Written exam: Metaphors in human cognition

Since the publication of ‘Metaphors We Live By’, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in 1980, the theory of conceptual metaphors and image schemes has received quite a lot of attention. Although the theory has also been subject to severe criticism, the cognitive linguistic tradition has grown into a field of its own.

This paper answers the following questions:

How do image schemas structure our (human) conceptualization of the world? And how does image schemas relate to conceptual metaphors? How can the three metaphorical ex-amples (1) “running for president”, (2) “The deal rescues Countrywide” and (3) “she is a Houston-jumper” be analyzed in terms of conceptual metaphor theory and image schemas?

Download (pdf)