Shared Metaphors and Conceptual Overlap

May 16th, 2006 Fred McVittie Posted in Abstract, Conference Abstract, Lakoff, George, Metaphor |

Abstract concepts which share a common metaphor tend to be perceived as related, and may be linked behaviourally, even when there is no actual and necessary concrete link between the concepts. An example of this phenomenon is outlined by George Lakoff when he demonstrates that the concepts anger and sexuality are linked through the common metaphor of heat. Through an analysis of texts and utterances relating to these two abstract concepts he shows not only that both are extensively understood through the entailments of this metaphor, but also that there is considerable ‘contamination’ of each concept by the contents of the other. So there is a tendency, through the workings of this structural overlap, for us to sexualise the expression of anger, and conversely (and much more problematically) to normalise the expression of violence and aggression within sexual practice.

This paper will cite a number of other key examples of such metaphorical imbrication and the impact that such overlap has in producing mixed or ‘contaminated’ concepts.