Academic literature on the topic 'George Lakoff'

Summary Against the background of the controversial and polarized work of Frederick Newmeyer and Robin Tolmach Lakoff, this paper chronicles the early development of generative semantics, an internal movement within the transformational model of Chomsky’s Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. The first suggestions toward the movement, whose cornerstone was the obliteration of the syntax-semantics boundary, were by George Lakoff in 1963. But it was the work conducted under the informal banner of “Abstract Syntax” by Paul Postal that began the serious investigations leading to such an obliteration. Lakoff was an active participant in that research, as were Robin Tolmach Lakoff, John Robert (“Háj”) Ross and James D. McCawley. Through their combined efforts, particularly those of McCawley on semantic primitives and lexical insertion, generative semantics took shape in 1967: positing a universal base, importing notions from predicate calculus, decomposing lexical structure, and, most contentiously, rejecting the central element of the Aspects model, deep structure.

This paper is a critique of George Lakoff's theory and practice as presented in his "Contemporary Theory of Metaphor" (Lakoff 1993). It addresses the issue on several planes, on each plane comparing Lakoff's approach to some alternative. The highest plane, affording the widest perspective, concerns two approaches to interpretation and scientific thinking: one that relies on a pre-established set of meanings, and one that assumes that "all the work remains to be done in each particular case ". The two approaches involve different cognitive strategies, rapid and delayed conceptualization. Another plane concerns the cognitive explanation for using spatial images in metaphoric and symbolic processes. Here the "embodied-mind hypothesis" is confronted with the "efficient-coding hypothesis". It is argued that the latter is more adequate, and can better account for the mental flexibility required for "delayed conceptualization ". On the third plane, Lakoff's "Contemporary Theory of Metaphor" is compared to Beardsley's "Controversion Theory of Metaphor". I will assert that precisely in those respects in which Lakoff claims superiority for his theory it is inferior to Beardsley's. On the most concrete plane, Lakoff's handling of three texts is considered, two literary and one nonliter-ary. It is argued that in two cases Lakoff's conceptual apparatus is less than adequate to handle the arising problems; in the third case it allows him to say about the text exactly what every critic would have said about it for the past seven hundred years.

No seu livro “Wie Metaphern Wissen schaffen” (“Como metáforas criam conhecimento”), o lingüista Olaf Jäkel dedica-se a uma sistematização e reformulação da teoria cognitiva das metáforas, fundada pelos norte-americanos George Lakoff e Mark Johnson. Neste contexto, ele também remete-se a algumas teorias precursoras de outras áreas, dentre elas, ao pensamento de Immanuel Kant, que implica muitas semelhanças principalmente quanto aos elementos básicos da lingüística cognitiva em geral, embora Lakoff e Johnson recusem a teoria kantiana globalmente, por suspeitá-la objetivista. O presente artigo tem como objetivo, depois de ter resumido as caraterísticas essenciais da teoria cognitiva das metáforas, sintetizada por Jäkel, a apresentação de três linhas filosóficas nas quais encontram-se observações sobre metáforas que antecipam a teoria de Lakoff e Johnson: a filosofia da língua/a crítica da língua, a filosofia kantiana e a filosofia fenomenológica de Hans Blumenberg.

This study aims at describing conceptual metaphor in Gola Gong’s novel “Bila Waktu Bicara” in the perspective of George Lakoff’s theories of metaphor. This research is a (qualitative) bibliographical research. The object of the study is the use of metaphor in Gola Gong’s novel “Bila Waktu Bicara” and there are 59 metaphorical expressions. Having analyzed the data, the researcher concludes that there are seven most outstanding conceptual mapping on that novel: time is an individual, the world is the hell or paradise, people is a stream of water, seeing is touching, eye ball is a container, body part is a landscape, ambulance is an individual. Among this seven conceptual mappings, the conceptual pattern of time is an individual is the most frequent use and it shows that there has been an increase of creativity in the creation of socio-religious metaphor of Indonesian young novelist such as Gola Gong. Keywords:Source Domain; Conceptual Metaphor; George Lakoff

This paper explores the etiology of ideological constraint in the United States. In an effort to gain understanding of the ideational elements of political socialization, we concentrate on a provocative new theory put forward by cognitive linguist George Lakoff. Lakoff argues that many people reflexively envision proper power relations between citizens and government based on their understanding of proper power relations between children and parents: “nurturant” visions of parental roles engender egalitarian and humanitarian political values, whereas “disciplinarian” visions of proper parenting predict political individualism and traditionalism. Using data obtained from the 2000 National Election Study, we consider the empirical mettle of this account.

Cette thèse propose une étude critique du cadre théorique de la linguistique cognitive élaboré en Californie par le linguiste George Lakoff et le philosophe Mark Johnson, mais aussi grâce aux travaux d'autres linguistes comme Eve Sweetser ou Gilles Fauconnier. La thèse présente plusieurs aspects de l'évolution de cette théorie de 1980 à 2001. Le premier volet est consacré à l'étude des origines pluridisciplinaires de ce cadre : philosophie de l'esprit et phénoménologie, psychologie cognitive (Rosch et Mervis) et psychologie développementale (Piaget), sociologie et anthropologie (Goffman, Berlin et Kay). Il se conclut sur une étude critique de la terminologie employée. Ce volet est suivi de deux analyses (sur corpus) : l'une lexicale et l'autre grammaticale. Nous étudions d'abord les réseaux métaphoriques et les projections conceptuelles qui ont été activés par la presse anglo-saxonne lors de la guerre du Kosovo (printemps 1999), l'objectif étant de tester la validité et les limites du cadre théorique. Nous proposons ensuite d'étudier le schéma syntaxique attributif comprenant un verbe de changement d'état (essentiellement Become, Get, Go et Grow), en faisant appel aux outils de la linguistique cognitive et à la Grammaire des constructions d'Adele Goldberg (1995). Notre objectif consiste à modéliser l'emploi attributif de ces verbes en prenant en compte les relations pragmatiques entretenues entre les éléments de la phrase attributive. Le postulat de la linguistique cognitive qui conçoit grammaire et lexique comme un continuum est adopté pour mener cette analyse. Cette deuxième étude nous permet de mettre en évidence le rapport entretenu entre syntaxe et sémantique
This thesis offers a critical study of the theorical framework of cognitive linguistics brought forth in California first and foremost by linguist George Lakoff and philosopher Mark Johnson, but also by other linguists such as Eve Sweetser or Gilles Fauconnier. The thesis presents several aspacts of the evolution of this theory between 1980 and 2001. Starting with an inquiry into the pluridisciplinary origins of this framework, i. E. Philosophy of the mind abd phenomenology, cognitive psychology (Rosch and Mervis) and development psychology (Piaget) as well as sociology and anthropology (Goffman, Berlin and Kay), this first part concludes with a critical study of the terminology used by cognitive linguists. As a means of testing the validity and the limits of the theory, we then move on to an analysis of the metaphorical networks and conceptual « mappings » at work in the American and British press during the Kosovo war (spring 1999). Lastly, using Lakoff and Johnsons' theory as well as Adele Goldberg's Construction grammar, we explore the way copular sentences including a change-of-state verb (mainly Become, Get, Go and Grow) are generally conceptualized. Our aim is to understand how the copular use of these verbs is motivated. To do so, we shed light on the pragmatic relationships existing between the subject, the copular verb and the subject complement. The assumption shared by cognitive linguists which envision grammar and lexicon as a continnum is adopted here. When looking for constructions which could subsume all the copular sentences in the corpus, our main task at state is to show how syntax and semantics work together

Il problema della categorie logiche è stato affrontato fin dall’antichità greca, principalmente ad opera di Aristotele, ma è nel Novecento che l’interesse per lo studio dei processi di categorizzazione ha avuto uno sviluppo decisivo. A partire dalle analisi filosofiche di Wittgenstein nella prima metà del secolo scorso, si è arrivati negli anni ‘60 e ‘70 a un approccio empirico nello studio dei modi in cui l’essere umano interpreta e concettualizza il mondo circostante. Ogni volta che parliamo, applichiamo un preciso processo cognitivo per individuare, definire, organizzare gli elementi del discorso, sia a livello linguistico che a livello concettuale. Questo elaborato intende riassumere gli approcci principali allo studio e alle teorie di tale processo, mettendo in rilievo in particolare il ruolo dei modelli cognitivi nell’espressione linguistica. Il nostro utilizzo del linguaggio, infatti, è strettamente collegato a delle rappresentazioni concettuali dipendenti dal nostro ambiente, dalla nostra cultura e da altri fattori extralinguistici.

Med utgångspunkt i George Lakoff och Mark Johnsons teori om den konceptuella metaforen analyseras i denna uppsats bildspråket i opionsjournalistiska texter som behandlar frågan om individualiserad föräldraförsäkring. Därtill anläggs med hjälp av Yvonne Hirdmans teori om genussystemet ett genuserspektiv, för att undersöka om metaforerna är könade och/eller reproducerar det binära könstänkandet. Materialet är hämtat från DN, Aftonbladet, Expressen och SvD under perioden januari 2010-novmeber 2013.

This dissertation examines the academic debate that surrounds the new field called "Evolutionary Psychology." Evolutionary psychology has emerged as the most popular successor theory to human sociobiology. Its proponents search for evolved psychological mechanisms and emphasize universal features of the human mind. My thesis is that in order to flourish evolutionary psychologists must engage other researchers on equal terms -- something they have not been doing. To show this, I examine the stances of practitioners from three other social science fields whose claims have been shortchanged by evolutionary psychology: Barbara King in biological anthropology, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in empirical linguistics and Annette Karmiloff-Smith in developmental psychology. These researchers are also involved in cognitive science investigations that bear on evolutionary psychology's key claims about the mind and how it works. Evolutionary psychologists make three key claims about the mind. The first (1) is that the mind is massively modular; the second (2) is that this massively modular mind has been shaped by the processes of natural selection over evolutionary time; and the third (3) is that it is adapted to the Pleistocene conditions of our past. Evolutionary psychologists seek to elevate these three claims to the status of meta-theoretical assumptions making them the starting place from which our deliberations about human cognition ought proceed. These claims would constitute the framework for a new paradigm in the ultimate sense. I argue that elevating these claims to such a status is not only premature, but also unwarranted on the available evidence. This result is justified by evidence produced outside evolutionary psychology by those disciplines from which evolutionary psychologists explicitly seek to distance themselves.
Ph. D.

Urban Education
Ph.D.
An analysis of President George W. Bush's first Secretary of Education Rod Paige's speeches in 2001 explains the way in which the Bush Administration articulated its educational policy agenda. Literature on No Child Left Behind tends to focus on the specifics of whether the law helps children learn better or worse without recognizing or engaging with the broader policy agenda. This study attempts to bridge connections between No Child Left Behind and the broader Bush Administration ideology. A major connection this work highlights is between welfare policy and education, and by doing so utilizing George Lakoff's theory of moral politics examines highlights an overarching philosophy of governance, which shapes educational policy, perhaps even without regard to classroom outcomes. This analysis utilizes an interactive-hermeneutic model to crunch the text of Rod Paige's speeches. By coding and explaining major themes from the speeches, analyzing the language and rhetorical choices against itself and then comparing it to extant research on education policy and welfare rhetoric, this study provides a different way to examine political maneuvering on educational policy, which positions politics and language at the center of educational policy rather than efficacy and policy. This analysis finds by applying Lakoff's theory and work that Rod Paige's rhetoric, on behalf of the George W. Bush administration, is about reducing Federal responsibility for social problems and reducing the government's role overall. This is a "slippery slope policy" aimed at eliminating public responsibility for schools and privatizing education in service to the goal of creating an "ownership society" of privatized services and personal responsibility for success.
Temple University--Theses

This research is the result of a long-standing interest in the work of one individual, George Sword who composed two hundred and forty-five pages of text in the Lakota language using the English alphabet in the period 1896 through 1910. In the past scholars have studied Lakota narratives and songs and with each study new insights are gained. However, the focus generally in oral literary research has been in the study of content and not process in Lakota oral traditions. In order to better understand the characteristics of Lakota oral style this study shows how it is composed and structured in the work of George Sword. The research focus is from a qualitative perspective concerned with exploring, describing, and explaining a culturally specific Lakota oral narrative more commonly found in history and ethnographic disciplines, where it is a special type of case study research. The primary method used is an analysis of historic documents and original text in Lakota to address the issues raised in the general research problem: How do you define Lakota literature? In the end this study shows the way in which Lakota oral narrative is composed, how its practice produced a distinct form. During the course of this study, what became apparent in George Sword's Lakota narratives were the formulaic patterns inherent in the Lakota language used to tell the narratives as well as the recurring themes and story patterns. The primary conclusion is that these patterns originate from a Lakota oral tradition. This analysis can be used to determine whether any given written narrative in Lakota oral tradition is oral or not; and leads the way for further research

This thesis aims to analyze and interpret a number of central works – Vimpelstaden (1985), Som en gång varit äng (1988), Blomman och människobenet (2003), I en cylinder i vattnet av vattengråt (2005) and Vad hjälper det en människa om hon häller rent vatten över sig i alla sina dagar (2009) – by the Swedish poet Ann Jäderlund (1955-) in the context of phenomenology and affect theory. The analysis consists of three chapters and proceeds chronologically with technical scrutinies of separate phases of Jäderlund’s œuvre – from the aphasic-like treatment of established phraseologies in Vimpelstaden and frozen expressions of the botanical discourse in Som en gång varit äng, to the uncanny focus on perceptual patterns as such in her later works. Throughout these analyses the thesis observes a series of techniques with which the author presents us with a kind of sensory paradox, through a) creating language-based complex appearances, non-appropriable by means of the normal perceptual patterns of embodied perception, while still b) simulating, and thus implicitly emphasizing, these appearances as something already concretely looked at and felt. In short, to experience what cannot be experienced, to live the unlivable. Many of these technical observations made are pinned down analytically using concepts from the field of cognitive poetics, namely George Lakoff and Mark Johnsons findings of experiential image schemata underpinning spoken phraseologies and their influential theories on conceptual metaphors. The interpretative conclusion following these observations is that Jäderlund handles her writing aesthetically as a kind of sensory material in a very literal sense, a “being of sensation” in the terminology of French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Not as means of experiential or intellectual representation, not as some sort of critical enterprise through mere language-gaming of free- floating signifiers – but as a material able to preserve and perform sensory processes immanent to its own material compilation, a tendency that earlier research fails to grasp or simply ignores altogether. Thus the affectivity immanent to the literary material – often being the starting point of studies in affect theory and cognitive poetics – is here proven to be a characteristic, thereby playing the role more of a conclusion than a field of inquiry. The aesthetics of interrogating the limits of sensory experience, introducing a sort of crisis to embodied perception through the experience of poetic language – and the experience of it as having a “metaphysical significance”, as French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau- Ponty puts it – is articulated in the thesis against the background of influential readings of modern art carried out by Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze.

Chapter 6 presents the view that psychological terms in these unexpected contexts are used metaphorically. It argues that there is no independent, non-question-begging evidence that the terms are used with metaphorical intent. It presents two main accounts of metaphor: the classical Gricean view and the view from relevance theory or pragmatic semantics. It argues that neither theory provides support for the Metaphor view because both versions of the view rest on a non-Literal interpretation of the predicates. It discusses epistemic metaphor, or the use of analogy in science, and shows how this is compatible with Literalism. It also sets aside the conceptual metaphor view put forward by George Lakoff and colleagues.

This book centers on a key rupture in the field of linguistics as a hegemony by the theories of Noam Chomsky appeared to be taking hold, a rupture in the 1960s that began a flowering of alternate approaches to Chomsky's framework, but also reoriented his framework markedly. The rupture was between Generative Semantics, which pushed to include more and more meaning in linguistic theory, and Interpretive Semantics, which resisted that push, putting more and more weight on syntactic structure. But in many ways the dispute can be reduced to George Lakoff, the most prominent voice on the more-meaning side, and Chomsky on the more-syntax side. Chomsky is a big personality, quiet and understated but always gesturing at monumental, revolutionary implications for his ideas, and always bringing great numbers of linguists along with him whenever he chases after those implications, stirring up psychology, philosophy, computer science, and other fields in the bargain. Lakoff is also big personality, anything but quiet or understated, equally comfortable gesturing at grand revolutions, equally happy to stir things up. They drive the story, but the story is about theories, data, and various technical developments, set among social currents that range from military industrial politics to the counterculture. All of these factors show up in the book, with a cast of other remarkable and influential characters. Noam Chomsky is unquestionably the most influential linguist of the twentieth century—many people claim of any century—whose work and personal imprint remains powerfully relevant today, so the book culminates with an analysis of Chomsky’s influence and legacy.

Media narratives in popular culture often ascribe interchangeable characteristics to childhood and old age. In the manner of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By, the authors in this volume envision the presumed semblance between children and the elderly as a root metaphor that finds succinct articulation in the idea that “children are like old people” and vice versa. The volume explores the recurrent use of this root metaphor in literature and media from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. The authors demonstrate how it shapes and is reinforced by a spectrum of media products from Western and East-Asian countries. Most the media products addressed were developed for children as their primary audience, and range from children’s classics such as Heidi to recent Dutch children’s books about euthanasia. Various authors also consider narratives produced either for adults (for instance, the TV series Mad Men, and the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) or for a dual audience (for example, the family film Paddington or The Simpsons). The diversity of these products in terms of geography, production date, and audience buttresses a broad comparative exploration of the connection between childhood and old age, allowing the authors to bring out culturally specific aspects and biases. Finally, since this book also unites scholars from a variety of disciplines (media studies, children’s literature studies, film studies, pedagogy, sociology), the individual chapters provide a range of methods for studying the connection between childhood and old age.

Na monografię składają się teksty przygotowane przez autorów z kilku ośrodków akademickich, którzy wzięli udział w IV Letniej Szkole Kognitywistycznej odbywającej się w dniach 9-12 września 2020 roku, w Kazimierzu nad Wisłą, zorganizowanej przez dwa Instytuty Filozofii – Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej oraz Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego, przy współpracy z Kołem Kognitywistyki KUL oraz pod patronatem Polskiego Towarzystwa Kognitywistycznego; również przy wsparciu grantowych MNiSzW. Czterodniowe spotkanie odbywało się pod hasłem „Metafory ucieleśnione” i zgromadziło na ogół młodych badaczy – filozofów, kognitywistów, językoznawców i kulturoznawcą – którzy problem tytułowy analizowali z wielu punktów widzenia i w oparciu o różne założenia teoretyczne i metodologie. Agnieszka Libura w tekście zatytułowanym „Integracja pojęciowa w memach internetowych zawierających wyobrażenia gestów” analizuje memy oparte na binarnych opozycjach gestów. Memy te przywołują uniwersalne znaki myśli wpisane w reakcje ludzkiego ciała, niekiedy wsparte dobrze rozpoznawanymi artefaktami, które mogą stanowić swoiste „przedłużenie ciała”. Analiza dowodzi, że konstrukcja podstawowej serii memów oparta jest na integracji pojęciowej w siatce jednozakresowej, w której skonwencjonalizowana przestrzeń wyjściowa, dostarczająca ramy organizującej amalgamat, jest łączona zazwyczaj z przestrzenią aktualnych wydarzeń, dzięki czemu nowe znaczenie może służyć jako komentarz polityczny, uwaga obyczajowa itp. Skonwencjonalizowane ramy służące do organizacji tych amalgamatów przekazują bardzo precyzyjne i zrozumiałe przez użytkowników sieci znaczenia, które współtworzą ponowoczesny folklor. Mateusz Hohol w tekście zatytułowanym w formie pytania „Matematyka w metaforach? O wyjaśnianiu pojęć matematycznych za pomocą metafor kognitywnych” przedstawia w zarysie główne założenia teoretyczne głośnej książki George’a Lakoffa i Rafaela Nǔñeza „Where Mathematics Comes From?”, w której autorzy sugerowali, iż znaczna część pojęć matematycznych daje się wyjaśnić co do swojej natury oraz genezy w ramach teorii metafory pojęciowej; są one w sensie dosłownym ucieleśnione, ugruntowane w działaniu i percepcji człowieka. Autor tekstu krytycznie odnosi się do tych założeń i pokazuje, że wprawdzie pojęcia matematyczne są w szerokim sensie ucieleśnione, to jednak żadne z empirycznych badań nie potwierdzają hipotezy lakoffa i Nǔñeza. W oparciu o szeroko przytaczaną literaturę przedmiotu, a własne badania, Mateusz Hohol proponuje tzw. hybrydową teorię ucieleśnienia pojęć matematycznych, która bazuje na koncepcji podwójnego kodowania reprezentacji poznawczych oraz specyficznej roli języka jako środka tworzenia pojęć abstrakcyjnych, w tym matematycznych. Mirosław Sopek w przeglądowym tekście „Metafory w sztucznej inteligencji” pokazuje jak powstawały i wciąż powstają, w kolejnych paradygmatach, metaforyczne określenia procesów i zjawisk poznawczych z użyciem terminologii z informatyki i nauki o komputerach. Są one już od połowy minionego stulecia szeroko stosowane w filozofii umysłu i psychologii do opisu stanów umysłowych i czynności poznawczych człowieka. Pokazuje także zjawisko odwrotne – wpływ terminologii biologicznej, neurologicznej i psychologicznej na określanie i definiowanie pojęć i terminów z informatyki i sztucznej inteligencji jak sieci, obliczanie, uczenie maszynowe, głębokie uczenie itp. W szczególności analizuje metafory z języka wielu dyscyplin informatycznych, za pomocą których definiuje się różne wersje sztucznej inteligencji. W zakończeniu Autor postuluje włączenie metaforycznego języka do teoretycznych podstaw oraz dydaktyki dyscypliny badawczej, jaką jest sztuczna inteligencja. Ewa Schreiber w tekście „Metafory pojęciowe w muzyce II połowy XX wieku na przykładzie twórczości Györgya Ligetiego” pokazuje, jak metafory funkcjonują w muzyce co najmniej na dwa sposoby – jako metaforyczne określenia służące do opisu specyficznych dla muzyki własności jak melodia, rytm, tonacja czy kolorystyka oraz jako metaforyczność samej muzyki, a więc jako rodzaju języka odnoszącego się poza siebie samego. Na przykładzie stanowiska kompozytora i muzykologa Ligetiego Autorka charakteryzuje metaforyczność głównie muzyki nowoczesnej, w której podstawowym terminem, w którym muzyka znajduje swoje ucieleśnienie jest dźwięk i jego brzmienie w najróżnorodniejszych postaciach. Ukazane zostają w wypowiedziach i kompozycjach Ligetiego liczne metafory o przestrzennych, dotykowych i manualnych konotacjach odnoszące się do muzycznych własności dźwięku i jego brzmienia we współczesnej muzyce. Przykładem analiz metaforyczności w szczególny sposób ucieleśnionej, związanej niemniej z językiem, lecz odnoszącej się do ciała oraz jego poetyckich, wielojęzycznych określeń, jest tekst Mateusza Kusio „Kolorystyka biblijna i metafory ucieleśnione na przykładzie czerni w Pieśni nad pieśniami 1,5-6 i jej wczesnej recepcji”. Egzegeza językoznawcza i biblistyczna wybranych fragmentów słynnego starożytnego tekstu biblijnego jest dokonana w oparciu o podstawowe założenia teorii pojęciowej metafory Lakoffa i Johnsona, dzięki której Autor tekstu wyróżnia znaczenia barwy czerni pojawiającej się w tekście i które odnoszą się do pozacielesnych, nie literalnych, lecz metaforycznych znaczeń – niewiedzy, grzechu, niskiego położenia społecznego, w końcu także odrzucenia w sensie religijnym. Metafor odnoszących się do cech charakteryzujących ruch ciała ludzkiego podczas tańca dotyczy tekst Joanny Pędzisz „Reprezentacja ciała w ruchu: Między metaforą, wizualizacją a realizacją”, w którym wykorzystane są pojęcia i klasyfikacja ruchów opracowane przez niemieckiego choreografa Rudolfa Labana. Autorka wykorzystuje teoretyczne i metodologiczne założenia tej koncepcji do analizy przykładów ruchu charakteryzującego taniec współczesny. Celem jest określenie, dzięki jakim rodzajom metafor konceptualnych, formułowanych w postaci instrukcji tanecznych, następuje w umyśle tancerzy konstytuowanie się obrazu ich ciała oraz jakości ruchowych uwarunkowanych przestrzenią, ciężarem, czasem, przepływem i wysiłkiem. Podobnej tematyce poświęcony jest tekst Pauliny Zarębskiej „Wielopoziomowość metafor w improwizacji tanecznej”, w którym zarówno teoria Lakoffa i Johnsona, jak i Zoltána Kővecsesa, mówiąca o wielopoziomowości i schematyczności metafor wielomodalnych, jest wykorzystana do scharakteryzowania i weryfikacji wyników z autorskich badań empirycznych nad sposobem reprezentowania pojęć ogólnych za pomocą samego ruchu, jak i mentalnych reprezentacji przez tancerzy podczas improwizacji. Autorka, w oparciu o zebrany materiał z rejestracji wizualnej improwizowanych ruchów oraz wywiadów z tancerzami, dokonuje weryfikacji niektórych założeń koncepcji metafor orientacyjnych Lakoffa i Johnsona, pokazując w szczególności, jak pojęcia ogólne dobro oraz zło są reprezentowane przez tancerzy ruchowo i mentalnie. Problematykę blisko związana z koncepcjami metafor pojęciowych podejmuje Hanna Bytniewska w tekście „Amalgamaty koncepcyjne w designie”, w którym w oparciu o teorię amalgamatu koncepcyjnego (mieszanin pojęciowych) Gillesa Fauconniera i Marka Turnera dokonuje analiz wybranych przykładów projektów designerskich. Rozważany jest specyficzny język wizualny przedmiotów codziennego użytku, którym designerzy posługują się podczas swoich prac projektowych. Autorka rozważa design jako formę komunikacji między projektantem a użytkownikiem, w której ten pierwszy przekazuje drugiemu nie tylko informację o przedmiocie, ale również swoją wizję świata i codzienności; koncepcja metafory pojęciowej jest przydatna do zrozumienia tej komunikacji. Albert Łukasik w tekście „Emocje i nieświadome procesy w ucieleśnionych metaforach” rozpatruje, z punktu widzenia badań nad neuronalnymi korelatami leżącymi u podstaw używania i rozumienia języka figuratywnego, specyficzny sposób ucieleśnienia metafor. Znaczna część procesów odpowiedzialnych za posługiwanie się metaforami przebiega na poziomie nieświadomym. W szczególności Autor pokazuje, jak ucieleśnione metafory wpływają na procesy decyzyjne, a nawet moralny osąd i wskazuje na możliwości wykorzystania tego zjawiska w psychoterapii i edukacji. Tematyką neurologicznych i psychologicznych uwarunkowań posługiwania się metaforami w specyficznej komunikacji międzyludzkiej zajmuje się Kaja Brusik w tekście „Metafory w komunikacji osób chorych na schizofrenię: koncepcja Gregory’ego Batesona”. Omawia w szczególności przykłady zakłóceń w rozumieniu metaforycznych wypowiedzi przez schizofreników, którzy mają trudności rozpoznawania poziomów wypowiedzi – literalnego i metaforycznego – podczas kontaktów z terapeutami lub też, szerzej rzecz ujmując, w zaburzeniach kontaktów rodzinnych, które Bateson scharakteryzował i zdefiniował jako podwójne wiązanie. Do problemu cielesności, rozpatrywanego od strony kulturowej oraz literaturoznawczej, podchodzi Daria Targosz w „Metaforyczności ciała i sposobach obrazowania doświadczenia cielesnego”. Autorka większą uwagę poświęca podmiotowemu, a nie przedmiotowemu (jak w teoriach masowej komunikacji) ujęciu ciała, w szczególności analizując kwestię językowych zdolności i stylów mówienia o cielesności człowieka. W oparciu o koncepcje filozoficzne (fenomenologia cielesności Maurice’a Merleau-Ponty’ego) i literaturoznawcze (somatopoetyka Anny Łebkowskiej) ukazuje, że elementarne doświadczenie cielesności, jakie przeżywa każdy człowiek, a które jest przedstawiane w dziele literackim jako temat, nie odnosi się wyłącznie do ciała, ale również do jego kulturowych sensów i znaczeń. W tekście Marcina Kozaka „Poza reżimem do-słowności. Myślenie metaforą w prawie” scharakteryzowane jest funkcjonowanie metafor w dyskursie prawniczym. Autor pokazuje, jak zwroty metaforyczne pojawiają się w języku prawnym oraz w języku prawniczym, czym różni się ich funkcjonowanie w obu przypadkach. Ilustruje to przykładami z dyskursu prawniczego, uwikłanego w konteksty polityczne i ideologiczne, dotyczącego takich kwestii jak obowiązywanie prawa, władza, regulacje prawne dotyczące ciała, także technologii informatycznych. Omawia również dyskusje i spory w teorii i doktrynie prawa na temat metafor w nim funkcjonujących.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

This chapter revisits the major linguists of the Generative/Interpretive Semantics dispute (except Noam Chomsky, who fittingly gets his own chapter): Robin Lakoff, George Lakoff, Haj Ross, Paul Postal, and Jim McCawley, noting both their contributions and their post-dispute trajectories. It also charts out two broad legacies of the Generative Semantics movement: a number of technical proposals that arose in that framework which found themselves in other formal linguistic models, prominently including those associated with Chomsky; and the general “Greening of Linguistics”: a range of functional, cognitive, and usage-based approaches whose origins trace to the Generative Semanticists’ rejection of defining Chomskyan values.

This chapter examines how Generative Semantics, which had emerged from Transformational Grammar as part natural extension of, and part challenge to, Noam Chomsky’s work, became a full-blown heretical divergence with Chomsky’s 1967 “Remarks on Nominalization” lectures, in which he took his theory in countervailing directions. Generative Semanticists had extended syntactic derivations deeper, diminished the lexicon, and enriched the scope of transformations. The lectures emphasized Surface Structure semantics, enriched the lexicon, and diminished the role of transformations. They were also dismissive of specific Generative Semantic innovations, especially those of George Lakoff. Lakoff attended the lectures. Sparks flew. Chomsky and his new proposals fared poorly across the linguistic landscape, where Generative Semantics rapidly took hold, but his own students, Ray Jackendoff at the fore, were inspired by the new direction (known variously as “Lexicalism,” “Extended Standard Theory,” and, contrapuntally to the heresy, “Interpretive Semantics”).

This chapter traces the collapse of Generative Semantics, which ultimately became a movement away from Noam Chomsky’s view of linguistics, more than a movement toward a unifying vision of language or linguistics. The leaders all went in various directions. Paul Postal and Jim McCawley retained their commitments to formal modeling, but Postal developed a new, non-Transformational framework with David Perlmutter, Relational Grammar, while McCawley continued to ply an increasingly idiosyncratic Transformational model he eventually called Unsyntax. Robin Lakoff led the expansion of linguistic pragmatics and founded feminist linguistics. George Lakoff and Haj Ross took overlapping but distinct forays into non-discrete linguistics. Meanwhile, the Generative Semantics ethos was losing whatever appeal it may have had. Linguists outside the movement, and some within, found the style irritating. Meanwhile, too, Chomsky’s innovations were proving very fruitful and attracting adherents under the label, the Extended Standard Theory. Chomsky’s framework emerged from the brief Generative Semantics eclipse and now seemed the clear winner of the Linguistics Wars.

This chapter provides brief overviews of the role that language plays in culture and thought, of the job that linguists do to investigate the roles that language plays, and of the dispute among linguists that forms the narrative core of this book, as well as introducing the linguists who drove that dispute: Noam Chomsky, Ray Jackendoff, Robin and George Lakoff, Jim McCawley, Paul Postal, and Haj Ross. That dispute hinged on the relative significance of linguistic structure and linguistic meaning for the way we understand language and its relation to thought.

This chapter examines two case studies that illustrate the limitations of the cognitive theory of mathematical metaphor in accounting for the formation of actual historical mathematical life worlds. The first case study deals with four medieval and early modern examples of relating algebra to geometry. These examples show that when two mathematical domains are linked, what passes between them cannot be reduced to “inferences,” as assumed by the theory of mathematical metaphor. The second case study reviews notions of infinity since early modernity and demonstrates that these notions are far too variegated and complex to be subsumed under a single metaphor—namely, George Lakoff and Rafael Núñez's basic metaphor of infinity, which tries to read all mathematical infinities as metaphorically projecting final destinations on indefinite sequences.

This section argues that Lyly’s and Shakespeare’s characters process and experience eros through the primary metaphor of motion. These introductory pages explore the philosophical and conceptual underpinnings of this metaphor through the example of Shakespeare’s Angelo in Measure for Measure. Drawing from the work of cognitive linguistics George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, and Zoltan Kövecses, this section explores the broad metaphorical structures that shape Angelo’s erotic experience as both a passion and an action. Things happen within Angelo well before he ‘acts out’ his sexual pursuit of the novitiate Isabella. The remainder of this section investigates the relationship between erotic potentiality and actuality, or entelechy, in Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics. In Aristotle’s writings, as in Shakespeare’s play, the boundary between potency and actuality is fluid rather than fixed. As a result, Angelo’s metaphors dramatize the capacity of erotic potentiality to create drama. For him, as for so many of Lyly’s and Shakespeare’s characters, desire is itself a frenzied action.

Recent theories of emotion take different stands on how greatly language can influence emotional experience. William James’s peripheral feedback theory, Paul Ekman’s basic emotions theory, Magda Arnold’s appraisal theory, and Lisa Feldman Barrett’s conceptual act theory offer distinct frameworks for understanding how physiology and culture interact in human emotions. The research of Max Black, George Lakoff, and Zoltán Kövecses indicates that emotion metaphors have bodily and cultural roots. Dante Alighieri’s Inferno and John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress illustrate the religious origin of metaphors for culturally “banned” emotions. Traces of these religious origins can be seen in the metaphors of self-help books such as Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence, Travis Bradberry’s and Jean Greaves’s Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and Spencer Johnson’s Who Moved My Cheese? A long-standing cultural tradition presumes there is a self separate from the emotions that is responsible for controlling them, but scientific studies point toward emotional regulation within a self.

The introduction presents the main argument of Conceiving Desire in Lyly and Shakespeare: that metaphors dramatize inward erotic experience on the early modern stage. The opening pages chart the book’s methodology, situate it among other studies of desire, and introduce conceptual metaphor theory via George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, and Mark Turner’s foundational work in cognitive linguistics. To illustrate the importance of cognition to erotic experience, the introduction analyses Troilus’s soliloquy in which he anticipates his tryst with Cressida. Troilus’s imagination makes him “giddy” but it also betrays his cognitive performance anxiety—a fear of being unable to conceive of the “subtle” pleasures that await him, dooming them to be lost to him forever. Troilus confirms that our ability to process erotic experience mentally is what grants us access to it; both action and contemplation are vital ingredients in erotic experience. These pages conclude by discussing the value of pairing John Lyly’s and William Shakespeare’s plays to study erotic language. Both playwrights, but especially Lyly, reveal the power of contemplative speech to constitute vibrant, frenzied action on a stage.