A dual-process account of metaphorical embodiment.

Abstract

Theories of metaphorical embodiment have widely treated perceptual processes as an inseparable component of metaphoric conceptualization. This paper critically examines and synthesizes influential accounts of metaphor in cognitive linguistics and cognitive science, with particular attention to Gentner's structure-mapping theory, Lakoff's invariance principle, and Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez's extended invariance principle. We propose a distinction between metaphoric conceptualization and metaphoric perceptualization as analytically separable, though interrelated, processes. Our discussion is limited to metaphors that are interpreted through the projection of image-schematic or propositional structures. We suggest that metaphoric conceptualization primarily involves structural projection, whereby the abstract structure of a source domain-independent of its perceivable features-is mapped onto a target domain. Metaphoric perceptualization, by contrast, consists in the organization of the target domain's perceivable features within this projected structure, as well as, in some cases, the attribution of salient perceivable features from the source domain to the target domain. Through this process, a novel perceptual representation of the target domain may emerge. By integrating and reassessing existing theoretical frameworks, we conclude that metaphorical embodiment is best understood as comprising two distinct but related processes, with metaphoric perceptualization being guided and constrained by metaphoric conceptualization.