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Metaphor and Idioms PDF
Metaphor and Idioms PDF
1 INTRODUCTION
In recent years, several linguists, philosophers, psychologists, psycholinguists,
and anthropologists have begun to challenge many dogmas about some
fundamentally important aspects ot the study of language The "standard* views
of the nature of meaning, of metaphor, of categorization, of syntax, of the
relationship between form and meaning, and of that between linguistic meaning
and encyclopedic knowledge, and others, have been challenged by such figures
as George Lakoff, Ronald Langacker, and Mark Johnson (see especially Lakoff
and Johnson 1980. Johnson 1987, Lakoff 1987, Langacker 1987,1991, Lakoff
and Turner 1989) This new approach to the study of language has come to be
known as 'cognitive linguistics' The new ideas have proved to be useful in, and
have changed our perceptions of, the study of a wide variety of linguistic
phenomena (for a good introduction and review, see Taylor 1989), including
the study of idioms (see especially, Gibbs (1990, 1994) and. an early work in
somewhat similar spirit, Makkai (1972))
Idioms constitute one of the most difficult areas of foreign language learning
for both teachers and learnersfor both practical and theoretical reasons (see.
for example Gairns and Redman 1986, Lattey 1986. Alexander 1987, Carter
and McCarthy 1988, Danesi 1993) This situation alone makes it sufficiently
worthwhile for us to see what cognitive linguistics, and especially its subfield
cognitive semantics, can contribute to the teaching and learning of idioms in a
Applied Linguistics, Vol 17, No 3 Oxford University Press 1996
ZOLTAN KOVECSES AND PETER SZABO 327
of idioms, see, for example the Longman Dictionary of English Idioms, 1979.
and the Oxford Dictionary ojCurrent Idiomatic English .Vol 1 1975(2ndedn
1993), Vol 2 1983, and Alexander (1987) and Lattey (1986)) Most views of
idioms agree that idioms consist of two or more words and that the overall
meaning of these words is unpredictable from the meanings of the constituent
words (For the standard views, see for example Gairns and Redman (1986),
Carter and McCarthy (1988), McArthur (1992), and the idiom dictionaries
cited above)
In the traditional view, idioms are regarded as a special set of the larger
For example
die
(As in the diagram, meanings will be given in single quotation marks throughout
the remainder of the study)
Idioms are also taken to be independent of each other This follows from the
previous view that idioms are simply a matter of language If they were just a
matter of language, then we would need to characterize only their syntactic
properties and meanings one by one Words are characterized in the lexicon one
by one according to their syntactic properties and meaning, and the same is
assumed to apply to idioms Certain relationships between words are
ZOLTAN KOVECSES AND PETER SZABO 329
recognized but these are only certain sense relations, such as homonymy,
synonymy, polysemy, and antonymy Idioms may be seen as standing in the
same relationships It should be noticed, however, that these are relations of
linguistic meanings, not relations in a conceptual system In the traditional view,
linguistic meaning is divorced from the human conceptual system and
encyclopedic knowledge that speakers of a language share (see for example,
Haimanl980)
We would like to suggest that one major stumbling block in understanding the
nature of idioms and making use of this understanding in the teaching of foreign
spitfire) As the examples suggest, in addition to the word fire, several other
words are used from the domain of fire, such as burn, candle, snuff,fiame,etc
These and many other examples suggest that it is the conceptual domain (the
concept) of fireand not the individual words themselvesthat participates in
the process of creating idiomatic expressions The individual words merely
reveal this deeper process of conceptualization
Given this analysis an important generalization can be made many, or
perhaps most, idioms are products of our conceptual system, and not simply a
matter of language (1 e a matter of the lexicon) An idiom is not just an
Idiomatic meaning
the overall special meaning of an idiom
Cognitive mechanisms
metaphor metonvmv conventional knowledge(= domam{s)of knowledge)
Conceptual domain(s)
one or more domain;, of knowledge
Linguistic forms and their meanings
the words that comprise an idiom their syntactic properties together with their meanings
3 METAPHOR-BASED IDIOMS
Conceptual metaphors bring into correspondence two domains of knowledge
One is typically a well-delineated, familiar physical domain and the other a less
well-delineated, less familiar, abstract domain The first is called a source
domain, the second a target domain (For a fuller description of this view, see
especially Lakoff and Johnson 1980 and Lakoff 1993 ) The source domain is
typically applied to provide understanding about the target In the examples
above, the domain of fire is used to understand a varied set of abstract concepts
many of which are concepts denoting an emotion Emotion concepts and
concepts denoting personal relationships are particularly susceptible to
metaphorical understanding (see, for example, Kovecses 1986, 1988, 1990,
1991 a.b.and 1995c) Radden (1995) provides an excellent account of idioms
that have to do with coming and going using the conceptual machinery of
cognitive semantics ,
But how do conceptual metaphors provide semantic motivation for the
occurrence of particular words in idioms7 To see this, let us again take some of
the examples we have seen above
In the expression spitfire, the domain of fire is used to understand the domain
of anger That is, anger is comprehended via the concept of fire Following the
convention** of cognitive semantics, we can call this the ANGER IS FIRE conceptual
metaphor (where the capital letters indicate concepts rather than words) In the
case of the sentence ' The fire between them finally went out'\ the conceptual
metaphor underlying the idiom is LOVE IS FIRE, in "The painting set fire to the
332 IDIOMS AND COGNITIVE SEMANTICS
Thus, what we are claiming is that it is these conceptual metaphors that function
like the connecting element between an abstract domain (such as anger, love,
etc) and a more physical domain (which is fire in the examples) (However, it
should be clearly understood that there are many additional conceptual meta-
phors that use fire as a source domain Those mentioned above represent only a
sample of all the "fire-metaphors")
These conceptual metaphors can be seen as conceptually motivating the use
of words such as spark off, fire, go out, burn the candle, fan the flames, etc in the
idioms in which they occur Given these conceptual metaphors, we can see why
the idioms have the general meaning that they do, that is, why they have to do
with anger, love, imagination, etc, respectively The reason is that these
conceptual metaphors exist and they serve as links between two otherwise
independently existing conceptual domains Because of the connections they
make in our conceptual system, the conceptual metaphors allow us to use terms
from one domain (e g fire) to talk about another (e g anger and love) The
idioms that employ these terms (such as those of fire) will be about certain target
domains (such as anger) as a result of the existence of conceptual metaphors
(such as ANGER is FIRE) NOW we are in a position to provide a specific illustra-
tion of Figure 1 in the previous section To do this, we take the idiomatic
expression to spit fire as an example
Special idiomatic meaning 'be very angry'
Cognitive mechanisms metaphor ANGER IS FIRE
Conceptual domain(s) FIRE and ANGER
Linguistic forms spit fire
Meanings of forms 'spit', "fire'
Obviously, the meaning of spitfire is more complex than just 'be very angry' We
will come back to some of the complexities concerning its meaning later in the
section The point we are making here ts that our ability to see many idioms as
ZOLTAN KOVECSES AND PETER SZABO 333
being conceptually motivated (1 e as having the general meaning they do) arises
from the existence of conceptual metaphors Another way of putting this is to
say that the general meaning of many idioms (1 e what concepts they are about)
remains completely unmotivated unless we take into account the interplay
between meaning and our conceptual system as comprised by conceptual
metaphors to a large extent In other words, we claim that the meaning of many
(though not all) idioms depends on. and is inseparable from, the (metaphorical)
conceptual system
At this stage, two additional points need to be made to complete our
ENTHUSIASM IS FIRE
If it were not the case that people s tacit knowledge about idioms is structured
by different conceptual metaphors, there would be very little consistency in
people's understanding ot idioms with similar non-literal meanings Anger
idioms like blow your stack flip vourlid, hit the ceiling (which all have the non-*
literal meaning "to get angry) are understood by people in terms of the same
general image and specific knowledge (like cause, action, consequence etc)
because conceptual metaphors like the MIND IS A CONTAINER and ANGER IS THE
HEAT OF A FLUID IN A CONTAINER exist in the conceptual system of speakers of
English
So far, we have talked only about the general meaning of idioms Now we
should say something about the more precise meaning of particular idiomatic
expressions This has to do with the structure of the source domain and the
corresponding structure of the target domain We suggest that a conceptual
metaphor is a set of mappings or correspondences between two domainsthe
source and the target (Lakoff and Kovecses 1987, Lakoff 1993) Many of the
fire-metaphors we have seen above, such as ANGER IS FIRE, LOVE IS FIRE etc , are
constituted by the following conceptual mappings, or correspondences
the thing burning is the person in a state/process
the fire is the state (like anger, love, imagination)
the cause of the fire is the cause of the state
the beginning of the fire is the beginning of the state
the existence of the fire is the existence of the state
the end of the fire is the end of the state
the intensity of the fire is the intensity of the state
336 IDIOMS AND COGNITIVE SEMANTICS
This set of mappings goes a very long way in explaining the more precise
meaning of a large number of idioms based on the domain of fire It will explain
why, for example "setting fire to one s imagination" means causing one s
imagination to function", why "extinguishing the Ian sparks of the uprising"
means "ending the uprising", why spitting fire and smoke coming out of your ears
mean 'more intense anger* than merely "burning with anger", and why to carry a
torch for someone has as a large part of its meaning for love to exist for some-
one", or more simply, to love someone' (However, this last example also
reminds us that the mappings do not explain the complete meaning of an idiom
burned up share the meaning be very angry, which is based on the ANGER IS FIRE
metaphor and its ontological correspondences These idioms, however, impose
very different inferences on speakers, in the case of smoke coming out of your
ears, the inference (the connotation) is that the anger is essentially under control
but potentially dangerous and in the case of be burned up, it is that the angry
person has completely lost rational control
The conclusion that we can draw from what we have done so far is that in
many cases what determines the general meaning of an idiom (i e what concept
it has to do with) is the target domain of the conceptual metaphor that is
things in the hand already, we cannot easily pick up other things with it and use
the hand for another activity We are busy with things already in the hand and
we have no capacity to do anything else The point here is not that this is the only
explanation one can come up with for the idiom, but that whatever we come up
with is likely to be very different from the one given (or that could be given) tor
handful Although the linguistic forms are very similar, the conventional
knowledge underlying the different meanings is likely to be very different
(perhaps along the lines suggested)
Consider now the expression with an open hand meaning "generously , as in
THE HAND STANDS FOR iHE PERSON metonymy seems to be based on the
metonymy THE HAND STANDS F-OR IHJ- ACTIVII Y The prototypical person is an
Acnvt person, and since we have int HAND STANDS FOR THF ACTIVITY it is
natural that we also have the HAND STANDS FOR rH^ PERSON
Interestingly, the HAND FOR THE PERSON metonymy also has at least one
specific case It occurs in the idiom ask jor somebody's hand meaning 'ask
somebody to marry one* Here the meaning is not "a person" in general, but a
person one wishes to marry Actually, the meaning of this idiom may be seen as
having double motivation One source of motivation can be THE HAND I-OR THP
PI- RSON metonymy, and another the knowledge we have of what we do (or used
to do) with the hands in a marriage ceremony It might also be the case that the
two work jointly The act of taking somebody's hand (in a marriage ceremony)
might be a manifestation of the metonymy IHII HAND IOR THL PERSON
Not only the activity but also the skill required to perform it appears in several
metonymical expressions, such as the following
These metonymic expressions may not be current or may sound odd in these
meanings to many speakers Nevertheless, the conceptual metonymy we
postulate for these cases must have existed at some time, and at least for some
speakers it exists even today This problem underlines the need for the
investigation of figurative language in foreign language teaching along the lines
suggested by McCarthy and Carter (1994)
The underlying conceptual metonymy in these cases seems to be THE HAND
STANDS FOR THL sMLi. The source of the metonymy is likely to be the idea that
the activities that require the use of the human hand usually also require skill
342 IDIOMS AND COGNITIVE SEMANTICS
and sophistication in the use of the hand There is also a verv general metaphor
involved in the examples ACTIVITIES ARE CONTAINERS (for examples see Lakoff
and Johnson 1980) This explains the use of the prepositions in and out
Furthermore some general knowledge is also involved Practicing an activity
maintains the required skill, while not practicing it does not
The metonymy THE HAND STANDS FOR THE ACTIVITY may be seen as giving rise
to a conceptual metaphor as well The following examples all have to do with
freedom to act
The meaning of all these examples somehow involves control Thus it seems
sensible to suggest that the conceptual metonymy that underlies, and thus
ZOLTAN KOVECSES AND PETER SZABO 343
provides the basis for, all of the expressions is THE HAND STANDS FOR CONTROL A
more general metonymy that underlies this may be THE INSTRUMENT STANDS F-OR
CONTROL
In the previous examples the notion of control is indicated via a metonymy
Control is also understood metaphorically, as shown by the examples below
hold the power to do something in the hollow ot one s hands (have the right to
make crucial decisions)
be in hand (be under control")
derives from three cognitive mechanisms Idioms such as tie one's hand were
shown to be motivated by the metonymy THE HAND STANDS FOR THE ACTIVITY,
the metaphor FREEDOM IS HAVING THE HANDS FREE, and some conventional
knowledge concerning the use of the hands
These and similar mechanisms appear to account for large parts of the
meaning of idioms that have to do with the human hand What has not been
explained so far is how parts of expressions that are not directly related to the
hand receive their conceptual motivation Let us begin with the expression gain
the upper hand As we have seen, the use of the word hand is motivated by the
ditional view in the teaching/learning of idioms in the classroom This is the task
to which we now turn
decided to work with was the following If a multi-word verb consists of a verbal
stem and a detached adverb, it is a phrasal verb The most common adverbs
occurring in phrasal verbs include across, around, away, down, in, off, on, out,
over, up Unlike prepositional verbs (which, according to most definitions, are
exclusively transitive), some phrasal verbs may be used both transitively and
intransitively (sometimes with differences in meaning) others only transitively,
and still others only intransitively Unlike prepositional verbs (which normally
have the stress on the base" verb as in account for), phrasal verbs normally
have primary stress on the adverb as in hold up make out, etc Corres-
These 20 phrasal verbs were placed in the context ot a sentence The adverbial
particles up and down were left out of the resulting 20 sentences Following are
the sentences that were given to the students tor completion (most of the
sentences were taken from Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
(1987), Longman Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs (1986), Oxford Advanced
Learner's Dictionary (1989)
1 The people of Russia before 1917 were bowed by ihe cruelty of the ruling
powers
2 Cheer . all the troubles are over now
3 I want to bring _i i the question of abortion now
4 The dog has chewed my new shoes I cannot wear them any more
5 The coal industry is running {6 ) as coal supplies are used
6 (see above)
7 We were held on the road by a nasty traffic accident
8 Make sure that you put every word she says
9 Please turn the radio I would tike to hear the news
10 Fortunately things are looking again
I1 Mary was casi by the bad news about her ill mother
12 I couldn t remember a fairy-story to tell to the children so 1 made one as I
went along
ZOLTAN KOVECSES AND PfiTER SZABO 347
13 My car broke againI will have to sell it 1 am afraid
14 These 10 articles make the whole book
15 I am thinking of selling and leaving the countryit is impossible to make a
living here
16 We had to set the rules for the members
17 It was all I could do to keep my temper when 1 saw the boys treating the dog
badly
18 I think it s time to wind this meetingwe are all tired now
19 Mother soon began picking after her operation
presented and put on the blackboard included the ones that occur in sentences 1
to 10 (10 phrasal verbs altogether) None of the phrasal verbs that occur in
sentences 11 to 20 were presented to class B The explanation and memoriza-
tion procedure lasted 15 minutes The same completion task that was given to
class A was administered to class B Students had 20 minutes to complete the 20
sentences
We then measured the effectiveness with which the completion task was per-
formed in terms of the number of correct responses to the 20 sentences in both
classes A and B Since the students' background to the task was different in the
Table 1 (Case!)
1 10 12
2 15 15
3 11 13
Table 2 (Case 2)
11 8 12
12 10 14
13 7 13
14 6 10
15 9 8
16 4 10
17 10 10
18 7, 13
19 8' 12
20 10 14
Total 79 116
(52 66%) (77 33%)
Table 3 Summary
Class A Class B
%
Case 1 73 33 82
Case 2 52 66 77 33
350 IDIOMS AND COGNITIVE SEMANTICS
What is most interesting, however, is the fact that five of the sentences in 11 to
20 reflect ortentational metaphors that were not used in sentences 1 to 10 at all
This raises the question of how class B participants could do as well as they did
in the case of these sentences (sentences 12, 13,14,19, and 20) What is it that
they drew on 7 It makes sense to suggest that, since they were not able to rely on
already familiar onentational metaphors, they continued to use the strategy of
thinking in terms of conceptual metaphors They did not have specific onenta-
tional metaphors to bring to the task, but the strategy of employing metaphorical
thought was available to them The use of the strategy to employ metaphor
6 CONCLUSION
We hope to have demonstrated that cognitive linguistics in general, and
cognitive semantics in particular, may offer us a new and potentially useful view
of idioms In this view, idioms are conceptual, and not linguistic, in nature
Idioms are systematic, as we showed in the case of idioms involving the concepts
of fire and hand Further, the meaning of many idioms appears to be motivated
rather than arbitrary in the sense that there are cognitive mechanisms, such as
metaphor, metonymy, and conventional knowledge, that link literal meanings to
figurative idiomatic meanings This idea gives us a more precise sense of
semantic transparency than is commonly used in the (applied) linguistics
352 IDIOMS AND COGNITIVE SEMANTICS
literature Moreover, as was shown in the case of fire-related idioms, the mean-
ing of many idioms seems to depend on at least three factors, a source-target
relationship that is applicable to a word (or words) in an idiomatic expression,
the systematic correspondences or mappings between the source and the target
domains, and the particular knowledge structures or inferences associated with
the source domain Finally, as was pointed out in connection with the idioms
related to the human hand, a single idiomatic expression may be simultaneously
motivated by several cognitive devices, including metaphors, metonymies, and
conventional knowledge
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We have received many helpful comments, on a previous version, of this paper from
Gunter Radden and Linda Thornburg Three anonymous reviewers have also provided
us with extremely useful suggestions and provocative questipps, for which we are
sincerely grateful We thank Jim Lantolf for his encouragement and generous support
ZOLTAN KOVECSES AND PETER SZABO 353
REFERENCES
Alexander, R. J . 1987 Problems in understanding and teaching idiomaticity in English *
Anglistik uttd Enghschunterncht 32 105-22
Bolinger, D. 1965 'The atomization of meaning Language 41/4 555-73
Carter, R and M. McCarthy 1988 Vocabulary and Language Teaching London
Longman
Danesi, M. 1993 'Metaphorical competence in second language acquisition and second
language teaching The neglected dimension' in J E Alans (ed) 1993 Georgetown
University Round Table on Language and Linguistics 1992 Washington, DC
APPENDIX
Dictionaries
Chambers Idioms (1982)
A Dictionary of American Idioms (1975)
Longman Dictionary of English Idioms (1979)
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (198 7)
Longman Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs (1986)
Metaphorically Speaking (ed Renton) (1986)
Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary {1989)
The Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English