Keywords
mapping
parents
machines
Great Chain of Being
How to Cite
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to propose an analysis of English machines/tools-related terms used figuratively with reference to types of parenting. Specifically, an attempt is made to investigate the scope of the conceptual metaphor PARENTS ARE MACHINES/TOOLS. What ignited our interest was the ubiquity of linguistic metaphors featuring machine terms employed with reference to types of parenting present in everyday language. This initial stimulus has led to the investigation of types of machines employed as typical source domains in the metaphors of this type. A cursory glance at the frequency of linguistic data provided by the Google search engine shows that among the most productive machine-based terms used for types of parenting one may find, among others, drone parenting (41 800 000 hits), helicopter parenting (15 700 000 hits), lawnmower parenting (6 300 000 hits), bulldozer parenting (6 140 000 hits), snowplow parenting (1 090 000 hits). In the paper, we try to answer the question of why particular machine/tool terms, and not others, are used as possible source domains and why they are so commonly employed in English. Our results, which are also supported by evidence from online corpora (Corpus of Contemporary American English and News on the Web Corpus), may be said to corroborate not only the conceptual nature of metaphors as such but also their impact on social cognition. The methodology adopted is the Conceptual Metaphor Theory proposed originally by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, which evolved in a number of later publications, especially those by Zoltán Kövecses.
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