PLANT REPRESENTATIONS ACROSS CULTURES (2012-2013)
1. The role of plants in human life – a transdisciplinary approach
2. Ecological representations: plant protection, endangered plant species
3. Physical representations: biological (plant peculiarities), religious (symbolism of plants etc.), medical (healing powers) and mythological representations (legends explaning the appearance, the usage or the names of plants)
4. Verbal figurative representations: idiomatic (plant phrasemes) and creative representations (plant metaphors, symbols etc.)
5. Cross-cultural representations
6. Iconographic representations in educational materials, art, adverts, political discourse, mass media etc.
7. Cultural representations
a. Representations in folktales, fairy tales, fables, plant lore
b. Stereotypical representations (plant stereotypes) across cultures
c. Heraldic representations (plant symbols for American states)
d. Literary representations: animal representations in poems, short stories, novels
A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC REPRESENTATION OF PLANT METAPHORS
CONVENTIONAL METAPHORS
In cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor refers to the understanding of one conceptual domain in terms of another. A conceptual domain can be any coherent organization of experience.
This idea, and a detailed examination of the underlying processes, was first extensively explored by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980) in Metaphors We Live By.
DEFINITIONS
A conventional metaphor is a metaphor that is commonly used in everyday language in a culture to give structure to some portion of that culture’s conceptual system. (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980:51). There are two main roles for the conceptual domains posited in conceptual metaphors:
- Source domain: the conceptual domain from which we draw metaphorical expressions (abstract concepts).
- Target domain: the conceptual domain that we try to understand (concrete objects).
A mapping is the systematic set of correspondences that exist between constituent elements of the source and the target domain. Many elements of target concepts come from source domains and are not preexisting. To know a conceptual metaphor is to know the set of mappings that applies to a given source-target pairing.
Example
The IDEAS ARE PLANTS metaphor has been analyzed by G. Lakoff and M. Johnson (1980:47).
A conventional metaphor in which an idea is thought of as a plant in comparisons such as the following: the stages of growth and fruition of the plant represent the stages of development of an idea; the branches represent related disciplines.
E.g. His ideas have finally come to fruition.
That idea died on the vine.
He views chemistry as a mere offshoot of physics.
She has a fertile imagination.
PLANT AS TARGET DOMAIN
A PLANT IS AN INTELLIGENT ORGANISM
Translate into English this text that illustrates exactly the above mentioned plant metaphor:
“Povestea conform căreia plantele sunt nişte organisme de nivel inferior a fost formulată cu mult timp în urmă, de către Aristotel, care în "De Anima" – o carte foarte influentă pentru civilizaţia vestică – a scris că plantele se află la limita dintre viu şi ne-viu. Au doar un fel de suflet inferior. E numit suflet vegetativ, deoarece le lipseşte mişcarea, şi aşadar nu au nevoie să simtă.
Plantele sunt capabile să manifeste foarte multă mişcare. Unele dintre ele sunt foarte cunoscute, precum înfloritul. Este doar o problemă de folosire a unor tehnici precum filmarea lentă. Unele dintre ele sunt mult mai sofisticate. Privind in documentare plante precum Dionaea sau "Venus Flytrap" vânând melci cu niste miscari incredibil de rapide, abia acum intelegem de ce era oarecum un subiect taboo faptul ca plantele ar fi capabile să mănânce un animal, deoarece era împotriva ordinii naturale.
Sunt capabile să se joace. Realmente se joacă. florile soarelui tinere, şi ceea ce ele fac nu poate fi descris prin niciun alt termen decât joacă. Se antrenează, aşa cum fac multe animale tinere, pentru viaţa de adult, unde vor avea de urmărit soarele întreaga zi.
Sunt capabile să doarmă. Mimosa pudica în timpul nopţii, îşi ondulează frunzele şi reduce mişcarea, iar în timpul zilei, este mult mai multă mişcare. Acest lucru este interesant deoarece acest mecanism al somnului este conservat perfect. E acelaşi în cazul plantelor, insectelor şi animalelor. Şi astfel, dacă trebuie să studiezi problema somnului, este mai uşor să o studiezi la plante, de exemplu, decât la animale, şi este mult mai uşor chiar din punct de vedere etic. E un fel de experiment vegetarian.
Plantele sunt chiar capabile să comunice. Sunt comunicatori excelenţi. Comunică cu alte plante. Sunt capabile să distingă între cele cu care sunt înrudite şi cele cu care nu sunt. Ele comunică cu plante şi cu alte specii, şi comunică cu animale producând substanţe chimice volatile, de exemplu, în timpul polenizării. Acum în ceea ce priveşte polenizarea, este o chestiune foarte serioasă pentru plante, pentru că mută polenul de la o floare la cealaltă, chiar dacă ele nu se pot mişca de la o floare la alta. Aşadar au nevoie de un vector, şi acest vector, este în mod normal un animal. Multe insecte au fost folosite de către plante pe post de vectori pentru transportul polenului, dar nu numai insecte; chiar şi păsări, reptile, şi mamifere precum liliecii, şoarecii sunt folosite în mod normal pentru transportul polenului. Acesta este o chestiune serioasă. Avem plantele care le oferă animalelor un fel de substanţă dulce – foarte energizantă – primind în schimb acest transport al polenului. Dar unele plante manipulează animalele, precum în cazul orhideelor care promit sex şi nectar şi nu oferă nimic în schimb pentru transportul polenului.”
PLANT AS SOURCE DOMAIN
PEOPLE ARE PLANTS
Comment upon the following texts and explain the set of mappings that applies in each situation
A WOMAN IS A PLANT – ivy, Venus-trap ((suffocating men), nettle, rose, peach, tomato, orange etc.
“I'm a riddle in nine syllables,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers! (...)
I've eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there's no getting off.” (Sylvia Plath, Metaphors)
A STUDENT IS A HOTHOUSE PLANT
“In fact, Doctor Blimber's establishment was a great hot-house, in which there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys blew before their time. Mental green-peas were produced at Christmas, and intellectual asparagus all the year round. Mathematical gooseberries (very sour ones too) were common at untimely seasons, and from mere sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blimber's cultivation. Every description of Greek and Latin vegetable was got off the driest twigs of boys, under the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no consequence at all. No matter what a young gentleman was intended to bear, Doctor Blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other.
This was all very pleasant and ingenious, but the system of forcing was attended with its usual disadvantages. There was not the right taste about the premature productions, and they didn't keep well. Moreover, one young gentleman, with a swollen nose and an excessively large head (the oldest of the ten who had 'gone through' everything), suddenly left off blowing one day, and remained in the establishment a mere stalk. And people did say that the Doctor had rather overdone it with young Toots, and that when he began to have whiskers he left off having brains.” (Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, ch.11)
ENGLISH IS A PLANT
Write an essay in which to illustrate this metaphor (e.g. its seeds are sown, it grows or withers....our mind is the fertile soil...etc.)
