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Article published In: Embodied, Social, and Creative Dimensions of Metonymy
Edited by Marlene Johansson Falck and Thomas Wiben Jensen
[Metaphor and the Social World 15:2] 2025
► pp. 218–241

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From spatial to abstract and back again

The challenging case of hidden metonymies for metaphor identification scholars

ORCiD logo with link | Umeå University
 | The University of Oslo
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Umeå University.

Published online: 1 October 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.24030.joh
Abstract
Cognitive linguists have long argued that our comprehension of abstract concepts is primarily based on metaphorical or metonymic mappings from more concrete or familiar experiences (Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980/2008). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. Basic books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Accordingly, metaphor identification commonly involves contrasting concrete senses of words with their contextual meanings. However, examples like a huge log spinning down into nothingness and Max opened a door into nothingness are reminders that, through metonymy, even highly familiar source concepts such as spatial areas can be targets grounded in abstract concepts. Both these instances evoke scenes in which the abstract notion of ‘nothingness’ is a space that physical entities move into.
This study highlights the complexity of figurative language and underscores the need for further exploration into how abstract concepts can ground our understanding of more concrete experiences. It also serves to bridge the gap between current metaphor identification practices and the directionality of metonymy. Focusing mainly on mappings in one direction can pose challenges for metaphor researchers, as they might mistakenly categorize such cases as metaphorical rather than as expressions of spatial relations. This is particularly relevant in contemporary metaphor research, which often relies on establishing the basic meanings of individual words to identify metaphorical relationships.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical Framework: Metonymic Chains, Cross domain Mappings, and Accessibility
  • 3.Method and materials
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1QUALITY OF SPACE FOR SPACE metonymies
    • 4.2QUALITY ASSOCIATED WITH SPACE FOR SPACE metonymies
    • 4.3PROCESS FOR PLACE metonymies
  • 5.Concluding discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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