Since its introduction in 1980, the publication “Metaphors We Live By” by Mark Johnson and George Lackoff has successfully persuaded the readers to see all metaphors in a new light. The 1980 classic maintains that metaphorical expressions are not idiosyncratic but rather systematically reflect conceptual metaphors in our mental reasoning. As we think, we talk and we act, whether intentionally and unconsciously, we all rely on a large number of conceptual metaphors.
The objective of this study is to compare the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY in English and Vietnamese using the theory of conceptual metaphor as theoretical framework. The rationale behind this is that LIFE is a basic but rather complicated concept for every man and every culture. Through comparison and by contrast, I hope to find out major similarities and significant differences in the way English and Vietnamese use this metaphorical concept in everyday language; thus, have better understanding of English and Vietnamese language, culture, and patterns of thinking before being able to draw some practical conclusions in the field of English teaching.
INTRODUCTION
Last month, my American Literature class discussed a poem that intensively employs metaphors: “Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floorBare ….”
The excerpt above is from a famous poem named “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes. Obviously in the poem, Langston makes creative use of metaphors by describing LIFE through the image of a STAIRCASE with no crystal glamour. Every one of us has no difficulty realizing this point. However, when being asked to define metaphor, we were in complete silence until one student cited a definition from Cambridge dictionary: “metaphor is an expression which describes a person or object in a literary way by referring to something that is considered to have similar characteristics to the person or object you are trying to describe”.
For most of us, metaphor is artistic language used to describe a thing by referring to another one. It has been always said to be a powerful device which are often at the great communicators’ disposal, like Shakespeare. The well-known Aristotle once emphasized that mastering metaphor “is the mark of genius”.
With the above assumption in mind, it is widely thought that we can live, think and communicate without metaphor (Lackoff & Johnson, 1980). As a result, language learners, even after reaching advanced level in language skills, still have restricted competence of metaphorical language (Dong, 2004).
At the end of the twentieth century, a groundbreaking study in the field of cognitive linguistics emerged, questioning all our long-standing assumptions and attitudes towards metaphor. It is the revolutionary theory developed by Lackoff and Johnson in the 1980 publication: Metaphor We Live By.
The two linguists have proved that our system of concepts is already metaphorical; and language is just the manifestation of that nature. Instead of being a matter of extraordinary, expressions using metaphor should be quite normal and abundant in our daily language. Indeed, metaphor is of great significance that we cannot do without in communication and researches into this prove valuable to many fields, especially in linguistics and pedagogy.
Under the assumption that “metaphorical expressions in our language are tied to metaphorical concepts in a systematic way” (Lackoff & Johnson, 1980), this paper aims to compare and contrast the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY in English and Vietnamese with the hope having better insights into their language and cultural values. Moreover, with the increasing body of work supporting the statement that LIFE IS A JOURNEY is a universal metaphor, I also hope that the paper will serve as another evidence for this hypothesis.
LITERATURE REVIEW
- When Teresa arrived, the party warmed up
- Their parents gave us a very frosty reception.
- I really appreciate their warm welcome.
- Suddenly, he stormed into the classroom.
- I’m a bit hazy about what to do next.
- I’m bit under the weather so I don’t want to go out.
All of the six sentences above, which can be heard with high frequency in our everyday language, utilize metaphors. Some metaphors (like “be under the weather”, “frosty reception”) may be communicated consciously, that is we are well aware they are figurative speech when we use them ; while some like “warm up” and “warm welcome” are not normally called metaphors.
Carefully consider the series of examples, the language used to describe the WEATHER is borrowed to talk about the MOOD. It seems logical to conclude that a long time ago, the English speakers started to employ the concept of WEATHER, which are more vivid, to think about and describe the more abstract concept of MOOD. Similar phenomena are abundant in English language as well as others; and cognitive linguists refer to those as conceptual metaphors.
Definition
According to Lackoff and Johnson (1980), “the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing or experience in terms of another. Similarly, in the view of cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor is defined as the understanding of one abstract concept by thinking of another more concrete concept (KÖvecses, 2002). According to this definition, we use the knowledge of a familiar notion (e.g. weather) to make sense of a different abstract notion (e.g. mood), otherwise the meaning of the latter could be complicated to grasp.
Conceptual metaphor vs. metaphorical linguistic expressions 5
The term “conceptual metaphor” can be easily confused with the phrase “metaphorical linguistic expression”. The former is manifested by the formula CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN IS CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN . It reflects our mental operations (Hurford, Heasley, & Smith, 2007), but does not occur in language as such( Kovecses, 2002). The latter are words and linguistics expressions that display the underlying conceptual metaphor.
For instance, MOOD ARE WEATHER is conceptual metaphor, being capitalized to suggest its existence only in our mind not in language. On the other hand, such phrase as “storm into” in “he stormed into the room” is a metaphorical linguistics expression which comes from the domain WEATHER and is the manifestation of the concept MOOD ARE WEATHER.
The basic structure of a conceptual metaphor (Domain hypothesis)
The formula CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN IS CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN conveys the basic structure of a conceptual metaphor. In other words, a conceptual metaphor always consists of two domains: A and B, which are called target domain and source domain respectively. In his book “Metaphor: A practical introduction”, Kovecses (2002) explains:
- Source domain is the domain from which we draw metaphorical expressions to understand another conceptual domain.
- Target domain is the domain that we try to understand using the source domain. Therefore, in the metaphor IDEA ARE PLANTS: idea is the target domain and plants is the source domain
The principle of unidirectionality
One important principle emerges from conceptual metaphors is unidirectionality. This states that we understand a more abstract notion by means of a more concrete, familiar and physical notion and not the opposite. To put it in another way, conceptual metaphors can borrow weather, plants and war as source domain to make sense of the concept of mood, idea, and argument as target domain. If we reverse this order, how could we make those abstract concepts more understandable? For instance, PLANTS ARE IDEA instead of IDEAS ARE PLANTS.
Highlighting and hiding
It may sound logical to assume that all of the constituent elements of domain A corresponds systematically to all of the constituent elements of domain B. Nonetheless, it is not the case. This can be backed up by the terms metaphorical highlighting, metaphorical hiding. Metaphorical highlighting means that the source domain only focuses on a single aspect of the concept in a conceptual metaphor (Kovecses, 2002).
For instance, the metaphor LOVE IS MAGIC only highlights the inexplicable features of love; the metaphor LOVE IS PATIENT only concentrates on the issue of maintaining a lasting relationship. Since only one aspect is highlighted, the others must be hidden. In order word, one conceptual metaphor can only give insights into one angle of a concept. This implies that the mappings between the source and the target domains can only be partial.
Another striking property of metaphorical mappings is that only some aspects of a source domain are utilized to talk about the target domain. For example, in the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS A BUILDING, we use construction, structure and strength of a building to describe an argument, but not the room, the corridor, the elevator or the staircase (Kovecses, 2002). This is what we called metaphorical utilization.
Universal and Cultural-specific
A conceptual metaphor may be universal like the case of ANGER IS PRESSURIZED CONTAINER (Kovecses, 2002), which means it exists in quite a large number of languages and cultures.
In addition to universality, many conceptual metaphors are cultural-specific. According to Kovecses (2002), cultural variation in metaphor falls into two categories. The first type is “variation in the range of conceptual metaphors available for a given target”. The second includes those metaphors that exist in two languages, but the ways each language elaborates them are not the same. Take, for example, the conceptual metaphor ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER, which can be found in both in English and in Zulu. However, the equivalence of the expression “He’s just blowing off steam” in English is absent in Zulu as well as in other languages (Kovecses, 2002).
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, both Vietnamese and English people strongly connect the concept of JOURNEY to the abstract idea of LIFE. It means that in the English and Vietnamese mindsets, when stepping into LIFE, people is expected to pass over ups and downs like a traveler having to face obstacles and to live with goals like a traveler heading towards the destination, etc. On the contrary, it seems that the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY is employed more intensively in everyday language of the English than in Vietnamese language. Further researches are needed to account for this.
Moreover, the influence of religious belief has led to a slight distinction in the final destination of the life journey in each culture, with the English going to heaven and the Vietnamese going to see their ancestor after death.
Finally, as mentioned in the introduction, my study strengthens the assumption that “LIFE IS A JOURNEY is present cross culturally”.
IMPLICATIONS
The crucial role of metaphor in effective communication has long led scholars to attach considerable importance to metaphor teaching. Nevertheless, students still find metaphor unpredictable, unfamiliar and overwhelming due to the vast amount of what seems to be unrelated metaphorical expressions. In light of the theory of conceptual metaphor, these problems can be in a number of ways.
First of all, many linguists show that explicit teaching of metaphor and figurative meanings can develop student’s awareness of the phenomenon, increase vocabulary retention and improve reading skill. For instance, teacher directs student attention toward a particular metaphor or set of expressions provides explanations, models and assists students to practice. Along with incorporating metaphor learning as part of a syllabus, students should be made aware of the idea and basic structure of conceptual metaphor
(Bailey, 2003).
The main reason for this is that many students have negative attitude or even fear toward metaphor and assume that they can live and communicate fluently without them. They, indeed, can enjoy learning about the ubiquity the beauty and importance of metaphor through the notion of conceptual metaphor. Thirdly, while many students find it hard to memorize collocations of words or metaphorical expressions, teacher can give explanations using conceptual metaphor to help students search for connection (Sun, 2010).
For example, when students have difficulties internalizing such expressions as “a dead-end job” or “doing something in a roundabout way”, they should be encouraged to engage in a discussion to find out that the language used to talk about LIFE may be borrowed from the language for JOURNEY. When understanding why “dead-end” goes with “job” and “roundabout” goes with “way”, students can find the logic in collocations, retain them for a longer period and even expand on their vocabulary by employing words for JOURNEY to talk about LIFE.
According to Lackoff and Johnson (1980) and Denis (2013), another reason why metaphor is challenging to most EFL learners lies in the fact that it “relies heavily on culture for its meaning”. According to Lackoff and Johnson (1980), the reason why metaphor is challenging to most EFL learners lie in the fact that they “relies heavily on culture for its meaning”.
Therefore, cultural education should be incorporated into metaphor teaching. For example, in the mapping DYING IS DEPARTING of the metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY in English and Vietnamese, differences in religious belief leads to distinction in metaphorical expressions. By doing this, teachers motivate students to acquire culturally different expressions in L2 more easily and avoid errors when transferring L1 into L2 and vice versa.
Two other promising classroom activities employing strategies mentioned above are “cross-cultural comparisons” of “metaphorical language and theme-based approach”. In the former activity, teachers create tasks that require learners to compare and contrast metaphorical expressions in one conceptual metaphor or, on a smaller scale, in one mapping.
