Conventional Language: How Metaphorical Is It?

We evaluate a fundamental assumption of Lakoff and Johnson's (1980a, 1980b) view that people routinely use conceptual mappings to understand conventional expressions in ordinary discourse. Lakoff and Johnson argue that people rely on mappings such as ARGUMENT IS WAR in understanding expressions...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of memory and language 2000-11, Vol.43 (4), p.576-593
Main Authors: Keysar, Boaz, Shen, Yeshayahu, Glucksberg, Sam, Horton, William S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition & reasoning
conceptual mapping
conventional language
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Language
metaphor comprehension
Miscellaneous
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
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Summary:We evaluate a fundamental assumption of Lakoff and Johnson's (1980a, 1980b) view that people routinely use conceptual mappings to understand conventional expressions in ordinary discourse. Lakoff and Johnson argue that people rely on mappings such as ARGUMENT IS WAR in understanding expressions such as his criticism was right on target. We propose that people need not rely on conceptual mappings for conventional expressions, although such mappings may be used to understand nonconventional expressions. Three experiments support this claim. Experiments 1 and 2 used a reading-time measure and found no evidence that readers used conceptual mappings to understand conventional expressions. In contrast, the experiments did reveal the use of such mappings with nonconventional expressions. A third experiment ruled out lexical or semantic priming as an explanation for the results. Our findings call into question Lakoff and Johnson's central claim about the relationship between conventional expressions and conceptual mappings.
ISSN:0749-596X
1096-0821
DOI:10.1006/jmla.2000.2711