and associated isomorphisms such as
ARGUMENT IS WAR
,
POLITICS IS WAR
,
SPORT
IS WAR
and so on, all point to the habituated and accustomed nature of much of the
evidence from everyday language on which cognitive linguistics rests.
[. . .] The simplest version [of the Invariance Hypothesis] is as follows:
The Invariance Hypothesis: Metaphorical mappings preserve the cognitive typology (this is,
the image-schema structure) of the source domain
.
(Lakoff 1990: 54)
The need for a restriction on the information which
is mapped between ICMs is
apparent when counter-intuitive anomalies are thrown up. Turner [. . .] gives the
LIFE
IS A JOURNEY
metaphor as an example, where
JOURNEY
is the source domain and
LIFE
is the target. Life is structured and understood in terms of a journey, in the expressions,
‘He’s getting nowhere in life, She’s on the right track, and, He arrived at a new stage in
life’ (from Turner 1990: 248). In this example, the Invariance Hypothesis constrains us
from saying, ‘First I was getting somewhere in life and then I got off to a good start’
(Turner 1990: 249), since the physical order of passing points on the path in a journey
cannot be violated by the metaphorical mapping. It is the Invariance Hypothesis that
explains here the anomalous meaning which ‘disturbs us badly’ (Turner 1990: 249).
[. . .] The central point is the
unidirectionality
of the isomorphism.
Our idea of
LIFE
is structured by our familiar idea of a
JOURNEY
, but we do not conversely revise
our idea of
JOURNEYS
on the basis of metaphors in which they are equated with
LIFE
.
The cognitive typology of the source domain,
JOURNEY
, remains inviolable in this
mapping. Turner (1990: 253–4) goes on to demonstrate that, when in life we might
make a decision (understood as taking a fork in the path on the journey), then we
cannot un-make that decision, though we could, on a journey, certainly retrace our
steps and take the other fork. If the Invariance Hypothesis were not applied here,
then the
LIFE IS A JOURNEY
metaphor would also allow us forks in paths that irrev-
ocably disappear once we have chosen one way to go!
[. . .] As mentioned above, there is an assumption associated with the Invariance
Hypothesis that there is a unidirectionality in the mapping of items and structure in
conceptual metaphor. It would seem on first glance that this is the case with the
TIME
IS SPACE
metaphor discussed by Lakoff (1990: 57).
The fact that
SPACE
is the base
(source) ICM in this example seems obvious, since
we have detectors for motion and detectors for objects/locations. We do not have detec-
tors for time (whatever that could mean). Thus, it makes good biological sense that
time should be understood in terms of things and motion.
(Lakoff 1990: 57)
TIME
is thus the target ICM. We understand it in terms of our familiar idea of three-
dimensional space. Indeed, H.G. Wells’ (1895) time traveller explains ‘time’ to his
dinner guests in precisely these terms, as an extension into ‘four-dimensional’ space
at right angles to our familiar world, just before he
literalises the metaphor by
sweeping off into the future.
212
E X T E N S I O N
Lakoff (1990: 57) goes on to point out contradictory vectors in the
TIME IS SPACE
conceptual metaphor: ‘The time has passed’ and ‘He passed the time’. For each, he
argues that these simply illustrate that there are different correspondences of the
metaphor. But this means that a single conceptual metaphor can be manifested and
realised by a variety of utterances which reframe the detail in the mapping of ICMs
slightly in the process. This conclusion would mean that cognitive linguistic method-
ology can produce more ‘openness’ in possible interpretation than it has been accused
of [. . .].
More importantly, I would argue that examples such as ‘The time has passed’ or
‘He passed the time’, compared with ‘Liverpool is three days’ sailing from here’, show
a reversal of the conceptual metaphor:
TIME IS SPACE
and
SPACE IS TIME
. Each
concept is understood in terms of our conventional understanding, by now well
established, of the other. There is a consistency here in
the mathematical logic that
the two sides of an equational expression can be reversed without any change in
meaning or value. The Invariance Hypothesis seeks to restrict such a reversal, acting
(to apply another ICM mapping) like a conceptual non-return valve.
In any case, it is not true to say that we don’t have detectors for time: we have
watches, clocks and a calendar (where progress through space represents time). These
are indexes of time rather than detectors,
strictly, but our tools have always and
increasingly become extensions of our biology in ways that must affect our language,
if the root of metaphor is the everyday and habitualised that Lakoff and Johnson
(1980) claim it is. Rather than being unidirectional, it would seem that conceptual
metaphor, even in the
TIME IS SPACE
example, might be
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