56

FRANK BOERS
Kovecses, Zoltan. 1995. "The Container Metaphor of Anger in English, Chinese,
Japanese and Hungarian". From a Metaphorical Point of View: A Multi-
disciplinary Approach to the Cognitive Content of Metaphor, ed. hy
Zdravdo Radman, 117-147, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories
Reveal about the Mind. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press;
-------- 1990. "The Invariance Hypothesis: Is Abstract Reasoning Based on
Schemas?" Cognitive Linguistics 1. 5-38.
Miller, Arthur I. 1995. Imagery and Metaphor: The Cognitive Science Con"
nection, ed. by Zdravko Radman, 1995. 199-224.
Rigotti, Francesca. 1995. The House as Metaphor, ed. by Zdravko Radman, 4191-
446. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Roediger, Henry L. 1980. "Memory Metaphors in Cognitive Psychology".
Memory & Cognition 8. 231-246.
LINGUISTIC TO CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN FIVE STEPS
GERARD STEEN
Tilburg University and Free University Amsterdam
does the cognitive linguist get from linguistic metaphor to conceptual
Is there a procedure for the determination of conceptual metaphor when
has been encountered? These are the questions that are
idressed in this chapter, which aims to build a bridge between linguistic and
onceptual metaphor by proposing a series of five analytical steps. Together they
the beginning of a procedure for conceptual metaphor identification in
The procedure is meant to constrain the relation between linguistic and
nceptual metaphor. It has sometimes remained an act of faith that particular
..taphors in language reflect particular metaphors in thought. This does not mean
there is no linguistic support for the existence of conceptual metaphors. And
there are many clear cases in which the name of a particular conceptual
is used in a linguistic expression, as can be demonstrated by a brief
at the by now classic list of references Lakoff & Johnson (1980), Johnson
Lakoff (1987), Turner (1987), Lakoff & Turner (1989), and Lakoff(1993).
these clear cases serve the purpose of demonstration; they have not been
and exhaustively collected. from large stretches of discourse, but
have been selected for persuasive power. Now that the theory of
metaphor has been firmly established as one important component of
theory of metaphor, providing one of the main inspirations to cognitive
as a general approach to language, it is time to reverse the perspective.
the question arises how stretches of discourse can be said to express
conceptual metaphors as opposed to others, and this is a difficult issue.
presupposes a generally accepted procedure of deriving conceptual metaphors
lipguistic metaphors encountered in on-going discourse, and that is currently
available.
Most readers will be familiar with some of the examples of metaphorical
between conceptual domains such as the following:
58 GERARD STEEN
THE LOVE-AS-A-JOURNEY MAPPING
The lovers correspond to travelers.
The love relationship corresponds to the vehicle.
The lovers' common goals correspond to their common destinations one the
journey.
Difficulties in the relationship correspond to impediments to travel.
(Lakoff,1993:207)
But from the present perspective, these are at best the output of the last step of the
envisaged procedure, and this would probably only hold in ideal cases. What I am
interested in is to explicate the assumptions that lead linguists to arrive at such
conceptual mappings in departing from metaphorical expressions in discourse.
This chapter is a logical reconstruction of these assumptions in an attempt to reach
agreement about the steps that are inevitable when one goes from linguistic to
conceptual metaphor identification.
It is noteworthy that this explication can be related to a number of
theoretical issues which were previously discussed in the seventies, before the
advent of conceptual metaphor theory as we now know it (Cohen & Margalith,
1972; Van Dijk, 1975; Reinhart, 1976; Cohen 1993; Miller 1993). In retrospect,
most of these references can be seen as attempts to make the jump from linguistic
to conceptual metaphor in one way or another, but they failed to do so in an
optimal manner because of the lack of a well-developed conceptual theory of
metaphor. The time is now ripe to return to these issues in order to put conceptual
metaphor theory on a firmer linguistic footing. It is ironic that cognitive linguists
are going out of their way to show that linguistic metaphor is fundamentally
conceptual, but that in doing so, they have neglected the method for showing how
they get from linguistic metaphor to conceptual metaphor in the first place.
My recourse to these sources has one consequence which may be misleading
and which has to be circumvented from the beginning. Some or most of the
examples discussed by theorists in the seventies were not of the conventional kind
that have since become popular in the literature. In present-day terms they might
be seen as one-shot and often poetic metaphors rather than systematic conceptual
metaphors. Moreover, I do not address the question whether my illustrations of
metaphor are actually found in other expressions of a similar kind, which is the
generally accepted approach to establishing conceptual metaphors in cognitive
linguistics. These may be surprising features of a chapter titled "From linguistic
to conceptual metaphor in five steps." However, I believe that they are actually
immaterial to the purpose of this particular contribution, which is to reconstruct
how the linguist gets from linguistic metaphor to conceptual metaphor. For
methodologically speaking, the linguist has no a priori knowledge whether a
FROM LINGUISTIC TO CONCEPtuAL METAPHOR IN FIVE STEPS 59
particular expression is to be counted as a one-shot metaphor or as a systematic
metaphor: he or she first has to identify metaphorical expressions and determine
what the conceptual nature of the metaphorical expression in question is. Only
once this has been achieved, can the metaphorical concept be examined as to its
possible relation(s) with other metaphorical concepts, which then leads to a
decision about one-shot conceptual metaphoricity versus systematic conceptual
metaphoricity. Such a comparison across metaphors presupposes that the other
metaphorical concepts have also been collected from discourse analysis in the
same fashion. What I am focusing on, then, is the procedure for collecting such
metaphorical concepts with the purpose of examining their systematic relations.
If one insists on regarding as conceptual metaphors only those metaphors which
are systematic (as opposed to one-shot metaphors), which I do not, then a sixth
step will have to be added to the procedure, saying that the output of the first five
steps is to be compared across large numbers of metaphors in order to establish
more or less systematic groups of metaphorical concepts, labeling the largest
systematic groups as conceptual metaphors.
I have to add one more caveat from the beginning. I wish to emphasize that
I am dealing with metaphor analysis, not metaphor understanding. Metaphor
analysis is a task for the linguist who wishes to describe and explain the structure
and function of language. Metaphor understanding is a cognitive process which
is the object of investigation of psycho linguists and discourse psychologists who
are conducting behavioral research. This chapter does not deal with behavior. This
does not mean that it cannot make use of theories of metaphor understanding for
the identification of specific stages in the analytical procedure; on the contrary, it
would be odd if there were no connection between understanding and analysis.
However, metaphor analysis is a goal- and norm-related activity in the pursuit of
data collection. It is the intentional technical identification of conceptual
metaphors from metaphorical language in discourse. This chapter is concerned
with a logical reconstruction of the discrete steps involved in that activity.
The logical reconstruction may then be transformed into a procedure for
practical use in linguistic research. From the perspective of the cognitive linguist,
who is interested in the analysis of discourse and the way it reflects concepts and
cognition, it is essential that there is such a procedure for relating linguistic
metaphor to conceptual metaphor in a reliable fashion. Ultimately, the cognitive
linguist has to begin with stretches of discourse and determine which linguistic
expressions are metaphorical and related to which conceptual metaphors, and this
is no trivial matter. However, such a procedure is also important for constructing
the link between cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics, in which precise
descriptions of literal and nonliteral materials are needed for the development of
well-controlled linguistic stimulus materials. Manipulating texts and expressions
60 GERARD STEEN
with a view to activating particular conceptual metaphors requires the same solid
foundation in linguistic methodology.
1. Metaphor focus identification
The first step of the procedure involves the identification of metaphorical
expressions in discourse. This naturally involves the theoretically thorny issue of
the definition of metaphor itself. As it is the purpose of this contribution to present
a procedure for conceptual metaphor identification, which in itself more or less
presupposes that We know what a metaphor is, I will cut a long story short and
make the following assumption. It seems best to adopt the most widely accepted
definition of metaphor that is currently available, the Lakoffian one of metaphor
as a set of correspondences between two conceptual domains, with linguistic
metaphor deriving from conceptual structures. The presence of two domains is
intended to capture the fact that we are dealing with nonliteral similarities between
entities and relations at some level of the analysis, which rules out other types of
mappings like metonymies.
The first step consists of identifying metaphorical expressions in discourse,
and we now need to become more precise about the nature of this operation. For
it is not true that identifying metaphorical expressions is tantamount to identifying
linguistic metaphors. I will now show that when expressions are identified as
metaphorical, it is the focus of the metaphor that we are dealing with, and this is
only one part of the complete metaphor. In effect, it depends on a number of
factors what one will call the complete metaphor in the first place. This observa-
tion needs to be explained with reference to a number of familiar but sometimes
elusive concepts in metaphor theory.
One of the more interesting discussions in this respect is Reinhart (1976),
who has aligned some of the classic theories of metaphor such as Richards (1936),
Beardsley (1958), and Black (1962). The main point of interest at present is best
introduced by comparing the following metaphors, discussed by Reinhart (1976):
(1) I have seen the mermaids riding seawards on the waves (T.S. Eliot, 'The love song
of J. Alfred Prufrock')
(2) The royal court is going to hunt
As an aside, the actual line from Eliot does not contain 'the mermaids' but 'them' ,
but Reinhart has explicated the anaphoric pronoun for expository purposes.
Reinhart explains that the focus of the metaphor in (1) is riding on. The
focus of the metaphor in (2), which is about 'lions stalking their prey' (1976:391,
fn. 8), is the royal court. Together, (1) and (2) illustrate that the focus is the
FROM LINGUISTIC TO CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN FIVE STEPS 61
linguistic expression used nonliterally in the discourse. This means that the focus
expression activates a concept which cannot be literally applied to the referents in
the world evoked by the text. The concept RIDING-ON cannot be literally applied
to the relation projected between the entities referred to by MERMAIDS and WA YES,
and the concept ROYAL COURT cannot be literally applied to the entity referred to
by LIONS. It will be noted that referents can be entities, relations, and attributes in
some situation evoked by the discourse.
The twin concept related to focus is frame, which I will define, with
Reinhart and others, as the immediate linguistic environment of the metaphor
focus. In (1), the frame is waves, according to Reinhart (1976:385). However,
Reinhart does not explicate the linguistic frame of (2). This is probably because
(2) is a special class of metaphor: the focus is not non-literal in relation to the rest
of the linguistic expression, is going to hunt; there is no semantic tension between
focus and frame. The kind of metaphor exemplified by (2) is purposefully left
aside in Reinhart's attempt at ordering the theoretical concepts for the analysis of
metaphor. As we shall see below, a cognitive linguistic approach which includes
linguistic and conceptual as well as other discourse aspects of analysis is better
equipped to handle these issues.
There are some important issues in Reinhart's discussion of focus and
frame, as well as of other notions like tenor and vehicle, and some of them will
return later. But our present concern is the first step in the conceptual metaphor
identification procedure. It may now be appreciated more fully that the first step
is largely concerned with metaphor focus identification, not linguistic metaphor
identification as a whole. The reason is this. Many metaphor foci may be related
to a literally used concept which is explicitly expressed in the metaphor frame, as
in the case of (1); however, there is also a good number of metaphor foci located
in metaphor frames without a linguistic expression of the literal concept of the
metaphor, as in (2). When both literal and nonliteral concept are present in the
frame, it is possible to identify a complete linguistic metaphor in the first step of
the analysis. However, when the literal concept is not expressed in the frame, the
linguistic metaphor cannot be identified in the first step; then it is only the focus
that is identified in the first step. These are implicit metaphors (Steen 1999) and
they need explication through propositional analysis, which clarifies to which
concept the nonliteral concept expressed by the focus is applied. Fdr instance, .
words like scene, shit, heat, and so on are often used metaphorically without the
literal concept to which they are applied being expressed expiicitly in the
discourse. As it is the metaphor focus that can be identified throughout all classes
of metaphor in the first step, this is why step 1 of the procedure is called metaphor
focus identification.
62 GERARD STEEN
2. Metaphorical idea identification
Now that we have a metaphor focus as a result of step 1, the question arises
to what other kind of element the focus applies. As a matter of principle it cannot
be the linguistic frame, as the linguistic frame merely provides a linguistic
background in which the focus is a nonliteral expression which mayor may not
stand out as the case may be. In other words, the focus is not a focus on account
of its relation to the linguistic frame, as we have observed, for it may even exhibit
a literal relation to the frame, as was shown by (2). What does make a focus into
a focus is the fact that it expresses a concept which is to be related to another
concept to which it cannot be applied in a literal fashion: 'riding on' cannot be
literally applied to 'mermaids' doing something to 'waves', and 'the royal court'
cannot be literally applied to 'lions'.
The other, literal, concept has been variously referred to as the tenor or the
topic or the principal subject of the metaphor, but I will call it the literal part of the
metaphorical idea. As not all literal parts of metaphors are explicitly expressed in
discourse, as is the case for (2), they sometimes have to be inferred. This is why
metaphor identification is a matter of concepts, propositions, and reference. As
these are general aspects of discourse analysis which are not limited to metaphor,
and propositional analysis was specially designed to cater for them, it is now time
to turn to propositional analysis. Propositional analysis was developed independ-
ently of the study of metaphor and also aims to bridge the gap between discourse
and conceptualization (see the contributions to Britton & Black, 1985; in
particular Bovair & Kieras, 1985).
Consider the following propositional analysis of (1), a personal, notational
variant of mine of the technique used by Bovair & Kieras (1985):
(3) I have seen the mermaids riding seawards on the waves
PI (SEEIp2)
P2 (RIDE-ON MERMAIDS w AYES)
P3 (DIRECTION p2 SEA WARDS)
This analysis of (1) is maximally consistent with the one of Reinhart (1976), even
though I can see that at least one other analysis is possible, namely one in which
P2 merely consists of (RIDE MERMAIDS) and at). additional P4 is needed to capture
that (ON p2 WA YES). However, since this difference is immaterial to my argument,
I will not unnecessarily increase the complexity of the exposition and leave this
point aside.
Irrelevant details aside, (3) is a linearly and hierarchically ordered list of
propositions, each consisting of a predicate and one or more arguments. The list
captures the meaning of (1) as a series of minimal idea units, or propositions, and
FROM LINGUISTIC TO CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN FIVE STEPS
63
presents the structural relations between the concepts contained by the idea units.
All of this is relatively uncontroversial in discourse psychology (Britton & Black
1985; Perfetti & Britt 1995; but cf. Garnham 1996).
The metaphorical idea that is present in T.S. Eliot's line is found in
proposition P2. The nonliteral part of the metaphorical proposition is the concept
RIDE-ON, which functions as a predicate, and it can be seen to apply to two other
concepts, MERMAIDS and WA YES. They are conceptualizations of the literal
referents in the projected text world about which something is said in a metaphori-
cal manner, namely that they are in a relation ofthe one 'riding on' the other. This
relation could also have been conceptualized in a literal manner, for instance by
means of FLOATING, which would have yielded a literal expression. This is also
accounted for by Reinhart's definition of focus:
Given a metaphorical expression Fj[Ej]
Ej is the focus if it is possible to substitute E
j
for Ej, so that Fj[Ej ] is a literal
expression and Fj[E
j
] is similar in meaning to Fj[EJ (1976:391)
Whereas RIDING-ON does not refer literally to the presumed relation between the
entities of mermaids and waves in the projected textworld, FLOATING does and
produces a similar meaning.
The conceptual basis of this approach is clarified by considering the other
metaphor and its propositional analysis:
(4) The royal court is going to hunt
PI (REF COURT LIONS)
P2 (HUNT COURT)
P3 (MOD COURT ROYAL)
The crucial proposition is PI, where it is clarified that one concept in S2, COURT,
refers to another concept, LIONS, which is available from the previous (or
discourse, be it co-text or context. This explicit and immediate form
Qf reference assignment between arguments is standard procedure in Bovair &
Kieras' (1985) method of propositionalization, and is aimed at ensuring referential
coherence between concepts in consecutive sentences, especially when different
expressions are used about the same entities in a projected text world. Of course
'tthis is precisely what is needed to solve the problem of cases like (2) for the theory
metaphor: in order to be able to interpret the main idea unit P2 correctly, it is
. 'fji\st necessary to clarify potentially confusing elements such as 'court' when there
,,110 literal entity of that kind in the projected text world. This is the function of
which thereby automatically identifies a complete metaphor: it relates the
64 GERARD STEEN
nonliteral concept COURT to the literal concept it is supposed to apply to, LIONS,
by means of the specially designed predicate 'REF' , and reveals that the metaphor
of (2) is Pl. All of these observations are intended to capture the propositional
structure of the language: they are not meant to be read as claims about compre-
hension or other forms of processing.
Propositional metaphor analysis can apply to all kinds of metaphors. It also
lays bare how metaphors can differ from each other with respect to important
dimensions of conceptual structure. For instance, Miller (1993 :387) discusses the
metaphor a watchdog committee. I did not find it coincidental that he presented
the metaphor in precisely this form, and ran an automatic Microconcord search of
the Times corpus of approximately 1,000,000 words coming with that program.
There were 10 occurrences of watchdog in all, and they were all metaphorical in
the above sense. What is interesting is the formal variation between the instances.
There was one case of Miller's structure, a watchdog organisation. It exemplifies
an explicit metaphor, because it contains both the literal and the nonliteral concept
of the underl:ying proposition. It is also a reduced metaphor, in that the linguistic
structure is not equivalent to a proposition itself, but is a nominal phrase. (A full
version of this metaphor would be something like: the committee is a watchdog,
which is not likely to be found in genuine discourse, as is shown by the results of
this search.) The metaphor is also simple, in that there is no additional material
attached to the nonliteral concept itself. This should be contrasted to the following
class: the National River Authority, the new watchdog/or the water industry, and
the Audit Commission, the local authority financial watchdog. In the latter case,
the concept WATCHDOG is modified by additional concepts, such as NEW, turning
the metaphorical focus into a complex structure needing more than one proposi-
tion. Another class of metaphor may be illustrated by a national watchdog and an
independent watchdog: these are implicit metaphors, because the literal concept
to which WATCHDOG is applied is not expressed in the text; and they are complex
metaphors, because WATCHDOG does not stand by itself. Half of the ten watchdog
metaphors were of this kind. The only example of an implicit and simple
metaphor was found in a headline: watchdog may be too fierce; contextual
assumptions about the use of words in headlines apparently have relaxed the need
for adding information to the nonliterally used concept WATCHDOG which was
exem.plified by all of the other cases. Propositional analysis is hence a valuable
tool in metaphor classification and raises consequential questions for interpreta-
tion and processing (Steen to appear).
Propositional metaphor analysis also clarifies some interesting aspects ofthe
previous discussion of Reinhart (1976). In accordance with Reinhart and the
theorists she discusses, the use of propositional analysis emphasizes that the
nature of metaphor is conceptual and that the analyst can only access it through
!
Ii
i
i
FROM LINGUISTIC TO CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN FIVE STEPS 65
the idea unit of the proposition rather than some rank of linguistic form, be it the
word, the phrase, the clause, or the sentence. The complete metaphor is only
identified when the appropriate literal and nonliteral concepts in the proposition
have been identitied. Metaphor identification, even linguistic metaphor identifica-
tion, is fundamentally a matter of conceptual analysis. It deals with the concepts
referred to by the words and is at the core of a functional approach to language.
What is more, the complete metaphor is not always expressed as a complete
metaphor in the surface of the discourse: there are metaphors which are only
signalled by means of their focus expression, and their literal part has to be
inferred by means of propositionalization (implicit metaphors). Propositional
metaphor analysis hence also throws into relief the nature as well as the limited
role of the notion of frame: frames are nothing but the immediate linguistic
environment of the focus and hence do not always help in setting off the focus as
a nonliteral expression, as in (2). Frames have to receive a semantic and pragmatic
interpretation in terms of reference and intentions before metaphorical idea
identification can succeed, and this requires going beyond the surface of the
frame: metaphorical idea identification (step 2) has to follow after metaphor focus
identification (step 1). If many linguists were still uncomfortable with sQch an
approach in the seventies, the advent of discourse analysis, cognitive linguistics,
and related functional studies of language use is now alleviating this problem.
Propositional analysis also raises an interesting question about the scope of
the frame: in Reinhart's analysis of (1), the frame is riding X, which in effect is the
next grammatical level up in comparison to the focus (the waves). However, as is
shown by the propositional analysis, other reaches of the frame may be imagined
as well, ranging from the clause through the utterance to the sentence:
(5) a. riding on the waves
b. riding seawards on the waves
c. the mermaids riding on the waves
d. the mermaids riding seawards on the waves
e. I saw the mermaids riding seawards on the waves
This is no mere terminological or technical matter, for it determines whether one
says that (1) contains the metaphor 'riding on the waves' or, for instance,
'mermaids riding on the waves'. I would prefer the metaphorical proposition as
the indicator of the complete metaphor, as it embodies the turning point between
language and conceptualization, as we shall see in a moment. What is important
to point out here is that such decisions have effects on the coding and counting of
metaphors of varying linguistic structures in corpus analysis, precise operational
66 GERARD STEEN
definitions being required for the reliable annotation of data. This is precisely one
of the issues that a procedure for metaphor identification needs to resolve.
3. Nonliteral comparison identification
The output of step 2 is a proposition in which we have a nonliterally used
concept (expressed by the linguistic focus identified in step 1) that is related to one
or more literally used concepts identified in step 2 which evoke the relevant literal
referent(s). The literally used concept(s) may be explicitly expressed in the frame
or may have been inferred by the analyst from co-text or context. The input of step
3 is hence a metaphorical idea in the form of a proposition with literal and
nonliteral concepts.
We have assumed that metaphors are sets of correspondences between
conceptual domains in which nonliteral similarity or comparison plays a pivotal
role. Therefore we need to work from the metaphorical proposition towards a
conceptual representation of the mapping between the two conceptual domains
involved. The next step in our procedure is hence to begin to set up the compara-
tive structure that is implicit in the nonliteral mapping between domains for every
conceptual metaphor. There is an excellent source for this objective in Miller
(1993), who presents a sophisticated view of the comparison theory and has been
unjustly neglected in conceptual metaphor theory.
essential point of Miller's contribution is that '[R]econstruction of the
implied comparison is a critical step in understanding a metaphor' (1993:381).
That metaphors imply comparisons is shown by the postulation of conceptual
metaphors like LOVE IS A JOURNEY, LIFE IS A GAME, and so on. Metaphors in
discourse hence require 'reconstructing the conceptual basis of the comparison'
(1993:382) in order to be interpreted. This statement begs some fundamental
questions about on-line comprehension behavior, but it certainly holds true for the
off-line analysis of the relation between linguistic and conceptual metaphor, with
which we are concerned here.
When an author uses a metaphor, Miller (1993:384-5) says, 'The claim is
[ ... ] that he had a general concept --resemblance, comparison, analogy--that we are
trying to appreciate. Such concepts have a structure, and S 1 makes that structure
explicit.' S 1 is the general form of all comparison statements, and encompasses
nonliteral and metaphorical c'omparison statements:
(6) S1. SIM[F(x), G(y)]
This is a conceptual analysis of similarity and comparison, as Miller repeatedly
emphasizes (1993:377; 381; 382; 385; 389). Miller shows that it allows for an
analysis of metaphorical propositions as nonliteral analogies with conceptual
FROM LINGUISTIC TO CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN FIVE STEPS 67
elements left out, and he proposes three specific rewrite rules which transform
metaphorical propositions into nonliteral comparisons. That is also why he
requires propositional analysis as providing the input for his analysis of the
underlying comparisons (1993:375-6): metaphorical idea identification (step 2)
has to precede nonliteral comparison identification (step 3). Let us examine how
this works in practice.
The metaphorical proposition of (1), (RIDE-ON MERMAIDS WAVES), may be
rewritten as a nonliteral comparison with the following structure:
(7) (RIDE-ON MERMAIDS WAVES) -> (3F) (3y,y ') {SIM[F(MERMAIDS, WAVES), RIDE-ON
(y, y')]}
A paraphrase of this formal notation of the conceptual structure of the implied
comparison would be the following: there is an activity (or relation) F and two
entities y and y' such that there is a similarity between mermaids and waves' doing
F' on the one hand and y riding on y' on the other. The input of the rule is the
output of our step 2, while the output of the rule is the automatic product of
Miller's rewrite rules.
Miller adds, 'The first step in interpreting [such a] comparison would be to
find appropriate values for the missing terms' (1993:384). This will be our step
4, nonliteral analogy identification. To jump ahead, in the present case we may fall
back on the analysis suggested by Reinhart (1976:388-90):
(8) (RIDE-ON MERMAIDS WAVES)-> SIM[FLOAT(MERMAIDS,WAVES),RIDE-ON (JOCKEY,
HORSE)]
Filling in the missing terms in this manner will be step 4 of the procedure, and
fleshing out the resulting analogy into a full-blown nonliteral mapping, step 5. For
now, we have to Goncentrate on step 3, identifying the underlying comparison.
The derivation of the comparison statements from the metaphorical
propositions created by step 2 is highly mechanical. Miller introduces three
general rules which automatically create comparison statements from proposi-
tional input, for three classes of metaphors: nominal, verbal, and sentential.
(Actually Miller uses the term 'predicative', but to the linguist this is misleading,
for the nominal part of a metaphor like 'Man is a wolf is also used predicatively.)
The rules are as follows:
(9) a. M1. BE (x,y) -> (3F) (3G) {SIM [F(x), G(y)]}
b. M2. G(x) -> (3F) (3y) {SIM [F(x), G(y)]}
c. M3. G(y) -> (3F) (3x) {SIM [F(x), G(y)]}
68 GERARD STEEN
Although the structure of the comparison statements is complete, not all of the
concepts of the comparisons are known: the unknown ones are thematized, as it
were, by the two existential propositions preceding the comparison structures. For
instance, in the nominal metaphor 'Man is a wolf, also discussed by Miller
(1993:382), the underlying comparison suggests that there is a property of men
such that it is similar to some other property of wolves. It is the task of step 4,
nonliteral analogy identification, to attend to these unexpressed properties and fill
them in at the appropriate slots of the incomplete comparison statement generated
by rule MI. However,. the derivation of the incomplete nonliteral comparison
statements themselves is much less interpretive, for it follows from the analysis
of a stretch of discourse as containing a metaphorical proposition of a particular
type, nominal, verbal, or sentential.
4. Nonliteral analogy identification
The fourth step handles the reconstruction of the complete nonliteral
comparison statement by inferring the implied concepts for the empty slots. Miller
calls this the reconstruction of the comparison, but I would like to call this
nonliteral analogy identification. It would serve well to suggest what step 4 adds
to the previous steps of (1) metaphor focus identification, (2) metaphorical idea
identification, and (3) nonliteral comparison identification: by filling in the empty
slots of the comparative structure produced by step 3, the incomplete nonliteral
comparison'statement is turned into a full-blown nonliteral analogy in step 4.1
step 3 turns complete propositions into comparisons between two incomplete
propositions by means of rules Ml through M3, step 4 fills out each of these
incomplete propositions into complete ones. Nonliteral analogy identification
(step 4) has to follow after nonliteral comparison identification (step 3).
. The term nonliteral analogy identification also suggests that the aim of the
entire undertaking is still to obtain reliable analyses of metaphorical language. Our
frame of research is the kind of claim that a particular stretch of language is an
expression of a specific conceptual metaphor, and if such claims are to be upheld,
we need to be able to support them with reliable identification procedures at every
stage of the analysis. In other words, the step from incomplete nonliteral
comparison statements to complete nonliteral analogies is supposed to be one of
identification, in which interpretation is to be kept under firm control: We are to
pi<;:k out the underlying analogy that may plausibly be conjectured to play a
guiding role in interpreting the incomplete comparative structure produced in step
3. In this connection it may be disheartening to find Miller issuing the waming
that 'there can be no uniquely correct comparison statement' (1993:384).
Somewhat later, he writes, '[T]he search for suitable values to convert [an
incomplete comparison statement to a nonliteral analogy, GS] is, strictly speaking,
FROM LINGUISTIC TO CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN FIVE STEPS 69
a matter of interpretation' (1993 :384). But Miller is right, and, what is more, there
is no contradiction between these warnings and our undertaking. Even if our goal
is one of analysis and identification, it will be good to remember that there are
objective limitations imposed on our pursuit and that interpretation needs to be
kept on the leash.
It is fortunately possible to say a little more about the actual procedure of
nonliteral analogy identification. For this purpose it is useful to return to Reinhart
(1976), whose main pointwas to introduce a distinction between focus and vehicle
identification and interpretation as two distinct aspects of understanding metaphor.
These two aspects may now be put to use in the identifieation of the nonliteral
analogy. I will begin with focus interpretation, but this does not mean that this
reflects the actual order of proceeding.
Let us examine another of Reinhart's examples. She discusses another
metaphor from T.S. Eliot's 'Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', reproduced under
(10):
(10) The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window panes
Reinhart offers the following analysis of the focus:
In this metaphor, the focus is rubs its back upon, since we can substitute
another expression for it, e.g. touches, swirls against, or comes up against,
to yield a literal expression, such as The yellow fog that touches the window
panes. (1976:391)
Let us examine how this analysis fares in our procedure and how it can be inserted
into step 4. If we follow Reinhart in identifying the focus as she does, we
rediscover this in the following list of propositions produced by step 2:
(11) The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window panes
PI (RUB FOG BACK)
P2 (UPON pI PANES)
P3 (MOD PANES WINDOW)
If we combine all of these propositions and take 'rub its back upon' as a complex
verbal group used in a nonliteral fashion, we need Miller's rule M2 to create the
following incomplete comparison statement as step 3:
(12) Rub back upon (fog, window panes) -> (:3F) (:3y, y') {SIM [F(fog, window panes),
rub back(y,y')]}
70 GERARD STEEN
To fill this in, as part of step 4, we require the operation of Reinhart's focus
interpretation. It is nothing but the search for the predicate F which is needed to
cement the relation between the fog and the window panes in the first incomplete
proposition of the comparison. The choice of 'touch' by Reinhart is one possible
option (although it is metaphorical, too). This would fill out the empty slot on the
literal side of the equation quoted as (12). Reinhart comments:
Focus-interpetation assigns a reading to the focus expression which is a
matter of selecting those properties associated with the focus expression
which are relevant to the context. Thus among the properties of rubbing
one's back, the properties of physical contact and of being in movement are
consistent with the context of Eliot's metaphor, hence they can be selected.
This procedure provides a rough understanding of what the metaphor is
about, or what the actual situation which is being depicted is (the fog
swirling against the window panes), and how it ties in with the wider
context of the metaphor. (1976:391-2)
Focus interpretation produces a partial but basic understanding of the metaphor.
In Miller's terms, it deals with 'the cast of characters in the reader's concept of the
text' (1993:382). Note the comparable referential style in Reinhart's passage,
when she uses 'what the metaphor is about, or what the actual situation which is
being depicted is.'
However, the focus interpretation of back rubbing can only take place if it
is also at least partly interpreted as rubbing one's back (see Reinhart's selection
of 'the properties of physical contact and of being in movement' in the above
quotation). In other words, the second incomplete proposition of (12) also has to
be part of the equation. This is the beginning of vehicle'identification. And to
construct the full set of conceptual correspondences between the two conceptual
domains involved in the metaphor, the second incomplete proposition of (12)
leads us into a relatively independent consideration of the source domain. The
second incomplete proposition needs to be fleshed out itself, too, primarily by
filling in the empty slots of the arguments relating to rubbing one's back. This is
not just the beginning but nothing less than Reinhart's vehicle identification.
Reinhart's definition of the notion of vehicle squarely falls within our
operation of filling in the missing terms of the nonliteral side of the analogy:
The vehicle is the frame F
j
[ ] in which the occurrence of Ej results in a
literal expression, Fj[EJ, where Fj[I;] is not similar in meaning to F;[EJ
(1976:391)
FROM LINGUISTIC TO CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN FIVE STEPS 71
Reinhart's vehicle is hence identical to the second existential proposition of the
incomplete comparison statement quoted above, (::Jy,y'): we need to find a frame
consisting of two literal entities which may be related to each other by means of
the function 'rub its back upon' so that they form one coherent state of affairs. The
resulting proposition is supposed to be similar in a nonliteral fashion to the fog
touching the window panes. Reinhart suggests that 'cat' would be a good
candidate for the vehicle thus defined, and the poetic context of the line in
question provides corroboratory evidence.
There are again many aspects which would deserve further treatment.
However, let us conclude this section by pointing out that there is an important
difference between the two aspects of step 4. Focus interpretation is usually more
richly constrained by the context of the metaphor, in that it involves the
construction of a literal proposition against the background of the topic and
content of the previous discourse (see Reinhart's remarks above, and compare
Miller 1993:394). Vehicle identification does not have this rich contextual
constaint--it has to activate prototypical or default knowledge about the source
domain. Miller writes: 'usually it is sufficient to take as y whatever the most
generic argument G is conventionally predicated of' (1993:393). Indeed, part of
the difficulty of vehicle identification is precisely that there may be more than one
source domain which can be involved in the interpretation of second completed
proposition (cf. Vosniadou and Ortony 1989). This is clearly notthe casefor focus
interpretation, in which the conceptual domain is identical to or part of the
conceptual domain of the stretch of discourse in which the metaphor is located.
Another crucial aspect is the relation between the two sides of the analogy.
Part of the meaning of y may have to be filtered out by its lack of relevance to the
literal topic of the metaphor and the discourse. However, many possible
assumptions about the source domain can usually be maintained with varying
degrees of strength in the context of the target domain: a range of possible values
for the empty slots is usually possible, that is, compatible with the textual world,
which makes it rather difficult to hit upon the best vehicle for the eventual
analogy. That focus interpretation and vehicle identification thus exert a mutual
influence on each other when one attempts to align the two parts of the analogy
is self-evident and the cornerstone of the interaction theory (cf. Miller 1993:394
and Reinhart 1976:389). This does make step 4 highly dependent on the specifics
of every particular metaphor.
5. Nonliteral mapping identification
The last step in the procedure is to identify the complete nonliteral mapping.
This is done by filling out the conceptual structure of the two sides of the
non literal analogy, the source and the target domain. Other concepts and the
72 GERARD STEEN
relations between them are to be listed for each domain, and their interdomain
relations are to be projected. Some of these additions may be motivated
semantically whereas others are based on our know ledge of the world in particular
domains (cf. Miller 1993:382 and Reinhart 1976:388). The result of this operation
is a conceptual network from which the analyst may derive sets of correspon-
dences such as those illustrated at the beginning of this chapter (Lakoff 1993 :207).
The transition from analogies to mappings is not given much principled
attention by Reinhart and Miller: they seem to relegate it to the domain of
interpretation about which they do not offer systematic observations. It is a theme
which, to my knowledge, hlfS not been discussed by Lakoff either,except in a
negative fashion, as in (1993:210): 'Mappings should not be thought of as
processes, or as algorithms that mechanically take source domain inputs .and
produce target domain outputs.' One of the more prolific writers in this area,
however, is Dedre Gentner (1982; 1983; 1989; Gentner & Jeziorski 1993), who
has done experimental research on behavior as well as AI modeling of knowledge
structures. She has listed six principles of analogical reasoning which may be used
to constrain the production of mappings from analogies. However, Gentner
(personal communication) has also admitted that the technical analysis of such
mappings is still basically an art. I cannot escape the impression that another
alternative in this area, Turner and Fauconnier's (1995) conceptual blending
theory, fares no better.
Thus the question arises how step 5 of the procedure may be better
constrained. Arid indeed, asking this question invite.s reviewing the other steps and
inspecting the relation between step 5 and step 4 in particular. For identifying the
analogy in step 4 seems to require at least a partial identification of the nonliteral
mapping; which is step 5, in order for the proposed analogy to be plausible. To
take this further, it might be suggested that identifying the analogy is a kind of
summary or abstraction of the nonliteral mapping identified in step 5, and this
could lead to the query why step 4 and 5 are not reversed. In other words, one
might also entertain an order in which the incomplete comparison statements of
step 3 are first fleshed out into conceptual domains with conceptual
dences and are only afterwards condensed, as it were, into neat explicit analogies.
However, to raise the question is to answer it. For one needs a kind of
searchlight in the construction of the conceptual domains and their relations,
which involves a kind of propositional interpretation of the implied comparison.
Step 4 provides such a provisional interpretation in the form of an analogy, and
this analogy acts as a target for theconstruction of the more complex mapping (or
mappings, if you follow conceptual blending theory) .. There is hence a special
relation between steps 4 and 5, in which step 4 provides a tentative analogy which
is rejected or retained depending on the success of the ensuing step 5. This does
FROM LINGUISTIC TO CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN FIVE STEPS 73
not happen anywhere between steps 1 and 4. Step 4 is crucial, because that is
where interpretation comes in, albeit as tightly controlled by the aims discussed
above as possible, and step 5 acts as a verification of step 4 in spelling out its
consequences in a more complex and explicit manner.
It is clear that the last two steps of the procedure form the weakest parts of
the chain, with step 5 being the weakest of all. Future research will have to
concentrate on strengthening these stages of the analysis. Otherwise, the gap
between metaphorical language and conceptual metaphor may never be bridged
in a reliable fashion. I will now move on to a brief illustration of the complete
sequence of steps.
6. Conclusion
I have suggested that the identification of conceptual metaphor in discourse
requires five steps:
(1) metaphor focus identification
(2) metaphorical idea identification
(3) nonliteral comparison identification
(4) nonliteral analogy identification
(5) nonliteral mapping identification
These steps are all called identification, because they give an answer to the
question 'What is ... ?' The first three questions are easiest to answer: what is the
metaphor focus, what is the metaphorical proposition, and what is the metaphori-
cal comparison? Question 4 is more difficult to handle, because it involves filling
in empty slots in an analogy on the basis of focus interpretation and vehicle
identification in mutual interaction. However, context and default language use,
respectively, act as guides to provide an answer to question 4. The answer to this
question has to be seen as a searchlight for constructing a nonliteral mapping,
which then has to be checked against the discourse regarding its appropriateness.
This step is the least reliable step in the procedure, while it is essential in order to
arrive at metaphors as sets of conceptual correspondences.
Let us return to the watchdog metaphor discussed above. Identifying the
focus of the metaphor involved checking that the word watchdog was not used in
its literal sense, referring to an animal guarding some property or people. This was
not difficult on account of the accompanying information which explicitly
signalled that the watchdog was 'The National River Authority' or 'the local
authority financial watchdog' . Such explicit lexical signals make focus identifica-
tion an easy task, but they are often unnecessary given the overt contrast between
the domains of the metaphor focus and the topic of the text.
74
GERARD STEEN
The identification of the metaphorical proposition is not problematic either.
It involves constructing the proposition (BE ORGANISATION WATCHDOG) or some
variant thereof. As was shown above, there is some additional conceptual
variation between the individual cases of the metaphor.
The identification of the nonliteral comparison is done by feeding the
proposition into rule MI. This yields the paraphrase "Some property of a
committee is like some property of a watchdog."
Identifying the nonliteral analogy next concerns the finding of the properties
left open in the nonliteral comparison. I will begin with vehicle interpretation for
the sake of showing that there is no predetermined order between the two aspects.
Taking the canonical values of what watchdogs usually do, we can suggest that the
relevant property is 'guarding property or people' . The property of the committees
in question is similar, in that they have to guard the public interest in the economic
domain. One case has the following additional information: 'To protect the
interests of non-Treasury use of economic data' .
Fleshing out the analogy into a complete mapping involves listing attributes
of both committees and watchdogs and attempting to match them. The following
provisional list may be entertained:
THE COMMITIBE-AS-WATCHDOG MAPPING
The committee corresponds to the watchdog.
The organizational domain corresponds to the yard.
The interest or activity at risk corresponds to the property.
Malpractice corresponds to trespassing.
Monitoring corresponds to watching.
WamiQg the public corresponds to barking.
Other aspects can be included, and the list may be adjusted according to context.
As I have acknowledged at the beginning of this paper, there may be another
step, which is to compare the analysis of one metaphor with those of others. This
would be the last step in determining whether a metaphor is part of a systemati-
cally organized set of metaphorical concepts (conventional conceptual metaphors)
or not. In our case, the analysis would not be dramatically different for every case
of the ten instances of the watchdog metaphor, and we might come to the
conclusion that the metaphor is relatively conventional, depending on other
frequencies.
There are many other issues which have also had to be left aside. For
instance, etymological and sociolinguistically restricted metaphor may pose
special. problems in step 1. Implicit, reduced, complex, multiple, extended, and
mixed metaphors provide special challenges to steps 2 and 3 (Steen 1999 and to
FROM LINGUISTIC TO CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN FIVE STEPS 75
appear). Differences between nominal, verbal, and sentential metaphor may cause
different situations for step 4. And so on. These and other issues are on the agenda
for future research. One specific item is the testing of the reliability of the various
steps: specialist informants may be given tasks to carry out steps I through 5,
either separately or in a row, with diverging sets of materials in order to reveal
more specific difficulties of applying the procedure to real discourse data.
The general conclusion, however, is that we have offered a logical
reconstruction of the analytical process, and that it holds a promise for practical
use as a descriptive tool in semantics. Again, the procedure does not pretend to
model the comprehension process. Moreover, as was suggested above, some steps
in the analysis make greater interpretative jumps than others, and this is where
cognitive linguists should be aware of alternative explanations of their data and
their beliefs in conceptual metaphors. It is hoped that the procedure can pinpoint
some of the more risky moments of analysis and that it can help in recording
experiences in negotiating these moments.
Author's note
I wish to thank Ray Gibbs, Rachel Giora, Lachlan Mackenzie, and Wilbert Spooren for
their acute observations and comments on an earlier version of this paper.
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