Luận văn tìm hiểu Ý nghĩa của danh từ love trong một số cụm từ trong tiếng anh xét từ góc Độ ngữ nghĩa học tri nhận

Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 7} point oul thal: “Since metaphorical expressions in our language are tied to metaphorical concepts in a systematic way, we can use expressions to study the nat

FACULTY OF POST — GRADUATE STUDIES

neo

ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ

NGUYEN THI THOM

THE MEANINGS OF THE NOUN LOVE

IN SOME ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS (FROM COGNITIVE SEMANTICS PERSPECTIVE)

(TIM HIEU Y NGHIA CUA DANH TU LOVE TRONG MOT SO CUM TU TRONG TIENG ANH

XET TU GOC DQ NGU NGHIA HQC TRI NHAN)

MA Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

Hanoi - 2010

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST — GRADUATE STUDIES

an rhe

DAI HOC NGOAINGT

NGUYEN THI THOM

THE MEANINGS OF THE NOUN LOVE

IN SOME ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS (FROM COGNITIVE SEMANTICS PERSPECTIVE)

(TIM HIEU Y NGHIA CUA DANH TU LOVE TRONG MOT SO CUM TU TRONG TIENG ANH

XÉT TỪ GÓC ĐỌ NGỮ NGHĨA HỌC TRI NHẬN)

MA Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60 22 15

Supervisor: Dr Ha Cẩm Tâm

Hanoi - 2010

5 Organization of the study ait

PART II: CONCLUSION

A, Data analysis and điscussion

2.3.7 Love is natural/ physical forces

2.3.8 Love is fire/ heat

2.3.15 Love is a unity (of two complementary parts)

2.4.3 Love is a social superior and opponenL

2.4.4 Love is a valuable commodity

2.4.5 Love is natural/ physical forees

2.4.6 Love is a fluid in a container

1 Rationale

Language is a means to express people’s thought It is also used to express people’s emotions, feelings including love, hate, anger, etc, In Talmy’s view, language is a major cognitive system in its own right, distinct from the other major ones: perception, reasoning,

affect, attention, memory, cultural structure, and motor control As such, language has some

structural properties thai are uniquely ils own and some others thal are int common either with only a few other cognitive systems, or with all other cognitive systems (Talmy, 2000a: 16)

Inrecent years, the study of emotions has been one of the most important areas of research

in the Sacial Seionees

Expressing love is not an easy task and different languages may have different conventions In our daily life love is an important emotion Love is not clearly defined in our experience and may be inconceivable without using metaphors (Lakofl & Johnson, 1980: 85) Love, as well as other feeling and emotions, is quite an abstraction It is ditiioult for us, if not impossible, to comprehend these concepts without metaphor According to Lakoff we

2002) is adopted in this study ‘his new approach on metaphor states that metaphor is a

process of understanding our world, particularly those abstract concepts such as Jove which are oflen oxprossed in torts of more conwrele ones Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 7} point oul thal:

“Since metaphorical expressions in our language are tied to metaphorical concepts in a systematic way, we can use expressions to study the nature of metaphorical concepts and to gain an understanding of the metaphorical nature of our activitics.” The metaphorical concept Love is a journey is retlected in contemporary English through a wide variety of expressions

(Lakoff & Jolmsơm, 1986: 44-45)

This relationship is a dead-end streed

We'te spinning our wheels,

The marriage is on she rocks

Our relationship is off the track

In the above examples, love is structured by the concept of a journey, These everyday English expressions are used for reasoning about love ‘fhe metaphor can be understood as a mapping cxereisc from a souree domain (in this casc, journcys) to a target domain (in this case love), Entities in the domain of love correspond systematically to entities in the domain of a

journey (Lakoff & Jolmson, 1980: 207-208)

Lakotf and Johnson (1980: 29) claim that “., most of our non-physical reality 1s structures, understood, and created by metaphors ” We come to know our thoughts and feelings by analogy lo the physical world, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) proposed thal tnctaphar was a basis structure of understanding through which we conceptualize on domain (the target domain which is unfamiliar or abstract) in terms of another (the source domain, most often Similiar and concrete)

In short, the conceptual metaphor of love is conventional in different languages, so 1

applied the theory of conceptual metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff é& ‘Turner, 1989;

2 Aims of the study

‘The present study aims at studying the concaptnatization of the nomm ¿ve in some English expressions of /ove The qualities of love are identified in English based on analyzing the data under the study

3 Scope of the study

This study tocuses on investigating how fove is conceptualized in English evidenced in

115 English expressions of love

‘There are three different categories according to the fimetion of metaphors: Structural,

oricntaitonal, and ontologival metaphors (Koveescs, 2002; 32, 33) In this study, structural

metaphors was used as the analytical ftamework

4, Rescarch question

The question adibessad in this study is:

- How is fove conceptualized in English evidenced in some English expressions of Jove?

5 Organization of the study

The study comprises 3 parts

Part | provides the significance, aims, framework, scope and organization of the study,

Parl Il is subdivided into 2 chapters: Chapter | provides the generat theoretical background

of the study and Chapter 2, the backbone of the study It provides the data collection, the analytical framework and data analysis,

Part [TT demonstrates the major findings of the sludy, imptications and suggestions for further cognitive studies Appendix and references are also included

PART U: DEVELOPMENT CIIAPTER 1: THEORITICAL BACKGROUND

In this study, cognitive semantics, especially the theory of cognitive metaphor is the main interest which provides gateways for the understanding and analysis of linguistics expressions containing the word fove which arc the object of the study This chapter explores the ficld of cognitive semantics, thus enabling the writer to provide a thorough theoretical framework or background for the study

1.1 Cognitive semantics

A new semantic theory, cal

Langacker, 1986, 1987; Crott and Cruse, 2004; Evans, 2006), The prime slogan for cognitive

ed cognitive semumlics, bas been developed (Lakoff, 1987:

semantics is: Meanings are in the head More precisely, semantics for a langnage is seen as a mapping from the expressions of the language to some cognitive or mental entities Langacker (1986a: 3) formulates il crisply: “Meaning is equaled with conccptualizalion.” This paradigm

of semantics is thus conceptualistic or cognitivistic It rejects the formal traditions of allribuling linguistics into phonology, syilax, pragmatics, ele, and that the meaning is independent fiom syntax Moreover, cognitive semantics states that meanings come fiom our mind; or rather, meanings are in the head (Gardenfors, 1994),

Ani important tenet of cognilive scrrantics is thal the structures in our heads thal arc

carrying the meanings of words are of the same nature as those that are created when we

perceive when we see, hear, touch, etc different things (Gardenfors, 2007: 58)

Cognitive semantics is concerned with invesligaling he relationship between experience, the conceptual system, and the semantic structure encoded by language In specific terms, scholars working in cognitive semantics investigate knowledge representation (conceptual

employed language as the lens through which these cognitive phenomena can be investigated Consequently, research in cognitive semantics tends to be interested in modeling the hnman mind as tnuch as il is concerned with invesligaling linguistic scruantics (Vyvyan, 2007)

Cognitive semantics has established close ties between semantics and cognition Cognitive semantics as a mmulti-disciplinary theory of language attempts fo desoribe language pherioniena from a cognilive, cultural and physiological poinl of view taking inlo account he sociological and anthropological differences as well as the experiential realisms and natural

surroundings that are embodied A major question in cognitive semanties research is how

lexicon) to construc the world,

‘Thus, the use of cognitive semantics as an approach to human discourse seen through underlying conceplual schema pallerns could be significant an understanding cross-cutiural communication, Cognitive semantics, in general, agrees that there are universal as well as language specific construal, For instance, Asmah (1996) and Yu (2003) have found that the conceptualization and metaphorisation of the body is influenced by and interacts with the folk cultural clements in socicty Kovcoscs (1999) also agroes that the conceptualization of the body and body parts is in the large part culhure-specific with several universal conceptual structures at the categorical and schematic level

1.2 Cognitive metaphor theory

‘The Cognitive ‘Theory of Metaphor - initiated by Reddy’s (1979) study on the “conduit

melaphor> had been developed mainty by Lakoff, Johnson and their colleagues (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 1987, 1993; Lakoff &Twmer, 1989) It met with wide response It is also called Conceptual Metaphor ‘Theory It is one of the first products of cognitive semantics Conecplual Metaphor Theory is am arca of rescarch which deals with the concept of metaphorical language Conceptual metaphors pervade our thoughts and are reflected through

our language Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 3) state that’ "Our conceptual system is not

something we arc normally aware of In most of the little things we do cvcryday, we simply think and act more or less automatically certain lines, Just what these lines are is by no means obvions One way to find out is by looking at language.” Lakoff and Johnson (1980) pointed

out thal (he concepts that govern our theughts govern our everyday functioning Our concepts

structure what and how we perceive and experience the world, Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities if we ars right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largcly metaphorical, then the way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very nmch a matter of metaphor

They (1980) also identify metaphor as a transfer between the source domain and the target domain This bas become known as the “two-domain theory” of metaphor The cognitive view on metaphor regards it as cognitive mechanism whereby one conceptual domain (source domain) is partially mapped, that is, projected, onto another conceptual

domain (large! domain) The target domain (abstract conecplual reahty) is hen understood in

terms of the source domain (physical reality) According to Lakoff (1994: 43), metaphor is

‘thus “a cross-domain mapping in the conecptual system” Let’s look at the examples:

Life is difficulty

Love is a journey

Argument is war

Anger is a hot fuid in a container

As we can see in the examples above, Jife, lave, argument and anger are target domain, while difficuliy, journey, war and a hot fluid i a container arc source domain (Kovceses, 2002: 6) In order to understand the target domain in terms of source domain, we have to have appropriate knowledge of the source domain (Lakoff & Turner, 1989: 60)

To sum up, according to Lakoff and Johnsons’ research (1980), from everyday expressions we know that most of our concepts are partially understood in terms of other concepls and that most of raman beings” normal conceplual system is metaphorical

Lakoff and Johnson identify three typcs of metaphors: structurcd, orientational and ontological In the following sections, a brief discussion of each type of metaphor will be

onttined

1.2.1 Structaral metaphors

According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 40) state that structural metaphor refers to a

conceplual telaphor that is constructed from one conceplual structure to another In other

words, in the structural metaphor model, one concept is understood and expressed in terms of another structured, sharply defined concept With the help of the structural metaphor, we can

ust the words concerming one concepl fo talk about another concept Far instance, war is a

concept that is ftequently mapped onto the target domain such as argument As we know war is.a concrete concept that we are very familiar with, so we often talk about argument in terms

of war Moreover, we also know that war is a very complex process that involves plan, attack, defense, counterattack, fight, win, lose, truee, ete., while argienent is complex and abstract

concept As a result the knowledge of war can be used to talk about the unknown abstract

Your claims are indefensible

He attacked every weak poird in my argument

His criticisms were right on target

T demolished his argurnent

T've never won an argument with him

You disagree? Okay, siroot!

Lf you use that strategy, he'll wipe you out

He shot down all of my arguments (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 4)

In Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) examples, we see that although there is no physical battle,

there is a verbal battle we perform in arguing These expr

ions are all structured by the underlying conceptual metaphor Argrament is war, Arguments and wars are different kinds of things and the actions performed are different kinds of actions, But we can use our knowledge aboul war to understand and to talk about argument Herc, war is the source donmin, and argument is the targct domain Thercfore, the knowledge fiom the source domain is mapped

onto the target domain Lakoff & Johnson (1980: 148) assert that the similarities between war

and argumen| do not exist independently of the inetaphor

Such these linguistic metaphors are grounded in ourselves and ow own human traits and

actions, it makes them easier to understand (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003: 30; Kovecses, 2002:

LOVE 18 A CONTAINER: He is in love; He entered a state of euphoria; We are ant af

wrouble now, otc (LakoIT 1980: 32) vlcarly show thal we concepLustize our emotions and slates

as a container and conceptualize what we feel and experience as being inside it (Lakoff 1980:

30).This type of metaphor tums our experiences into objects or substances So in English we

can say we're “in love”, which suggcsts we're in a container called “love”, What’s mors, we can have a “falling out”, when we fall out of the container metaphorically speaking,

have lo go our separate way

T do wol think this relationship i going anywhere; Where ar we?, We are stuck; We have gotten aff the track (Lakoff 1980:44-45).Who loved, who has

loved, who is loving, alt find that “The course of true love never did run smoothly” (Shakespeare) In Euglish this metaphor is not homogeneous in nature, as it refbrs to different

"ve gotten off the s; Sea voyage: Our marriage is on the rocks”, the fact thal (hey “are all journey metaphors, makes them echerent” (Lakoff 1980:45)

LOVE IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER: Farm feelings welled up inside him; He poured out his affections on her; She couldn't hold in her love for him any longer (Kovecses:

the thuid ris:

mental slales As we know madness with all is implications belongs Lo our most natural arid

‘asic experiences and therefore gives us a clue of how we feel about Jove

constantly raves about har; I'm just wild about Harry (Lakoll & Johnson, 1980, Kovecses,

1986) Love 1s represented as mental illness, such that the person causing the insanity represents the person with whom one is in love, the insane person represents the person in Jove, and Ihe insane behavior represents the behavior of the person in Jove.) The behavior of

‘the person affected by the emotion usually is very similar to the behavior of an insane person

Insanity is the ultimate lack of control The rational self loses all contiol as a result of an

inlense psychological force and becomes completely irvalional (Lakoff, 1980; Kovzeses, 2000)

LOVE 18 RAPTURE: 7 am giddy with love; She was drunk with emotion (Kovecses, 1986) Koveoses (2000: 74) states the emotion is view as some kind of alcoholic beverage

capable of affecting a person’s intellectual abilities in adverse way, 'he metaphor captures the idea of the inability t speak and think

between us, Iwas magnetically drawn to her; They are uncontrollably attracted to each other;

His whole life revolves around her; The atmosphere around them is always charged: There is incredible energy in their relationstup (Lakoff 1980:49) This metaphor ariscs naturally from our awareness of the external world, According to the discoveries of such scientists as Newton, Finslein and others we have leaned aboul natural forces, magnetism, electricity, pravitation, etc, Moreover, we can observe, measure and try them, and through them we can define and measure the strength of our emotions

LOVE IS FIRE! MAT: J an: burning with love; Love is fire that melts the snow

(Koveeses, 2002), This mcans that “fire and heat metaphors” are used to described love The meeting-point of ire and Heat is the doctrine of bodily humors, in which the idea of the emotions as comtain in the body tay partly originale (Geer

Gevaart, 2005)

LOVE IS A NUTRIEN

wis & Gromlealaers, 1995,

She's starved for affection; He's love-starved, He hungered for love (Kowevsi

LOVE IS A BOND: Thera

isa close tie hetween them; She has an aitachment to hin; There are romantic ties between thens; There ix something between then: (Kovecses; 1987) Love is represented as a physical connection between the lovers

LOVE IS A VALUABLE COMMORITY (IN AN ECONQMIC EXCHANGE): / gave

her all my love; I didn't get much in return; What am I getting out of this relationship

anyway?: I an putting more into this than you are; She's invested a lot in that relationship

(Kovecses, 1986) These metaphors express how love can be given, handed over, and assigned

a value As a conunodity that can be exchanged, people expect to receive something back (that

is love) when they give it away Love is represented as a valuable substance to be traded, thus entaiting muluatity of the trade and comparability of the amounis traded

LOVE IS A SOCIAL SUPERIOR AND OPPONENT: She was ruled by her emotions;

lis emotions dam#inate his actions; She was struggling with her feelings of love: Le was

seized by emotion (Kovcoscs, 2000: T0) In this metaphor, we have two forces; the superior that is the emotion and the inferior that corresponds to the person Here love is represented as

a foe ina fight, such that winning the fight represents tnainlaiting control over one’s feelings

(2000:

70): “This metaphor primarily applies to a person whose behavior is controlled by emotion,

of love and fosing or surrendering teprescrts Toss of cantral, According to Kovee

not by reason A superior has long-term control over an inferior, whose behavior over a long period of time.”

LOVE IS A PATHENL: this is a sick relationship; They have a strong, healthy marriage: We are getting hack on our feel; Their marriage ix on its last legy; It is a tired affair; It takes time lo cure one's heart (Lakoff 1980:49) Obviously, it is folly to pretend that one wholly recovers from a disappointed passion Such wounds always leave a scar Most of

us know what it means to be ill: it is a very basic experience for all human beings, which is why we arc able to comprehend this aspect of any relationship

LOVE IS WAR metaphor makes us think that this aspect of love namely war, for exainples, [Te is known for his rapid conquests; She fought for him hut his mistress won out;

He overpower her; He made an ally of her mother, He ix slowly gaining ground with her (Lakoff & Johnson; 1980: 49) ‘These examples clearly show that we not only talk about love

in term of war We can actually fight for a parson in ordor to save a relationship Any war presupposes two different sides, between which the fight is going on, we sce the same situation in a marriage: either the partners can attack the other (the competition bebveen male and ferrale), or the enemy can come from the outside To fight, an ally, to overpower, to gain ground ot battalions, atc are instances of the same defining domain, that of war (Lakoff, 1980: 61-68) We coherently use the war terminology when talking about feeling

LOVE IS CAPTIVE ANIMAL: He couldn't hol back his love; She tet yo of her feelings (Kovecses, 1986); Her love is not the hare that I do hunt (Shakespeare) Kovecses (1986)' view Love is captive animal metaphor is a conventional metaphor in which love is represented as a captive animal, external lo the person in love bul held onto by him or her, such that letting the animal loose represents loss of contol over the feelings of love, and holding onto the animal represents retention of control According to Lakoff (1987: 392-395), this metaphor characterizes aur allcrnp(s to control our “wild” and irrational emotion

LOVE IS A UNITY OF TWO COMPLEMENTARY PARTS: We're one They're breaking up; We're inseparable Theirs is a perfect match She is my better half (Kovecses, 1986) These instances form a whole correspond to the lovers in a relationship It is the particular complementary functions of each part (Le the two lovers) tried to emphasis by the unily melaphor in conceptualizing Jove This conceptual melaphor enlails the notion that finding lova, living somebody, or heing in a relationship is what makes » human being a

complete entity It contains the central notion that real love is the union with that better half that necds to be searched for and found in lift (Koveeses, 1986)

LOVE IS A HIDDEN OBJECT: He sought for love in the wrong places, His search for lave wasn't snocessfid; You're lucky 10 have found her (Kavecses, 1986) In this kind of

metaphor, love is represented as a hidden object to be sought after

LOVE IS A PLANT: Their love just begins to sprout latelv; My love for him has grown gradually; Their love has yielded positive results; Ler love starts to root (Lai and Abrens,

2001) Love as a plant is a conventional metaphor in which an idea is thought of as a plant in comparisons such as the following: the stages of growth and fiuition of the plant represent the slages of development of an emotion and the branches represent relales disciplines (Lakoll & Johnson, 1980) This metaphor also states that Jove is understood as plant because plants involve physical growth and love involves emotional growth

LOVE IS A COLLABORATIVE WORK OF ART: This metaphor is unconventional

metaphor It is the product of two ordinary people attempting to make sense of their everyday love experience (Kovecses, 2002: 36) This emphasizes the more action- oriented aspect of it

Iflove is a collaborative work of arl, the Iwo lovers should be able lo work oul their common

goals, the premises of the work, the responsibilities that they do or do not share The unconventionality of this conceptual metaphor is shown by the fact that Lakoff and Johnson (1980) do not provide any inctaphorical linguistic expressions to demamstrale it The reason is that there are no such conventionalized expressions (Koveoses, 2002),

LOVE IS MAGIC: She cast her spell over me; The magic is gone; I was spellbound: She had me hypnotized: Tle has me in trance; 1 am churmed hy him: She is bewitching

(Lakoff 1980:49) For centuries humans have been fascinated with things connected with

magic, as it provided the explanation for the unknown We are unlikely to find out how the

very sensation of love appours, thal is why we call il mugic, This molaphor is extremely

productive m English, moreover, the verbs 10 hypnotize, fo cast spell are most commonly used when talking about women’s ability to charm men, and not vice versa

1.2.2 Orientational metaphors

Another kind of the cognitive metaphor which Lakoff and Johnson have called is

orientational metaphor They claim that “one that does not structure one concept in terms of

another but instead organizes a whole system of coneept with respect to one another” and

“Spatial orientations arise fiom the fact that we have bodies of the sort we have and that they

function a they do in our physical environment” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: 14), The cognitive function of orientational sictaphors is to allow for coherency among the target concepts in the conceptual system Most of the metaphors in this category have to do with the basic human spatial orientations: up — down, in — out, front — back, on — off, deep — shallow, central — peripheral In the following part, I will take up/ down orientation as an example to illustrate how orientational metaphors act in set expressions

Good is up, bad is down

Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 16) mentioned “the physical basic of a personal well-being: happiness, health, life, and control-the things that principally characterize what is good for a person-are all up.” Lel’s look al the examples below:

(1) I'm feeling sợ

(Tôi đang vai}

(2) IVs polite to yfeld up your scal on the lms to an old lady

(ảnh hãy lịch sự nhường ghế cho người giả.)

(3) He lives down and out

(Anh dy dang thét ca 1 van.)

(4) Lfell into « depression

(ôi rất chân năn }

As we can soc the cxarmples above, the up/ down melaphors in fhe English expressions are different form of the equivalents in Vietnamese Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 14-21) also state that the orientational metaphors are based on physical and cultural experience They can vary from cullure to culture They are culture-specific, thal is, not all cullures give priorily lo the up down orientation In some cultures more emphasis may, for example, be put on an active-passive orientation or in-out orientation

1,

Ontological metaphors Ontological metaphors are “ways of viewing events, activities, emotions, ideas, ete., as entities and substances” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: 25) in order to refer to them, categorize them, group ther and qualify them, We conecive of our cxpericnce in ferms of objects, substances, and containers in general, without specifying what object, substance or container

is meant (Kovecses, 2002: 34) Ontological metaphors provide a more delineated structure to undesignated experiences The following examples illustrate the way in which these metaphors are used

(1) My fear that she should leave proved to be totally unfounded (referring)

(2) She is full of hatred for the onc who killed her friend (quantifying

(3) The enormity of the task caused him to quit the job (identifying cause)

(A) The brutality of the genocide shocked people all over the world (identifying aspects) Lakoff & Johnson (1980) assert that people hardly notice metaphors such as these, Decause they are so basic to everyday conceptualization and fimctioning They are nevertheless a means by which people understand either non-physical or not clearly bounded things as entities,

Understanding our experiences in terms of objects and substances allow us to pick out parts of our experience and treat them as discrele entities or substances of a uniform kine Container metaphor is the most typical kind of ontological metaphor We are physical beings,

bounded and separated from the rest of the world by the surface of onr skins, and we

experience the resi of the world oulside us According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 29) “Bach

of us is a containcr, with a bounding surfacc and an in-out oricntation We project our own in- out orientation onto other physical objects that are bounded by surfaces.” ‘thus we also view

thern as conlainers with an inside and an outside Lel’s look al examples below:

(1) He is cnet of sigh

(2) We're out of trouble now

(3) He fell int fove with him

In the above examples, sight, trouble, and love are all abstract concepts which are metaphorically viewed as concrete concept being boundaries

Moreover, Kove

(2002: 35) expresses the opinion thal personification is to be

conceived of as a form of ontological metaphor Personification is an ontological metaphor which allows us to use knowledge of itself to maximal effect, to use insights to help them comprehend such things as forces of nature, common events, abstract concepts, andl inanimate objects (Lakoff & Tuer, 1989: 72) Just how common personification is in literature and everyday discourse becomes apparent in the examples below:

(2) Death is a drie/-

(2) The wind whistled in the chimney

@) ile has cheated her

The non-imman entities death, wind and life are given qualities, such as rabbing, whistling, and cheating In this way, humans can come to a better understanding of the abstract concepts, for the person now serves as the source domain,

Lakoff and Tuer (1989: 73) insist (hal “Tn sorue melaphors, a person in one schema is understood in tenms of a person in another” that is related to

1 | Tmage schemas

Imag

periphery, and link are meaningful, dynamic patterns which recur in evaryday action and thought and which allow us to mentally structure our experiences and perceptions (Johnson,

1987; Lakoff, 1987, 1989; Tumer, 1992, 1996; Gibbs and Colston, 1995} In Johnson’s words

(1987; 29) “image schemata opcrates at a level of mental organization that falls between abstract propositional structures, on the one side, and particular conerete images, on the

other”

We usually map this image schema onto abstract target domains which do not inherently contain image, such as wakefulness, alertness and living, to be understood in terms

of physical objects and spalial relations Tag: schemas can be divided inta five schemas as

follow (Lakoff, 1987: 272-275) For Lakoff (1987), the container schema that defines the

predicates in and out would work as the basis for understanding the body as a container, the

visual field, and scl mode)

among others, The part-whole schema is Iransferred lo domains such as families, teams, organizations, marriage, atc, The link schema helps conceptualize social and interpersonal relationships ‘Ihe centre-periphery schema gives us the difference

belween the important things or matters, underslood as central, and less important or

secondary matters considered to be peripheral, Finally, the source-path-goal schema gives the clue for purposes in our daily life as destinations of a jonmey

According to Lakoff (1987), these image schemas might be so deeply grounded in common human experience that they constitute universal linguistic cognitive structures, Many

of the schemas clearly derive from the most immediate of all our experience of the human body,

Johnson (1987) explained the mechanism of transfer tom some domains into more abstract domains According to this author, there are metaphors that map image into abstract domains, prescrving their basic logic The metaphors used arc not arbitrary but motivated by structures inherent in everyday bodily experience

Firth maintains that meaning by collocation is lexical meaning “at the syntagmatic level” Firth (19ST, quoted in Patmer, 1981: 75) claimed that: “You shalt know a word by the company it keeps” and this keeping company- collocation, he called, was part of the meaning ofa word.”

Collocation , as is defined by Robbins (1989: 65), is (he habitual association of a word it

a language with othar particular words in sentences Leech (1974: 20) also discusses collocative meaning, He holds that ecllocative meaning comprises the associations a word acquires by virtne of the meanings of words which are likely to occur in its environment

Palmer (1981: 76) argucs that collocation is not simply a master of association of ideas;

it is sometimes fairly idiosyncratic and cannot be predicted by virtne of the meaning of the associated words, For example, white pain is common onough lo say, but white mili is noi, though milk is white, and blond hair is acceptable while blond door is not, though with the same color, Other examples ate those of “rancid” and “addle” meaning stale, rotten, bad:

Beckman and Callow (1974, quoted in Baker, 1992; 50) suggests two main factors that can influence the collocational range of a word One is its level of specificity: the more general a lexeme is, the broader it is collocational range: the more specific if 1s, the more restricted its collocational range For example, “bury” collocaling with people a ovasure, one's head, feelings, and memories; but “inter” with people only The second factor is the number of senses the world has The tends to attract a different set for each sense; for

oxample, “run”, in its sense of manage, collocates with conpary:, institution and business, in

its sense of operate or provide, it occurs with “service” or “course” It follows that there is a strong relationship between the number of senses of a word and its collocational range

It is obvious that collocation involves the associations of ideas, and the meaning of the enlire expression can be predicted from the meaning of individual lexezngs, Some collocations, however, are idiosyncratic and the meaning cannot be predicted fiom the meaning of individual lexemes, Collocation can be unrestricted with a wide collocational range, but restricted with a limited collocational range

1.5 The notion /ove in English

In principle, sadness, anger, and fear are emotions, and so is dove, In general, it is usually considered that emotions are natural body-experiences that are then expressed through language and that language, in tum, is often described as irrational and subjective That is, what we first feel our bodies, later comes out of our mouths in the form of a discourse which

is, in some way, opposed lo reasơn Emotions ars also said Lo be goslaled in (he unconscious and not in the will Recently, it is considered that emotions are not the exclusive preserve of the individual's interiority, process, determinants, and consequences of emotions depend on language use Thos, we will deal wilh the strict relalionship belweon cmotions and language Especially, we will deal with one emotion, which has been, in the history of mankind in

Western culture, really important (Oatley, 2004) We refer to love, understood in the broadest

Collins Cobuild Dictionary (2003; 855) defines /ove as a very strong feeling of aftiction towards someone whom yon are romantically or sexually attracted to

The instances of the noun fove were first categorized according to their patticipants, at least one of whom (or which) experiences love, and one is the target’cause(r) object of love, mutually being ideal ‘The notion of participant domains is included in the definitions, because one varmot always strictly pinpoint who or whal (animal, imaginary being, cle) is experiencing the motion, while it does tend to be possible to say whether the love being expressed concerns romance or family relationships, for example The definitions of these Kinds of lov: run as follow (Tissari, 2003; 2, 260-361)

(a) The participants of family love (storge) are members of the same family This love occurs in the participant domain of family

(b) ‘The participants of marital love (storge-eros) are spouses ‘This love occurs in the participant domain of mariage

(c) The participants of sexual love (eros) are (potential) lovers This love occurs in the participant domain of sexuality

(đ) The participants of ftiendship love (phiia) are neither members of the same family, spouses of one another, or (potential) lovers, but this love occurs in the domain of ftiendship, between people share thoughts and interests, or out of a wish to do something good to another human being

(e) The participants of religious love (agape) include God, or a god, at least indirectly through a divine command or inspiration, and this love occurs between a human and a divine boing, orperlains 1a someone wha acts out of faith

( At least onc of the participants of dove of “thing” is non-human (animal or inanimate), This love occurs in the participant domain of the “test of the world”, in contrast to the above

It is difficult to have these definitions logically, but it is also assumed that these

categories attest prototype effects and partly overlap with each other (Lakoff, 1987: 91-114;

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

In this chapter, the research questions will be restated in 2,1, the data will be described in 2.2, the analytical framework of the study will be introduced in detail in 2.3, and data analysis and discussion will be presented in 2.4 This is the central focus of the present study, the conceptualization of Jove in English,

2.1 Research questions

‘The question below is the heart of the study:

~ How is /ove conceptualized in English evidenced in some English expressions of Jove?

2.2 Data collection

In this analysis which follows, I concentrate on the basic noun /ove in some set

expressions The metaphors containing the word /ove in expressions are especially typical, while the verb is much more seldom accompanied

An inventory of more than 115 English expressions used to talk about the emotion /ove

in English was compiled from dictionaries and some plays of Shakespeare, more than 20 expressions of /ove have been collected fiom the plays, such as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet,

Othello, Two Noble Kinsmen, Richard HI, Taming, and Coriolonus In the novels, love is

appeared in many expressions Moreover, the data is also compiled from the website

http://www _quotegarden comlove htm, accessed on July 8", 2010 This website collects and

acknowledges many expressions of love Some Vietnamese expressions are found to compare

with the conceptualization of Jove in the English expressions

The expressions in the data were grouped into source domains (container, fire/ heat, social superior or opponent, valuable commodity, natural/ physical forces, fluid in a container, journey, nutrient, rapture, insanity, and unity of two complementary parts) The following part represents the analytical framework to analyze the data

2.3 Analytical framework

According to structural metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980 and Kovecses, 1986), love is conceptualized as journey, war, container, a fluid in a container, natural/ physical forces, rapture, insanity, captive animal, nutrient, valuable commodity, war, patient,

madness, magic, unity of two complementary, fire/ heat, social superior or opponent, hidden

object, and collaborative work In the following section, the details of all the source domains

will be outlined.

love

f you trip.” Love is also combined with ihe prepositional plirase on the rock, for example,

“['m having a love affair with this guy but it’s on the rocks.”

2.3.3 Love isa fluid in a container

The verbs such as fill, pour out, popple, moisten, or well up are uscd lo conceptualizs Jove as a fluid in a container They combine with /ove in the expressions, for cxample, “She

was overflowing with love.” or “She was filled with love.”

Some nouns like fountain, dew, or ocean, and the adjective such as fid? is used 1o represent love as a fluid ina container for instance, “Love is like dew falls on both nettles and lilies.” Or “Love is a am ocean of emotions entirely surrounded by expenses”

2.3.4 Love is madness

The words like evacy, blind, madness, or out of mind are collocated with fove in some expressions to conceptualize it as madness, fbr example “And most of all would flee from the cruel madness of love.” or “Tle was blinded by love.”

2.3.5 Love is insanity

Love is used with the adjectives such as lind, incapable or stupid to conceptualize love

as insarily For example, “Love is being stupid logether.” The nouns like folly or foo! and the

verbs such as rave, drive out of mind, unable to think straight or distract ate combined with

Jove to conceptualized love as insanity, for instances, “(1) Love drives me out of mind” or

“Well, love is insamity The ancient Grecks knew that It is the taking over of the rational and lucid mind by delusion and self-destruction You lose yourself, you have no power over yourself, you can’ even think straight.”

2.3.6 Love is rapture

The meaning of rapture is understood or implied when fove is used with the verbs such

as intoxicate or drunk and the adjectives such as giddy, high, ecstasy, silly ox irresistible For example, “He is intoxicated with love.” or “Anyone can be passionate, but it takes the real love Lo be silly.”

2.3.7 Love is natura physical forces

The meaning of natural force or physical force is understood when /ove is combined with

the verbs such as carry away, attract, revolve, take away, touch, restrain, or open, for

example, “She was carried away by love.” or “If love has touched you, naught remain but so.” Also, in this kind of metaphor /ove is collocated with the nouns such as electricity, energy, misty rains, flood oy atmosphere, for example “Tel your love be like the misty rains, coming softly, but flooding the river.”

2.3.8 Love is fire/ heat

Love is uscd as fire or hzal whew ilis combined wilh the verbs such as hurn, scorch, stir

up, ignite, put oul, warm, mell, kindle, consene, throb, ot light For example: “Love burns

across the infinitude.” or “His fove has warmed my heart.” {t is also used with the nouns, for

justance, smoke or flame Lel’s see the examples: “Lave is a smoke made with the fume of sigh.” or “Love must be as much as light, as it is flame.”

2.3.9, Love is a nutrient

The meaning of a untrient is understood when fove is collocated wilh the verbs such as

starve, live, need, scoop or thrive For instance, “I cannot live without love.” or “Scoop love from him.” Moreover, the nouns like refreshment, hunger vitamin, or food are used to

understand fove as a mulrient, for instance, “The hunger for love is much more difficult 1a remove than the hunger for bread.” or “Love is the greatest refreshment in life.”

2.3.10 Love is a valuable commodity (in an economic exchange)

Love is concepLaalized as 4 valuable commodity when i is collocated with dhe verbs and the nouns, such as give, get, exchange, invest, lose, buy or get out of For instance, “Success;

happiness and the ability to give and receive love all hinge on our relationship.”, “Love is neither bought nor sold.” or “Love is priceless.”

2.3.11 Love isa social superior and opponent

Love is imptied as a social or superior and opponent when it is used with the verbs such

as, rule, dominate, seize, overcome, fight aff, force, heat struggle ov conquer For oxamp

“She is completely ruled by love.” and “She was struggling with her feeling of love.” It is