Chapter Eight
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construal of the metaphorically pregnant senses is that metaphorical
extensions are construed via transference of specific salient conceptual
values between two domains/conceptual categories, which consists in
mapping the structure of one onto the structure of the other (Lakoff and
Johnson 1980; Kövecses 2005, 2002, Ruiz de Mednoza Ibáñez, Peña
Cervel 2005). Traditionally, reference is made to the notion of source and
target conceptual category as a denotation of the conceptual zone that a
given expression is linked to by virtue of its primary and secondary
meaning respectively. In our case, we see two sample conceptualisation
paths referred to as COMPANY IS A PERSON and LEGAL PRACTICE
IS A HUMAN BEING. In the first case the abstract entity referred to as a
company is ascribed a specific obligation, which is a case of transference
into the domain of the human being. Bearing obligations is not a feature of
abstract entities. The corpus data provide us with the phrases: [the] court
rules, considers and prescribes dates. Very much along the same lines, the
working of legal practice exercised by the said authority is expressed in
terms of the lexicon related to the domain of human beings.
Notably, applying information related to the conceptual mechanism of
metaphor not only addresses the concept of polysemy but it also reveals
the working of our prototypical cognitive model (Kövecses and Csábi
2014: 122. The term prototypicality appears here not in the sense that is
primary in the considerations on the application of cognitive linguistic
theory, i.e. the distinction between semantic and encyclopedic, but it refers
to the scheme of the conceptualisation path involved in the construal of the
secondary, figurative senses emerging from the terms.
Conclusions
As was presented, cognitive linguistics has much to offer as regards its
application to the practice of specialist lexicography. The methods used in
the project, as regards the design of both the macro- and microstructure of
the database, respond to the challenges posed by the features of lexical
semantic structure, as foregrounded by cognitivists, i.a. polysemy,
prototypicality. Additionally, the database follows the assumption
advocated in the literature of the subject that including conceptual
motivation of the arisal of the secondary senses embodied in specialist
terms is of positive didactic application.