Metaphor
As we began to see in the previous chapter, and as we will see in further detail in Chapter 9, the view adopted in cognitive linguistics is that metaphor is a conceptual rather than a purely linguistic phenomenon. Moreover, the key proponents of the conceptual metaphor approach, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980, 1999), argue that many of the ways in which we think and act are fundamentally metaphorical in nature.
For instance, we conceptualise institutions like governments, universities, and businesses in terms of a hierarchy. Diagrams of such institutions place the person with the highest rank at the top or ‘head’, while the person with the lowest rank is placed at the lowest point or ‘bottom’. In other words, hierarchies are conceptualised and represented non-linguistically in terms of the conceptual metaphor CONTROL/POWER ISUP.
Just as metaphors like CONTROL IS UP show up in a range of modalities, that is different ‘dimensions’ of expression such as social organisation, pictorial representation or gesture, among others, we have begun to see that they are also manifest in language. The English preposition over has a conventional CONTROL meaning associated with it, precisely because of meaning extension due to the conceptual metaphor CONTROL IS UP.
In the foregoing discussion, we have explored three ways in which aspects of general cognition show up in language. Evidence of this kind forms the basis of the cognitive argument that language reflects general cognition.
