The Metaphoric and Idiomatic Structuring of Abstract Concepts

Seminar paper from the year 2022 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Wuppertal, language: English, abstract: In this paper, I will attempt to make a connection between the theory of grounded cognition for abstract concepts and the grounding of structural metaphors. The relationship between language and abstract concepts and the role that metaphors play in this regard will be explained by the importance of context in which we use them. In a first step, the meaning of abstract concepts is considered in more detail. Next, I will focus on conceptual metaphors and show how language makes use of them to provide structure for our reception of abstract concepts. In a final step, the role that idiomatic realizations of these conceptual metaphors play in the structuring of abstract concepts will be presented by discussing the conceptual metaphor THE MIND IS A BOOK. Consequently, the main question to be pursued is: How do metaphors and idioms in particular help us to structure abstract concepts? 'We didn't have metaphors in my day. We didn't beat around the bush.' This quotation by the English cricketer Fred Trueman creates the impression that metaphors are something that makes language less tangible or harder to grasp. If Trueman had studied metaphors from a linguistic point of view, he might have concluded that just the opposite is true. Metaphors help us to better understand abstract concepts. Abstract concepts have been a subject of linguistic and psychological studies for several decades now. Many different approaches have been made to explain their origin, acquisition, and application when we deploy language. In recent years, the embodied or grounded cognition view has become more and more a 'well-established theory or collection of theories' for the analysis of concepts. Similarly, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) have shown that structural metaphors are 'grounded in our physical and cultural experience'.