179 Conceptual metaphors of travel and stability not mapped unto the target domain (doing a PhD). CMT claims that the correspondences between source and target domain, in essence, structure how we understand the target domain: mappings determine how language users perceive which elements the target domain consists of.597 Some scholars advancing CMT hold that the ‘image schema’ of the source domain determine which mappings structure the conception of the target domain.598 Image schemas are thought to be ‘based on recurring patterns of embodied experience’.599 For example, the life is a journey conceptual metaphor is structured by the ‘source-path-goal’ schema, which people encounter in daily experiences whenever they start at one point in space and move somewhere to reach a specific destination for a specific purpose (i.e. corresponding to a great deal of our bodily movements any given day). These three aspects of the image schema (source/departure, a path/journey, and a goal/destination) are the most frequent aspects of travel that are mapped unto the target domain of life, whereas other aspects involved with travel are less often mapped (e.g., costs of travel, means of transport, etc.). This will become evident in the following discussion of travel metaphors in the Life of Gregory as well. These image schemas of the source domain are understood in CMT to structure how we understand the target domain (i.e. life, in the example). Because the source domain and the aspects mapped never completely overlap with the target domain, metaphors highlight but also hide aspects of reality.600 The frequent use of particular conceptual metaphors therefore also reinforces particular (partial) images of target domains. A metaphor scholar therefore reasoned that ‘[i]f all metaphors present a partial picture, then the frequent metaphors of a community must contribute to a collective bias in understanding the world’.601 Conceptual metaphors thus not only reflect a perception of the world, but also shape and reinforce (collective) perceptions. Research on other languages and on different time periods has shown that particular conceptual metaphors may be reflected in multiple languages and across time. This has been taken as evidence that certain abstract concepts are understood by these diverse language users in the same way, which may point to shared human experiences and embodied perception of the world.602 The life is a journey metaphor that will be discussed in the analysis below is one of these stable metaphors expressed in different languages and across time. The journey metaphor is found in many variations and ‘sub-categories’ of metaphors dependent on life is a journey. For example, the conceptual metaphor purposes are destinations is one of the variations belonging to the life is a journey metaphor.603 As an answer to the question: ‘how far are you with writing your thesis?’ one could answer: 597 For further examples, see Kovecses (2002), p. 9. 598 See e.g., Gibbs (2017b), p. 23. 599 Ibid., p. 23. 600 Deignan (2005), p. 24. 601 Ibid., p. 24. 602 Kovecses (2002), p. 203. 603 purposes are destinations was identified in Lakoff and Turner (1989), pp. 52–53. 4
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