LIT6031 Chap.7 Image Schemas and Conceptual Metaphor
Image Schemas and Conceptual Metaphor
Conceptual metaphor maps relations from a familiar source domain onto an abstract target. Image schemas such as container, path, force and balance organise repeated expressions and can be made visible through stage space. This chapter distinguishes systematic mapping from isolated imagery, tracks confirmation and reversal, and uses counter-evidence to refine claims about confinement, freedom, obligation and agency.
Write the mapping by naming both domains. Then list relations in the source rather than collecting vivid words. A container has inside, outside, boundary, entry and exit. A path has origin, direction, obstacles and destination. Force includes pressure, resistance and counterforce. Only those relations supported by dramatic evidence should transfer to the target. Repetition makes a mapping systematic.
Several verbs, spatial arrangements and actions may organise social obligation as a journey or confinement as a container. A single preposition proves little. Gather cues across an exchange or scene and ask whether they predict where conflict appears next. The mapping becomes analytically valuable when it explains more than one local phrase. Stage space can confirm the source structure.
Entrances, barriers, distance and movement give audiences embodied relations they can perceive before characters explain them. Yet staging should test language rather than attach an arbitrary symbol. A visible door matters because dialogue has already made leaving, boundary or access part of the dramatic problem. Counter-evidence refines the claim.
An open door in a scene full of cage language shifts the barrier from physical enclosure toward fear, duty or relationship. A moving character may lack agency while someone standing still controls the route. Reversal can reveal the limits of the characters' own metaphor and show why a promised escape produces vulnerability. Finish by comparing viewpoints.
Different characters may map the same event through debt, journey or conflict, and each structure assigns different roles and endings. Ask whose mapping controls action, who challenges it and what theatrical choice makes the contest visible. Conceptual analysis then connects repeated language, cognition and performance without reducing the play to a fixed symbol dictionary.
What this chapter covers
- 01
source and target domains
- 02
container, path and force schemas
- 03
mapped relations rather than shared objects
- 04
repetition across dialogue and staging
- 05
counter-evidence and reversal
- 06
metaphor as a prediction about conflict
Worked example · free
Test a journey mapping
- 2Name source and target.
- 2Map route and direction relations.
- 3Use staging to refine agency.
Key terms
- Image Schema
- A recurring embodied relation such as container, path, force or balance.
- Source Domain
- The familiar structure from which relations are mapped.
- Target Domain
- The abstract experience organised through the source relations.
Image Schemas and Conceptual Metaphor FAQ
Is every figurative phrase a conceptual metaphor?
No. A conceptual mapping should organise several expressions or actions through the same relations. One vivid phrase may be local imagery unless repetition, staging or later development shows a systematic structure.
What does counter-evidence do?
An open door in a scene full of cage language may move the barrier from physical space to fear or obligation. Counter-evidence can refine a mapping rather than destroy it, making the interpretation more precise.
How can staging analyse metaphor?
Movement, boundary, distance and force can embody source-domain relations. Staging should test the mapping already supported by language, not add a symbol that the script gives the audience no reason to recognise.
How can I analyse a conceptual metaphor without making a symbol list?
Collect a lexical pattern across a coherent passage before naming the mapping. Group words by source-domain relations such as paths, barriers, containers, balance, force or exchange, and identify the target experience they organise. A single mention of a door does not establish an enclosure schema; repeated inside-outside distinctions, blocked routes and boundary language may. Specify the inferences transferred by the mapping.
If a relationship is structured as a journey, participants may become travellers, goals become destinations and obstacles justify delay, but the text need not activate every possible correspondence. Ask who uses the pattern, who accepts it and whose account it excludes. Then locate shifts, mixtures and failures. A character may promise escape in journey language while staging and dialogue reveal continuing containment.
That mismatch can expose limited agency or a contested worldview. Translate the analysis into performance selectively. Blocking, level, gesture, object handling and vocal direction can foreground the spatial logic, yet literal illustration of every phrase will flatten the scene. Test a restrained version against a heavily illustrated one and ask which preserves both the mapping and interpersonal action.
In writing, quote the pattern, name its structure, show the licensed inference and connect that inference to a dramatic choice or change. Compare viewpoints when possible: rival metaphors for the same event allocate responsibility and imaginable endings differently. The goal is to explain how recurring language organises thought and action, not to decode a fixed emblem.
Assessment move
Write the mapping in capitals, list its source relations, and collect at least two linguistic or theatrical cues for each important relation. Search deliberately for one scene that reverses or complicates the structure, then revise the claim to include it.
