Transformations of Metaphor from Traditional Rhetoric to Cognitive Linguistics

Abstract

The concept of metaphor is traditionally defined as a process of substituting a literal meaning with a figurative one. However, within the new rhetorical framework that has opened up to what is known as the cognitive approach, it has taken on a new trajectory. In this perspective, cognitive metaphor is considered a mental, underlying cognitive process that structures our conceptual systems and governs our lived experience. In essence, metaphor remains conceptual rather than purely linguistic in nature.

It is a process that relies on the mind’s capacity to comprehend the surrounding world by creating a parallel domain through which we can conceptualize what is otherwise difficult to grasp due to its abstract or imaginative nature. Thus, we experience it through this constructed understanding. Within this framework of similarity and creative construction, new types of metaphor have emerged, as identified by Lakoff and Johnson: structural, ontological, and orientational metaphors.

From this standpoint, several new concepts have arisen, such as mental space, conceptual metaphor, and embodied mind. This leads us to question: what are the boundaries of the relationship between metaphor in its traditional sense and its counterpart in the cognitive framework? And what are its procedural mechanisms when applied to our texts?