Mapping concepts

Abstract

The notion of “conceptual mapping”, as a set of correspondences between conceptual domains, was popularized in Cognitive Semantics, following seminal work by Lakoff & Johnson (1980), as a way of accounting for the basic cognitive activity underlying metaphor and metonymy. Strangely enough, Cognitive Semantics has paid little, if any, attention to other cases of so-called figurative language such as hyperbole, irony, paradox, and oxymoron. This paper contends that it is possible to account for these and other figures of thought in terms of the notion of conceptual mapping. It argues that the differences between these and other figurative uses of language are a matter of the nature of the domains involved in mappings and how they are made to correspond. Additionally, this paper examines constraints on mappings and concludes that the same factors that constrain metaphor and metonymy are operational in the case of mappings for the other figures of thought under discussion.

On terminological figurativeness

“…As some recent studies reveal (Temmerman 2000;Faber and Márquez 2004;Fuertes-Olivera et al 2002;Tercedor et al 2012aTercedor et al , 2012b; among others), many terms base their meaning on metaphorical and metonymic associations. This general idea needs further specification, as different levels of cognitive representation appear to be activated in this process.…”

“…The General Theory of Terminology (GTT), developed by Wüster, set out the initial series of principles for the treatment of specialized vocabularies and is representative of the first group. Within the second approach, we find social and communicative-based theories, such as the Socioterminology Theory (Gambier 1991;Boulanger 1995;Gaudin 1993aGaudin , 1993bGaudin , 1999 and the Communicative Theory of Terminology (Cabré 1999), and cognitive-based theories, such as Sociocognitive Terminology (Temmerman 2000) and Frame-based Terminology (Faber 2011, among others). This paper adopts an eclectic perspective that draws on both social and cognitive theories and considers etymological, cultural, communicative and conceptual aspects of the terminological units examined.…”

Humour production in face-to-face interaction: a multimodal and cognitive study

“…The notion of figure-ground reversal has been widely exploited to account humour (Attardo & Raskin, 1991;Attardo, 2001;Veale et al, 2006;Brône, 2008;Tabacaru & Lemmens, 2014). Furthermore, the notion of mapping, central in conceptual metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980;Lakoff, 1993;Ruiz de Mendoza, 2014;Forceville, 2015) is a central piece of incongruity resolution, as it is what allows to establish a similarity between opposed scripts (Raskin, 1985;Attardo, 2001;Attardo, 2015).…”