Cover not available

In:Figurative Meaning Construction in Thought and Language
Edited by Annalisa Baicchi
[Figurative Thought and Language 9] 2020
► pp. 253–282

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Cutting and breaking metaphors of the self and the Motivation & Sedimentation Model

 | Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, Sweden | Department of Language and Culture, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, Norway
 | Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, Sweden | Centre for Language EvolutionStudies, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, Poland
Published online: 12 August 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.9.11dev
Abstract
Why are expressions of irreversible separation (e.g. I feel torn apart) used to speak about the self? Are they to be treated as metaphorical? We address these questions by using concepts and methods from cognitive semiotics, and especially the conceptual-empirical loop. We develop identification and classification procedures based on intersubjective intuitions, and apply these to data from a corpus of personal descriptions of traumatic experiences. To provide a principled explanation of these expressions, we employ the Motivation & Sedimentation Model (hereafter, MSM), which distinguishes between three interacting levels of meaning making: the Situated, the Sedimented, and the Embodied. On this basis we provide a definition of metaphor, leading to the conclusion that most instances of expressions in the sample would qualify as metaphorical, while affirming that metaphoricity is a scalar notion.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.What: Cutting and breaking metaphors of the self
    • 2.1Separation: Reversible and irreversible, actual and non-actual
    • 2.2Irreversible, non-actual separation of the self
  • 3.How: Identifying C&B metaphors of the self in English Corpora
    • 3.1Data and methodology
    • 3.2Identifying irreversible non-actual separation (INAS) expressions
    • 3.3Different dimensions of the self
  • 4.How: Probing the data with quantitative tools
    • 4.1Representativeness
    • 4.2Correlations between INAS expression types and self-dimension types
  • 5.What, Why and How: MSM and cutting and breaking metaphors of the self
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
References (79)
References
Agresti, A., & Franklin, C. A. (2007). Statistics: The Art and Science of Learning from Data (3rd Edition) London: Pearson.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Andrén, M. (2010). Children’s gestures from 18 to 30 months. PhD Dissertation, Lund, Lund University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blomberg, J. (2015). The expression of non-actual motion in Swedish, French and Thai. Cognitive Linguistics, 26(4), 657–696. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blomberg, J., & Zlatev, J. (2014). Actual and non-actual motion: Why experientialist semantics needs phenomenology (and vice versa). Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 13(3), 395–418. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(in press). Metalinguistic relativity. Does one’s ontology determine one’s view on linguistic relativity. Language and Communication.
Boström, P. (2018). ” Det här är ju dött tåg liksom…”: en studie av metaforer för ROMANTISK KÄRLEK i talad svenska. Umeå: Umeå University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bouveret, M., & Sweetser, E. (2009). Multi-frame semantics, metaphoric extensions and grammar. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society.
Bowdle, B. F., & Gentner, D. (2005). The career of metaphor. Psychological Review, 112(1), 193. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brandt, L. (2013). The communicative mind: A linguistic exploration of conceptual integration and meaning construction. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1978). Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena. In Questions and politeness: Strategies in social interaction (pp. 56–311). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: some universals in language usage: Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cameron, L., & Deignan, A. (2006). The emergence of metaphor in discourse. Applied linguistics, 27(4), 671–690. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cohen, J. (1960). A Coefficient of Agreement for Nominal Scales. Educational & Psychological Measurement, 20(1), 37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coseriu, E. (1985). Linguistic competence: what is it really? The Modern Language Review, xxv–xxxv. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2000). The principles of linguistics as a cultural science. Transylvanian Review (Cluj), IX, 1, 108–115.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Croft, W., & Poole, K. T. (2008). Inferring Universals from Grammatical Variation: Multidimensional Scaling for Typological Analysis. Theoretical Linguistics, 34(1), 1–37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Daddesio, T. C. (1995). On minds and symbols: The relevance of cognitive science for semiotics. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
David, O., & Matlock, T. J. L. (2018). Cross-linguistic automated detection of metaphors for poverty and cancer. Language and Cognition, 10(3), 467–493. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Delucchi, K. L. (1993). On the use and misuse of chi-square. In G. Keren & C. Lewis (Eds.), A handbook for data analysis in the behavioral sciences (pp. 295–320). Hillsdale, NJ, US: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Devylder, S. (2016). The PART-WHOLE schema we live through: A cognitive linguistic analysis of part–whole expressions of the self. Lyon: Lyon 3 University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2017). Cutting and Breaking the Embodied Self Cognitextes, 16. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2018). Diagrammatic iconicity explains asymmetries in Paamese possessive constructions. Cognitive Linguistics, 29(2), 313–348. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Donald, M. (1998). Mimesis and the executive suite: Missing links in language evolution. In J. R. Hurford, M. Studdert-Kennedy, & C. Knight (Eds.), Appoaches to the evolution of language: Social and cognitive biases (pp. 44–67). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2001). A mind so rare: The evolution of human consciousness. New York: Norton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fillmore, C. J. (1970). The grammar of hitting and breaking. In Readings in English transformational grammar, ed. by Roderick Jacobs and Peter Rosenbaum, 120–33. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fujii, S., Radetzky, P., & Sweetser, E. (2012). Separation Verbs and Multi-frame Semantics. Paper presented at the 11th Conceptual Structure, Discourse, and Language Conference, Vancouver, British Columbia.
Gallagher, S. (2005). How the body shapes the mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gentner, D., & Markman, A. B. (1997). Structure mapping in analogy and similarity. American psychologist, 52(1), 45. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Giraldo, V. (2018). Referential iconicity in music and speech within and across sensory modalities. (MA), Lund, Lund University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goody, J. (1977). The domestication of the savage mind: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Guerssel, M., Hale, K., Laughren, M., Levin, B., & Eagle, J. W. (1985). A cross-linguistic study of transitivity alternations. In P. D. K. W. H. Eilfort, & K. L. Peterson (Ed.), Papers from the parasession on causatives and agentivity at the 21st regional meeting (Vol. 21, pp. 48–63). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haahr, M. (2010). RANDOM.ORG: True Random Number Service.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Higgins, E. T. (1989). Self-discrepancy theory: What patterns of self-beliefs cause people to suffer. Advances in experimental social psychology, 22, 93–136.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Husserl, E. (1970 [1900]). Logical Investigations. New York, NY: Humanities Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Itkonen, E. (2008a). The central role of normativity in language and linguistics. In The shared mind: Perspectives on intersubjectivity (pp. 279–306). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2008b). Concerning the role of consciousness in linguistics. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 15(6), 15–33.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jacobsson, G. (2015). Motion-emotion metaphors in English, Swedish and Spanish: A cross-linguistic comparison. (BA), Lund University, Lund.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kay, P., & Regier, T. (2003). Resolving the Question of Color Naming Universals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (15), 9085. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kendon, A. (2004). Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kolter, A., Ladewig, S. H., Summa, M., Müller, C., Koch, S. C., & Fuchs, T. (2012). Body memory and the emergence of metaphor in movement and speech. Body, Metaphor, Movement, Advances in Consciousness Research, 84, 201–226. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Konderak, P. (2018). Mind, cognition, semiosis: Ways to cognitive semiotics. Lublin: UMCS Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krippendorff, K. (2013). Content analysis: an introduction to its methodology: Thousand Oaks, Calif.: London.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. (1996). Sorry, I’m not myself today: The metaphor system for conceptualizing the self. In G. F. E. Sweetser, Brugman, C. M., Lakoff, G., Matsumoto, Y., Mejias-Bikandi, E., Michaelis, L. A., Rubba, J. (Ed.), Spaces, worlds, and grammar (pp. 91–123). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1999). Philosophy in the Flesh. New York, NY: Basic books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Landis, J. R., & Gary, G. K. (1977). The Measurement of Observer Agreement for Categorical Data. Biometrics (1), 159. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Langacker, R. W. (2009). Investigations in cognitive grammar. New York, NY: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levin, B. (1993). English verb classes and alternations: A preliminary investigation. Chicago: University of Chicago press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levin, B., & Rappaport Hovav, M. (1995). Unaccusativity: At the Syntax-Lexical Semantics Interface. Cambridge, Ma: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2011). Lexical conceptual structure. In K. von Heusinger, C. Maienborn, & P. Portner (Eds.), Semantics: an International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning (pp. 418–438). Berlin: DeGruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, S., & Meira, S. (2003). ‘Natural Concepts’ in the Spatial Topological Domain: Adpositional Meanings in Crosslinguistic Perspective: An Exercise in Semantic Typology. Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America, 79(3), 485–516. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Majid, A., Bowerman, M., Van Staden, M., & Boster, J. S. J. C. L. (2007). The semantic categories of cutting and breaking events: A crosslinguistic perspective. 18(2), 133–152. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Majid, A., Gullberg, M., Van Staden, M., & Bowerman, M. J. C. L. (2007). How similar are semantic categories in closely related languages? A comparison of cutting and breaking in four Germanic languages. 18(2), 179–194. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Majid, A., Van Staden, M., Boster, J. S., & Bowerman, M. (2004). Event categorization: a cross-linguistic perspective. Paper presented at the 26th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of perception (Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2005. ed.). New York: Taylor & Francis Group.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Müller, C. (2008). Metaphors dead and alive, sleeping and waking: A dynamic view. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paju, L. (2016). Motion-emotion metaphors in Estonian: A cross-linguistic comparison with Finnish, English and Swedish. (MA), Lund University, Lund.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Põldvere, N., Fuoli, M., & Paradis, C. (2016). A study of dialogic expansion and contraction in spoken discourse using corpus and experimental techniques. Corpora (2), 191. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pye, C., Loeb, D. F., & Pao, Y.-Y. (1996). The acquisition of breaking and cutting. Paper presented at the The proceedings of the twenty-seventh annual child language research forum.
Regier, T., Kay, P., & Khetarpal, N. (2007). Color Naming Reflects Optimal Partitions of Color Space. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (4), 1436. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosch, E. (1977). Human categorization. Studies in cross-cultural psychology, 1, 1–49.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sonesson, G. (2012). The Foundation of Cognitive Semiotics in the Phenomenology of Signs and Meanings. Intellectica. Revue de l’Association pour la Recherche Cognitive (2), 207. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stickles, E., David, O., Dodge, E. K., & Hong, J. (2016). Formalizing contemporary conceptual metaphor theory. Constructions and frames, 8(2), 166–213. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stampoulidis, G., Bolognesi, M., & Zlatev, J. (2019). A cognitive semiotic exploration of metaphors in Greek street art. Cognitive Semiotics, 12(1). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taylor, J. R. (2007). Semantic categories of cutting and breaking: Some final thoughts. Cognitive Linguistics, 18(2), 331–337. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thompson, E. (2007). Look again: Phenomenology and mental imagery. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 6(1–1), 137–170. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zahavi, D. (2014). Self and other: exploring subjectivity, empathy, and shame: Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zlatev, J. (2009). The semiotic hierarchy: Life, consciousness, signs and language. Cognitive Semiotics, 4, 169–200. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2015). Cognitive semiotics. In International handbook of semiotics (pp. 1043–1067): Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2016). Turning back to experience in Cognitive Linguistics via phenomenology. Cognitive Linguistics, 27(4), 559–572. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2018). Meaning making from life to language: The semiotic hierarchy and phenomenology. Cognitive Semiotics, 11(1). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2019). Mimesis theory, learning and polysemiotic communication. Encylcopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory, Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zlatev, J., & Blomberg, J. (2016). Embodied intersubjectivity, sedimentation and non-actual motion expressions. Nordic Journal of Linguistics, 39(2), 185–208. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zlatev, J., Blomberg, J., & David, C. (2010). Translocation, language and the categorization of experience. In V. Evans (Ed.), Language, cognition, and space: the state of the art and new directions (pp. 389–418). London: Pegasus.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zlatev, J., Blomberg, J., & Magnusson, U. (2012). Metaphors and subjective experience: motion-emotion metaphors in English, Swedish, Bulgarian and Thai. In U. L. A. Foolen, T. P. Racine, J. Zlatev (Ed.), Moving Ourselves, Moving Others: Motion emotion in intersubjectivity, consiousness and language (pp. 423–450). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zlatev, J., & Blomberg, J. (2019). Norms of language: What kinds and where from? Insights from phenomenology. In A. Mäkilähde, V. Leppänen, & E. Itkonen (Eds.), Normativity in language and linguistics (pp. 69–101). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (20)

Cited by 20 other publications

Glebkin, Vladimir V., Anna Antipova & Varvara Sonina
2025. Adaptors and Private Speech from the Developmental Perspective. Cognitive Semantics 11:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Glebkin, Vladimir
2024. The view of meaning from a “postclassical” perspective. Review of Cognitive Linguistics DOI logo
Mouratidou, Alexandra, Jordan Zlatev & Joost van de Weijer
2024. The body says it all: Non-verbal indicators of choice awareness. Cognitive Semiotics 17:2 ► pp. 233 ff. DOI logo
Oakley, Todd & Jordan Zlatev
2024. Origins of money: a Motivation & Sedimentation Model (MSM) analysis. Semiotica 2024:257 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Zlatev, Jordan, Marta Sibierska, Przemysław Żywiczyński, Joost van de Weijer & Monika Boruta-Żywiczyńska
2024. Can pantomime narrate?. In Perspectives on Pantomime [Advances in Interaction Studies, 12], ► pp. 115 ff. DOI logo
Zlov, Vladislav & Jordan Zlatev
2024. A cognitive-semiotic approach to impoliteness: Effects of conventionality and semiotic system on judgements of impoliteness by Russian and Swedish speakers. Journal of Politeness Research 20:2 ► pp. 249 ff. DOI logo
Julich-Warpakowski, Nina & Thomas Wiben Jensen
2023. Zooming in on the notion of metaphoricity . Metaphor and the Social World 13:1 ► pp. 16 ff. DOI logo
Turner, Sarah & Jeannette Littlemore
2023. Literal or metaphorical? Conventional or creative?. Metaphor and the Social World 13:1 ► pp. 37 ff. DOI logo
Zlatev, Jordan
2023. The Intertwining of Bodily Experience and Language: The Continued Relevance of Merleau-Ponty. Histoire Épistémologie Langage :45-1 ► pp. 41 ff. DOI logo
Bagasheva, Alexandra, Bozhil Hristov & Nelly Tincheva
2022. Introduction. In Figurativity and Human Ecology [Figurative Thought and Language, 17], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Moskaluk, Kalina, Jordan Zlatev & Joost van de Weijer
2022. “Dizziness of Freedom”: Anxiety Disorders and Metaphorical Meaning-making. Metaphor and Symbol 37:4 ► pp. 303 ff. DOI logo
Ponsonnet, Maïa
2022. The Linguistic Embodiment of Emotions. A Study of the Australian Continent. Ethos 50:2 ► pp. 153 ff. DOI logo
Prové, Valentijn & Kurt Feyaerts
2022. Pitch metaphors and the body in singing classes. CogniTextes :Volume 22 DOI logo
Zlatev, Jordan & Kalina Moskaluk
2022. Translation validity in metaphor theories. In Figurativity and Human Ecology [Figurative Thought and Language, 17], ► pp. 123 ff. DOI logo
Blomberg, Johan & Jordan Zlatev
2021. Metalinguistic relativity: Does one's ontology determine one's view on linguistic relativity?. Language & Communication 76 ► pp. 35 ff. DOI logo
Faur, Elena
2021. Filologia modernă: realizări şi perspective în context european, Eugeniu Coșeriu: 100 de ani de la naștere. Limbajul ca sumă de valori, ► pp. 161 ff. DOI logo
Zlatev, Jordan, Göran Jacobsson & Liina Paju
2021. Desiderata for metaphor theory, the Motivation & Sedimentation Model and motion-emotion metaphoremes. In Figurative Language - Intersubjectivity and Usage [Figurative Thought and Language, 11], ► pp. 41 ff. DOI logo
Devylder, Simon
2019. Dancygier, Barbara (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics . English Text Construction 12:1 ► pp. 143 ff. DOI logo
Devylder, Simon
2022. Making metaphor studies less WEIRD. The methodological benefits and challenges of a greater diversity of languages and cultures in the study of metaphor. Lexis :20 DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2022. Theoretical Perspectives on Terminology [Terminology and Lexicography Research and Practice, 23], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue