Blending and Metaphor

1. Introduction The framework sometimes referred to as 'conceptual metaphor theory', with its origins in Lakoff & Johnson (1980), is one of the central areas of research in the more general field of cognitive linguistics. Within this field, the notions of 'source domains' and 'target domains', 'invariance', 'mappings', and so forth have become a common, though not universal, vocabulary for discussing the linguistic and conceptual phenomena of metaphor. The findings and principles of this framework have been applied in numerous studies, both within and outside of the field of linguistics. explain much of the same linguistic data, and also to unify the analysis of metaphor with the analysis of a variety of other linguistic and conceptual phenomena. This framework—referred to variously as the theory of 'blending', 'conceptual blending', and 'conceptual integration'—shares many aspects of conceptual metaphor theory (CMT). For instance, both approaches treat metaphor as a conceptual rather than a purely linguistic phenomenon; both involve systematic projection of language, imagery and inferential structure between conceptual domains; both propose constraints on this projection; and so forth. However, there are also important differences between the approaches: CMT posits projection between two mental representations, while blending theory (BT) allows more; CMT has defined metaphor as a strictly directional phenomenon, while BT has not; and, whereas CMT analyses are stated in terms of entrenched conceptual relationships, BT emphasizes blending as an on-line process, which both instantiates entrenched metaphors and can yield short-lived and novel conceptualizations to complement them. In this article we explore the relationship between BT, CMT and the phenomena they address, arguing that the two approaches are complementary. In particular, the entrenched conceptual relationships which have been identified by CMT researchers shape and constrain on-line conceptual blending. The nature of this relationship has relevance for anyone interested in the conceptual analysis of language and, more broadly, for anyone interested in conceptual structure. We begin with an overview of the BT framework, focusing on similarities and differences with the CMT framework. 2. Blending theory and conceptual metaphor theory 2.1 Domains vs. mental spaces In the CMT framework, metaphors are analyzed as stable and systematic relationships between two conceptual 'domains'. In a metaphorical expression like (1) The committee has kept me in the dark about this matter. language and conceptual structure from the 'source' domain of vision is used to depict a situation in the 'target' domain of knowledge and understanding. Particular elements of …