From physical to metaphorical motion: a cross-genre approach

Talmy (1991, 2000) classifies languages into verb-framed and satellite-framed types according to whether the Path of a motion event is lexicalized as a satellite of the main verb in the clause or as the verb itself. Thus, in English (and other S-languages like Dutch or Danish) verbs often encode rich information concerning Manner, Cause and/or Movement but need a so-called satellite to convey the Path of motion. In contrast, in Spanish and Romance languages in general, verbs are mainly concerned with trajectory or Path, and any other additional information (Manner or Cause of motion) is expressed by means of sentence constituents playing an adverbial role. As a result, speakers of verb-framed and satellite-framed languages appear to exhibit different rhetorical styles when describing the same motion event (Slobin, 1996, 2004). Together with dealing with real motion, Talmy’s work has provided the starting point in research on (a) fictive motion, i.e. the dynamic predication of physical yet static entities such as roads or cables, as in The road climbs over the hill (Langacker, 1986; Matsumoto, 1996a; Talmy, 2000; Matlock and Bergmann, in press), and (b) metaphorical motion, i.e. the dynamic predication of abstract entities such as the economy, emotions, and the like as in Jealousy snaked its way into our relationship (Özçalışkan, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007; Morris et al., 2007). In general, research on fictive and metaphorical motion has focused on the way the speakers of different languages typically describe motion events in everyday, general contexts. Although yielding interesting results for the overall characterization of languages, this may result in a degree of overgeneralization towards the phenomenon at issue. This is reinforced by the way in which the data illustrating the research claims are often presented: the examples often appear in a decontextualized manner, with scarce or no mention to the characteristics of the discourse context or event where they are used, typically, the discourse genre where they occur). This is unfortunate since the inclusion and description of the context of use is critical for the study of motion patterns –whether real, fictive or metaphorical– and, above all, their correct interpretation.