13.Role of foregrounding and mapping for metaphor

Foregrounding is the practice of making something stand out from the surrounding words or images. It is “the ‘throwing into relief’ of the linguistic sign against the background of the norms of ordinary language.” The term was first associated with Paul Garvin in the 1960s, who used it as a translation of the Czech aktualisace (literally "to actualise"), borrowing the terms from the Prague school of the 1930s.

Foregrounding can occur on all levels of language (phonology, graphology, morphology, lexis, syntax, semantics and pragmatics). It is generally used to highlight important parts of a text, to aid memorability and/or to invite interpretation.

A mapping is the systematic set of correspondences that exist between constituent elements of the source and the target domain. Many elements of target concepts come from source domains and are not preexisting. To know a conceptual metaphor is to know the set of mappings that applies to a given source-target pairing. The same idea of mapping between source and target is used to describe analogical reasoning and inferences.

Conceptual metaphors typically employ a more abstract concept as target and a more concrete or physical concept as their source. Different conceptual metaphors tend to be invoked when the speaker is trying to make a case for a certain point of view or course of action. For instance, one might associate "the days ahead" with leadership, whereas the phrase "giving my time" carries stronger connotations of bargaining. Selection of such metaphors tends to be directed by a subconscious or implicit habit in the mind of the person employing them.

15.Features of cognitive metaphor

In cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor, or cognitive metaphor, refers to the understanding of one idea, or conceptual domain, in terms of another, for example, understanding quantity in terms of directionality (e.g. "prices are rising"). A conceptual domain can be any coherent organization of human experience. The regularity with which different languages employ the same metaphors, which often appear to be perceptually based, has led to the hypothesis that the mapping between conceptual domains corresponds to neural mappings in the brain.

Conceptual metaphors are used very often to understand theories and models. A conceptual metaphor uses one idea and links it to another to better understand something. For example, the conceptual metaphor of viewing communication as a conduit is one large theory explained with a metaphor. So not only is our everyday communication shaped by the language of conceptual metaphors, but so is the very way we understand scholarly theories. These metaphors are prevalent in communication and we do not just use them in language; we actually perceive and act in accordance with the metaphors.

16.Basic cognitive metaphors in English

In cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor, or cognitive metaphor, refers to the understanding of one idea, or conceptual domain, in terms of another, for example, understanding quantity in terms of directionality (e.g. "prices are rising"). A conceptual domain can be any coherent organization of human experience. The regularity with which different languages employ the same metaphors, which often appear to be perceptually based, has led to the hypothesis that the mapping between conceptual domains corresponds to neural mappings in the brain.

Research in the cognitive sciences over the last twenty years has shown us that metaphor is more than a fancy language device used by poets; it is, in fact, the main way in which our mind works. That is, when we interpret things, when we make comparisons, we do it with metaphors.

For linguistic research does not set out with a preconceived set of conceptual metaphors, but instead has to deal with spontaneous metaphorical expressions as they are encountered in concrete uncontrolled language use. There is a decided difference between the postulation of conceptual metaphors such as LIFE IS A JOURNEY, LOVE IS A JOURNEY, HAPPY IS UP, and so on, as well as their illustration by well-chosen examples, on the one hand, and the technical identification in on-going discourse of expressions presumably related to such postulated conceptual metaphors, on the other hand.

LOVE IS WAR is not the only example of structural metaphors of love. There are others as well, viewing different aspects of the feeling, some of them exist in both English and Russian, others do not.

LOVE IS MADNESS: I am crazy about her. Wild, mad, angry and crazy are well-understood by us, we do nothave any difficulties in specifying our feeling or behaviour when we experience any of theseemotions or mental states. Furthermore, we are aware of the fact that each of these emotionsis slightly different from the others, and that some of them evoke stronger feelings than the others do. Madness with all its implications belongs to our most natural and basic experiences and therefore gives us a clue of how we feel about love. The existence of the same metaphor is predetermined in many languages, because it involves our most basic instincts and reactions, it is an unalienable part of our development.