Johnson (1999).
7. Vervaeke & Kennedy (1996); Murphy (1996).
8. Jackendoff & Aaron (1991); Pinker (2007).
9. See Black (1954); Gentner & Bowdle (2008); Glucksberg (2001); Sperber &
Wilson (2008).
10. Fauconnier & Turner (2002, 2008).
11. Parker (1998).
12. See Gibbs (2011a) for discussion.
13. Howe (2007); Quinn (1992).
14. See Gibbs (2011a); Gibbs & Colston (2012) for reviews.
15. Keysar et al. (2000).
16. Feldman (2006); Gibbs (2006b); Lakoff (2008); Lakoff & Johnson (1999);
Johnson (1987).
17. Haser (2005).
18. Wierzbicka (1986: p. 307).
19. Rakova (2002: p. 215); Lakoff & Johnson (2002: p. 260, p. 251, p. 261).
20. Rakova (2003: pp. 178179).
21. www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/timmcgraw/shesmykindofrain.html.
22. Evans (2003: p. 75).
23. Zinken (2007: p. 461).
24. Hogan (2002: p. xx).
269
270 Notes on pages 1230
25. Haser (2005: p. 190).

26. Parker (1998; p. 430).
27. Leezenberg (2001: p. xx).
28. Ibid. p. 144.
29. Pinker (2007: p. 276).
30. Crisp (2002: p. 11).
31. McGlone (2007: p. 122).
32. McGlone (2011: p. 572 and p. 566).
33. http://scienceblogs.com/mixingmemory/2006/09/.
34. Cameron (in press).
35. Swan (2002; p. 447).
36. Quinn (1992: p. 57 and p. 60, respectively).
37. Gibbs (1994, 2006b, 2011a); Gibbs & Colston (2012).
chapter 2
1. Kvecses (2010).
2. Kvecses (2010: p. 23).
3. Ibid. p. 18.
4. Ibid. p. 98.
6. Ibid. p. 95.
7. Johnson (1987).
8. Ibid.
9. One proposal in cognitive linguistics argues that there may be a diversity of
projections that constitute metaphorical meaning. Conceptual projection may
follow from different routes (Ruiz de Mendoza Ibez & Prez Hernndez,
2011): (1) interaction based on image schemas, (2) interaction between propos-
itional cognitive models, (3) interaction involving metonymic models such as
double metonymy, and (4) interaction between metaphor and metonymy.
10. There are continuing discussions and debates over the very nature of image
schemas and how best to characterize their psychological reality (see Hampe,
2005).
11. Lakoff & Turner (1989). Also see Lakoff (1993).
12. Lakoff (1993: p. 215).
13. Also see Ruiz de Mendoza Ibez & Prez Hernndez (2011) for criticisms of
the invariance principle.
14. Lakoff (1987: p. 387).
15. Kvecses (2010).
16. Ibid.
17. Lakoff (1990).
18. Lakoff (1993).
19. Ibid. p. 222.
21. Grady (1997, 1999).
22. See Ruiz de Mendoza Ibez & Prez Hernndez (2011) for an alternative
account of complex metaphors.
Notes on pages 3042 271
23. See Kvecses, (2010); and Ruiz de Mendoza & Mairal (2007) for how meton-
ymy also limits metaphorical mappings within CMT.
24. Lakoff (2008, 2014); Feldman (2006).
25. Lakoff & Johnson (2003: p. 255).
26. Rizzolatti & Craihhero (2004).
27. Ibid.
28. Narayanan (2007); KARMA is a story understanding system. A different
computational system, ATT-Meta, reasons about verbal metaphors within a
question answering system, and also makes reference to conceptual metaphor-
ical ideas and beliefs in drawing various inferences. See Barnden (2008).
29. See http://georgelakoff.com/tag/cascades/.
30. Flusberg et al. (2010).
31. Ibid. p. 9.
32. http://araw.mede.uic.edu/~alansz/metaphor/METAPHORLIST.pdf.
33. One discussion of computational models of metaphor noted that a critical
problem with the Berkeley Metaphor List is that the mapping ontology is non-
compositional in that there is no easy way to combine the existing mappings to
create more complex ones (Loenneker-Rodman & Narayanan, 2012: p. 497).
34. Also see the Hamburg Metaphor Database that lists conceptual metaphors
underlying metaphorical expressions in German and French (Lonneker-
Rodman, 2008). Also see the data base created by Andrew Goatly, titled
metalude, at www.ln.edu.hk/lle/cwd/project01/web/introduction.html.
35. Kvecses (2010).
36. Kvecses (2005).
37. Alverson (1994).
38. Kvecses (2005).
39. Sweetser (1990).
40. Ibid.
41. Yu (2003).
42. Psomadakis (2007).
43. Kvecses (2005); Yu (2003).
44. Kvecses (2003: pp. 315316).
45. Yu (2008).
46. Ibid. p. 375.
47. Gibbs (1994).
48. Gibbs (1994); Lakoff & Johnson (1980).
49. Gibbs (1994).
50. Gibbs (1994); Gibbs & Beitel (1995); Lakoff & Turner (1989); Naciscione (2015).
51. Lakoff & Turner (1989). Also see their book for ideas on the relations between
poetic proverbs and the Great Chain of Being.
52. Naciscione (2015).
53. Many cognitive linguists now explicitly discuss the cline between alive and
dead, and sleeping and waking, to highlight the degree of metaphorical acti-
vation within verbal and gestural metaphors. See Mller (2007).
54. Morgan (1997).
55. For example, Lakoff (1987).
56. Ibid.
57. See, for example, Croft & Cruse (2004); Cuyckens & Zawada (2001);
Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (2007). There is much debate over the ultimate utility
of network models of polysemy. Ron Langacker argued that network models have
provided useful information about the motivation for polysemy, yet still acknow-
ledges that this approach is misleading by virtue of being overly discrete
(Langacker, 2006: p. 146). Determining the varied distinct sense of a polysemous
word is challenging, and Langacker drives home this point using the following
analogy:
Counting the sense of a lexical item would then be analogous to counting the
peaks of a mountain range: how many there are depends on how salient they
have to be before we count them, and they appear discrete in the rst place
only because we ignore how they grade into one another at lower altitudes. The
uncertainty we sometimes experience in determining which particular sense of
an expression instantiates on a given occasion is then to be expected. The uses
in question are like points in the valley between two peaks. It is essentially an
arbitrary matter whether we assign such points to one peak, to the other, to
both, or to neither (Langacker, 2006: p. 148).
58. Panther & Radden (1999); Panther & Thornburg (2003, 2007).
59. Gibbs (1994).
60. Panther & Thornburg (2007).
61. Barnden (2010); Barcelona (2000); Croft & Cruse (2004); Dancygier & Sweetser
(2014); Radden (2000); Ruiz-Mendoza & Prez Hernndez (2003).
62. See classic works by Freeman (1995); Lakoff & Turner (1989); Turner (1996).
63. Lakoff & Turner (1989: p. 215).
64. Ibid.
65. Several critics suggest that there are many more than these four methods for
creating novel metaphors in both literary and non-literary works (Semino &
Steen, 2008).
66. Lakoff & Turner (1989).
67. Gibbs & Bogdonovich (1999).
68. Caballero (2003).
69. Musolff (2000: p. 222).
70. Jkel (2002); Kvecses (2012). Also see Slingerland (2003) for further cross-
cultural evidence on conceptual metaphor and religious ideas.
71. Kvecses (2012).
72. Gibbs (1994).
73. Musolff (2012: pp. 306307).
74. I hasten to note that Musolff (2012: p. 307) commented in regard to this
extract that It would be implausible to interpret this text in classic CMT
style, as a non-deliberate, automatic use of conceptual elements from one
source domain. . . I discuss the issue of the possible deliberate use of
metaphor in Chapter 3, and suggest that there is not clear divide between
automatic and deliberate metaphor use as supposed by some scholars
these days.
75. Ferrara (1994: pp. 139141).
76. From Lonergan & Gibbs (2016).
77. See Gibbs (2016).
78. This includes earlier versions of Metaphor and Symbol and Review of Cogni-
tive Linguistics, namely Metaphor and Symbolic Activity and Annual Review of
Cognitive Linguistics. I have omitted reference to papers published in another
metaphor-related journal, which should also be examined, metaphorik.de.
79. Koller (2002).
80. Goatly (2002).
81. Yu (2003).
82. OBrien (2003).
83. Ozcaliskan (2003a).
84. Ritchie (2003).
85. Sim (2009).
86. Johnson & Larsen (2003).
87. Borbely (2004).
88. Boers (2003).
89. Goldwasser (2005).
90. Semino (2005).
91. Talebinejad & Dastjerai (2005).
92. Deignan (2003).
93. Maalej (2004).
94. Musolff (2006).
95. MacArthur (2005).
96. Al-Zahrani (2007).
97. Musolff (2006).
98. Nez, Motz, & Teuscher (2006).
99. Lu & Chiang (2007).
100. Sim (2008).
101. Pritzker (2007).
102. Wiseman (2007).
103. Pea Cervel (2010).
104. Trker (2013).
105. Samaniego (2011).
106. Theodoropoulou (2012).
107. Johansson-Falck (2010).
108. Ching (1993).
109. Fesmire (1994).
110. Pancake (1993).
111. Kvecses (1993).
112. Howe (1988).
113. Rohrer (1991).
114. Linn (1991).
115. Rohrer (1995).
116. Lackie (1991).
117. Kvecses (1991).
118. Leddy (1995).
119. Yu (1995).
120. Elwood (1995).
121. Winter (1995).
122. Romaine (1996).

123. Gibbs, Colston, & Johnson (1996).
124. Schweik (1996).
125. Ptzemyslaw, van der Lans, & Hermans (1998).
126. Markgraf & Pavlik (1998).
127. OConnor (1998).
128. Nerlich & Jaspal (2012).
129. Li (2010).
130. Schroder (2009).
131. Bochaver & Fenko (2010).
132. Can & Can (2010).
133. Velasco-Sacristn & Fuentes-Olivera (2006).
134. Herrera-Soler (2006).
135. Ozcaliskan (2003b).
136. Marmaridou (2006).
137. Yu (2011).
138. Kvecses (1995).
139. Moore (2006).
140. Wilcox (2004).
141. Cienki (1998).
142. Gibbs (1990).
143. Cienki (2004).
144. Yu (2003).
145. Grady (1997).
146. Odebunmi (2010).
147. Hellsten (2011).
148. Manuel Urena & Faber (2010).
149. Svanlund (2007).
150. Lizardo (2012).
151. Jing-Schmidt (2008).
152. One important development within cognitive linguistics has been the rise of
research within conceptual integration, or conceptual blending theory, as
guided by the seminal scholarship of Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner
(Fauconnier & Turner, 2002, 2008). Blending theory differs from CMT in
assuming that four spaces, rather than two, operate in the creation of meta-
phorical mappings. Conceptual blending theorists see their framework as
better suited to issues relating to the online processing of metaphor. For
example, Seana Coulson claimed that In conceptual metaphor theory, meta-
phors are seen as instantiations of entrenched mappings between cognitive
domains, while in blending theory; the meaning of a metaphor is constructed
on-line in conceptual integration networks (Coulson, 2001: p. 178). Blending
theory also stresses the importance of context for online metaphor processing
and, as a result, may be more appropriate for characterizing a wider range of
complex cognitive and linguistic phenomenon than is CMT. Many meaning
constructions evident in literary works, for instance, have been nicely described
within the context of the blending theory framework (Dancygier, 2012; Free-
man, 2011; Oakley & Hougaard, 2008). Scholars embracing the Critical
Discourse Analysis perspective also argue that blending theory has various
descriptive advantages over CMT in accounting for complexities in discourse
(Hart, 2008).
For various reasons, conceptual blending theory has simply not attracted
the interest of experimental psychologists and neuroscientists in the same
way as has CMT. On the surface, this may seem surprising given that
blending theory pays more explicit attention to details possibly associated
with verbal metaphor processing. My strong impression, though, is that
blending theory does not easily translate into testable hypotheses, ones that
can be easily distinguished from alternative theories, including CMT. One
may expect, for instance, that blending processes should occur during certain
moments of metaphor interpretation, and then nd evidence for this activity
using behavioral or neuroscience techniques. In many cases, however, most
other theories of verbal metaphor comprehension make roughly similar
claims regarding when certain, perhaps effortful, processing should be
noticed. Part of the problem here is that blending theory is not sufciently
developed within a falsication framework. More generally, blending theory
has not been as greatly noticed and vigorously attacked by scholars from
many academic disciplines as has CMT. Conceptual blending theory is
certainly part of the mix in the metaphor wars. My reluctant decision,
nonetheless, is to focus primarily on the arguments over conceptual meta-
phors given its incredible prominence within the multidisciplinary world of
metaphor scholarship. Interested readers should also look at papers by
Coulson, and Pagn Cnovas (2013) and by Fauconnier and Lakoff (2013)
that seeks to nd convergences between CMT and conceptual blending
theory. Also see one response to this by Per Aage Brandt. www.cogsci
.ucsd.edu/~coulson/spaces/brandt.pdf.
chapter 3
1. From the San Jose Mercury News. www.mercurynews.com/music/ci_23518560/
review-san-francisco-symphony-triumphs-stravinsky.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potter_Stewart.
4. Lowenberg (1975: p. 316).
5. Gibbs (1994); Gibbs & Colston (2012).
6. Reality is a clich from which we escape by metaphor (Stevens, 1965).
7. Johnson (1981: p. 23).
8. Kvecses (2010: p. 10).
9. Hogan (2002: p. 496).
10. See Gibbs (1994); Gibbs & Colston (2012).
11. Hogan (2002: p. 497).
12. Ibid.
13. Steen (2008).
14. McGlone (2001: p. 107).
15. Gibbs et al. (1993).
16. Gibbs & Colston (2012).
17. Some studies suggest that less than 5 percent of all metaphors in discourse are
of the A is B type (or the A is like B simile form). See Cameron (2003).
18. I admit that my description here is quite general as there was, and continues to
be, much discussion about metaphor as reecting anomalous or pragmatic-
ally insincere uses of language. But these accounts are woefully inadequate in
being able to satisfactorily identify metaphor as a unique form of language, one
that differs from other types of gurative, indirect, and even non-sensical
meaning. See Gibbs (1994) and Gibbs & Colston (2012) for reviews of these
proposals.
19. But see articles and books by Grady (1999), Lakoff (1993), Tendahl (2009), Tendahl
& Gibbs (2008), and Wilson (2011), among others, for ideas on the complementary
nature of resemblance metaphors with those studied within CMT.
20. The phrase special type of metaphorical processing can mean very different
things to various metaphor scholars. Some assume that a special type of
processing refers to ended pragmatic inferences beyond those required for
lexical disambiguation, while others suggest that these processes relate to the
production of cross-domain mappings, or even complex conceptual blending
processes.
21. McGlone (2001); Murphy (1996); Rakova (2003).
22. Mller (2007).
24. See for example Steen (2008).
25. Keysar et al. (2000).
26. Deignan (2006).
27. Pragglejaz Group (2007).
28. Ibid.
29. Wear (2015).
30. Ibid.
31. MIP does not identify historical metaphors, such as ardent love, because
these is no contrast between the contextual meaning, in this case referring to
an emotional state, and the basic, historical meaning referring to temperature.
See Steen et al. (2010).
32. Steen et al. (2010).
33. MIPVU covers words whose meaning in context are conveyed directly, but still
express cross-domain mappings. For example, the expression The campsite
was like a holiday village does not contain any metaphorically used words, but
the phrase as a whole refers to the contrast between two distinct domains.
MIPVU also aims to detect metaphor in cases where the metaphorical mean-
ing is conveyed through substitution or ellipsis, and can be explained through
cross-domain mappings. For instance, the phrase but he is can be an ellipsis
for the inferred message that but he is an ignorant pig in reference to a male
colleague, such that is may be deemed to be an implicit metaphor. A third
difference with MIPVU is its acknowledgment of cases where a word forma-
tion suggests a cross-domain mapping, such as the use of like, as, com-
pare, analogy, or as if. All of these lexical units should be marked as
potentially metaphorical. Finally, MIPVU aims to include novel formations
such as honey hunting in which one of the parts may indicate metaphorical
meaning. Most generally, MIPVU captures a broader range of cross-domain

metaphorical meanings than does MIP.
34. Gibbs (1994).
35. Prez-Sobrino & Julich (2014).
36. I must add a note here to again emphasize that MIP and MIPVU are analytic
procedures and not characterizations of the mental status of words or word
meanings. For example, cognitive linguistic research has shown that word
meanings are not always clearly individuated, they often exhibit different
degrees of attraction and repulsion from one another, are typically tied to
particular constructions (see for instance Gries, 2006). Of course, dictionaries
rarely incorporate these information sources into their attempts to dene the
meanings, often quite related senses, of words, which make their use in
determining the basic sense of any word somewhat problematic. Corpus
linguistics may offer tools for obtaining more detailed information about the
meanings of words and relations to other lexical items, although doing exten-
sive corpus studies for each word in any text may be impractical.
37. Semino (2008: p. 15).
38. Dorst, Reijnierse, & Venhuizen (2013); Krennmayr (2011); MacArthur (2015).
39. Dunn (2013).
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid. p. 42.
42. Levin et al. (2014).
43. It is unclear on what bases these determinations were made.
44. Stefanowitsch (2006).
45. Subsequent identication procedures such as MIP and MIPVU offer standard
ways of conducting manual searches, although both methods are still difcult
to apply in the analysis of very large databases.
46. Stefanowitsch (2006) argues, nonetheless, that this strategy is successful in
identifying an almost complete set of metaphorical patterns reecting basic
metaphorical mappings.
47. Goatly (2007).
48. See my discussion below on deliberate metaphor.
49. Deignan (2006); Stefanowitsch (2006).
50. Deignan (2006).
51. Stefanowitsch & Gries (2006). See Sullivan (2013) for an in-depth look at the
relations between metaphorical language and grammatical constructions. Of
course, Rose-Brooks (1958) rst outlined some of the particular grammatical
forms in which metaphor is found.
52. Neuman et al. (2013).
53. This removal of idiomatic phrase is unfortunate because it ignores a substantial
source of metaphoricity in language given that many idioms retain their
enduring, and sometimes embodied, metaphorical roots.
54. Neuman et al. argue that their automated system would have performed even
better if candidate expressions could be more reliably selected by the depend-
ency parser, and that decisions about a words abstractness would have been
more reliably performed with a dictionary that explicitly linked a words
embodied meanings with its metaphorical extensions.
55. Dunn (2013).

56. The systems also differed in the degree to which they falsely identied utter-
ances as metaphorical.
57. Dunn (2013).
58. There are critics of this entire project, given its eventual aim to conduct foreign
policy based on metaphorical readings of how other cultures talk. For instance,
one anthropologist wrote that the project is reminiscent of a Cold War era
fascination with American, Russian or German modal personality types. For
many anthropologists, research scenarios like these are troubling because they
raise a Levy-Bruhl-like specter of how natives think. . . . A cynic might go
even farther to suggest programs such as this one are developing technologies
for enemy-making. This same critique notes that Ignored or sidelined in
IARPAs efforts are competing conceptions of metaphor, research and theor-
ies as exemplied by philosophers Paul Ricouer, Max Black, and Donald
Davison, which foreground the properties of metaphor as extensive rather
than conventional, and as emergent rather than underlying. See www.ethnog
raphy.com/2014/01/troping-the-enemy-culture-metaphor-programs-and-notio
nal-publics-of-national-security/.
59. www.icsi.berkeley.edu/icsi/gazette/2012/05/metanet-project.
60. Shutova (2013).
61. Shutova (2015: p. xx).
62. Steen (2008).
63. Ibid. p. 222.
64. Gibbs (1994); Gibbs & Colston (2012).
65. Steen (2008: p. 222).
66. Steen (2013: p. 193).
67. Advocates of the idea of deliberate metaphor differ over whether conven-
tional metaphors may also be judged as deliberate in some cases. For example,
Cameron distinguished between deliberate and conventionalized meta-
phor, and presumes that conventional metaphors are part of participants
shared knowledge resources for talking about a particular topic. Krennmayr,
on the other hand, argued that at least some metaphors can be both deliberate
and conventional. Also see Charteris-Black (2012) for his proposal on pur-
poseful metaphor.
68. Steen (2008: p. 223).
69. Indeed, Shakespeares wonderful metaphor about Juliet comes across quite
differently if it were surrounded by any of the above signaling devices.
Juliet is like the sun.
Juliet is sort of the sun.
Juliet is metaphorically the sun.
Juliet is actually the sun.
Juliet is the sun, so to speak.
Shakespeare, thankfully, did not choose to signal his possible metaphorical
intention when writing Juliet is the sun.
70. Gibbs (2015a), and also see Steen (2015) and Gibbs (2015b).
71. Krennmayr (2011: pp. 154155).
72. Beger (2011: p. 53).
73. Ibid p. 39.

74. Steen (in press).
75. Lakoff & Johnson (1980: p. 43 and p. 4, respectively).
76. I cant help but noting that scientists, in particular, often hate to be told that
their theories and writings are infused with metaphor. As they often like to
argue, I never use metaphor. I dont like to beat around the bush.
77. Gibbs (2013).
78. Lakoff (1996). Also see Lakoff (2009).
79. Ibid. p. 292.
80. Metaphor identication methods, such as MIP and MIPVU, would generally
be able to detect the potential metaphoricity of individual words in allegorical
texts, assuming that an analyst has rst read a text, understood its overall
meaning, and presumably inferred the implied target which is the primary
focus of the narrative. After this has been done, certain words in the text may
be marked as metaphorical given the already determined allegorical meaning
and context for the work. Of course, ordinary readers must infer the allegorical
messages from some texts in an incremental, online manner, and may read a
sizeable portion of a narrative before recognizing the larger symbolic content.
See Chapter 5 for more on how people typically interpret allegorical speech and
writing.
81. Cameron (2011).
82. Ibid. p. 82.
83. Ibid. p. 35.
84. Cameron et al. (2009: p. 84).
85. Semino et al. (2013).
86. Ibid. p. 47.
87. Ibid. p. 47.
88. Ibid. p. 48
89. Ibid. p. 49.
90. Pauwels (2013: p. 523).
91. Ibid. p. 524.
92. Ibid.
93. Ibid.
94. Hellsten & Nerlich (2011).
95. Ibid. p. 388.
96. Ibid. p. 389.
97. Breeding Supergods. Daily Mail. January 29, 1998. p. 35.
98. Hellsten & Nerlich (2011).
99. Ibid. p. 304.
chapter 4
1. https://mog.com/fairportfan/blog/265002.
2. Stefanowitsch (2011: p. 301).
3. Gineste et al. (2000); Utsumi (2005).
4. Black (1954).
5. Gentner, Bowdle, Wolff, & Boronat (2001).
6. Tourangeau & Rips (1991).

7. Structure mapping theory does not assume, like CMT, that people project
information from the source to the target domain, only that there is alignment
of the two in terms of their relational properties.
8. Sperber & Wilson, (2008); Wilson & Sperber (2002).
9. Sperber & Wilson (2008: pp. 8485).
10. Glucksberg (2001); Glucksberg & Keysar (1990).
11. Bowdle & Gentner (2005); Gentner & Bowdle (2008).
12. Glucksberg & Haught (2006).
13. Haught (2013).
14. Lakoff (1993, 2008).
15. For example, see Grady et al. (1999).
16. See Steen (2015) for example.
18. Still, the study of various languages also shows that claims for universality of
these time metaphors may be somewhat more limited. See Moore (2006).
19. Evans (2003).
20. Vervaeke & Kennedy (1996).
21. Eubanks (2000).
22. Graham Low and Zazie Todd (2010) explicitly acknowledged this problem and
urge scholars to embrace several good practices when doing metaphor
analysis research.
1. Recognize that metaphoricity can be complex, indeterminate, and unstable.
2. Admit the problem and treat ones solutions as compromises.
3. Know what these compromises may entail.
4. Tell readers how one has arrived at particular conclusions.
5. Admit the limitations of ones conclusions.
23. Ritchie (2003).
24. Lakoff & Johnson (2003: p. 265).
25. Vervaeke & Kennedy (1996).
26. Sanford (2012).
27. Ibid.
28. Vervaeke & Kennedy (1996: p. 274).
29. Ritchie (2003).
30. Eubanks (2000).
31. Other forms of gurative language also play a role, such as using understatement
to metaphorically transfer terms from fencing, chess, and boxing to speak of an
army in actual warfare (e.g., parrying the thrust, countering the move, or
blocking the punch of another army); or using overstatement to metaphorically
transfer terms from actual warfare to speak of a quarterbacks throwing the long
bomb or an orator overwhelming his opponents defenses.
32. Ritchie (2003).
33. Eubanks (2000).
34. Howe (2007: p. 13).
35. Kvecses (2000); Lakoff (1987); Ruiz de Mendoza & Prez (2003); Tendahl &
Gibbs (2008).
36. Yu (2008: p. 252).

37. See Lakoff (1987).
38. Stefanowitsch (2006).
39. Ibid. p. 67.
40. Ibid. p. 69.
41. Kvecses (1998: p. 129).
42. Ortony (1988).
43. Svanlund (2007).
44. Sullivan (2013).
45. Lakoff (1993: p. 215).
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid. p. 80.
48. Ibid. p. 85.
49. Lakoff & Johnson (1980: p. 156).
50. Rakova (2002: p. 238).
51. Kvecses (2010: p. 217).
52. Goatly (2007); Koller (2004); Musolff (2004).
53. Koller (2004).
54. Ibid. p. 198.
55. Ibid.
56. El Refaie (2014).
57. Kvecses (2005); Sharian et al. (2008).
58. Kvecses (2005); Yu (2003).
59. Zinken et al. (2008: p. 374).
60. Zinken (2007).
61. Ibid. p. 452.
62. Johansson-Falck & Gibbs (2012).
64. Ibid. p. 116.
65. Semino & Steen (2008: p. 244).
66. Fludernik (2011: p. 6).
67. Swan (2002: p. 447).
68. www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174268.
69. Gibbs (1994: p. 209).
70. See www.poetry-archive.com/r/uphill.html#vdLv6r4Sw3C5X98h.99.
71. Ibid. p. 451.
72. Lakoff & Kvecses (1987).
73. Kvecses (2005).
74. The emergence of cultural models is not accomplished in a serial manner,
going from experiential basis to cultural model, as the different factors likely
interact, such that culture, for instance, can inuence peoples bodily
experiences.
75. Quinn (1992: p. 73).
76. Ibid. p. 218.
77. Ibid. p. 84.
78. Ibarretxe-Antuano (2008).
79. Geeraerts & Gevaert (2008).
80. Geeraerts & Gevaert (2008: p. 343).

81. Kvecses (2005).
82. Emanation (1995); Gibbs (1999); Kvecses (2005); Maalej (2004); Sharian
(2011); Yu (1999); Zlatev et al. (2008).
83. Ibarretxe-Antuano (2013: p. 324). Also see Caballero & Ibarretxe-Antuano
(2014).
84. Lakoff & Nez (2002).
85. Auslander (2001).
86. Danesi (2003, 2007); Devlin (2005); Johansen (2009); Soto-Andrade (2014).
87. Jeppsson, Haglund, & Amin (2015).
88. Research also shows that the most effective instructional analogies and meta-
phor in science texts are those that use students embodied experiences are the
main source domains. See Niebert & Gropengiesser (2015).
89. Wilson (2011: p. 192).
90. Edwards (1991), Steen (2008); Wilson (2011). One study of adolescents
spontaneous discussions of time can be explained entirely in terms of their
communicative practices. Metaphoric talk of time, requires no cognitive
detour to the underlying structural mappings in the source domain (Graf,
2011: p. 732
91. Some computational models of metaphor has demonstrated the possibility
that certain higher-order metaphoric schemata can be inferred given exposure
to different conventional metaphoric expressions, at least within certain
selected domains such as economics (see Mason, 2004).
92. http://still4hill.com/2015/09/13/bridge-the-hillary-clinton-metaphor/.
93. Lakoff (1993).
94. Lakoff (1996).
95. Pinker (2007: p. 246).
96. Ibid. p. 248.
97. Ibid. p. 259.
98. Ibid. p. 261.
99. Ibid. p. 280.
100. From Eubank (1999: p. 190).
101. Ibid. p. 190.
102. Marshak (2009). Other examinations of organizational thinking suggest that
there are anywhere between eight and twenty-two different conceptual meta-
phors for organization (e.g., machines, organisms, brains, cultures, political
systems, psychic prisons, ux and transformation, and instruments of dom-
ination. Each metaphor underlies distinctive, but still partial, ways of under-
standing and managing organizations.
103. Vignone (2012).
104. Ryan & Ryan (1981: p. 121).
105. Sontag (1991: p. 34).
106. Ibid. p. 102.
107. Martin J. A monumental victory: Talk of the gown. Northeastern University
Online Magazine. www.numag.neu.edu/9911/tog.html.
108. Reiseld & Wilson (2004).
109. Sherman (2001).
110. Phil Eubanks made the argument, though, that different metaphors are
not simply independent views about a contested topic, but are inextricably
linked. He correctly observed: Most metaphors respond to other metaphor
and concepts. That is, particular metaphors are usually instances of
larger conceptual metaphors, and conceptual metaphors almost always
compete and converse with other conceptual metaphors. See Eubanks
(2010: p. 197).
111. Ibid. p. 250.
112. Ibid. p. 259.
113. Johnson (1991).
114. Steen (1999).
115. Semino et al. (2004).
116. Ibid. p. 1281.
117. Also note that the ve-step procedure assumes that metaphorical mappings
can be readily captured through a propositional analysis of meaning. I nd
this view to be rather antiquated, especially given the image-schematic nature
of many conceptual metaphors and the fact that few cognitive scientists still
assume linguistic meaning, or conceptual knowledge, to be simply a matter of
propositional representations.
118. Musolff (2006: p. 28).
119. Musolff (2004: p. 26).
120. Ibid. p. 29.
121. Ibid. p. 23
122. Barnden (2008).
123. Hornsby (1995: p. 12).
124. Barnden, (2009: pp. 9293.)
125. Charteris-Black (2004: p. 35).
126. Cameron also comments in regard to metaphor analysis that the researcher
does not come entirely cold to vehicle group since through working with the
data to identify metaphor they will have some knowledge of the data
structure and themes, its rhetorical highlights in some of the metaphors
used. Ibid. p. 118. Also, although we strive for as much rigor as possible, the
process is unavoidably hermeneutic and its success depends upon the
imagination and creativity combined with as much trustworthiness as is
possible Ibid. p. 120.
127. Gibbs (2016).
128. El Refaie (2014: p. 109).
129. Ibid. p. 110.
130. Vidali (2010: p. 39).
131. Camus (2009: p. 475). http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrTcdGyaT5WcLIA6
GYnnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByb2lvbXVuBGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aW
QDBHNlYwNzcg/RV=2/RE=1446959666/RO=10/RU=http%3a%2f%2fucrel
.lancs.ac.uk%2fpublications%2fCL2009%2f468_FullPaper.doc/RK=0/RS=4N
3xKwBEXsseD72rxM33XzVSnvc-.
132. El Refaie (2014: p. 118).
133. Ibid. p. 119.
134. Cameron (1999: p. 6).
135. Kvecses (2010: p. 305).

136. Ibid. p. 311.
137. Steen (2014: p. 129). Steen cites one scholar often identied with each
approach.
chapter 5
1. McMullen (1989: p. 210).
2. Sandra & Rice (1995).
3. Ferrara, (1994: p. 130).
4. Ibid. pp. 135136.
5. Note here how the use of a non-metaphorical phrase can lead to our under-
standing that something said earlier was intended to express metaphorical
meaning.
6. Becker (1997: pp. 6667).
7. Ibid. p. 67.
8. Asking people to describe what they were thinking does not, by any means, provide
a direct reection of how their minds were actually working. Psychological studies,
across a wide range of subelds within the discipline, demonstrate that people
typically have very poor insights into the underlying cognitive processes at work
when they perceive, learn, solve problems, use language, and, most interestingly,
have different emotional reactions to their own predicaments and to other people.
The fact that we think we can introspect about the inner workings of our minds
does not mean that such intuitions, even if trained, are either consistent or accurate.
9. Boers & Littlemore (2000).
10. See Gibbs & Beitel (1995) for a review of this literature.
11. White (1987).
12. Gibbs & Beitel (1995).
13. It is possible to expand on standard explication tasks to more extensively study
peoples possible metaphorical ideas, and their abilities to map these onto
diverse contexts (Gibbs, Strom, & Knowlton-Spivey, 1997). For example,
people can be asked more detailed questions about the source-to-target
domain mappings in verbal metaphors to reveal many aspects of their complex
embodied metaphorical understandings of what different verbal metaphors
mean. Thus, despite the difculties in drawing rm conclusions about meta-
phorical thought from explaining verbal metaphors, future research may more
systematically explore via questionnaires peoples tacit metaphorical abilities.
14. Gibbs & Nascimento (1996).
15. Ibid. p. 299.
16. Zaltman & Zaltman (2008).
17. Brown (2003).
18. Robins & Mayer (2000: p. 58).
19. Other studies in this series provide evidence that under certain conditions meta-
phor processing will be quickly terminated during peoples reading, and reasoning
about, the short vignettes. Thus, in some situations, a metaphor was unnecessary
and may interfere with a persons reasoning process, especially when the reader
can use existing domain general knowledge to understand the situation.
20. Keefer et al. (2014: pp. 1213).

21. Thibideau & Boroditsky (2011).
22. Barry et al. (2009).
23. Ibid: pp. 2021.
24. Peoples political attitudes and party afliations were not nearly as strong
predictors of participants social policy recommendations as was their embrace
of certain metaphors for obesity. Similarly, peoples self-reported health states
and their social demographics also did not explain their preferred policy
endorsements as did their metaphorical conceptions of obesity.
25. Boroditsky (2001).
26. Lakoff (1987).
27. Gibbs & OBrien (1990).
28. Reddy (1979).
29. Gibbs, Gould, & Andric (2006).
30. Katz & Taylor (2008).
31. Katz and Taylor readily acknowledge that many cultures do not organize life
events in a simple, linear ways so that the LIFE IS A JOURNEY conceptual
metaphor may imply different spatial structures in different cultural settings.
32. Katz & Law (2010).
33. Ibid. p. 269.
34. Glucksberg, Brown, & McGlone (1993).
35. Nayak & Gibbs (1990).
36. One alternative explanation of the above ndings is that peoples judgments
about the contextual appropriateness of idioms are mostly determined by the
overlap between the words in the context and the words in the idiomatic
phrases. Under this view, people are not making their appropriateness judg-
ments based on the connections between the conceptual metaphors in the
contexts and those that motivate the meanings of the idioms. Instead, people
simply nd that some idioms have words that are semantically related to words
in the stories, thus making some idioms more appropriate to use than others.
However, a study that analyzed the stimuli from Nayak and Gibbs (1990)
discovered that this alternative explanation was not plausible given the lack
of semantic overlap between the words in the story contexts and those in the
idioms (Glucksberg, McGlone, & Brown, 1993).
37. Pfaff, Gibbs, & Johnson (1997).
38. Soriano & Valenzuela (2009).
39. Allbritton et al. (1994).
40. Quite importantly, follow-up studies demonstrate that the above priming
results are not due to overlap in the lexical items between the priming
sentences and the test words.
41. Thibodeau & Durgin (2008).
42. One should note here that Thibodeau and Durgin only talk of families of
conventional metaphors, and do not explicitly endorse the idea that these
verbal metaphors are necessarily reective of underlying conceptual
metaphors.
43. Golshaie & Golfam (2014).
44. Gibbs (1992).
45. Gibbs et al. (1997).

46. Similar ndings have been reported for Spanish with the ANGER IS HEATED
FLUID IN A CONTAINER metaphors. See Valenzuela & Soriano (2007).
47. Gentner, Imai, & Boroditsky (2002).
48. Related research shows that texts describing arrangements that are inconsistent
with standard orientational metaphors (e.g., MORE IS UP, THE FUTURE IS
FORWARD) are more difcult to process than are texts consistent with these
metaphors (Langston, 2002). Interestingly, Langston resists interpreting these
ndings as indicating that conceptual metaphors are automatically accessed in
discourse comprehension. He suggests alternatively that people may sometimes
strategically apply conceptual metaphors as just one of many comprehension
tools readers have at their disposal. In this way, the issue of whether conceptual
metaphors are automatically recruited during discourse processing remains
open to many psychologists, despite the wealth of ndings reported above
and below.
49. Matlock et al. (2005).
50. Richardson & Matlock (2007).
51. Santiago et al. (2007).
52. Ibid, p. 515.
53. Sato et al. (2014).
54. Follow-up analysis showed that these effects could not be explained by mere
lexical priming processes.
55. Gibbs & Ferriera (2011).
56. Gibbs (1994, 2006); Lakoff & Johnson (1999).
57. Gibbs et al. (2004).
58. Ibid.
59. Boroditsky & Ramscar (2002).
60. A visual priming study specically demonstrated that peoples responses to the
ambiguous time question (Wednesdays meeting has been moved forward by
two days. What day will the meeting now be held?) is structured in terms of a
specic conceptual metaphor in which events that are in front are earlier, and
those that are behind being seen as later (i.e. a TIME-Reference-Point meta-
phor), rather than in terms of an ego or time moving metaphor (i.e., a TIME-
Ego metaphor) (Nez, Motz, & Teuscher, 2006).
61. Wilson & Gibbs (2007).
62. Horchak et al. (2014).
63. Gibbs (2013).
64. Slepian & Ambody (2014).
65. Perlman et al. (2015).
66. Ritchie (2008, 2009). Also see Semino (2010).
67. Lacey et al. (2012).
68. Citron & Goldberg (2014).
69. Desai et al. (2011).
70. Boulenger et al. (2009); Cacciari et al. (2011); Desai et al. (2011).
71. Schmidt-Snoek et al. (2015).
72. This study, similar to others, showed some differences in brain activations
between literal and metaphorical sentences, some of which may be due to
differences in the imageability and familiarity with the metaphorical and literal
statements.
73. Aziz-Zadeh & Damasio (2008); Cardillo et al. (2012).
74. Bardolph & Coulson (2014).
75. Cacciari et al. (2013).
76. Casasanto & Gijssels (2015: p. xx).
77. Also see Mahon & Caramazza (2008) for other issues regarding the interpret-
ation of cognitive neuroscience data on embodied language processing.
78. See Gibbs (2005).
79. Lachaud (2013).
80. Gibbs & OBrien (1990); Cacciari & Glucksberg (1995).
81. Keysar & Bly (1995).
82. Skoufaki (2009).
83. Ibid. p. 32.
84. Just as important, though, various experiments have demonstrated that rst
language learners acquire the meanings of idioms motivated by conceptual
metaphors before they do other idioms (Gibbs, 1991), and that second language
learners learn idiomatic phrases more readily when they explicitly attend to
these expressions conceptual metaphorical motivations (Boers, 2003; Boers &
Littlemore (2000).
85. McGlone (1996).
86. See Gibbs et al. (2011).
87. Finally, Keysar et al. (2000) present reading time data that appeared to
contradict the claim that conceptual metaphors are relevant to understanding
various conventional metaphorical phrases. As described above, there is other
evidence that suggests various reasons for the failure to detect conceptual
metaphors in the Keysar et al. (2000) study (see Thibodeau & Durgin, 2008).
88. See Bowdle & Gentner (2008); Glucksberg & Keysar (1990); Glucksberg et al.,
(1992); Glucksberg (2008). Also see Lakoff (1993) for one attempt to explain
interpretation of resemblance metaphors in terms of CMT.
89. Sperber & Wilson (2008; 2012).
90. Tendahl (2009): Tendahl & Gibbs (2007).
91. Gibbs et al. (2011).
92. McGlone (2007); Steen (2015).
93. Allbritton, Gerrig, & McKoon (1994); Gong & Ahrens (2007); Pfaff et al. (1997).
94. Kintsch (2008);
95. Louwerse (2008).
96. Gibbs & Colston (2012).
97. See especially the work of Sarah Duffy and colleagues (Duffy, 2014; Duffy &
Feist, 2014; Duffy et al., 2014).
98. Gibbs & Santa Cruz (2012).
chapter 6
1. www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2010/03/29/visitor-viewpoint-marina-abra
movic/.
2. http://unknownhipster.com/.
3. Forceville (2009: p. 73).

4. Murphy (1996: p. 200).
5. Boot & Pecher (2011).
6. Casasanto (2008).
8. Casasanto & Jasmin (2010).
10. Cassasanto & Jasmin (2010).
11. Casasanto & Chrysikou (2011).
12. Leung et al. (2011).
13. Some scholars argue that amodal representations may be necessary for tasks
that involve more abstract reasoning. For example, Mahon and Caramazza
(2008) suggest that concepts consist of both amodal symbolic and sensorimo-
tor information. Under this view, the core of a concept is formed by amodal
symbolic information while sensorimotor information enriches conceptual
processing and provides it with a relational context. A related proposal, called
LASS (language and situated simulation), assumes that concepts are repre-
sented in two distinct ways: linguistic representations and sensorimotor simu-
lations (see Barsalou, 2008).
14. Meier & Robinson (2004).
15. Schubert (2005).
16. Crawford et al.(2006).
17. Meier & Robinson (2006).
18. Horstmann & Ansorge (2011).
19. Williams & Bargh (2008).
20. Kang et al. (2011).
21. Citron & Goldberg (2014).
22. Schnall et al. (2008).
23. Zhong & Liljenquist (2006).
24. Bilz (2012).
25. Storbeck & Clore (2008).
26. Schnall (2011).
27. Banergee et al. (2012).
28. Zhong et al. (2010).
29. These effects may be modality specic, because lying by speaking can prompt
people to select a gift of mouthwash rather hand sanitizer, but they pick the hand
sanitizer over the mouthwash when they lie with their hands (Lee & Schwarz,
2010).
30. Ackerman et al. (2010).
31. Cherkasskiy et al. (2012).
32. Meier et al. (2012).
33. Lee & Schwarz (2012).
34. Liljenquist et al. (2010).
35. Lee & Schwarz (2012).
36. Hellman et al. (2013).
37. Hurlburt & Schwitzgebel (2007).
38. Wilkowski et al. (2009).
39. Zanolie et al. (2012).

40. Also see work on the metaphor congruency effect showing that judgments
about black and white are not totally symmetrical. Thus, black is consist-
ently seen as representing bad but white is seen as positive only when black is
also present (Lakens, Semin, & Foroni, 2011).
41. Miles et al. (2010).
42. Casasanto & Dijkstra (2010).
43. Schnall (2014) proposes, based on the results of many experiments within
social psychology, that some metaphorical concepts are more basic than
others, especially those relevant to the source domains of verticality, container,
and distance.
44. A second issue with the social psychology research focuses on the causal basis
for the catalogue of experimental effects noted between sensory experiences
and different social judgments. These ndings could be due to people activat-
ing a previously encoded primary metaphor once they have felt some specic
sensorimotor activity (e.g., warmth, moving forward, dirt). But people may
only enact the primary metaphor as a full-bodied action given the presences of
both (a) a sensory experience and (b) the requirement to make a certain social
judgment. This alternative perspective sees embodied metaphors as unfolding
in bodily expressive actions rather than being activated from memory to shape
peoples social perceptions.
45. Calbris (1990: p. 194).
46. Mittelberg and Wagner also noted how metaphorical gestures illustrate how
we externalize cognition, structures and practices through the use of both
space and the body (Mittelberg & Waugh, 2009).
48. Ibid.
49. Nez (2005, 2008).
50. Alibali et al. (2011).
51. Mller (2007).
52. Ibid. p. 102.
53. Cienki (1998).
54. Cienki & Mller (2008).
55. Cienki & Mller (2008).
56. Ibid.
57. Mittelberg & Wagner (2009).
58. Mittelberg (2010).
59. Kimmel (2013).
60. Nez & Sweetser (2006).
61. Bos & Cienki (2011).
62. http://unknownhipster.com/.
63. Kennedy (1982).
64. Forceville (2005).
65. Shinohara & Matsunaka (2009).
66. Koller (2009).
67. Ibid. p. 58.
68. Coegnarts and Kravanja (2012a).
69. The left-is-past and right-is-present schema is also widely employed in ani-
mation lms (Forceville & Jeulink, 2011). Another device for evoking different
time perspectives is moving the camera toward the protagonists face to
suggest an impending ashback. Focusing close up on the face indicates a
movement inward within the protagonists mind and memory. Movement
away from the face represents a return to the present.
70. Coegnarts & Kravanja (2012a). Also see the edited collection of Coegnarts &
Kravanja (2015).
71. Forceville (2009).
72. Ortiz (2014).
73. Ibid.
74. Yu (2011).
75. Ibid. p. 250.
76. Coegnarts & Kravanja (2012b).
77. Kappelhoff & Mller (2011: 122). Also see Mller & Schmitt (2015), and
Schmitt, Greifenstein, & Kappelhoff (2014).
78. Mller & Schmitt (2015).
79. Mller & Schmitt (2015: 336).
80. Forceville (2011: pp. 291292).
81. Charlton (1989: pp. 238239).
82. Wilkie et al. (2010).
83. Spitzer (2004: p. 77).
84. Ibid. p. 363.
85. Recall from Chapter 4 that musical language may have one of the highest
proportions of metaphorically used words, compared to other language
genres. See Prez-Sobriano & Julich (2014).
86. Johnson & Larsen (2003).
87. Larson (2013).
88. Antovi (2009).
89. Antovi et al. (2013).
90. Wolter et al. (2015).
91. Brower (1999).
92. Antle et al. (2009).
93. Ibid. p. 74.
94. Zbikowski (2013: p. 113).
95. Zbikowski (2009: p. 379).
96. Maglio & Matlock (1999).
97. Matlock et al. (2014).
98. Pusschmann & Burgess (2014).
99. Ibid. p. 1698.
100. Ibid. p. 1700.
101. Van Camp (1996).
102. Ibid. p. 177.
103. Kittay (1987: pp. 1415).
104. Kappelhoff & Mller (2011).
105. Ibid. pp. 132133.
106. Gibbs (2003).
107. Schaffman (2003). All quotes below are from pp. 198199.
108. Ibid. p. 199.
109. Sullivan (2006, 2009).
110. See Sullivan (2006: p. 6).
111. Ibid. p. 7.
112. Tilley (1999).
113. Ibid. p. 268.
114. Wiseman (2014).
115. See Wiseman (2014) for a further discussion of differences between cultures
that affect the enactment of the metaphor SOCIAL DISTANCE IS PHYSICAL
DISTANCE.
116. Otman (2000).
117. Caballero (2006).
118. Caballero (2014: p. 159).
119. Ibid.
120. Ibid. p. 163.
121. Stec & Sweetser (2013: p. 265).
122. Ibid. p. 273.
123. Ibid. p. 276.
124. Ibid. p. 284.
125. See Kertsz & Rkosi (2009) for an argument on why circularity is less of a
problem for CMT than many believe.
chapter 7
1. Johnson (2007: p. 151).
2. This viewpoint on the distributed nature of human cognition has been widely
discussed within the cognitive sciences. See Clark (1997); Gibbs (2006b);
Hutchins (1995), for example.
4. Ibid. p. 273.
5. A close examination of the psycholinguistic ndings, for example, clearly
indicates that not every person always recruits each and every relevant con-
ceptual metaphor when understanding all instances of verbal metaphors. The
recruitment of conceptual metaphors may, once more, be quite task, and
person, dependent and more generally is a matter of degree than all or none.
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Index
allegory, 49, 9394, 162163 critical discourse analysis/CDA, 123124, 159

ANGER, 2526, 118120, 131138, 189195, culture, 911, 14, 123126, 131138, 241, 254256,
230231, 237238 259260
Bible, 4850 discourse analysis, 4454, 94100, 123128,

bodily experience, 67, 105, 113117, 126128, 146153, 156157, 160161
139141, 143144, 152, 163165, 185186, dynamical system view, 216221, 265
199204, 206207, 215216, 226232,
242244, 254256, 258, 266 emergence, 1516, 2324, 3034, 96, 106107,
bodily specicity hypothesis, 226 109, 162167, 212, 216221, 242243,
bottom-up, 58, 153155 264265, 268
emerging metaphor theory/EMT, 142143
career of metpaphor theory, 108109 enactment, 33, 220, 233236, 251254, 256260,
cascades, 3334 261
categorization, 108111, 224227 episodic memory, 187189
circular reasoning, 114 EVENT STRUCTURE, 2628, 118119
cognitive topology, 122 event-related potentials/ERPs, 206
computational modeling, 3134
conceptual blending theory, 109 fMRI, 205
conceptual metaphor theory/CMT,
criticism of, 714, 58, 109, 113115, 120121, gesture, 232236
123, 129130, 133, 263
cross cultural, 3739, 123126, 131138 idioms, 3940, 184187, 189190, 192195,
experimental evidence contrary to, 208209
208211 idioms, 3940, 184187, 189190, 192195,
impact of, 57, 1416, 262263 208210
psychological validity of, 8, 1213, 8889, analyzability of, 40
170198, 211213 image schema, 152, 234235
scope of studies, 5355 image schema, 2328, 206207, 245
concret overlap algoritm/COO, 8081 inderect request, 44
Contact Improvisation, 253255 individual differences, 173174
CONTAINER/CONTAINMENT, 22, 2324, intuitionist analysis, 15, 77, 118120
185, 198, 225 invariance hypothesis/principle, 2526, 122
contextualization, 46
corpus study, 12, 6769, 7783, 96101, 114115, JOURNEY, 1718, 21, 25, 3738, 4852, 9192,
117120, 121, 126128, 191192 128129, 160161, 177178, 187188,
correspondences, 239241, 253
epistemic, 26
ontological, 25 KARMA, 3233
319
320 Index
latent semantic analysis/LSA, 215216 audio-visual, 243

lexical diaambiguation, 214215 aptness of, 107109
lexical priming, 194195 A is B, 9, 63, 106107
metaphor in thought, 45, 7, 9094, 264
mappings, metaphorical creativity,
non-parallel, 157158 context-induced, 46
neural, 3233 target-induced, 4547
cross-domain, 12, 2426, 30, 65, 86, 9293, metaphorical entailment, 2223, 198199
106111, 116117, 124, 132133, 176179, 242 metaphorical experience, 222224, 247248
Master Metaphor List, 3436 metaphorical t hypothesis, 180181
mathematics, 138142, 233 Metaphorical Pattern Analysis/MPA, 117120
meaning, metaphorical scenario, 155157
contexutual, 7273 metaphorical strength, 121
literal, 6265 metonymy, 4344, 109110, 235, 241
mental imagery, 184187 mirror neurons, 32
mental simulation, 33, 202204 music, 11, 244248
MetaNet, 8182
metaphor identication procedure/MIP, polysemy, 4143, 65
6975 post hoc category/concept, 12, 88
metaphor, presidential contest/debate, 13, 89, 9293,
XYZ, 210 146, 148149, 162163
usage based account of, 142145 proactive interference/PI, 188189
traditional view of, 6, 89, 262 problem soloving, 179184, 226227
systematic, 160162 proverbs, 4041, 174175
structure-mapping theory of, 107
spacial, 3233, 123, 183184, 190, 197198, reasoning, 179184
215216, 225228, 232233, 235236, reductionism, 13, 263
246247, 248250, 253255 relevance theory, 107108, 204
signaling device, 8587, 89 Remote Associates Test/RAT, 227
propositional analysis of, 153155 Researching and Appplying Metaphor/
primanry/complex, 2830, 37, 109, 125, 137 RaAM, 5
poetic, 1, 12, 129130, 177178
novel, 4447, 64, 6769, 108109, 191192, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, 6
204, 210 script, 44
neural theory of, 3034 semantic congruity, 62
mixed, 5253, 8788 sensory activation, 205207
in static images, 236239 Shakespear, 1, 45, 59, 83, 90
in political discourse, 14, 89, 51, 145149, simily, 108109
156157, 159, 162163, 226 social cogniton, 228232
in moving images, 239- source domain, 2021
in material artifacts, 256260 source domain, 2022
in health communication, 150151, 154155, metaphorical, 2425, 4950, 163, 214215,
164165, 181183 233234, 266267
in economic/business discourse, 3233, SOURCE-PATH-GOAL, 24, 239
124125, 149150, 180
in dance, 251255 target domian, 1820
in computing experience, 248251 TIME, 111112, 188189, 195197, 201,
in artistic process, 255256 210211, 239
image, 46, 67, 237244 top-down, 82, 153
identifying, 9, 57103, 153154
grammatical, 75 value neatral mapping adjuncts/VNMA, 158
extended, 4752
discourse dynamics of, 9496 WAR, 24, 89, 113117, 180
deliberate, 8390, 102
deep, 178179 x-schemas, 33
dead/alive, 12, 61
conventional, 910, 18, 61, 6469, 74, 168169, Zaltman Metpahor Elicitation Technique/
175176, 190192, 208209, 233 ZMET, 178179

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metaphor wars

The study of metaphor is now rmly established as a central topic within

Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr., is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the

Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr.

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page ix

1 What Are Metaphor Wars? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

5.1 Sequential activation of conceptual metaphors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 219

2.1 Ontological Correspondences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 25

What Are Metaphor Wars?

Lovers of language adore metaphor. There is nothing more thrilling for

Matthewss commentary depicted the upcoming Presidential debate as

manner, to memorably capture the vividness of our phenomenological

Your claims are indefensible.

Each of these linguistic statements gives concrete realization to different

the broader impact of conceptual metaphor theory

Second, CMT offers a theoretical framework, and certain empirical evi-

source domains for peoples metaphorical understandings of many

attacking conceptual metaphor theory

way of understanding the emergence of meaning in both everyday life

scholarship in many elds focuses on resemblance, or A is B, meta-

In a different context, although much research from experimental

One debate on the merits of CMT arose in the pages of Cognitive

There is another comment that I cannot help making. Johnson and

I confess to laughing aloud when reading this excerpt in Rakovas book,

in 2003: The problem with the level of generalization at which metaphor

The messiah has not come. Though metaphors are omnipresent in

Many other scholars complain that positing the existence of conceptual

makes it difcult to account for the activity of a cultural subject acting as

my fights in these wars

situations, the roles that metaphor had in structuring certain domains of

metaphors express a deeply felt aesthetics of meaning that emerges from

Conceptual Metaphor Analysis

Lakoff and Johnsons original argument for conceptual metaphor theory

systematicity of conventional expressions

her Ph.D. degree. The schematic phrase LIFE IS A JOURNEY represents

travelers ! people leading a life

These correspondences are not simply a list of the features in common

example, can be understood as a natural force (e.g., LOVE IS A NATURAL

She swept me off my feet.

Love may also be understood in terms of other source domains, such as

At this point our argument doesnt have much content.

These mixed metaphor statements are sensible because two conceptual

In general, metaphorical entailments are critical to linking together

Lakoff and Mark Turner originally proposed the invariance hypothesis,

The invariance principle does not specify in advance which aspects of

Table 2.1 Ontological Correspondences

Source: HEATED FLUID IN

Table 2.2 Epistemic Correspondences

When uid in a container is heated When anger increases beyond a certain

Epistemic correspondences, on the other hand, express relations hold-

Table 2.3 Complex Systems Are Buildings

foundation ! basis that supports the entire system

collapse ! failure of the system

specic instantiations of the EVENT STRUCTURE metaphor, as well as

Level 1: The EVENT STRUCTURE metaphor

Overall, the metaphor A PURPOSEFUL LIFE IS A JOURNEY makes

primary metaphor theory

and experience. Joe Grady argued that strong correlations in everyday

These metaphorical correlations arise out of our embodied functioning

neural theory of metaphor

emerging evidence from neuroscience, is that there are no specialized

This is a signicant constraint on the type of metaphorical projections

Srini Narayanans model, called KARMA (knowledge-based action repre-