Month: April 2025

🔵 Extended metaphors serve as self-reinforcing arguments.

“Each instantiation of the metaphorical mapping in the text may function as a confirmation of the overall relevance of the main core mapping.” (Oswald & Rihs, 2013)
💬 Comment: Each new use of the metaphor strengthens the main idea, making it seem increasingly true through repetition and coherence.

🟢 Extended metaphors build the speaker’s credibility (ethos).

“The recognition of an extended metaphor’s sophistication and relevance […] can benefit the speaker’s perceived competence.” (Oswald & Rihs, 2013)
💬 Comment: If the metaphor appears clever and fits well, it reflects positively on the speaker’s intelligence and trustworthiness.

🟣 Extended metaphors help satisfy epistemic vigilance filters.

“Extended metaphors may fulfil the requirements of epistemic vigilance and lead to the stabilisation of a belief.” (Oswald & Rihs, 2013)
💬 Comment: Because they seem internally consistent and well-supported, they pass the audience’s mental checks for truthfulness and reliability.

🔴 Comprehension leads to belief in metaphorical communication.

“We will focus on the relationship between understanding and believing and accordingly try to highlight the importance of comprehension with respect to beliefs.” (Oswald & Rihs, 2013)
💬 Comment: The more a metaphor is understood, the more likely it is to be accepted as representing reality.

🟠 Extended metaphors can blur into literal beliefs.

“The metaphor may cease to be perceived as one, turning what was at first metaphorically construed into a representation about an actual state of affairs one can believe to be true.” (Oswald & Rihs, 2013)
💬 Comment: Over time, the audience may forget it was a metaphor and treat the metaphorical idea as literal truth.

🟡 Despite higher processing costs, they provide rhetorical rewards.

“Extended metaphors are demanding in terms of effort […] but their cognitive cost has to be offset by some sort of benefit.” (Oswald & Rihs, 2013)
💬 Comment: Although complex metaphors are mentally taxing, they are justified if they yield strong persuasive or epistemic effects.

🔵 Coherence across instances builds stronger arguments.

“The various occurrences of an extended metaphor in a text can be argumentatively used so as to function as a set of justifications for the metaphor.” (Oswald & Rihs, 2013)
💬 Comment: When a metaphor is consistently woven through discourse, each use reinforces and justifies the overall narrative.

🟢 Extended metaphors imitate analogical argument structures.

“The more you instantiate your target domain in terms of your source domain in an argument, the stronger the argument.” (Oswald & Rihs, 2013)
💬 Comment: Like analogies, metaphors gain strength when their logic is applied consistently and across multiple examples.

🟣 Plausible repeated mappings boost metaphor relevance.

“The more plausible the metaphorical mappings exploited in an extended metaphor are […] the more its overall perceived relevance increases.” (Oswald & Rihs, 2013)
💬 Comment: Logical, believable connections between metaphor and reality make the audience more likely to accept the metaphor as fitting.

🔴 Extended metaphors can activate confirmation bias.

“Extended metaphor could be thought to cognitively function as an argument meant to ‘de-metaphorise’ the metaphor.” (Oswald & Rihs, 2013)
💬 Comment: As more evidence is presented, audiences may favor information that supports the metaphor, reinforcing belief without skepticism.

🔵 🎯 Cognitive Poetics and Cognitive Literary Theory

• 📖 The article links metaphor processing to cognitive effort and epistemic effects, directly contributing to cognitive approaches in literary theory.
• 🗨️ “We will consider possible perlocutionary effects of metaphoric creativity, in particular as to what regards belief fixation…” (Oswald & Rihs, 2013, p. 22)
• 👉 Shows how literary metaphors aren’t only decorative but also cognitively shape understanding and belief systems.

🟣 🎯 Rhetorical Theory (Neo-Aristotelian Rhetoric)

• 📖 The paper revives Aristotle’s notions of ethos, pathos, and logos, especially showing how extended metaphors enhance speaker ethos.
• 🗨️ “Well-thought extended metaphors… can positively influence the speaker’s perceived image.” (Oswald & Rihs, 2013, p. 37)
• 👉 This connects metaphor to rhetorical persuasion, enriching the study of persuasive strategies in literary and political discourse.

🟠 🎯 Structuralism (through Conceptual Mapping)

• 📖 Their use of conceptual domains and mappings fits structuralist models where meaning emerges from systematic correspondences between structures.
• 🗨️ “The metaphor maps systematically establishes correspondences between representations…” (Oswald & Rihs, 2013, p. 5)
• 👉 Strengthens the idea that meaning in literature is relational, structured through recurring metaphorical patterns.

🟡 🎯 Relevance Theory in Literary Pragmatics

• 📖 By applying Relevance Theory to literary metaphors, they bridge pragmatics with literary studies.
• 🗨️ “Relevance is therefore defined here in terms of balance between processing effort and cognitive effect.” (Oswald & Rihs, 2013, p. 12)
• 👉 This encourages a pragmatic lens for studying how metaphors achieve literary impact based on cognitive processing.

🟢 🎯 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

• 📖 Their analysis of metaphor as a political tool (e.g., USA as Empire) aligns with CDA’s interest in how language shapes ideology.
• 🗨️ “The extended metaphor functions as an argumentative device geared towards the validation of epistemic claims.” (Oswald & Rihs, 2013, p. 32)
• 👉 Suggests that literary metaphors are political instruments, influencing public belief, not merely aesthetic flourishes.

🔴 🎯 Post-Structuralism (De-metaphorisation Process)

• 📖 The fading of metaphor into literal belief connects to post-structuralist ideas about the instability and transformation of meanings.
• 🗨️ “Extended metaphors may lead their addressee to eventually abandon the metaphorical construal altogether…” (Oswald & Rihs, 2013, p. 24)
• 👉 Emphasizes how literary language undermines or redefines stable categories over time.

⚪ 🎯 Argumentation Theory in Literature

• 📖 Positions metaphors not just as stylistic devices but as arguments that structure reader belief, linking to Toulmin’s model and Perelman’s New Rhetoric.
• 🗨️ “Extended metaphors are ideally suited to contribute material that can be used for argumentative purposes.” (Oswald & Rihs, 2013, p. 18)
• 👉 Enhances literary theory by showing how narratives subtly argue, not just narrate.

🌟 Summary:

Steve Oswald and Alain Rihs offer a multi-theoretical impact — their work helps literary theory shift toward seeing metaphors as cognitive, rhetorical, discursive, ideological, and argumentative forces, not mere aesthetic ornaments.

🌟 Metaphor Is Primarily Conceptual, Not Linguistic

Lakoff challenges the classical view that metaphor is a matter of language, showing instead that it’s rooted in thought. Metaphors are cross-domain mappings in our conceptual system, not just rhetorical flourishes (Lakoff, 1987) 🧠. This reconceptualization moves metaphor from the poetic margins into the very core of everyday language use.

“The locus of metaphor is not in language at all, but in the way we conceptualize one mental domain in terms of another” (🌈 p. 203).

💡 Everyday Language Is Richly Metaphorical

Contrary to traditional views, Lakoff argues that ordinary language is saturated with metaphor. Expressions like “He fell in love” or “We’ve hit a dead-end” are not poetic but conventional and rooted in deeper conceptual structures. This finding dismantles the binary of “literal” vs. “figurative” language.

“Ordinary everyday English is largely metaphorical, dispelling once and for all the traditional view” (🟦 p. 204).

🚀 Conceptual Metaphor Theory: Cross-Domain Mappings

A conceptual metaphor maps a source domain (concrete) onto a target domain (abstract). For example, in LOVE IS A JOURNEY, the love relationship (target) is conceptualized in terms of a physical journey (source), as in: “Our relationship is off the track”.

“The metaphor involves understanding one domain of experience, love, in terms of a very different domain of experience, journeys” (💜 p. 207).

📘 Metaphors Govern Reasoning and Inference

Metaphors are not just expressive—they guide reasoning. When people say “We’re stuck in this relationship”, they rely on travel-related inferences (e.g., fixing a vehicle, turning back) to reason about love.

“Such correspondences permit us to reason about love using the knowledge we use to reason about journeys” (🧡 p. 208).

🌀 Metaphors Are Not Individual Words, but Cognitive Structures

Lakoff emphasizes that metaphors are not the words themselves but the mappings that sanction their use. Many metaphorical expressions stem from the same conceptual metaphor—e.g., dead-end, crossroads, off track—all from LOVE IS A JOURNEY.

“It is the ontological mapping across conceptual domains… the language is secondary” (💚 p. 209).

🔁 Basic Abstract Concepts Are Metaphorical

Even core concepts such as time, causation, states, purposes, and categories are metaphorically structured. For example:

• TIME IS MOTION: “Christmas is coming up.”
• CATEGORIES ARE CONTAINERS: “Put it in a different category.”

“Most basic concepts… are normally comprehended via metaphor—concepts like time, quantity, state, change…” (🟥 p. 213).

🛣️ Event Structure Is Metaphorically Understood

Lakoff introduces the EVENT STRUCTURE METAPHOR, where:

• States = locations
• Changes = movements
• Causes = forces
• Purposes = destinations

These structures govern expressions like “We’ve made it this far” or “We’re going nowhere”.

“States are locations… Causes are forces… Purposes are destinations” (💙 p. 221).

🧭 Metaphors Form Inheritance Hierarchies

Metaphors are organized hierarchically. For instance:

1. EVENT STRUCTURE METAPHOR
2. ➝ A PURPOSEFUL LIFE IS A JOURNEY
3. ➝ LOVE IS A JOURNEY, CAREER IS A JOURNEY

Each lower level inherits from and is structured by the metaphor above it.

“The LOVE IS A JOURNEY metaphor inherits the structure of the LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor” (🟨 p. 224).

🔄 Duality: Location vs. Object-Based Metaphors

Every metaphor has a potential dual. For example:

• STATES ARE LOCATIONS (e.g., in trouble)
• ATTRIBUTES ARE POSSESSIONS (e.g., have trouble)

Both share the idea of co-location, highlighting how metaphorical thinking can take different structural forms.

“States and attributes are also special cases of the same thing—what can be attributed to someone” (🟪 p. 226).

🎨 Image Metaphors and the Invariance Principle

Image metaphors (like “Her waist is an hourglass”) map one mental image onto another. The Invariance Principle states that image-schematic structure (like paths or containers) is preserved in metaphoric mappings.

“The metaphor is conceptual; it is not in the words themselves, but in the mental images” (🔷 p. 230).

📚 Generic-Level Metaphors and Proverb Interpretation

Generic-level metaphors allow us to map specific instances to general structures, explaining how proverbs (e.g., “Blind blames the ditch”) work. They rely on preserved causal, temporal, and event schemas.

“Generic-level structure… is exactly image-schematic structure” (🔶 p. 234).

🧠 Abstract Reasoning Is Image-Based

Lakoff’s most radical conclusion is that abstract thought is grounded in image-schemas. Our capacity for logic and inference emerges from metaphorically extended spatial and bodily experience.

“Abstract reasoning is a special case of image-based reasoning” (⚫ p. 229).

🧠 1. Cognitive Literary Theory

🔍 Contribution: Lakoff radically repositions metaphor from a figure of speech to a core cognitive mechanism that shapes how we think, perceive, and reason—including in literature.
📌 Key Reference: “The locus of metaphor is not in language at all, but in the way we conceptualize one mental domain in terms of another.” (Lakoff, p. 203)
📚 Theoretical Connection: Supports Cognitive Poetics (Tsur, Stockwell) and Embodied Cognition in literary analysis, where metaphor is seen as structuring narrative and character psychology.

🧱 2. Structuralist & Post-Structuralist Revisions

🔁 Contribution: Challenges structuralist separation between literal and figurative language, asserting that everyday language is saturated with metaphor.
📌 Key Reference: “The discovery of this enormous metaphor system has destroyed the traditional literal-figurative distinction.” (Lakoff, p. 205)
📚 Theoretical Connection: Offers a post-structuralist critique of the arbitrary sign, suggesting metaphor is grounded in cognitive mappings, not in pure linguistic play.

🔄 3. Reframing Reader-Response Theory

👁️ Contribution: Emphasizes the reader’s conceptual system as key to interpreting metaphor—what readers “understand” is shaped by shared conceptual metaphors.
📌 Key Reference: “The metaphor is not just a matter of language, but of thought and reason.” (Lakoff, p. 209)
📚 Theoretical Connection: Enhances Reader-Response Theory (Fish, Iser) by adding a cognitive layer—interpretation arises from experiential metaphors, not just textual gaps or reader projection.

🎨 4. Enriching Poetic and Literary Analysis

🎭 Contribution: Shows that poetic metaphors, like those in Dylan Thomas or Wallace Stevens, are built upon conventional everyday mappings.
📌 Key Reference: “The study of literary metaphor is an extension of the study of everyday metaphor.” (Lakoff, p. 203)
📚 Theoretical Connection: Redefines Formalism/New Criticism by relocating metaphor’s richness from poetic novelty to cognitive familiarity; also bridges New Historicism, which examines how metaphor reflects broader cultural cognition.

🛠️ 5. Tool for Allegory and Symbolism Analysis

🔑 Contribution: Introduces conceptual metaphor mapping as a powerful analytic tool for understanding allegory, symbol, and myth.
📌 Key Reference: “There is a single general principle… part of the conceptual system underlying English.” (Lakoff, p. 208)
📚 Theoretical Connection: Useful for Myth Criticism (Frye, Campbell), understanding how symbolic narratives (e.g., life-as-journey) structure plot and character arcs.

🌉 6. Bridging Literature and Philosophy of Language

🔧 Contribution: Directly critiques philosophers like Searle and classical theories of metaphor, offering an empirically grounded alternative.
📌 Key Reference: “What we had called propositional structure is really image-based inference.” (Lakoff, p. 229)
📚 Theoretical Connection: Connects with Philosophy of Literature, challenging analytical distinctions between metaphor and truth-functional language.

🖼️ 7. Broadening Symbolic Interpretation in Literature

📐 Contribution: Introduces Image Metaphor (e.g., “her waist is an hourglass”) as a unique, non-propositional literary device rooted in visual-spatial cognition.
📌 Key Reference: “Image metaphors… map the structure of one domain onto the structure of another.” (Lakoff, p. 230)
📚 Theoretical Connection: Advances Iconic and Visual Theories of Literature, enhancing how we interpret symbolic and imagistic language beyond mere simile.

🌐 8. Foundation for Conceptual Narratology

🚶 Contribution: The Event Structure Metaphor (states = locations, causes = forces, goals = destinations) offers a way to analyze plot and narrative causality.
📌 Key Reference: “States are locations. Changes are movements… Purposes are destinations.” (Lakoff, p. 221)
📚 Theoretical Connection: Contributes to Narratology (Propp, Genette) by mapping narrative elements onto embodied experience.

🔄 9. Reorienting Tropes in Rhetoric and Style

🔁 Contribution: Demonstrates how metaphorical systems structure idioms, clichés, and stylistic expressions, revealing their deep cognitive roots.
📌 Key Reference: “Many of the metaphorical expressions… are idioms… not arbitrary, but motivated.” (Lakoff, p. 212)
📚 Theoretical Connection: Recontextualizes Classical Rhetoric and Stylistics, viewing them through the lens of cognitive motivation.

🧬 10. Expanding Theories of Symbolic Inheritance

🏗️ Contribution: Introduces metaphorical inheritance hierarchies (e.g., LOVE IS A JOURNEY ← LIFE IS A JOURNEY ← EVENT STRUCTURE), mapping complex cultural and literary motifs.
📌 Key Reference: “Metaphorical mappings do not occur isolated… they are organized in hierarchical structures.” (Lakoff, p. 223)
📚 Theoretical Connection: Aligns with Intertextuality and Archetypal Criticism, illuminating how metaphorical networks span genres and traditions.

🔴 🔍 Overemphasis on Universality
Lakoff’s theory assumes many metaphors (e.g., “TIME IS MOTION”, “LIFE IS A JOURNEY”) are universal, but cross-cultural linguistic studies show that metaphorical frameworks differ significantly between languages and cultures (e.g., in Chinese or Aymara, future is not always “ahead”).

🟡 🔄 Cognitive Reductionism
Critics argue the theory reduces complex literary or poetic expressions to fixed conceptual mappings, such as “LOVE IS A JOURNEY”, ignoring nuance, irony, and stylistic ambiguity present in creative literature.

🟠 🧱 Static Mapping Critique
The notion of fixed cross-domain mappings is criticized as too rigid. Real-life metaphor use often involves dynamic, context-sensitive constructions, not always aligning with pre-set metaphors.

🟢 📏 Inadequate Account of Novelty
While Lakoff acknowledges image metaphors and novel expressions, some scholars argue the theory underrepresents creative, one-off metaphorical innovations in literature and speech (cf. Ricoeur’s “living metaphors”).

🔵 📚 Neglect of Aesthetic Dimension
Lakoff’s focus is primarily cognitive and conceptual. Critics in literary theory (e.g., Eagleton) claim that this ignores the aesthetic, emotional, and cultural dimensions that make metaphor powerful in poetry and prose.

🟣 🧠 Challenges in Psychological Validation
Some psycholinguistic studies suggest that people don’t consistently rely on metaphorical reasoning in real-time understanding, challenging Lakoff’s claim that metaphor is central to everyday cognition (McGlone, 2007).

⚫ ⚖️ Literal-Figurative Dichotomy Remains Debated
Although Lakoff dissolves the traditional literal vs. metaphorical distinction, other theorists argue some form of it remains useful, especially for distinguishing novel metaphors from conventional lexicalized expressions.

🟤 🖼️ Weakness in Explaining Visual/Multimodal Metaphor
Lakoff’s theory is primarily linguistic and does not robustly extend to visual, gestural, or multimodal metaphors, which are crucial in film, art, and digital media.

🔹 Main Ideas of “Metaphor and Literature” by Earl R. MacCormac:

• 📌 Metaphor is foundational to literature and creativity, acting as a crucial tool for expressing meaning beyond literal language. Literature without metaphor would become dull and unimaginative (⭑ MacCormac, 1972, p. 57).
• 📌 Philosophical suspicion toward metaphor has lessened over time. While once seen as imprecise, metaphor is now recognized as essential in both philosophy and science (⭑ p. 57–58).
• 📌 Scientific concepts like “force” or “mass” are metaphors and are not linguistically precise terms, highlighting metaphor’s role in the formation of theories (✦ p. 58).
• 📌 MacCormac proposes a “tension theory of metaphor,” where meaning arises from the tension between literal absurdity and figurative insight. Metaphor creates a moment of disruption that compels the reader to reflect “as if” the statement were true (⭒ p. 59).
• 📌 The article differentiates two types of metaphor:
  • Epiphor: based on analogy; reveals hidden but relatable meanings (✧ p. 60).
  • Diaphor: introduces new, often imaginative meanings that cannot be reduced to familiar analogies (✧ p. 61).
• 📌 Metaphors evolve: they may begin as diaphors, become expressive epiphors, and ultimately turn into dead metaphors or symbols in ordinary language (⭐ p. 62).
• 📌 MacCormac introduces the concept of “root metaphors”—deep metaphoric structures (e.g., “the world is a machine”) that underlie entire philosophical or literary worldviews. These root metaphors shape how entire texts or scientific paradigms are interpreted (✪ p. 63–64).
• 📌 Myths arise when root metaphors are taken literally. Myths can be found in science, literature, religion, and philosophy when hypothetical metaphors are mistaken for truth (✹ p. 67–69).
• 📌 Symbols in literature are born from metaphors, especially epiphors, and become emotionally charged archetypal symbols through repetition (✸ p. 64–66).
• 📌 Metaphors should be understood as linguistic symbols, not just psychological phenomena. Reducing all metaphor to cognitive response oversimplifies their structural role in meaning-making (✦ p. 66).
• 📌 The article calls for a critical awareness of metaphor’s role in constructing meaning, cautioning against confusing metaphorical frameworks with literal reality (✴ p. 69–70).

🔍 Implications for Literary Criticism (per MacCormac):

• ✅ Metaphors cannot be paraphrased without losing their unique meanings—especially diaphors (✦ p. 70).
• ✅ Root metaphors and conveyance metaphors must be distinguished. The former underlie whole works; the latter function within narratives (✪ p. 64).
• ✅ Ordinary language itself is built from dead metaphors, highlighting how pervasive and foundational metaphor is in human thought (✦ p. 60).
• ✅ Myths should not be eliminated outright, but critically examined as historically contingent metaphorical systems (✹ p. 68).
• ✅ Literary meaning is not solely internal to the text—reader experience and broader metaphorical structures also inform interpretation (✧ p. 64–65).

🧠 1. Structuralism

• 🔹 Emphasizes that metaphor is a linguistic structure that organizes meaning through patterns and associations (⭑ MacCormac, 1972, p. 59).
• 🔹 Introduces the concept that ordinary language is structured by “dead metaphors”, showing how metaphors shape language systems (⭑ p. 60).
• 🔹 By analyzing metaphor as a structured interaction between “tenor” and “vehicle” (Richards), the article aligns with structuralist focus on binary relationships (✦ p. 59).

🔮 2. Reader-Response Theory

• 🔹 Argues that the recognition of metaphor depends on the reader’s awareness of absurdity and interpretive ability (✧ p. 59).
• 🔹 Claims that metaphors gain meaning only through the reader’s ability to imagine or connect to experience, especially in the case of diaphors (✧ p. 61–62).
• 🔹 Suggests that interpretive response is essential to moving metaphors from tension to comprehension (✧ p. 62).

📘 3. Formalism / New Criticism

• 🔹 Acknowledges the internal function of metaphor in constructing literary unity, especially when rooted in a dominant image (✪ p. 63).
• 🔹 Discusses metaphors that carry the thematic structure of a work (root metaphors), which are central to formalist close reading (✪ p. 64).
• 🔹 Challenges New Criticism slightly by arguing that not all meaning is internally contained within a work’s structure (✪ p. 64–65).

🌍 4. Phenomenology / Hermeneutics

• 🔹 Describes metaphor as an experiential bridge, where the reader’s own perception fills the gap between literal absurdity and figurative meaning (✸ p. 59–60).
• 🔹 Suggests that understanding metaphor is a phenomenological act that involves the transformation of experience into insight (✸ p. 61).
• 🔹 Root metaphors provide hermeneutic frameworks for interpreting literary worlds and philosophical systems (✸ p. 63–64).

🧬 5. Post-Structuralism / Deconstruction

• 🔹 Identifies the instability of meaning in metaphors—especially diaphors—which resist paraphrase and final interpretation (✴ p. 70).
• 🔹 Argues that literal and figurative are not absolute categories, since dead metaphors blur the boundary (✴ p. 60–61).
• 🔹 Challenges the idea of a stable referent, showing that metaphor often undermines the clarity of language (✴ p. 69).

📚 6. Archetypal and Symbolic Criticism

• 🔹 Tracks how metaphors evolve into archetypal symbols with emotional resonance, e.g., “water” representing life (✹ p. 64–65).
• 🔹 Connects metaphor to universal human expressions, consistent with Jungian and mythological criticism (✹ p. 65).

⚙️ 7. Philosophy of Language / Analytic Literary Theory

• 🔹 Contributes to theoretical philosophy of metaphor, extending ideas of Max Black and I.A. Richards into literary application (⭑ p. 59).
• 🔹 Discusses metaphor in terms of linguistic functions, meaning variance, and ostension (⭑ p. 60; ⭑ p. 61).
• 🔹 Establishes that literary and philosophical language share metaphorical logic, rejecting strict literalism in analytic traditions (⭑ p. 67).

🧱 8. Myth Criticism

• 🔹 Defines myth as a literalized root metaphor, warning that myth arises when metaphor is mistaken as objective truth (✦ p. 67–69).
• 🔹 Suggests that myths pervade all fields, from literature to science, when metaphor is misinterpreted as fact (✦ p. 69).
• 🔹 Encourages a critical approach to metaphor to avoid mythologizing knowledge and ideology (✦ p. 69–70).

❗ Criticisms Against “Literature and Metaphor” by Earl R. MacCormac:

• ⚖️ Overemphasis on Philosophy Over Literary Practice
  ▪️ MacCormac heavily draws from philosophical traditions (e.g., Aristotle, Max Black, Stephen Pepper), sometimes sidelining close textual analysis or literary nuance.
  ▪️ Critics may argue that this makes the theory less practical for analyzing complex literary texts in detail.
• 🌀 Ambiguity Between Epiphor and Diaphor
  ▪️ The distinction between epiphor (based on analogy) and diaphor (suggesting new meaning) is insightful but can become conceptually blurry.
  ▪️ In many cases, metaphors contain elements of both, making rigid classification difficult (⭑ MacCormac, 1972, p. 61–62).
• 🧩 Lack of Engagement with Historical or Cultural Contexts
  ▪️ The theory largely treats metaphor as a universal linguistic process, neglecting how cultural, historical, or socio-political factors shape metaphor usage and reception.
• 🗺️ Limited Scope of Literary Examples
  ▪️ The article relies mostly on Western canon examples (e.g., Donne, Frost, Dryden), potentially narrowing its cross-cultural applicability.
  ▪️ It does not test the theory on non-Western or postmodern literature where metaphor might function differently.
• 🏗️ Abstract Treatment of Myth and Reality
  ▪️ MacCormac’s claim that myths are merely literalized root metaphors (p. 67–69) could be seen as reductive.
  ▪️ It overlooks the deeper symbolic, religious, or communal functions of myth in human culture.
• 🔄 Resistance to Internal Meaning Theories
  ▪️ MacCormac challenges Northrop Frye’s idea of internal literary meaning (p. 64), but his alternative may not satisfy formalists who value textual coherence and self-containment.
  ▪️ Some may argue that he dismisses valid interpretive strategies too quickly.
• 🔍 Insufficient Practical Methodology for Criticism
  ▪️ The article offers a theoretical framework but lacks clear, repeatable steps for applying it in literary criticism.
  ▪️ Readers may struggle to operationalize his concepts without more methodological guidance.
• 💬 Minimal Dialogue with Contemporary Literary Theorists
  ▪️ While the work is grounded in philosophical and linguistic traditions, it engages less with contemporary literary theorists (e.g., Barthes, Derrida, Eagleton), missing inter-theoretical dialogue.

🧠 Summary:

While “Literature and Metaphor” is foundational in positioning metaphor at the center of meaning-making in literature, its philosophical abstraction, binary metaphor classifications, and lack of cultural contextualization leave room for criticism. Scholars seeking more culturally grounded, politically aware, or text-specific analysis may find MacCormac’s framework limited in scope.

🔵 1. Context and Evolution of CTMM

• CTMM is evolving through integration of new ideas like blending theory, simple metaphors, and deeper attention to metonymy
  ➤ “CTMM is at present at a turning-point in its evolution as a theory” (Barcelona, p. 1)
  ➤ “Metaphor and metonymy often ‘meet’ at conceptual and linguistic crossroads” (Barcelona, p. 1)

🟢 2. Cognitive Linguistics Framework

• Language reflects general-purpose cognitive abilities, not an isolated “language module”
  ➤ “The so-called ‘language faculty’ is… a specialization of general-purpose cognitive abilities” (Barcelona, p. 2)
  ➤ Supported by research in neurology and cognitive psychology (e.g., Rosch, Edelman)

🟡 3. Definition of Metaphor in CTMM

• Metaphor is a partial mapping from a source domain to a target domain
  ➤ “The domain that is mapped is called the source… the domain onto which… is called the target” (Barcelona, p. 3)
  ➤ Example: LOVE IS A JOURNEY
  • “Our relationship is off the track” → travel obstacle maps to relationship problem (Barcelona, p. 3)

🔴 4. Definition of Metonymy in CTMM

• Metonymy is a conceptual projection within one domain, often activating one part to represent the whole
  ➤ “Metonymy… is a conceptual projection… within the same common experiential domain” (Barcelona, p. 4)
  ➤ Examples:
  • “She’s just a pretty face” → FACE FOR PERSON
  • “The ham sandwich is waiting for his check” → CONSUMED GOODS FOR CUSTOMER (Barcelona, pp. 4–5)

🟣 5. Shared Traits of Metaphor and Metonymy

• Both are:
  • Conventional, unconscious, and systematic in cognition
  • Expressed beyond language – in gesture, behavior, reasoning
    ➤ “They are often not verbalized… and simply motivate our behavior” (Barcelona, p. 5)
    ➤ “Conceptual metaphors and metonymies are… stable elements of our system of categories” (Barcelona, p. 6)

🟠 6. Cultural and Bodily Basis

• Despite cultural variations, universal image schemas like UP–DOWN, CONTAINER, PATH, underlie many metaphors
  ➤ “Input or ‘source’ domains [are] universal physical notions… acquired… from bodily experiences” (Barcelona, p. 6)

🟤 7. Clarifying Metaphor vs. Metonymy

• Metaphor: mapping across consciously separated domains
• Metonymy: mapping within a single superordinate domain
  ➤ “Metaphor is… between domains… consciously classified as separate” (Barcelona, p. 9)

🔷 8. Interaction Between Metaphor and Metonymy

a) 🧩 Metonymy motivates metaphor

• e.g., SADNESS IS DOWN is motivated by body posture (drooping) → EFFECT FOR CAUSE
  ➤ “The metaphor SADNESS IS DOWN… is conceptually motivated by the metonymy” (Barcelona, p. 10)

b) 🔁 Metaphor motivates metonymy

• e.g., Caught the minister’s ear = ATTENTION IS A MOVING ENTITY + EAR FOR ATTENTION
  ➤ “This metonymy only takes place within metaphorical mappings involving attention” (Barcelona, p. 11)

⚪ 9. Blending Theory (Conceptual Integration)

• Blends combine elements from multiple spaces with emergent meaning
  ➤ “Mapped onto a ‘blended space’… whose conceptual structure is not wholly derivable” (Barcelona, p. 8)
  ➤ Unidirectionality remains—main inferences flow from blend → target (Barcelona, p. 8)

🔶 10. Conceptual Problems with Metonymy

• Ongoing debates:
  • Is metonymy a mapping or activation?
  • Does it need to be referential? ➤ “Metonymy… causes the mental activation of the target” (Barcelona, p. 4)
    ➤ “Metonymy need not be referential… John is a Picasso… not referential” (Barcelona, p. 13)

🌈 11. Typology and Conventionalization of Metonymy

• Conventional metonymy requires:
  1. Natural pattern (e.g., PART FOR WHOLE)
  2. Social sanctioning
     ➤ “A metonymy becomes conventional if it… follows natural patterns… and is socially sanctioned” (Barcelona, pp. 14–15)

💠 12. Continuum Perspective

• The boundary between metaphor and metonymy is scalar, not absolute
  ➤ “The distinction… should be regarded as scalar, rather than as absolute” (Barcelona, p. 10)

📘 13. Contributions in the Volume

• Grouped into:
  • Theoretical explorations (e.g., Kövecses, Fauconnier, Radden)
  • Applications in discourse, grammar, polysemy (e.g., Niemeier, Goossens, Freeman)
    ➤ “The contributions… are a fair reflection of the current state of the cognitive theory…” (Barcelona, p. 25)

1. 🔍 Cognitive Literary Theory / Cognitive Poetics

• 💡 Contribution: Positions metaphor and metonymy as core conceptual mechanisms underlying literary language and interpretation.
• 📘 “Literary metaphors and metonymies are normally just creative extensions and elaborations of these conventional mappings.” (Barcelona, p. 6)
• 🌐 Supports the idea that literary texts are processed using the same mental tools as everyday language, grounding cognitive poetics.
• 🧠 Emphasizes systematic, unconscious mappings as foundational for literary meaning.

2. 🧩 Reader-Response Theory

• 💬 Contribution: Highlights how metaphor/metonymy rely on entrenched cognitive models shaped by culture and individual experience.
• 📘 “The domains of experience are not necessarily the same in all cultures” (Barcelona, p. 6)
• 🎨 Readers interpret texts through their own cultural and bodily-based metaphoric networks, echoing reader-response emphasis on subjectivity.

3. 🧠 Embodied Cognition & Phenomenological Literary Theory

• 🦶 Contribution: Asserts that meaning arises from bodily interaction with the world; metaphors emerge from body-based experiences.
• 📘 “One of the major general cognitive abilities is imagination…to project concepts onto other concepts.” (Barcelona, p. 2)
• 🔄 Connects with phenomenological theories (e.g., Merleau-Ponty), which focus on the lived, bodily experience of reading and writing.

4. 🧬 Structuralism and Post-Structuralism (as a contrast)

• 🧨 Contribution: Critiques formalist focus on language structure by stressing meaning as culturally and experientially grounded.
• 📘 “Metaphors consist of fixed multiple simultaneous projections… metaphorical meaning is irreducible to literal meaning.” (Barcelona, p. 7)
• 🛑 Challenges rigid dichotomies like literal vs. figurative, opposing classical structuralist treatments of metaphor (e.g., Saussure).

5. 🧷 Semiotics

• 🔁 Contribution: Extends the semiotic range of signs to include non-verbal and behavioral metaphor/metonymy.
• 📘 “They are often not verbalized, but can be expressed through gestures or other non-verbal communicative devices.” (Barcelona, p. 6)
• 🪞 Encourages analysis of gestures, images, and performativity in literature as semiotic carriers of metaphor/metonymy.

6. 🎨 Stylistics and Literary Discourse Analysis

• 🧰 Contribution: Provides tools for analyzing polysemy, figurative language, and genre-specific expression in literary texts.
• 📘 “Literary metaphors are just creative extensions… of entrenched metaphoric networks” (Barcelona, p. 6)
• 🧱 Encourages layered textual analysis through conceptual blending and metaphor-mapping hierarchies.

7. 🔗 Critical Discourse Theory

• 🧭 Contribution: Metaphors/metonymies shape ideological positions, especially in journalistic, poetic, and political texts.
• 📘 “The book… includes the analysis of literary and journalistic discourse” (Barcelona, p. 2)
• 🔍 Enables a power-conscious reading of metaphorical constructions in texts, aligning with critical literary theory.

8. 🔄 Intertextuality / Conceptual Networks

• 🕸️ Contribution: Demonstrates how metaphors are connected through conceptual hierarchies and networks across texts.
• 📘 “LOVE IS A JOURNEY can be shown to be a specification of LIFE IS A JOURNEY… of the EVENT STRUCTURE metaphor” (Barcelona, p. 6)
• 🧠 Supports intertextual analysis through cognitive inheritance—metaphors in one text link to broader cultural metaphors.

9. 📜 Genre Theory

• 🧾 Contribution: Cognitive theory explains how genre conventions rely on stable metaphorical and metonymic expectations.
• 📘 “Blending… accounts not only for metaphor and metonymy, but also irony, counterfactuals, and grammar” (Barcelona, p. 8)
• 💡 Reveals how genres like satire or tragedy function through systematic metaphorical framing.

🎁 Summary: Antonio Barcelona’s article…

…transforms metaphor/metonymy from decorative literary tropes into core mental operations. It bridges cognitive science and literary theory, giving scholars tools to decode deep structure, stylistic nuance, and cultural meaning in literary texts.

🔵 Over-Reliance on Metonymic Motivation

Barcelona proposes that every metaphor may be motivated by metonymy, a “radical hypothesis” (Barcelona, p. 17).
🟦 Critique: This overgeneralization could undermine metaphor’s distinct conceptual role, conflating two different cognitive operations.

🟣 Unstable Notion of ‘Cognitive Domains’

Cognitive domains are described as encyclopedic and variable across individuals (Barcelona, p. 9).
🟪 Critique: If domains lack clear boundaries, distinguishing between metaphor and metonymy becomes fuzzy and subjective, weakening analytical clarity.

🔴 Neglect of Linguistic Surface Realization

CTMM emphasizes conceptual projection over linguistic form (Barcelona, p. 6).
🟥 Critique: Critics argue this underplays syntax, pragmatics, and stylistic nuances, which are vital in literary and poetic texts.

🟢 Minimal Engagement with Competing Theories

Though Barcelona mentions Searle, Davidson, and Black (p. 6), CTMM largely avoids detailed debate with these views.
🟩 Critique: The lack of systematic theoretical contrast reduces the robustness of CTMM’s claims, especially concerning metaphor’s irreducibility to literal meaning.

🟡 Overextension of Blending Theory

The integration of Fauconnier and Turner’s blending is hailed as a refinement (Barcelona, p. 8).
🟨 Critique: Some scholars argue blending complicates rather than clarifies metaphor-metonymy relations by adding layers of abstraction not always empirically testable.

🟠 Cultural Generalizations

CTMM asserts image schemas like CONTAINER or VERTICALITY are universal (Barcelona, p. 7).
🟧 Critique: This may neglect culture-specific conceptualizations, especially in non-Western or oral traditions where metaphor systems may differ.

⚫ Limited Empirical Testing

While richly illustrated, the theory relies heavily on introspective linguistic examples (e.g., p. 3–5).
⚫ Critique: Critics from experimental linguistics and cognitive science demand more quantitative and neurocognitive evidence to support CTMM’s claims.

🔍 Discourse-Theoretical Approach to Metaphor

• 🧩 Metaphor must be understood within the broader framework of discourse, which encompasses language (text), cognition (comprehension), and communication (social interaction).

“Discourse can be treated as a congeries of three kinds of structures… language, cognition, and communication” (p. 115).
✳️

🎭 Three Functions of Metaphor

• 💬 Expressive function (linguistic): Metaphor serves as a formal device to concisely express what would otherwise be lengthy or indirect.

“‘Julia is the sun’ is formally much more pointed than the lengthy alternatives” (p. 119).
✍️

• 🧠 Transactional function (cognitive): Metaphor helps us relate and understand conceptual domains that are typically unrelated.

“Lovers are not often seen in terms of heavenly bodies, excusez le mot, but Shakespeare manages…” (p. 119).
🧠

• 🤝 Interactional function (communicative): Metaphors influence the flow and interpretation of communication, shaped by genre and social context.

“This force may be vivid or flat, surprising or banal… esthetically pleasing or displeasing” (p. 119).
📡

📖 Literary vs. Non-Literary Reading

• 🧾 Understanding metaphors is shaped by the type of discourse—literary or non-literary—and the attitude of reading the reader adopts.

“Understanding metaphor in a literary way may be highly influenced by the adoption of a literary attitude of reading” (p. 114).
🎭

• 🧠 A literary attitude activates Esthetic (E) and Polyvalence (P) conventions, focusing on multiple meanings and aesthetic value rather than factual clarity.

“The Esthetic convention… implies the suspension of criteria such as true/false… The Polyvalence convention induces subjectively satisfactory comprehension processes…” (p. 123).
🌀

🔁 Role of Analogical Processing

• 🔗 Analogy is central to metaphor comprehension in literature, where it is not just a problem-solving tool but a method of layered interpretation.

“The principle of analogy… is explosively exploited rather than restricted [in literature]” (p. 125).
🧪

• 🧙 Allegory is seen as extended metaphorical analogy, but not all literary metaphors are allegorical.

“Allegory… has two separate meanings rather than one… metaphor also may have more clearly or vaguely distinct meanings than one” (p. 130).
🔍

🧩 Polyvalence of Literary Metaphor

• 🎨 Literary metaphors tend to be polyvalent—open to multiple interpretations—due to vehicle elaboration and contextual layering.

“Polyvalence in literary metaphor may be due to… a series of vehicle interpretations” (p. 128).
🧷

• 🧠 This results in a richer, multidimensional understanding as readers extract overlapping or even conflicting meanings.

“Metaphors may be refunctionalized as literary signs… producing symbolism and other effects” (p. 130).
🔮

🧭 Identification, Comprehension, and Appreciation

• 📌 Steen proposes a three-part model of how metaphors are processed:
  1. Identification – Recognizing the presence of a metaphor
  2. Comprehension – Constructing meaning
  3. Appreciation – Valuing or evaluating the metaphor

“Identification of metaphor may be… metatextual elaboration… comprehension may lead to… alternative frames… appreciation may be part of polyvalent elaborations” (p. 134).
🔍🧠💖

🔄 Explicit vs. Implicit Processing

• 👀 Steen distinguishes between explicit and implicit versions of all three processes, arguing that literary reading fosters explicit awareness of metaphor.

“Explicit identification… a meta-statement concerning the perceived metaphorical nature…” (p. 136).
⚖️

• 📢 For example, explicit vehicle interpretation (recognizing and analyzing the metaphor’s source domain) is more likely in literary contexts.

“Experienced readers… emphasize vehicle interpretation… inexperienced readers tend to overlook this aspect” (p. 137).
🧭

🧪 Empirical and Cognitive Approach

• 🧬 Steen emphasizes the need for empirical testing of his hypotheses via cognitive psychology (e.g., think-aloud protocols) and interdisciplinary work.

“Such obstacles need not prevent us… from both formulating tentative programs of research…” (p. 139).
📊

• 🧑‍🔬 He encourages bridging gaps between psychological models of language comprehension and literary theory, advocating for discourse-based analysis.

“Many metaphors in literary texts need not be understood in a literary way… hence a general discourse theory is required…” (p. 139).
🧠🔗📚

🔍 Over-Theorization Without Empirical Evidence
While Steen emphasizes empirical methodology, the paper remains largely theoretical. Critics may argue that Steen falls short of offering actual data to validate his discourse-functional claims (Steen, 1989).

🧩 Ambiguity in Discourse Typology
The tripartite model of expressive, transactional, and interactional discourse functions may be seen as overlapping or too loosely defined, especially when applied across diverse literary genres.

⚖️ Lack of Engagement with Post-Structuralism
Steen’s cognitive approach is rooted in formalist and psychological models, which can appear reductive or incompatible with post-structuralist or deconstructive theories that resist fixed interpretation or “functions” of language.

🎭 Neglect of Cultural and Historical Context
Critics might argue that the model downplays the role of socio-historical context in shaping metaphorical meaning, focusing instead on cognitive processing as if it were universal and ahistorical.

🧠 Cognitive Bias and Reader Homogenization
The psychological framing assumes a somewhat uniform cognitive process across readers, which may ignore diverse interpretive communities or the variability of reader responses rooted in identity and context.

📚 Insufficient Focus on Non-Metaphorical Literary Devices
By centering metaphor, the paper potentially marginalizes other poetic and rhetorical strategies equally central to literary comprehension, such as irony, metonymy, or ambiguity.

🌀 Conflation of Literary Attitude and Literary Value
Steen’s reliance on the E and P conventions implies that readers can “switch on” a literary mode of reading. Critics may question whether such a clean switch exists, or whether this oversimplifies how texts are actually read and valued.

·  🔸 Metaphor as a Natural and Noble Act of Naming:
Drawing from Quintilian, Donoghue opens by stating that metaphor is a natural human gift:

“It is both a gift which Nature herself confers on us… [ensuring] that nothing goes without a name” (p.182) ✴
This framing treats metaphor not as a mere rhetorical flourish, but a fundamental linguistic and existential impulse.

·  🔸 Metaphor and the Liberty of the Mind:
Metaphor emerges from the freedom of the imagination, striving to give things their “proper names,” though often failing.

“The source of metaphor is the liberty of the mind among such words as there are” (p.184) ✴

·  🔸 Metaphor as Both Resource and Failure:
Metaphor reflects the inadequacies of language, and thus, its use becomes a noble but doomed attempt to make sense of a deficient world.

“Rhetoric… is a glorious failure, and the cry of metaphor is doomed” (p.184) ✴
“We cry out to change the world by giving things their proper names—but often we fail” (p.184) ✴

·  🔸 Allegory and Catachresis: Extensions of Metaphor:
Metaphor gives rise to allegory and to its extremes, catachresis—abused or “forced” metaphors that reveal linguistic limits.

“Allegory is its narrative form… Catachresis is the figure of its abuse” (p.185) ✴
“Something monstrous lurks in the most innocent of catachreses” – Paul de Man (p.185) ✴

·  🔸 Metaphor as Escape from Literal Reality:
According to Wallace Stevens (via Frye), the motive for metaphor is to escape the oppressive weight of objective reality, “the weight of primary noon.”

“The motive for metaphor, shrinking from / The weight of primary noon” – Stevens (p.186) ✴
“To defeat or evade the force of the world, it must resort to the imaginative capacity of the mind” (p.188) ✴

·  🔸 Interpretive Differences: Frye vs. Ransom:
Frye sees the metaphor as a bridge between mind and world; Ransom views it as a poetic solution to inexpressible moral feelings.

Frye: “The only genuine joy… is in those rare moments when you feel that… we are also a part of what we know” (p.187) ✴
Ransom: The metaphor avoids “the dreary searching of your own mind” (p.187) ✴

·  🔸 Stevens’s Hegelian Idealism and Artistic Desire:
Stevens’s poetic vision resonates with Hegel’s aesthetics, where art “lifts the inner and outer world into his spiritual consciousness.”

“The universal need for art… is man’s rational need to lift the inner and outer world into his spiritual consciousness” – Hegel (p.189) ✴

·  🔸 Art and Metaphor as Acts of Decreation:
Donoghue invokes Simone Weil and Picasso to show how metaphor contributes to a modern aesthetic of undoing the real, transforming or annihilating it.

“Modern reality is a reality of decreation” (p.191) ✴
“A poem is a horde of destructions” – Stevens (p.191) ✴

·  🔸 The Danger of Bad Metaphors:
Metaphors have the power to undermine themselves—a bad metaphor, Donoghue notes, can “murder” a good one.

“He must defy / The metaphor that murders metaphor” (p.191) ✴

·  🔸 Repetition, Association, and Stevens’s Reluctance to End:
Stevens’s poetry exhibits an additive and associative structure—where metaphors are strung together without clear hierarchy.

“One phrase is instructed to produce another by association” (p.192) ✴
“His sentences tend not to be decisive… he always sees a further possibility” (p.193) ✴

·  🔸 Shrinking from Fixity and Embracing Change:
Stevens shrinks from fixed truths, favoring the fluid, unstable states metaphor enables.

“A poet writes of twilight because he shrinks from noon-day” – Stevens (p.196) ✴

·  🔸 Resemblance as a Core Principle of Metaphor:
Stevens’s metaphors rely heavily on resemblance, which Donoghue critiques as too general to be philosophically sound.

“In some sense, all things resemble each other” – Stevens (p.198) ✴
“Similarity… is relative, variable and culture-dependent” – Nelson Goodman (p.199) ✴

·  🔸 Metaphor Intensifies Reality:
When it works, metaphor heightens our sense of reality, transforming the mundane into the sublime.

“It enhances the sense of reality, heightens it, intensifies it” (p.200) ✴
Example from Ecclesiastes: “The silver cord… the golden bowl… the wheel broken at the cistern” (p.200) ✴

·  🔸 Metaphor vs. Simile:
A metaphor demands total imaginative immersion, unlike simile which allows safe distance.

“A metaphor incurs resistance… and is indifferent to shame” (p.201) ✴

·  🔸 “X” as Final Resistance and Symbol of Limit:
Stevens’s “dominant X” represents the intractable world, the final, unchangeable reality metaphor fails to penetrate.

“Nothing in the poem defeats the final ‘X'” (p.206) ✴

·  🔸 No Final Word on Metaphor:
Donoghue concludes that Stevens’s relation to metaphor is inherently unstable. Each poetic mood shifts the meaning and function of metaphor.

“We can’t expect from Stevens a definitive statement about metaphor” (p.207) ✴
“In such seemings all things are. Metaphor… will do its transforming work another day” (p.207) ✴

• 🧠 Metaphor as Cognitive and Ontological Tool
  Donoghue elevates metaphor beyond ornamentation, presenting it as essential to how humans name, understand, and exist within the world.

“It ensures that nothing goes without a name” – Quintilian (p.182)

• 🌀 Poetic Language as Idealist Expression
  Stevens’s metaphoric thought aligns with Hegelian idealism, portraying metaphor as a spiritual act uniting inner consciousness and external reality.

“He woke in a metaphor: this was / A metamorphosis of paradise” (p.189)

• 🎨 Metaphor as Aesthetic Resistance
  Metaphor becomes a form of imaginative protest against oppressive, fixed realities—”the weight of primary noon.”

“The motive for metaphor, shrinking from / The weight of primary noon” (p.186)

• 🔧 Engagement with Classical Rhetorical Tradition
  Through references to Aristotle, Fontanier, and Quintilian, Donoghue reinterprets rhetorical devices like allegory, catachresis, and simile.

“Allegory is its narrative form… Catachresis is the figure of its abuse” (p.185)

• 🧩 The ‘X’ as Limit of Language and Metaphor
  The “dominant X” in Stevens’s poem marks the threshold where metaphor fails—where language can no longer transform reality.

“Nothing in the poem defeats the final ‘X'” (p.206)

• 🗣️ Rhetoric as Anthropological Necessity
  Donoghue, citing Blumenberg, reframes rhetoric not as persuasion but as an existential necessity driven by human lack and insufficiency.

“The axiom of all rhetoric is the principle of insufficient reason” (p.184)

• 📖 Validation of Radical and ‘Abused’ Metaphors
  Defending even bizarre metaphors like “bisqued mountain,” Donoghue legitimizes catachresis as a productive, imaginative force.

“To speak of ‘forced metaphor’ is not to degrade its manifestations” (p.185)

• 🔍 Critique of Resemblance as Metaphoric Ground
  Donoghue challenges Stevens’s assumption that resemblance is natural, invoking Nelson Goodman’s view that similarity is culturally constructed.

“Similarity… is relative, variable and culture-dependent” (p.199)

• 🧬 Metaphor as Creative Ontology
  Metaphor does not just reflect reality—it makes it. It is a poietic act that creates new ways of seeing and being.

“Metaphor creates a new reality from which the original appears to be unreal” (p.188)

• 📜 Interplay of Modernist Certainty and Postmodern Ambiguity
  Donoghue highlights Stevens’s shifting moods and refusal to settle on a singular metaphoric theory—an openness aligning with postmodern literary theory.

“We can’t expect from Stevens a definitive statement about metaphor” (p.207)

• 🧩 Overreliance on Stevens’s Poetic Authority
  Donoghue hinges much of his theory on Wallace Stevens, potentially narrowing metaphor’s scope across diverse literary traditions.
  ➤ Critics might argue that using one poet’s temperament to frame a general theory of metaphor limits its broader applicability.

• 🔄 Philosophical Inconsistency
  The essay oscillates between idealism and skepticism, invoking both Hegelian unity and postmodern ambiguity without fully reconciling the two.
  ➤ “We can’t expect from Stevens a definitive statement about metaphor” (p.207) may reflect this unresolved tension.

• 🎨 Romanticization of Metaphor
  Donoghue tends to elevate metaphor to near-mystical status, emphasizing its aesthetic and existential powers while underplaying its structural or political dimensions.
  ➤ This limits metaphor’s role in critical discourse, including feminist, postcolonial, or ideological critiques.

• 📏 Neglect of Formal and Linguistic Precision
  Critics may find Donoghue’s acceptance of vague terms like “resemblance” too generous, despite his citation of Nelson Goodman’s challenge to that notion.
  ➤ He critiques Stevens but doesn’t fully abandon slippery conceptual terrain, potentially undermining analytical rigor.

• 🧠 Underuse of Contemporary Linguistic Theory
  While Donoghue engages with classical and continental thought, he gives minimal attention to modern cognitive or conceptual metaphor theory (e.g., Lakoff & Johnson).
  ➤ This makes the work more philosophically poetic than practically linguistic or interdisciplinary.

• 🌐 Limited Cultural Range
  The examples and allusions are primarily Western, white, male, and canonical, raising concerns about inclusivity and broader relevance in global poetics.
  ➤ There’s little engagement with metaphor in non-Western traditions or contemporary marginalized voices.

🔍 Mental Metaphors Are Core to Abstract Thinking

“People think about abstract domains like time and goodness metaphorically. This tendency may be universal.” (Casasanto, p. 46)
🧠 Casasanto distinguishes mental metaphors (non-linguistic mappings) from linguistic metaphors, showing that humans often think metaphorically even without language (Casasanto & Bottini, 2014a) 🌐.

📚 Challenges to Universality and Fixity

“Yet the claims that basic mental metaphors are learned, universal, and fixed are all challenged by experimental data” (p. 47)
🧪 Studies show variability across languages, cultures, and individuals. For instance, newborns already show sensitivity to spatial-numerical mappings, suggesting innateness rather than learning (De Hevia et al., 2014) 👶.

🧭 Hierarchical Mental Metaphors Theory (HMMT)

“Even our most basic mental metaphors are constructed over multiple timescales, on the basis of multiple kinds of experience.” (p. 48)
🌱 HMMT proposes that metaphors exist in superordinate families—universal but flexible—shaped by ongoing cultural, linguistic, and bodily experiences. Different mappings from the same family can become dominant over time 🏗️.

🎵 Pitch as an Example of Language-Specific Variation

“Speakers of height languages…incorporate height information into pitch, whereas thickness-language speakers do the same with thickness.” (p. 51)
🎼 Dutch and Farsi speakers conceptualize pitch differently based on the metaphors common in their native language, and brief training in an unfamiliar metaphor can retrain mental mappings (Dolscheid et al., 2013) 🎧.

👶 Infants Show Both Height–Pitch and Thickness–Pitch Mappings

“Four-month-olds…are sensitive to two of the space–pitch metaphors that are found in languages like Dutch and Farsi.” (p. 53)
👶 Infants possess multiple potential mappings early in life. Language strengthens one metaphor over another, not by creating new ones, but by enhancing the activation frequency of existing ones 🔄.

🕓 Temporal Sequences Are Culturally Structured

“The direction in which events flow…varies systematically across cultures.” (p. 55)
📆 While sagittal time metaphors (past behind, future ahead) may be embodied, lateral metaphors (left–right) depend on orthographic experience. Mirror-reading even reverses mental timelines (Casasanto & Bottini, 2014b) 🔄🕰️.

👐 Emotional Valence Tied to Body Dominance

“Right-handers associate positive ideas with right space…left-handers show the opposite.” (p. 57)
💖 The spatial mapping of good vs. bad follows motor fluency. Right-handed people associate “good” with the right, while left-handed people do the opposite. This holds even against cultural conventions (Casasanto, 2009a) ↔️.

🧤 Motor Experience Can Reverse Valence Mappings

“Participants who had worn the right glove showed the opposite left-is-good bias.” (p. 58)
🧠 Temporary shifts in motor fluency, like wearing a glove on the dominant hand, can alter emotional metaphors in less than 15 minutes—proving their plasticity and dependence on physical experience 🕹️.

🔁 Mental Metaphors Are Flexible Yet Stable

“Dispreferred mappings are weakened but not lost and can be adopted quickly with new experience.” (p. 60)
🧬 Even “unused” metaphors persist in memory, enabling people to switch mappings when context shifts (e.g., new languages, scripts, tools). This dual stability and flexibility is a core insight of HMMT 🌍🧠.

🌐 Cognitive Diversity and Conceptual Plasticity

“By understanding how mental metaphors are shaped…we can better understand the origins of our thoughts.” (p. 60)
🌟 Casasanto concludes that mental metaphors are fundamental cognitive tools shaped by diverse experiences. Recognizing their variability enhances our understanding of thought, culture, and language as dynamic systems 🔄🌏.

📘 1. Expands Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT)

🧩 “People think about abstract domains like time and goodness metaphorically. This tendency may be universal.” (p. 46)

• 🌐 Casasanto builds on Lakoff & Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory, which underpins much cognitive literary theory.
• He advances the theory by showing that metaphorical thinking is not static, but dynamically shaped by cultural, bodily, and linguistic experience.
• Contribution: Helps literary theorists analyze how metaphor use in texts reflects both universal and idiosyncratic cognitive patterns across cultures and individuals.

🧠 2. Introduces HMMT: A Dynamic Model of Meaning-Making

🪜 “Mental metaphors are constructed over multiple timescales… members of a superordinate family of mappings.” (p. 48)

• 🔄 The Hierarchical Mental Metaphors Theory (HMMT) introduces plasticity into metaphor use, challenging rigid linguistic determinism.
• Literary theorists can apply this to interpret reader-response variation and narrative structures influenced by readers’ embodied or cultural metaphor biases.
• Contribution: Supports reader-centered theories like Reception Theory by explaining why readers interpret metaphors differently.

✍️ 3. Reframes Embodied Literary Cognition

💡 “Mental metaphors can be fundamental to our understanding of abstract domains, yet at the same time remarkably flexible.” (p. 46)

• Casasanto’s findings back embodied cognition theories in literature (e.g., Scarry, Gibbs).
• They suggest that reading metaphors activates sensorimotor systems, explaining why metaphors feel viscerally meaningful in literary texts.
• Contribution: Strengthens Embodied Poetics and Neuroaesthetics, by grounding metaphor in bodily and cultural experience.

🌏 4. Offers Tools for Cross-Cultural Literary Analysis

🧭 “Mental metaphors can be language-specific, culture-specific, or body-specific…” (p. 48)

• Casasanto’s research on how language shapes metaphors (e.g., pitch as “high” vs. “thick”) aids Comparative Literature by providing a framework to study how metaphors operate differently in Farsi, Dutch, English, etc.
• Contribution: Supports Postcolonial Literary Theory and Transcultural Criticism by explaining metaphorical variability across linguistic boundaries.

📚 5. Revitalizes Structuralist & Post-Structuralist Concerns

🧬 “How can they be fundamental…if they can change in a matter of minutes?” (p. 48)

• HMMT challenges the idea of metaphors as fixed semiotic structures, offering a fluid, memory-network-based view.
• This bridges Structuralist attention to patterns with Post-Structuralist focus on instability and play of meaning.
• Contribution: Provides a cognitive underpinning for Derridean différance—mappings are in flux, not fully stable.

🗣️ 6. Provides Insight into Literary Language Evolution

💬 “Each time people use a linguistic metaphor, the corresponding mental metaphor is activated…” (p. 48)

• This explains how metaphorical language in literature evolves and reshapes cognition itself over time.
• Contribution: Offers Historical Poetics and Stylistics a model to track how metaphorical patterns in texts shape cultural cognition.

🧤 7. Validates Body-Specific Interpretive Frameworks

✋ “Right-handers associate ‘good’ with the right…left-handers show the opposite.” (p. 57)

• Literary scholars exploring disability studies, gendered embodiment, or queer theory gain from this perspective that bodily difference affects meaning construction.
• Contribution: Adds nuance to embodied literary approaches by introducing body-specific metaphor biases.

❗ 1. Ambiguity Between “Universal” and “Flexible”

Critics argue that the theory struggles to reconcile its claim of universal metaphor families with the radical variability observed across individuals and cultures.

• 🌍 If metaphors are universal (as claimed), why are they so easily reversible in minutes (e.g., with mirrored orthography)?
• ❓ The line between innate mappings and learned cultural variants is sometimes blurred in HMMT, leading to theoretical ambiguity.

🧪 2. Overreliance on Laboratory Evidence

Many of the cited experiments use artificial settings and brief interventions that may not reflect natural cognitive behavior in real-world contexts.

• 🧫 For example, spatial interference tasks with tones and shapes may oversimplify how people process metaphor in language, art, or literature.
• Critics suggest HMMT may not fully explain deep metaphorical reasoning in complex, real-life scenarios like literature or politics.

🧠 3. Neglects Social and Power Structures

While HMMT accounts for body, language, and culture, it underplays the role of ideology, power, and discourse in shaping metaphors.

• ⚖️ Critics from poststructuralist and postcolonial perspectives argue that metaphors are not just cognitive, but also political and rhetorical tools.
• HMMT lacks engagement with theories from Foucault, Butler, or Bourdieu regarding language, identity, and control.

📏 4. Limited Scope of Metaphor Domains

The theory focuses mostly on space-based metaphors (e.g., time, pitch, valence), ignoring rich metaphorical domains like morality, love, or nationhood.

• 💘 Metaphors like “love is war” or “the nation is a body” involve emotionally and socially charged concepts that go beyond space–domain mappings.
• HMMT’s hierarchy model might not apply cleanly to multi-domain metaphors or culturally embedded conceptual blends.

🔁 5. Circularity in Evidence and Explanation

Some scholars argue that HMMT explains metaphor flexibility by invoking metaphor flexibility, creating a tautology.

• 🔄 If all metaphor changes can be explained by metaphor competition, the theory may be unfalsifiable without more predictive power.
• The model risks retrospective explanation rather than offering testable forecasts of metaphor use across populations.

🔤 6. Language Bias in “Universal” Claims

Critics point out that most empirical studies cited (Dutch, English, Farsi) reflect Indo-European language systems, leaving global linguistic diversity underexplored.

• 🌐 No substantial data from tonal languages (e.g., Chinese), sign languages, or indigenous oral traditions.
• Claims of universality may be premature or Western-centric.

🔵 1.
Quotation:

“People think about abstract domains like time and goodness metaphorically. This tendency may be universal.”
Explanation:
This sets the foundation of the chapter, asserting that metaphor is not merely a linguistic device, but a cognitive universal shaping how humans understand complex, abstract domains through more tangible ones like space.

🟢 2.
Quotation:

“Mental metaphors are mappings between non-linguistic representations in a source domain and a target domain that is typically more abstract.”
Explanation:
Here, Casasanto distinguishes mental metaphors from linguistic metaphors, stressing that such mappings occur without language, in our internal thought processes.

🟣 3.
Quotation:

“The specific mappings that get used most frequently or automatically can vary across individuals and groups.”
Explanation:
This illustrates how individual experience, culture, and language can shape which mental metaphors dominate, despite their shared foundational structure.

🔴 4.
Quotation:

“Even our most basic mental metaphors are constructed over multiple timescales, on the basis of multiple kinds of experience.”
Explanation:
Casasanto argues against static universality, proposing that metaphor development is hierarchical and dynamic, adapting over time through layered experiential inputs.

🟡 5.
Quotation:

“Activating a mapping strengthens this source–target association and… weakens the competing source–target mappings in the same family.”
Explanation:
This reveals how competitive associative learning guides which metaphors become dominant, explaining both their entrenchment and malleability.

🟤 6.
Quotation:

“It may be a human universal to conceptualize these domains in terms of space… but the particulars… vary across groups.”
Explanation:
A critical point for cognitive diversity: while spatial metaphors may be universal scaffolds, their expression is culturally and bodily specific.

🔶 7.
Quotation:

“Speakers of thickness languages like Farsi come to rely on multidimensional spatial schemas more strongly than vertical spatial schemas.”
Explanation:
An empirical insight showing how language experience determines spatial representation in mental metaphors—an example of linguistic relativity at work.

🔷 8.
Quotation:

“Participants did not abandon a spatial mapping of time; rather they rapidly adopted a different mental timeline.”
Explanation:
Illustrates the flexibility of metaphorical thinking. Even entrenched metaphors can be reversed or replaced with new experience, often within minutes.

⚫ 9.
Quotation:

“The fluent region of space is good.”
Explanation:
From the theory of bodily relativity, this quote links motor fluency to valence, showing that bodily asymmetries shape ethical and emotional judgments.

⚪ 10.
Quotation:

“By seeking to understand common mechanisms… we can better understand the origins of our thoughts, the extent of cognitive diversity, and the dynamism of our mental lives.”
Explanation:
This concluding statement encapsulates the purpose of HMMT: to account for shared cognitive architecture while explaining its adaptive diversity.