The Problem of Applying Uni-directionality Principle to this Type of

In the previous section we showed how the metaphorical mapping which engages bodily-experienced phenomena in source and target domains does not satisfy the basic tenets of the theory of embodiment. Because of its heavy reliance on the notion that source and target domains are primitive and complex, respectively; the principle of Uni- directionality presumably applies to all conceptual metaphors. It is worth noting here that in Chapter II, we observed that this principle particularly underlies the mapping typology which engages abstract phenomena as target domains (see pages 115,129). In this section, we shall pay special attention to this principle to assess whether it fits different mapping typologies.

In the metaphorical mapping which engages bodily-experienced phenomena in source and target domains, the entailments of Uni-directionality may reveal theoretical

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problems within the Embodied Approach. This is due to the fact that, within this approach, the reason why source domains are mapped onto target domains is that the former are bodily experienced and, by the same token, they are eligible to have conceptual structures of their own (that is, they are directly meaningful domains).

One of the main characteristics of these domains, in this respect, is that they are “directly tied to structural aspects of experience” (Lakoff 1987:268). On the other hand, target domains are by default abstract and do not have conceptual structures; hence, they are indirectly meaningful.

It turns out that these characteristics are not observed in the metaphorical mapping which engages two bodily-experienced phenomena. The question which arises here is whether we are still dealing with cases of metaphor when source and target domains are bodily experienced. The answer seems to be positive according to Lakoff and Turner (1989), in that the only case where a concept is non-metaphorical is when it is “…understood and structured on its own terms without making use of structure imported from a completely different domain”(57).

Though in the metaphorical mapping which engages two bodily-experienced phenomena we still understand one domain in terms of another, the tenets of the embodied approach to metaphor do not fit. To illustrate, let us consider these examples:

Human Is Animal

(1)Every education reform makes pupils guinea pigs. Human Is Liquid

(2)Crowds spilled out of the train over the platform.

Human functions as target in metaphors (1) and (2). On the other hand, Animal in (1) and Liquid in (2) take on the role of source. What is relevant to our discussion here is

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that in this set of examples, target domains are also bodily-experienced. A direct conclusion that we can draw from this observation is that target domains in this mapping typology do have conceptual structures of their own (for a contrasting analysis of this type of metaphor, see Szwedek 2011:345-346). For this reason, source domains are claimed to be directly meaningful, both inside and outside metaphorical mapping. Our judgment here is based on the entailments of one of the tenets of the Embodied theory of metaphor which holds that if a phenomenon is bodily experienced, then it inherently has a conceptual structure. This means that source domains, being bodily-experienced, are eligible for including conceptual structures. In contrast, target domains do not show a pre-existing conceptual structure in metaphorical mapping, neither do they have one independently of it. Nonetheless, target domains in (1) and (2) do have conceptual structures because they function as source domains in other metaphorical mappings.

Again, in this type of metaphorical mapping, being directly and indirectly meaningful are not inherent features. These examples show that target domains are also directly meaningful. Therefore, the view that target domains lack conceptual structures contradicts the data. Our judgment is based on the fact that if these domains function as source in other metaphorical mappings, then they do have conceptual structures.

In order to solve this theoretical problem sticking to these assumptions, we need to assume that these phenomena–outside metaphorical mapping—do have conceptual structures of their own but when they are mapped they lose such conceptual structures. Another way to treat this problem is to accept that the conceptual structures of target domains in this particular metaphorical mapping typology are inhibited to allow the imposition of the conceptual structures of source domains.

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At this point, we are faced with the following problem: the embodied approach to metaphor suggests that the need for metaphorical mapping is that target domains do not have conceptual structures of their own because they are inaccessible to our senses (Gibbs 1994, 1996; Lakoff 1987; Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 1999; Szwedek 2011). From this, it follows that our understanding of target domains depends on imposing on them conceptual structures of bodily-experienced phenomena.

Similarly, Embodied Simulation conjectures that target domains are endowed with meaning through simulating the physical action of source domains (Gibbs and Matlock 2008:162-165). Proponents of this approach argue that all conceptual metaphors show this characteristic (Feldman and Narayanan 2004:1-2). This means that having a conceptual structure is intrinsically related to the eligibility of phenomena for being experienced through the mechanisms of the body. On the account of Embodied Simulation, a physical action is needed to conceptually unify the two (source and target) phenomena (Barsalou 2003b; Barsalou and Wiemer-Hastings 2005; Gibbs and Matlock 2008). Henceforth, we always resort to bodily-experienced phenomena to understand and reason about target domains.

The question which arises here is that the phenomena of source and target domains are bodily experienced, and being so, target domains do have conceptual structures of their own because they are accessed through the senses. A piece of evidence for this claim is that target domains in this metaphorical mapping typology do have conceptual structures because they function as source in other metaphorical mappings.

However, following the tenets of Embodied theory of metaphor, Embodied Simulation, and the Propositionality-Linearity perspectives, there would be no need for conceptual metaphor to reason about these phenomena. This situation is due mainly to the

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fact that target domains in this mapping typology are bodily experienced and, consequently, they do have conceptual structures. That is, we do not metaphorically understand bodily- experienced phenomena as they are not eligible to carry out the function of target domains—it is not necessary to embody these target domains using bodily-experienced phenomena as a prerequisite condition for them to be meaningful.

It is worth noting here that these findings run counter to the core assumption of Embodied Metaphor and Embodied Simulation because these approaches are based on the notion that conceptual structures of bodily-experienced phenomena are imposed onto the phenomena which lack these structures outside metaphorical mapping (Lakoff and Turner 1989:83). This view leads us to conclude that metaphorical mappings are not by default based on bodily-experienced phenomena, as source; and abstract phenomena, as target domains. The data is especially indicative of this point (see pages 73, 164).

So far we have shown how mapping across bodily-experienced phenomena does not satisfy the principle of Uni-directionality. We argued that this mapping typology target domains are bodily experienced and semantically independent. We further argued that the principle of mapping concrete onto abstract phenomena does not hold either. This finding may entail that the experiential basis of metaphor should not be drawn based only on the characteristics of source domains because in certain metaphorical mappings target domains also are bodily experienced.

3.1.2.2. Uni-directionality principle and cross-modalities