Abstract
The paper seeks to investigate how SUCCESS is conceptualized metaphorically in popular American success books, aphorisms and quotes. The study is based on an analysis of a corpus comprising over 600 utterances in which the lexical entry SUCCESS is regarded as constituting part of a metaphorical expression. The utterances have been extracted from the initial corpus of 10 success guide books, as well as 150 success aphorisms and quotes by famous Americans. The study investigates two aspects of this conceptualization. In the first instance, it examines which metaphorical source domains, as understood within the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, prove to be most productive in the corpus. Secondly, in line with the frequently expressed views that the significance of conceptual metaphor as an explanatory construct is sometimes overstated in cognitive linguistic research, the paper attempts to analyze examples of linguistic metaphors which appear to be motivated in ways that are, at least in part, independent of well-established conceptual mappings, with particular emphasis on the resemblance-based and image metaphors associated with the predicate nominative forms ‘X is a Y’.
References
Casasanto, D. 2009. When is a linguistic metaphor a conceptual metaphor ? In Evans, V. and S. Pourcel (eds.), New directions in cognitive linguistics, 127-145. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Coulson, S. 2006. Conceptual blending in thought, rhetoric, and ideology. In Kristiansen, G., M. Achard, R. Dirven and F.J. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez (eds.), Cognitive Linguistics: Current applications and future perspectives, 188-208. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Dirven, R. and M. Verspoor. 1998. Cognitive exploration of language and linguistics. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Evans, V. 2007. Towards a cognitive compositional cemantics: an overview of LCCM theory. In Magnusson, U., H. Kardela and A. Glaz (eds.), Further insights into semantics and lexicography, 11-42. Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS..
Evans, V. 2010. Figurative language understanding in LCCM theory. Cognitive Linguistics 21 (4). 601-662.
Evans, V. 2013. Metaphor, lexical concepts and figurative meaning construction. Journal of Cognitive Semiotics V (1-2). 73-107.
Fauconnier, G. 1994. Mental Spaces: Aspects of meaning construction in natural language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fauconnier, G. and M. Turner. 1996. Blending as a central process of grammar. In Goldberg, A. (ed.), Conceptual structure, discourse and language, 113-130. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information.
Fauconnier, G. and M. Turner. 2002. The way we think. Conceptual blending and the mind’s hidden complexities. New York: Basic Books.
Fillmore, C. J. 1982. Frame semantics. In Linguistics in the morning calm, 111-137. Seoul: Hanshin Publishing Co.
Fillmore, C. J. 1985. Frames and the semantics of understanding. Quaderni di Semantica 6. 222-254.
Fillmore, C. J. and C. Baker. 2010. A frames approach to semantic analysis. In Heine, B. and H. Narrog (eds.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic analysis, 313-340. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Forajter, W. 2009. Wśród tropów i figur. In Barłowska, M., A. Budzyńska-Daca and P. Wilczek (eds.). Retoryka, 116-150. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
Fusaroli, R. and S. Morgagni. 2013. Introduction: thirty years after. Journal of Cognitive Semiotics V (1-2). 1-13.
Gibbs, R.W. and M. Perlman. 2006. The contested impact of cognitive linguistic research on the psycholinguistics of metaphor understanding. In Kristiansen, G., M. Achard, R. Dirven and F.J. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez (eds.), Cognitive linguistics: Current applications and future perspectives, 212-228. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Gibbs, R.W. 2013. Why do some people dislike conceptual metaphor theory? Journal of Cognitive Semiotics V (1-2). 14-36.
Kristiansen, G., M. Achard, R. Dirven and F.J. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez. 2006. Introduction: cognitive linguistics: current applications and future perspectives. In: Kristiansen, G., M. Achard, R. Dirven and F.J. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez (eds.), Cognitive linguistics: Current applications and future perspectives, 1-17. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Jäkel, O. 2003. Metafory w abstrakcyjnych domenach dyskursu: Kognitywno-lingwistyczna analiza metaforycznych modeli aktywności umysłowej, gospodarki i nauki. Kraków. UNIVERSITAS.
Koller, V. 2006. Of critical importance: using electronic text corpora to study metaphor in business media discourse. In Stefanowitsch, A. and S.T. Gries (eds.), Corpus-based approaches to metaphor and metonymy, 237-266. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Kövecses, Z. 2000. American English. An introduction. Peterborough, Canada: Broadview Press.
Kövecses, Z. 2010. Metaphor (2nd edition). New York: Oxford University Press.
Krzeszowski, T.P. 1997. Angels and devils in hell. Elements of axiology in semantics. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Energeia.
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G. 1987. Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, J., J. Espenson and A. Schwartz. 1991. Master metaphor list (2nd edition). http://araw.mede.uic.edu/~alansz/metaphor/METAPHORLIST.pdf, (Accessed 2 May, 2012).
Lakoff, G. 1993. The contemporary theory of metaphor. In: Ortony, A. (ed.), Metaphor and Thought, 202-251. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson. 1999. Philosophy in the flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. New York: basic Books.
Langacker, R. 1990. Concept, image, and symbol. The cognitive basis of grammar. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Langlotz, A. 2006. Idiomatic creativity: A cognitive-linguistic model of idiom representation. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Łącka-Badura, J. 2015. Evaluation of success and failure in the Anglophone sphere: analysis of value-laden lexis in English-language aphorisms and quotes. In E. Krawczyk-Neifar (ed.), Continuity and change. To be continued…, 41-56. Katowice: Wyższa Szkoła Zarządzania Ochroną Pracy.
Marsden, M. 1992. The American myth of success: visions and revisions”. In: Nachbar, J. and K. Lause (eds.), Popular culture. An introductory text, 134-148. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press.
Mergel, S.K. 2007. Making it in the world today: musings on the historical definition of success. http://breadandcircusnetwork.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/ (Accessed 27 August, 2013).
Morson, G.S. 2006. Style: The rhetoric of aphorism. In Jost, W. and W. Olmsted (eds.), A companion to rhetoric and rhetorical criticism, 248-265. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Pragglejaz Group. 2007. MIP: A method for identifying metaphorically used words in discourse. Metaphor and Symbol 22. 1-39.
Ritchie, D. 2003. ARGUMENT IS WAR - or a game of chess? Multiple meanings in the analysis of implicit metaphors. Metaphor and Symbol 18. 125-146.
Robbins, R.H. 2009. Cultural anthropology: A problem-based approach (5th edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth (Centage) Publishing.
Szwedek, A. 2002. Objectification: from object perception to metaphor creation. In Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, B. and K. Turewicz (eds.), Cognitive Linguistics Today. 159-175. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Szwedek, A. 2011. The ultimate source domain. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 9(2). 341-366.
Szwedek, A. 2014. The nature of domains and the relationship between them in metaphorization. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 12(2). 342-374.
Zinken, J., I. Hellsten and B. Nerlich. 2008. Discourse metaphors. In: Bernardez, E., R., R. F. Dirven and T. Ziemke (eds.), Body, language, and mind. Vol. 2: Sociocultural situatedness, 363-386. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
License
Copyright (c) 2016 Jolanta Łącka-Badura
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.