Email this article 
Hide
Show all
Metaphorically Speaking: Embodied Conceptualization and Emotion Language in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried
Abstract
Recent advances in the study of emotion in relation to cognition have heightened the need for scrutinizing the way emotion language interacts with cognitive processes such as metaphoric conceptualization. However, relatively few studies have paid attention to the interaction of emotion language with metaphors in a war narrative. We argue that (a) embodied conceptual metaphors merge with those events in O'Brien's narrative that generate anger, shame, and fear; (b) in the case of anger, the BODY AS CONTAINER metaphor is combined with HEAT in the form of PRESSURIZED CONTAINER; (c) the ontological and epistemic correspondences in the metaphoric mapping of shame reveal that the BODY AS CONTAINER metaphor governs the language about shame; (d) the SHAME AS A SOLID as an entailment of EMOTION AS BURDEN underlies the language of shame; (e) like anger, metaphors of fear are governed by patterns of force dynamics. The findings of this research can open new avenues for using autobiographical data in the study of emotion language.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Averill, J. R. (1990). Inner feelings, works of the flesh, the beast within, diseases of the mind, driving force, and putting on a show: Six metaphors of emotion and their theoretical extensions”. In D. E. Leary (Ed.), Metaphor in the History of
Psychology (pp. 104-132). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Barcelona, A., & Valenzuela, J. (2011). An overview of cognitive linguistics. In M. Brdar, S. Th. Gries, Z. Fuchs (Eds.), Cognitive linguistics: Convergence and expansion (pp. 17-44). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Bourke, J. (2006). War and violence. Thesis Eleven, 86, 23-38. http://the.sagepub.com/content/86/1/23
Carn , S., Petrocchi, N., Del Miglio, C., Mancini, F., & Couyoumdjian, A. (2013). Intra-psychic and interpersonal guilt: A critical review of the recent literature. Cognitive Processing, 14, 333-346. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10339-013-0570-4
Cavalera, C., & Pepe, A. (2014). Social emotions and cognition: shame, guilt and working memory. Procedia, 112, 457-464. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.1189
Cooper, W. E., & Ross, J. R. (1975). World order. In R. E. Grossman, J. San L., & T. J. Vance (Eds.), Functionalism. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
Dewell, R. B. (2005). Dynamic patterns of CONTAINMENT. In B. Hampe (Ed.), From perception to meaning: Image schemas in cognitive linguistics (pp. 369-393). Berlin: de Gruyter.
Ferguson, T. J., Brugman, D., White, J., & Eyre, H. L. (2007). Shame and guilt as morally warranted experiences. In J. L. Tracy, R.W. Robins, & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), The self-conscious emotions: Theory and research (pp. 330-348). New York: The Guliford Press.
Freeman, D. C. (1995). Catch[ing] the nearest way: Macbeth and cognitive metaphor. Journal of Pragmatics, 24, 689-708.
Freeman, M. H. (2000). Poetry and the scope of metaphor: Toward a cognitive theory of literature. In Antonio Barcelona (ed.), Metaphor and Metonymy at the Crossroads: A cognitive perspective (pp. 253-282). Berlin: de Gruyter.
Gaby, A. (2008). Gut feelings: Locating intellect, emotion and life force in the Thaayorre body. In F. Sharifian et al. (Eds.), Culture, body, and language: Conceptualizations of internal body organs across cultures and languages (pp. 28-44). Berlin: de Gruyter.
Gibbs, R. W. Jr. (2011). Multiple Constraints in Theories of Metaphor. Discourse Processes, 48(8), 575-584. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1080/0163853X.2011.606105
Gibbs, R. W. Jr., Lima, P. L. C., & Francozo, E. (2004). Metaphor is grounded in embodied experience. Journal of Pragmatics, 36, 1189-1210. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.pragma.2003.10.009
Glucksberg, S. (2001). Understanding figurative language. New York: Oxford University Press.
Goatly, A. (1997). The language of metaphors. New York: Routledge.
Grady, J. E. (2005). Image schemas and perception: Refining a definition. In B. Hampe (Ed.), From perception to meaning: Image schemas in cognitive linguistics (pp. 35-55). Berlin: de Gruyter.
Heywood, J., Semino, E., & Short, M. (2002). Linguistic metaphor identification in two extracts from novels. Language and Literature, 11, 35-54.
Holland, D., & Kipnis, A. (1994). American cultural models of embarrassment: The not-so-egotistic aspects of American self. In J. A. Russell, J. M. Fernandez-Dols, A. S. R. Manstead, & J. C. Wellenkamp (Eds.), Everyday conceptions of emotion (pp. 181-202). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Hotton, S., & Yoshimi, J. (2011). Extending dynamical systems theory to model Embodied cognition. Cognitive Science, 35, 444-479.
Johnson, M. (1987). The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kaufmann, M. (2005). Solace of the bad form: Tim O’Brien’s postmodernist revisions of Vietnam in ‘Speaking of Courage’. Critique, 46, 333-343. http://chsapliterature.weebly.com/uploads/7/0/2/6/7026694.
Kovecses, Z. (1990). Emotion concepts. New York: Springer Verlag.
Kovecses, Z. (2004). Metaphor and emotion: Language, culture and body in human feeling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kovecses, Z. (2010). Metaphor: A practical introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kovecses, Z., G. B. Palmer, & R. Dirven (2002). Language and emotion: The interplay of conceptualization with physiology and culture. In R. Dirven & R. P rings (Eds.), Metaphor and metonymy in comparison and contrast (pp. 133-159). Berlin: de Gruyter.
Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. New York: Basic Books.
Lakoff, G., & Kövecses, Z. (1987). The cognitive model of anger inherent in American English. In D. Holland & N. Quinn (Eds.), Cultural models in language and thought (pp. 195-221). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Langacker, R.W. (2008). Cognitive grammar: A basic introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Middleton A. (2008). A true war story: reality and fiction in the American literature and film of the Vietnam War. Dissertation, Brigham Young University. http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd2467.
Vernon, A. (2004). Soldiers Once and Still. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.
Narayanan, V. H. (2013). Embodied cognition and the Orwell’s problem in cognitive science. AI & Soc. 1-5. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1007/s00146-013-0496-5
O'Brien, T. (1990). The things they carried. New York: Mariner Books.
Pragglejaz Group (2007). A practical and flexible method for identifying metaphorically-used words in discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 22, 1-39.
Ringnalda, D. (1994). Fighting and Writing the Vietnam War. Jackson MS: University Press of Mississippi.
Schnall, S. (2005). The pragmatics of emotion language. Psychological Inquiry, 16(1), 28-31. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20447256
Slimak, L. J. (2007). A mind with a view: Cognitive science, neuroscience and contemporary literature. Dissertation, University of Akron. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1176747219
Steen, G. (1999). From linguistic to conceptual metaphor in five steps. In R. W. Gibbs Jr., & G. Steen (Eds.), Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 55-75). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Steen, G. (2001). A rhetoric of metaphor: Conceptual and linguistic metaphor and the psychology of literature. In D. Schram & G. Steen (Eds.), The psychology and sociology of literature: In honor of Elrud Ibsch (pp. 145-163). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Steen, G. (2011). Metaphor in language and thought: How do we map the field? In M. Brdar, S. T. Gries, & Z. Fuchs (Eds.), Cognitive linguistics: Convergence and expansion (pp. 67-86). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Steen, G. J., Biernacka, E., Dorst, A. G., Kaal, A. A., Lopez-Rodriguez, I., & Pasma, T. (2010). Pragglejaz in practice: Finding metaphorically used words in natural discourse. In G. Low et al. (Eds.), Researching and applying metaphor in the real world (pp.165-184). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Talmy, L. (1988). Force dynamics in language and cognition. Cognitive Science, 12, 49-100.
Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Tendahl, M., & Gibbs, R.W. Jr. (2008). Complementary perspectives on metaphor: Cognitive linguistics and relevance theory. Journal of Pragmatics, 40, 1823-1864.
Tissari, H. (2011). Oops blush! Beyond metaphors of emotion. In M. Brdar, S. T. Gries, & M Fuchs (Eds.), Cognitive linguistics: Convergence and expansion (pp. 291-304). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Ungerer, F., & Schmid, H. J. (1996). An introduction to cognitive linguistics (2nd ed.). Harlow: Longman.
Verdonk, P., & Weber, J. J. (1995). Twentieth-century fiction from text to context. London: Routledge.
Wilson, M. (2002). Six views of embodied cognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9(4), 625-636.
Wilson, M. (2008). How did we get from there to here? An evolutionary perspective on embodied cognition. In P. Calvo & T. Gomila (Eds.), Handbook of cognitive science: An embodied approach (pp. 375-393). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Wilson, N. L., & Gibbs, R. W. Jr. (2007). Real and imagined body movement primes metaphor comprehension. Cognitive Science, 31, 721-731.
Wierzbicka, A. (1999). Emotions across languages and cultures: diversity and universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.5p.137
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
2012-2023 (CC-BY) Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.
International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature
To make sure that you can receive messages from us, please add the journal emails into your e-mail 'safe list'. If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox', check your 'bulk mail' or 'junk mail' folders.