THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS revisited (Metaphor)

In this paper I reanalyze the data which Lakoff and Johnson (1980) treated as evidence for the conceptual metaphor THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS. This reanalysis involves making a new distinction between types of conceptual metaphor-primary vs. compound metaphors-according to principles outlined in Grady et al. (1996) and Grady (in press). The two more basic metaphoric conceptualizations proposed here, which combine to yield the data discussed by Lakoff and Johnson, are ORGANIZATION IS PHYSICAL STRUCTURE and PERSISTING is REMAINING ERECT. The decomposition of complex metaphors such as THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS into more basic metaphors offers several important benefits over previous accounts. First, a decompositional account predicts linguistic data more accurately and specifically- e.g., the fact that there is a conventional Interpretation for the foundation of the theory but not for the walls of the theory. Furthermoret this type of analysis captures anddefines the relationship between “different” metaphors such as THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS and THEORIES ARE FABRICS (e.g., the theory unraveledy), which clearly share much of the same structure. Most importantlyf this account focusses on metaphoric mappings for which there is a direct experiential basis, and therefore sheds light on the fundamental structure ofour conceptual systems. © 1997, Walter de Gruyter. All rights reserved.