Some problems of investigating metaphoric domains in the linguistic cultures of different nations

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Introduction

Much has already been said about metaphors. As it is known, a metaphor is one of the main tropes which scientists have dealt with since ancient times. Many writers used thousands of them in their masterpieces making them the specimens of the literary art. Hundreds of scientists devoted their works to this subject, and not only in the domain of linguistics but in other different branches of science as well (for instance, [Arutyunova 1977 a; Arutyunova 1977 b; Arutyunova 1978 a; Arutyunova 1978 b; Arutyunova 1979; Nikitin 1979; Sklyarevskaya 1987; Sklyarevskaya 1988; Sklyarevskaya 2004; Luttrell 2013; Ruiz, Hanin 2004] etc.). That is why it seems quite logical to ask the following question: “What new can we about a metaphor? Why do the scientists refer to the subject again and again?”

Surely, all these questions are bogus in their essence. The main answer to the question why the phenomenon of transition of meaning and respectively iconic form is a constantly developing process is rather simple, as the phenomenon of metaphor is wider than the phenomenon of sign. There exist numerous instances when one and the same metaphoric model can be effectively realized within different semiotic systems. For example, one may show some positive or negative change in understanding certain things using not only purely linguistic and extralinguistic means of communication as gestures and movements of the body but some additional means (facial expression of coldness, pretending not to know you though you have been acquainted for a long period, etc.). A toddler can use certain objects to play, as, for instance, slippers instead of boats floating down the river made by a prolonged rug, without even knowing how these objects are called. Moreover, an oral speech giver more reliable results than studying different cognitive effects within the samples of fiction or institutional documents. In this respect we fully agree with O.V. Alexandrova when she says: “Изучая живую речь, следует отметить, что ее арсенал средств (принимая во внимание и экстралингвистические) не только несравненно богаче ее письменного аналога, но они имеют специфический характер” [Aleksandrova 1984, р. 168–169]. This and other similar facts prove that the metaphor represents a certain kind of creative activity, and so, it should be scientifically investigated by putting an accent on metaphor’s ontological essence as a special mental activity.

 

Methods and Methodology

As we have already pointed out, the metaphoric process is a certain kind of activity, that is why it should be ontologically viewed from the point of the activity methodological outlook. According to it, – at least, it is G.P. Shchedrovitsky’s point of view [Shchedrovitsky 2005, р. 168–169] that we share as well – any activity consists of the three main parts:

– stimulus, i. e. some initial move that gives way to the activity in general. In case of some mental activity one may justly call it ‘motivation”, though in the case of metaphor it can happen without special and well thought in advance preparation, as it happens when we are faced with the necessity to explain to somebody who does not have a command of your language and, respectively, you can not speak his/her language, but the communication is necessitated by the situation.

– means for the realization of the activity. To this we refer, first of all, certain objects and instruments appropriate for the situation, the situation itself, other active persons involved in the semiosis, etc.

– another constituent part that Scshedrovitsky does not point out but we do is the algorithm of providing the action. In broad sense it is pointed out certain sequence of actions which are necessary or desirable to fulfil due to this particular activity in one or different situations of its realization (Chekulai 2006, р. 205). As far as the metaphor is concerned, these are interrelated ways in which the content of a source-domain is transmitted into a target-domain.

– the last stage in this chain is represented by the result which is a sign belonging to a certain semiotic system, be it the domain of music, graphics, architecture or language.

Taking this as a philosophic preliminary sketch for further adaptation of the conception of metaphor as a specific phenomenon of human cognitive activity to the domain of language, one should admit that the stimulus for any metaphor is one and the same irrespectively of the semiotic domain it is intended for – to substitute the notion about one object with another object which has certain and vitally important for the effectiveness of the metaphoric process features in common with the object that is in need of substitution. But when it comes to the domain of language immediately, there appear a lot of different additional reasons for such a substitution predetermined by pragmatic factors in the first place. We will not deal about that in detail as it is surely an object of some special and fundamental research which is to uncover some new reasons for the metaphoric transitions, though much has been achieved in this respect. That is why we think it of primary importance to concentrate on different ways and types of the means of performing metaphorical transitions within a human language.

 

Objectives of the Research

It goes without saying that all the means of metaphoric – and metonymic – transitions in a language are directly or circumstantially the linguistic means. First of all, we may view them according to the level of language system which they immediately belong to. Definitely, the main speech unit to perform such a transition is the word, but we are sure that such a transition may be of more complex nature and may therefore be represented by the units of the constructive, i.e. syntactic and supra-phrasal, linguistic levels, penetrating into their categorial structure and thus acquiring the necessary form to produce the desired pragmatic effect.

If we take the level of the word in particular, it is easy to notice the multitude of structural patterns that create the units of this level and their interaction in the context. First of all, one differentiates between the parts of speech, and that is rather an interesting point that should be put attention to. The matter is, that scientists usually describe all the metaphoric models within the framework of the cognitive linguistics in terms of the nouns. For instance, G. Lakoff and
M. Johnson begin their known to everyone in the linguistic world “Metaphors We Live By” with the conceptual metaphoric model ARGUMENT IS WAR [Lakoff, Johnson 2003, p. 5], where it is easy to see that both components forming the predicative structure joining the source and target domains are both nouns, and proceed with further scientific narration using the same part-of-speech correlation, save the orientational metaphors of the type HAPPY IS UP, SAD IS DOWN and the like. The problem whether the part of speech is important to denote the essential features of the metaphoric model in general seems to be worth a damn, yet we consider to pay some attention to it as far as such subjective entities as feelings, sensations and emotions are concerned. For instance, the English set-expression to feel blue suggests such a model as BLUE (COLOR) IS GLOOMY/SAD/MELANCHOLIC. Should this model be viewed as belonging to denote the regular associative relations within the semantic system of the English language in general, or is it sporadic and used and understood only by some people speaking this language? Surely, the first part of the alternative question is the answer. Admitting this fact means that it is highly likely that there are models that should be adequately expressed by some other part-of-speech models than the one consisting of two nouns. For example, the colloquial meanings of the Russian verbs доставать and задалбывать used in the perfective form of the narrative sentence addressing one or several persons, i.e. in the 2^nd person, may mean “to get highly annoyed by his/her inadequate conduct or speech”, and namely:

Достал ты меня! Задолбал ты меня!

In all these instances, the metaphoric model ДОСТАТЬ/ЗАДОЛБАТЬ – ЭТО РАЗГНЕВАТЬ И НАДОЕСТЬ ОДНОВРЕМЕННО is the means of realization some negative emotional reaction which can be explained as a mixed feeling between anger and irritation, or to be more exact, both anger and irritation. Of course, one can try to invent some commendable from his subjective point of view metaphorical model with the nominative constituents, as, for instance, *BATTERING/PECKING/CHISELLING IS ANGER/IRRITATION, but every person with a commendable command of the language will understand its lame character. Thus, in terms of the Russian language this metaphoric model can be better put in the verbs than in the nouns.

 

Results and Discussion

This problem gives way to a whole set of discussion lines. The fact that a metaphorical transition as a holistic process has certain difficulties in explaining it as a conceptual unity brings to the fore the general problem of the ontological status of the metaphor. G. Lakoff and M. Johnson put forward the term “conceptual metaphor” as the cornerstone of their general theory of metaphor. They write, in particular: “We think… that the only answer is to base both the theory of meaning and the theory of truth on the theory of understanding… Metaphors are basically devices for understanding and have little to do with objective reality, if there is such a thing” [Lakoff, Johnson 2003, p. 184]. The idea of the primacy of the cognitive over all other essential components follows logically from this, but we have certain grounds to doubt it. If we refer to the case that we have suggested above with the verbs доставать and задалбывать one should admit that these verbs conveing this particular sense of irritated indignation is anomalous with the 1^st person both Singular and Plural in the Active voice. More than that, if we take the same with the 3^rd person both Singular and Plural, the characteristic for the situation sense of indignant irritation remains but becomes tangibly weaker in its illocutive force.

The facts above show that the word-form, i.e. the paradigm of different morphological grammatical forms of the given words is not full, as their 1^st person Active Voice cannot be used in this metaphorical sense. We see also the pragmatic limitedness of some word-forms, and, besides, one may surely add the linguo-cultural factor up there. For instance, if we take the English-language proverb “Scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours” it is easy to see that the word-combination “to scratch back” embodies the metaphoric model SCRATCHING BACKS IS CORRUPTION, and this model is inherent in the Anglo-Saxon linguistic culture while in its Russian counterpart the proverb with the correspondent sense «Рука руку моет, и обе грязные» (“One hand washes another, and both are dirty”) another model WASHING HANDS IS CORRUPTION is typical of expressing the same attitude to the facts of social life.

Surely, it is possible to find common elements in the two proverbs that give possibility to speak of the common conceptual basis in their meaningful structures. First, they both imply MUTUALNESS of the action expressed by the verbs in their source-domains. Second, both sayings may be interpreted either with positive evaluative connotation or with negative one, depending on a person uttering it and those who are listening to him/her. But may these sayings be considered as conceptual metaphors from purely cognitive linguistic point of view? As Zoltán Kövecses puts it, “the standard definition of conceptual metaphors is this: A conceptual metaphor is understanding one domain of experience (that is typically abstract) in terms of another (that is typically concrete). This definition captures conceptual metaphors both as a process and a product. The cognitive process of understanding a domain is the process aspect of metaphor, while the resulting conceptual pattern is the product aspect” (Kövecses 2003). Does that mean that if both domains as it was in the cases described above are concrete, then the metaphor ceases to be conceptual? And is it a metaphor at all?

The present-day research of the metaphor as a cognitive process is concentrated on practically and exclusively semantic interpretation of the phenomenon, and this seems a tendency that arouses alert. We often forget that a man as the main and practically the ultimate user of language as a means of communication does not only acquire ideas but also gives them a necessary form, embodies them in certain units and structures and uses these ideas to gain his or her personal profit or advantage in the battle of life every person experiences every day of his or her existence. As scientists, we often ignore the fact that a language unit is just a specific sign belonging to a certain semiotic system, and therefore concentrate only on what this or that language or speech unit denotes or implies, ignoring the fact that this reflection of the objective or subjective reality must necessarily receive a certain form on the basis of the specific for this particular semiotic system processes because of the personal intentions, presumptions, views, beliefs, esoteric positions that have their own specific processes of formation and functioning. And this is true not only for the scientific research of metaphors but other linguistic phenomena as well.

That is why the question whether a conceptual metaphor – the term that we understand in a general sense as a conceptual unity of the two or more notions united by the relations of likeliness – may be expressed by the nominal parts of speech only, or whether one could take other parts of speech to express his or her ideas of a particular metaphoric model in question.

This consideration implies the idea of taking into account not only semantic but syntactic properties of metaphor – as well as other semantic phenomena and processes that constitute the necessary set of structural characteristic features governing the formation of the phenomena in question.

Another important issue that should be paid attention to comes from the case whith “scratching backs” and “washing hands”. We have reviewed only their categorial features in common. But if we take poorly the semantic aspect of the interrelation of these proverbs, one can easily notice that they have one thing in common and, namely, the reciprocal actions represent some action implied to certain human parts of a body.

We have dealt with the material of the two languages only up to now. But if we take some other languages, or to be more exact, other linguistic cultures, this gives some unusual, at first sight, results. For example, we have practically the same lexical units comprising an idiom that we have had in Russian if we refer to German. They also may be interpreted with different evaluative connotation:

Mein Nachbar geht mit meinem Hund gassi, ich hole ihn ab und zu vom Flughafen ab. Eine Hand wäscht die andere (We help each other as neighbours, and that is good from all points).

Wenn du uns bei der Flucht hilfst, helfen wir dir, mit dem Boss Kontakt aufzunehmen. Eine Hand wäscht die andere (the situation is good for the criminals, but is negative from the point of view of the law).

– Ein sehr korruptes System. Eine Hand wäscht die andere (a poorly negative characteristic of the social drawbacks).

But we see the same results when we refer to some Romanic languages, such as Spanish and Italian:

Petróleo, gas, política, intimidación y represión se mezclan mientras una mano intenta lavar a la otra (a poorly negative evaluation of certain siuation in business).

Aveva rifiutato di capire gli accenni di Finch al fatto che una mano lava l’altra (rather a wide context that may admit different variants of evaluation the fact from a speaker’s point of view).

No wonder that in these cases the wide range of the coincidence with the Russian linguistic culture is evident. But the case is that all of them, including the Russian one, go back to the ancient Latin “Manus manum lavat” which has a wide scope of denoting the evaluative side of situations as well. The same one meets in French, Hungarian and other European languages. Frankly speaking, the variant with “hands” may be found in English as well, but it is not so recurrent as the variant with “backs”.

The analogue of these proverbs can be found in Chinese, but it has somewhat different meaning, just let us see it:

滴水之恩,当涌泉相报 [ Dīshuǐ zhī ēn, dāng yǒng quán xiāng bào] . Literally it has the following translation “Dropping water is merciful, a fountain pays in return” but having the sense “returning a favour many times more”, corresponding more to the English “Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves”, or the Russian «Копейка рубль бережет» but having more general meaning than the English and the Russian proverbs, as they apply to the monetary or industrial spheres only while in Chinese the named proverb can be applied to any sphere of human relations where a small input or effort may bring a substantial profit or other favourable result.

These considerations give grounds to the following reasons. First, it is hard to deny that metaphorical processes differ little in their structural characteristic features. And there are certain cases when the same metaphorical model with the corresponding conceptual coincidences reflected in the corresponding semantically lexical units, as we have seen in the case of Manus manum lavat. And it might create the illusion that all metaphorical models in different linguistic cultures coincide up to all lexical components. This point has not received due consideration as nearly all important papers concerning the problems of conceptual metaphor are limited by a certain language; the majority of these works are done on the material of the English language. That is why the comparative aspect of the problem of cognitive metaphor needs further clarification, as there appear some additional aspects of their similarity and difference in different languages and corresponding cultures. As for the proverbs mentioned, the matter is simple and has already been viewed in the theory of set expressions. From the point of view of their etymology the set-expressions are divided into two large groups: those created on some native ground and those that found their way inside the phraseological paradigm of a certain language from other linguistical and cultural sources, These outer to some native idiomatic system sources may be of international character, such as those coming from the biblical and other religious doctrines, from ancient culture and mythology, and the proverb Manus manum lavat is just the last case when the popular Latin expression was creatively borrowed and by means of tracing paper translation was interpreted word by word into different European languages in different historical periods. Anyway, it is necessary to admit that a coincidence of metaphors is rather a wide-spread case, and the theory of conceptual metaphors as presented by G. Lakoff, M. Johnson, Z. Kövecses and other known linguists majoring in metaphorical processes is surely a commendable, healthy theory which needs neither its affirmation nor much debates on it. People are apt to think with the same concepts and categories in different parts of the planet. But at the same time no one can deny that there are certain cases when the conceptual structure of metaphorical models differ, and this fact finds its realizations in using different words to present the same metaphorical models and, vice versa, different models of metaphoric transitions are made actual using the same words. In order to confirm these there is a need to refer to the particular cases of metaphors in different languages from the comparative point of view.

First, despite the fact that the representatives of different ethnical groups perceive the colours of the outer world in the same way, there are certain metaphors that use colours to represent certain entities that have symbolic content. For instance, in many cultures such feeling as envy is expressed in the terms of certain colours of eyes. The analysis of different language facts shows that the associative picture in different cultures is not uniform in some complex instances of colour metaphors. It is remarkable that different peoples describe the same facts of reality in different colour terms, though it is clear that they cannot differ depending on places where these different peoples live, or on their social, racial etc. peculiarities on condition these facts are universal.

A vivid example of such universal phenomena can be manifested by different feelings, sensations and emotions that people experience throughout their lives. To be more exact, these certain complex feelings and emotions, or, otherwise, different emotional states may be expressed by a metaphorical complex, as in the following. One of the Internet sites dealing with the meaningful specifics of actualizing English language unit of speech gives such a piece of information:

“Someone who looks upon something with a jaundiced eye is most often perceived as having been harmed or tricked in the past and is world-wise. The word jaundiced is an adjective that means showing distaste, envy or bitterness. It is derived from the word jaundice which means yellow” (grammarist.com).

As for the Russian language, we have found only the examples where the source domain yellow eyes is correlated with the only conceptual entity – ENVY:

Григорий Никандрович усиленно улыбался, в то время как глаза его пожелтели от зависти (Анастасия Герасимова. Вензель императора).

And a very interesting piece of information concerning this case is given by A. Vostrikova and D. Leonova where they give not only the fact from the Chinese language but in Russian as well:

«Красный цвет обладает и негативными оттенками значений. Значение китайского фразеологизма ‘‘红眼病’’ совпадает со значениями таких русских фразеологизмов, как ‘‘позеленеть от зависти’’, ‘‘завидовать по-черному’’. Буквально он переводится как ‘‘болезнь красных глаз’’» [Vostrikova, Leonova 2018, р. 17].

When G. Lakoff and M. Johnson speak of the coherent structuring of experience they fail to explain why the same phenomena that cannot differ due to their ontological characteristics receive different language nominations in different linguistic cultures. In this case the same phenomenon gets different development in at least the three above-mentioned languages. And no one yet has even tried to discover whether there is real ground to state that eyes really acquire certain colour or shade of it when a person experiences a certain feeling or emotion, envy in particular. But the fact remains that different languages produce different results as far as a metaphor of colour as a material sign of envy is concerned. We see it as a necessary development of the general theory of linguistic metaphor.

As far as the semantic sphere of colour is concerned, we can take another aspect of denoting one and the same phenomenon of reality which has different semantic ways of a sign outer form depending on a culture and respectively of a language. We mean such a biological phenomenon as a hematoma which is understood as a subcutaneous blood clot which has appeared as a result of some strong outer impact, such as blow, compression etc., on a corresponding part of a body. No one can doubt that this phenomenon manifests itself in every part of the planet and with every individual in the same way. Depending on the stage of its existence it may change colouration from a colour of a ripe plum and, passing through some bluish-blackish stage may have some ill-greenish shade before its complete disappearance. Yet, such different cultures as the Russian and the Anglo-Saxon use different colour denotations: in Russian it is «синяк», that corresponds for “dark-blue” plus the noun-formation suffix, and in English it is “black” in analytical combination with a noun denoting a suffered part of a body, mostly “eyes”, as in the following example:

When Mel fell down and hit her face on her brother’s toy truck she got a black eye.

We consider it necessary to add that this phenomenon is not necessarily connected with colouring, as far as different linguistic cultures are concerned. For example, in German it is Prellung which literally means “injure, harm”, and in Chinese it is 挫伤 “cuoshang”, which consists of the characters meaning “upset” plus ‘harm”.

If one takes the grammar aspect of structuring metaphors, the problem we have already touched upon, – we mean “grammar” in its traditional understanding, not the cognitive one – and the grammatical morphology, in particular, we need to lay an emphasis on the problem why the cognitive theory of metaphor uses only substantives to mark the concepts that combine into the cognitive metaphors. Are there any cases of metaphor that can be rendered in terms of the other parts of speech? And the answer seems evident, as G. Lakoff and M. Johnson use the prepositions UP and DOWN to denote the target-domains of the mental entities that they call “orientational metaphors” [Lakoff, Johnson 2003]. As one can easily see, the concept is expressed not even with a notional, but the structural part of speech – with the prepositions UP and DOWN.

Surely, there may be some argument in favour of these lexemes as nouns, as in analytical languages one and the same lexeme may be represented by different parts of speech, the prepositions UP and DOWN also belonging to this set, as sometimes we see them as notional parts of speech, as in “Suddenly he ups and stabs his neighbour with a knife”, but the invariant grammatical meaning of these lexemes still remains a prepositional one.

These considerations raise the following question: can a cognitive metaphor be expressed with some other parts of speech than a substantive, or not? And if it can, what is the principal difference between the models that are traditionally proposed in the cognitive linguistics and these new entities?

Let us view several examples, for instance, the following utterance from “Oliver Twist, or The Parish Boy’s Progress” by Charles Dickens: “The days were peaceful and serene; the nights brought with them neither fear nor care”.

Undoubtedly, the verb bring was used here in a metaphoric sense. Such a metaphor has already become a stale one, and its model is not reduced to nights only and may be implied to any period of time. For instance, spring, or the next day may bring something, and this something is not necessarily an object, mostly these are events that are brought with the time flow. Let us see in what way this model is manifested in different languages. But before doing it let us remember that we are linguists, after all, and that means that while analyzing metaphors as the mental entities we should keep in mind that they are language entities, and that is why we should view them not only in the focus of their content but in the focus of their formal characteristic features as well. One should bear in mind that in real communicative situations NOUN 1 and NOUN 2 are not only a source-domain and a target-domain, they are also certain sentence members. That is why we think it quite reasonable what definite, concrete, clear-cut linguistic units constitute metaphors in the practice of a certain ethnos’ language communication.

So, we have already outlined the standpoint that a certain period of a separate day, or of a season, can bring something, and in that way the noun denoting this temporal entity becomes the subject of a sentence. We have already seen this noun in the English example. In Belo-Russian and Ukrainian we see the examples exactly repeating the same separate model with the nouns corresponding to the English noun night:

Гэта ноч прынесла мне разгадку аднаго цiкавага пытання, якое выявiлася зусiм нецiкавым, калi не лiчыць таго, што я лiшнi раз пераканауся у тым, што подласць жыве i у дурных, добрых, наогул, душах (Уладзiмiр Караткевiч. Дзiкае паляванне караля Стаха).

Нiч горiла темрявою. Була вона найтемнiша з усiх ночей, ця нiч її падiння. Не стала вона святом Єльчиного життя. Не принесла нi радостi, нi насолоди. Нiчого, крiм болю (Олесь Гончар. Собор).

The last example is remarkable because this particular night as a period between the evening and the following morning was not usual in Yel’ka’s life, as it is marked in the text as the night of fall, i.e. a complex of the two semantic entities where the fall becomes the leading element and, being a negative event of great importance in the life of a young girl living in the society where the first night with a man before she had been married to him was considered as something very shameful, this word marks the leading semantic element which shifts the meaning from the concept NIGHT as a period of time to the concept of EVENT, where NIGHT becomes a certain domain of the metonymic shift NIGHT is EVENT. An EVENT can also bring, for instance/ a certain emotion, as in the following example from Ukrainian: “Нi, не принесла “воля” жаданого щастя” (Оксана Іваненко. Марія).

Can we say of the same metaphoric model where we may neglect the difference between NIGHT and EVENT by shifting our attention to the fact that they play a secondary part, and the focus of semantic action is concentrated on the verb bring? Perhaps, we should not be so categorical, as a certain difference between the notions of PERIOD OF TIME and EVENT does exist, but the second part of the question remains actual enough. We see that in both cases the concept expressed by a subject of a sentence brings something which is an object of the sentence. And this provokes the third question concerning the phenomenon discussed, whether the entity brought by the concepts of PERIOD OF TIME or EVENT belongs to a certain conceptual type. Let us try to clear up these problems step by step.

As we have already stated out, the concepts PERIOD OF TIME and EVENT have metonymical relations, as EVENT takes place at a certain time, and, vice versa, any PERIOD OF TIME either contains a uniform event/set of events or a certain portion of event takes place at that period of time. If so, do any other entities of the objective reality of the kind exist, so that they may also form metaphorical models that are explained by the action described by the verb bring? Surely, such a problem needs special investigation. Preliminarily, we may speak of PERSON that brings NEWS, but can it be referred to the cognitive semantic paradigm to which PERIOD OF TIME and EVENT belong? Thus, this problem should be viewed separately.

Yet, this gives certain grounds for further reasoning, as there exists a certain moment to put these seemingly different cognitive entities together. Namely, it is the fact that both PERIOD OF TIME/EVENT and PERSON may bring NEWS. That gives us another important vector of the investigation the essence of which is that the subject of a sentence involved in to a communicative situation with the metaphorical use of the verb bring should be investigated in a close connection with the object (or several objects) of that very sentence and perhaps other sentences involved in the situation.

Beside the knowledge structures PERIOD OF TIME and EVENT, it is easy to find another semantic category which can bring things that may be interpreted as sensations. This category is NATURAL PHENOMENA, such as the four elements (air, water, fire, earth) and their different specific manifestations – wind, light, rain etc. There is a ground to suppose that this particular model of metaphor is of universal character, as the samples of it can be found in different languages, for instance:

 Yet the serene half-light over Tara’s well-kept acres brought a measure of quiet to her disturbed mind (M. Mitchell. Gone With the Wind).

Еще не засверкали капли бриллиантами, еще не потекло червонное золото по склонам гор, еще не принес легкий ветер аромат диких цветов (В. Суворов. Аквариум).

– Oh! la mia donna, che vento v’ha portata? (A. Manzoni. I Promessi Sposi).

Returning to the problem of the subject in metaphorical sentences with the verb bring and its correlates in different languages, we would like to concentrate on some complex cases of defining such thematic concepts on the basis of which these subjects are formed, or, to be more exact, on some complicated cases. The first such case has been already presented in connection with the differentiation between such knowledge structures as PERIOD OF TIME and EVENT. As it was stated, these domains of knowledge are connected with the metonymic relations, but to find whether these relations are based on the hierarchical principle seems rather a difficult problem which is to be cleared out by all means. But something that can throw some light on the problem concerns their ontological characteristic features, namely, the fact that each of them by the structure is nothing more than a quantum of some more abstract and more general structure of knowledge. Indeed, any “period of time” may be interpreted as a “quantum of time”, or, to put it stylistically commendable to scientific prose standards, “of temporal division”. And “event” if taken generally can be interpreted in terms of “a quantum of some activity having definite space and time parameters”. It is the concept of TIME as a class of that produces certain difficulties in their differentiation, but an unprejudiced view on the problem shows clearly that PERIOD exists objectively and irrespectively of humans’ desire and will, and EVENT may be both objective and organized by people.

In order to at least pre-finish the problem of difference between these two mental entities we would like to show one interesting case where the borderline separating them ceases to exist.

 We mean the subject of the following sentence:

Five o’clock brought three of the brothers, Jolyon and James and Swithin; Nicholas was at Yarmouth, and Roger had a bad attack of gout (J. Galsworthy. A Man of Property).

Here appears a certain dilemma as to the main direction of further investigation, as it can be easily seen that, though having the formal markers of identity with the previously discussed metaphorical models in the sentences that contain the verb bring in the function of their predicate, the content markers have somewhat changed. First, in the syntagm five o’clock one cannot say for sure whether the period of time or the event should be put as the essential marker of the word-combination, as the real essence of it is an amalgama of the both. But this is not the decisive factor, as the last is greatly induced by the idiomatic essence of the word-combination. And the second seems to be no less important, as in the earlier examples the object of the utterance was represented by feelings, emotions or sensations, or things connected with those, but now it is represented by the proper names of people, so the object becomes animate. It goes without saying that this is another model of metaphor despite the same formal characteristic features of the components of the utterance.

PERIOD OF TIME can bring not exactly feelings and emotions but some more material thing that can induce such emotional states, as in the following:

Pamiętał, że ten lud kochał takie i Brytanika, którego Nero otruł, i Agrypinę, którą kazał zamordować, i Oktawię, którą na Pandatarii uduszono po uprzednim otwarciu jej żył w gorącej parze, i Rubeliusza Plauta, który został wygnany, i Trazeasza, któremu każde jutro mogło przynieść wyrok śmierci (H. Sienkiewicz. Quo vadis?).

Of course, the death sentence is far from being something expected so much, though Petronius is always at his alert about it, as knowing Nero’s highly changeable dispositions no sound head could guarantee that its owner would not lose it the next day. But the linguistic problem here is in the fact whether one should consider it as a joined case of metaphor and metonymy (being determined by the verb przynieśći, the object may denote at least two situational varieties: the death sentence is on a paper, and then it is hard to say whether technically it is a metaphor, or it is not; the message was delivered orally, and then we have metonymy of the object, but can one speak of the object as taking part in creating metaphor (as the target-domain) in this case?

One more interesting case of forming semantic metaphorical models with bring and its equivalents in other languages can be seen in the following example in Ukrainian:

«…на мiй простий розум виходить, що вони сотворенi на щось кращого, що бiльшу користь принесе нашiй православнiй церквi i нашому народовi, як пiти в козаки i там або голови молодецькi зложити, або в ясир попадуть, або... на колi згинуть...» (А. Чайковський. Сагайдачний).

In this case it is rather difficult to say for sure where the subject joined by predicative relation with the verb носити in the form of the third person singular future tense is. It is impossible to find here any noun in the Nominative Case. But the utterance does exist, and the only way to denote the subject is to turn over to the clause to which the given clause with the verb носити belongs as a subordinate one. From this follows that the subject should be looked for in the clause «вони сотворенi на щось кращого» (‘they are created for something better’). Here is a dilemma. On the one hand, the subordinate clause is governed by «щось кращого» (‘something better’) being thus an attributive clause, and this “something better’ is the kind of complicated subject^[1] which, as it is clearly seen, has rather an ambiguous volume of content. On the second hand, it may be the substantivized adjective кращого^[2] (‘better’), and then its semantic volume acquires a more definite form as it is one of the means of EVALUATION. And, on the third hand, if one may say so, the whole clause may be defined as the subject to the predicate bring which, at its turn, governs the object «користь», i.e. ‘use’. Besides, we do not reject the fourth variant of these two clauses being homogeneously subordinate to the clause «на мiй простий розум виходить…» (‘to my simple mind it is that…’).

So, we see that in the linguistic study of metaphor not only its cognitive characteristic features should be paid attention to, but their structural peculiarities as well, and vice versa. It cannot be full without taking into account different factors determining the formation of the linguistic structures that reflect the whole linguistic picture of a typical or particular situation of reality or thought. Here belong not only cognitive, but syntactic, oppositional, extralinguistic and other factors whose interrelation should be investigated in order to understand the mechanism of forming metaphors in its full and harmonious form.

That is why, having partially viewed several structures of knowledge that can be reflected in a language as nouns playing the syntactic part of a subject, we think it logical to pass over to viewing the object in the sentences with the metaphoric bring as an important sentence member which determines the metaphoric potential realized in a sentence, and namely, the object of a sentence. But before doing this it seems necessary to clear up one more important point.

 Surely, rather a small amount of the article volume according to the requirements of the editing board will not allow to clear up all the variety of a complex activity approach to the study of the verb metaphor. That is why we consider it necessary to warn our respected readers that, while pointing out the role of the subject and the object in formation of the metaphor with the nuclear verbal element, we are rather restricted on it, as we fully agree with the assumption expressed by Ch. Fillmore about being careful with the traditional syntactic terms and the necessity of taking into account that in the formation of the language utterances much depends on the semantic cases of the nouns surrounding the verb in the function of the sentence-predicate. More than that, we are sure that implying the principles of the case grammar analysis will yield much more productive result as for the metaphor, as Charles Fillmore states himself, “Case elements which are optionally associated with specific verbs, together with the rules for forming subjects, will serve to explain various co-occurrence restrictions” (Fillmore 43). Frustrated though we are a little bit, yet the next logical stage of this research is to find out if there are certain peculiarities of choosing the objects of the sentences comprising the verb to bring and its equivalents in other languages as the central element of the metaphoric transition.

The following example shows not only a set of objects which can be structurally described as belonging to different lexico-semantical classes but a specific subject which belongs to neither group of classes to which the above-studied subjects belong:

‘I found no pleasure in it [gambling], I expected none. What has it ever brought me but anxious days and sleepless nights; but loss of health and peace of mind, and gain of feebleness and sorrow!’ (Ch. Dickens. The Old Curiosity Shop).

It is easy to see that GAMBLING belongs neither to PERIODS of TIME, nor EVENT, nor PERSON, nor NATURAL PHENOMENON as the above-mentioned domains of content for subjects related to the verb bring in its metaphoric function. GAMBLING, as well as RESEARCH, POLITICAL STRUGGLE, SEARCH OF TRUTH and the like is certainly some kind of ACTIVITY, but this nomination seems too ambiguous to reflect the exact categorial status of this structure of knowledge. Perhaps, such nomination as OCCUPATION would be closer to it, but yet this can by no means considered as perfect correspondence. This fact again underlines the demand to provide a more profound study of all components of the metaphoric structure, and not only separate sentence members.

Returning to the objects of the utterance which present rather an expressive set of homogeneous objects in the Patient Case according to Ch. Fillmore and a kind of parallel construction from the linguo-stylistic point of view, it is necessary to admit that they semantically represent different classes of entities. One may divide them into three subgroups, or, if we take the antithesis as a pragmatic criterion, it is possible to reduce them to two groups. The first group is of great interest to a scholar of metaphor as it actually represents an antithesis of homogeneous metonymies, as ‘anxious days and sleepless nights’ should be actually decoded as ‘anxiety in the daytime and absence of sleep in the nights”. This metonymy being self-dependent and by no means connected with the metaphorical model realized in the utterance, we may say that these nouns denote the unpleasant state in which the speaker finds himself because of his putting his well-being onto card-play, and thus refer them to the conceptual category of PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE. The second semantic juxtaposition “loss vs gain” represent psychological states as well, but “sorrow’ in this row is actually another structure of knowledge, and namely, EMOTION.

To explain these, one needs to refer to the actual text, where the unsophisticated simpleton Trent tries to persuade the cunning and sadistic Quilp to lend him more money and deliberately humiliates himself telling about his misfortunes. He tries to be persuasive and that is why he resorts to finding rather strong words to paint his ugly state, out of which he can free only by a good fortune at cards.

That brings forth another important reasoning for planning a research of verbal metaphor: that while dealing with the definite utterances one should take into account the pragmatic factors as well.

 One more metaphoric model with bring of hypothetically universal, at least, for the Indo-European languages, character is the following – SOMETHING/SOMEBODY BRINGS CERTAIN STATE/EMOTION, whatsoever that may be described as something having certain value important for a person or a certain part of humanity, for instance:

 “He [Solozzo] took it ill and brought misfortune down on all our heads” (M. Puzo. The Godfather) – English;

‘But what difference does that make?’ replied the officer. ‘They still bring solace and comfort to the families that receive them, don’t they?” (J.Heller. Catch-22) – English;

“Der Cadillac scheint uns Glück zu bringen” (E.-M. Remarque. Drei Kameraden) – German;

«Я понял, что ничтожен, мелок перед ним со всеми своими мыслями о его смерти, которая должна была принести мне счастье» (В. Каверин. Два капитана) – Russian;

Избухва войната, която ще причини смъртта на 50 милиона души, ще донесе неизброими страдания на други десетки милиони (Б. Райнов. Тайното учение) – Bulgarian.

Et je pense que s’il emporte un appel déjà pathétique, il emporte aussi beaucoup d’amour (A. de Saint Exupery. Terre des hommes) – French.

“Noi volevamo un mondo migliore, di pace e di gentilezza, e la felicità per tutti, noi volevamo uccidere la guerra che voi portavate con la vostra avidità, perché ci rimproverate se per stabilire la giustizia e la felicità abbiamo dovuto versare un po’ di sangue...” (U. Eco. Il nomme della rosa) – Italian.

 

Conclusion

This list of particular metaphoric models where the peculiarities of semantical structure of the verb bring is a decisive factor for creating metaphors involving subjects and objects of a sentence as source and target domains is surely far from being completed with this particular paper. Yet this particular paper yields some important, from our subjective point of view, observations and inferences, namely:

the general framework of cognitive metaphoric space, as described in the works by G. Lakoff, M. Johnson, Z. Kövecses and other prominent scholars dealing with the metaphor and metonymy mostly as with overall transformations of structures of knowledge known as concepts, has some parallel frameworks of the transition of meaning where specific subsystems of a language, such as grammatical morphological, syntactical, semantic case theory, stylistics, linguistic pragmatics, phraseology and others interact and produce a kind of the alternative metaphorical system with the predicative parts of speech – adjectives and verbs in particular – play the decisive part in producing different conventional metaphors;

in many cases metonymy actively interacts with metaphor thus giving kinds of “agglutinated” systemic shifts of meaning, and there are cases when the process of metonymy is no less important than metaphor itself to produce a certain model of a meaning metaphorical “eincarnation”;

to understand the essence of metaphorical processes within a certain language as completely as possible it seems necessary to combine such studies with the equivalent from the semiotic point of view research procedures on the material of other languages and, respectively, linguistic cultures. From the point of view of semiotics, it will give possibility to trace the specific metaphorical mechanisms of semiosis within different representations of linguistic signs, and from the point of view of general linguistics, it opens wide horizons for study linguistic metaphor from the angle of marking universal and specific to certain linguistic culture models of metaphoric transitions.

Such an approach to the study of metaphor we call “the activity approach for studying the language and speech”, as we consider the system of any human language being a set of interrelated but specific due to their ontological characteristics activities of the units and processes on different levels of the system of the language hierarchy. Surely, this paper makes an initial approach to such a study, as many other models could not be viewed due to a limited space of the paper, but we see a vast stretch of investigation space not only to a study of specific model of metaphor and metonymy, but many other linguistic and cognitive phenomena as well.

 

^[1] We deliberately introduce this term to denote a subject consisting of two or more notional lexical components as a kind of antithesis to the term “complex subject” as a well-known semi-predicative construction of the English language in particular.

 

^[2] According to the general rules of the Ukrainian language, this word-form should be spelled as «краще» which represents the Accusative, but maybe, some changes appeared since the so-called “nezalezhnist’”, and the relations of the Accusative may have as a variant the word-form of the Genitive which is present in the example.

 

About the authors

I. V. Chekulai

Belgorod State National Research University

Author for correspondence.
Email: chekulai@bsu.edu.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8599-1699

Doctor of Philological Sciences, associate professor, associate professor of the Department of English Philology and International Communication

Russian Federation, 85, Pobedy Street, Belgorod, 308015, Russian Federation

O. N. Prokhorova

Belgorod State National Research University

Email: prokhorova@bsu.edu.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9441-819X

Doctor of Philology, associate professor, professor of the Department of English Philology and International Communication

Russian Federation, 85, Pobedy Street, Belgorod, 308015, Russian Federation

References

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