Chapter Twelve
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are able to imagine, think and speak about the latter, which might
otherwise prove to be next to impossible. On the linguistic level, this
mapping is manifested in a whole range of expressions that employ the
notions of JOURNEY to talk about LOVE, such as “We’re at a crossroads,”
“Look how far we’ve come” or “We’ve gotten off the track” (Lakoff &
Johnson, 1980: 44-45). The familiar, concrete domain is conventionally
referred to as the source domain while the less comprehensible (often
abstract) domain is referred to as the target domain.
A significant tenet of CMT is that the source domain (e.g. JOURNEY)
and the target domain (e.g. LOVE) are not inherently similar: it is
conceptualizing the latter in terms of the former that enables us to think
and speak about the latter in the first place.^1 Lakoff and Johnson (1980)
emphasize that conceptual metaphors are motivated by correlation in
experience (such as the correlation between the amount of LABOR needed
in order to finish a task and the amount of TIME needed to complete it),
which should be distinguished from inherent similarities; those only arise
in our perception as a consequence of metaphorical thinking and speaking.
Similarly, Kövecses (2002) stresses there are no pre-existing similarities
between the elements in the source and the target domain, and it is the
application of the source domain onto the target domain that provides the
latter with a structure.
Related to this view is a distinction typically made in CMT between
conceptual metaphor and instances of figurative language referred to as
image metaphors. These can be defined as “one-shot metaphors”,
involving the mapping of a single mental image onto another image, rather
than projecting an entire domain of experience that leads to a whole
number of metaphorical expressions (Lakoff 1993: 229). According to
Kövecses (2002: 38), image-based metaphors map a “detailed set of
images from the source to the target”, thus involving a superimposition of
a single image onto another one. Such one-shot mappings are typically
“based on a sense-perceived resemblance between two entities”: a type of
seaweed can be called sea lettuce based on the observed similarities in
basic morphology (Tercedor Sánchez et al. 2012: 35). According to
Tercedor Sánchez et al. (2012), who primarily analyze metaphors in
specialized language, image metaphors are conceptually simpler as they do
not involve a systematic group of mappings between two domains of
experience. The authors contrast the sea lettuce case with a set of
(^1) This kind of insight represents a radical deviation from the traditional view
grounded in Aristotle’s Poetics (1954), which understood metaphor mainly as a
linguistic device based on the exploitation of similarities between the target and the
source.