Metaphoric Concepts and Language

Nowadays it is usual to talk about metaphoric concepts. In the literature about metaphor there are, at least, two notions of metaphoric concepts. One of them is used to explain the meaning of the metaphoric use of language. The other is used to describe human cognition. Although it might be thought that the two notions of metaphoric concept that are involved in these explanations are the same, we will show that they only have the metaphoric mechanism in common. And it is precisely this feature that brings to light the fact that when we are talking about metaphoric concepts in any sense, we are really talking about conceptions of concepts and not about concepts, in case conceptions are not themselves concepts. Taking this into account, one of the objectives of this talk is to show how our comprehension of the metaphoric use of language affects our understanding of the view of our conceptions of concepts. The metaphoric use of language affects our understanding of the view of our conceptions of concepts because this use is possible only if we understand that our conceptions of concepts are structured in a way which allows their metaphoric restructuring by means of conceptions of other concepts, they are structured in a way that permits the application of the metaphoric mechanism. The metaphoric mechanism results in a reconceptualization of a target concept that serves as a new context of interpretation. This new context of interpretation allows speakers to associate metaphoric concepts or, as we prefer to call them, ‘metaphoric provisional meanings’ with the words included in the