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Dear Everyone,
Dear Everyone,
Now, it is time to review conceptual metaphors and metonymies. These are two fundamental mechanisms of the mind.
Metaphors are far much more than just metaphors: metaphors are Neural Co-Activations of cognitive manipulation.
Metonymies are far much more than just metonymies: metonymies are Neural Access-Point Nodes of cognitive activation.
These two fundamental mechanisms of the mind interact heavily in real-time information processing. How much they overlap is a matter of current research (some authors talk about "metaphtonymies," i.e., mental phenomena that involve both metaphoric AND metonymic processing).
For didactic purposes, we are going to posit that "metaphors and metonymies are two extremes of a large conceptual continuum" that goes from metonymies in one extreme all the way up and down to metaphors in the other extreme (with many intermediate cases, as we discussed in our Conceptual Prototypes section of this seminar).
If it helps at all, try to think of metaphors and metonymies in terms of a Venn diagram:
As you might expect, there is good reason to believe that we can analyze metaphors and metonymies in terms of conceptual prototypes: certain metaphors are more prototypical (at the center of Sphere A) and certain metonymies are more prototypical (at the center of Sphere B), while certain cases are in between (in the intersection between A & B).
1. Metaphors We Live By
The book that radically changed our conception of metaphors and metonymies is the one below. The original edition is from 1980, but I am giving you the 2003 edition, which has important considerations in the afterword at the end of the book. Just click the image below to reach the book in PDF.
Ideally, you should read the whole book; yet, I am well aware that most of you lack the time to do so. Hence, I would ask you all please to read from page 14 to page 46 (please note that the PDF does not have a visible numbering, so please follow the numbering of your PDF digital file reader).
2. Neural Coactivation and Metaphorical Language
If you do not have time to read the 32 pages of the book above, please open the following magazine and read from pages 282 to 289 (8 pages) the article "Neural Coactivation and Metaphorical Language." Just click the image below to reach the magazine.
3. Parlay Roundtable
Please enter the Parlay roundtable and follow the instructions:
https://go.parlayideas.com?invite_code=9oWrpyip4
4. Cognitive Neuro-Representations
Here are all the videos and websites that I mentioned in the seminar Zoom meeting
5. Philosophy in the Flesh
The 1980 book "Metaphors we live by" was the first substantial contribution of Lakoff & Johnson to cognitive linguistics in the field of metaphoric and metonymic mental processing; such book, nonetheless, presents a number of inconsistencies and even artificial categories of analysis; for instance, the supposed separation of metaphors in three kinds (orientational, ontological, and structural) was an error. Lakoff & Johnson do recognize these issues in their 2003 edition afterword:
Yet, there are many other issues that are not sufficiently covered in the 2003 afterword edition; if you would like to have a much more comprehensive revision of metaphors and metonymies, please read the book below. This is of course entirely optional, only for those wishing to engage much more deeply into the question at hand; otherwise, the book "Metaphors we live by" is sufficient enough for an introduction to the phenomenon of metaphoric and metonymic thinking.
6. Additional Resources
If you would like to have more information about conceptual mataphors and metonymies, here are a) two other books that present the problem at a somewhat more advanced level, b) some videos you might wish to watch, and c) an old presentation I used to give about the topic at hand (though it is in Spanish).
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