INTRODUCTION
Aims and objectives of the study
This paper is to find out the mapping of conceptual metaphors for Life and Death in some short stories by Jack London It is expected that with the finding established, an overview of LIFE and DEATH metaphors in the obtained literature will be brought about Also, implications for language teaching and learning are offered
The objectives of the study can be elaborated into the following research questions
- What are the common types of metaphors for the Life and Death image in Jack London‘s short stories seen from the cognitive perspective?
- What are the markers of coherence and consistence of Life and Death metaphors based on the framework advocated by Lakoff & Johnson?
- What are the possible implications for language teaching and learning?
Significance of the study
Metaphor is one of the most basic phenomena in human language This kind of study has significance not only for investigation into language in use, but also for the research of human mind Besides theoretical significance, this study also sheds light on second language teaching and learning This thesis aims to analyze metaphorical sayings of Life and Death from the cognitive perspective, i.e to view the sayings of Life and Death from the perspective of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory Both theoretical analysis and empirical study are conducted on the topic.
Scope of the study
The present study takes its basic theoretical background from the work of Lakoff &
Johnson (1980), Lakoff & Turner (1989), and Lakoff (2006), where metaphorical expression is conceived as the surface realization of cross-domain mapping in the
Due to the limited time, space and the author‘s ability, the present paper just investigates the conceptual metaphors for Life and Death expressed in some famous works by Jack London in the light of theory raised by G Lakoff & M Johnson.
Structure of the study
The study consists of five chapters
Chapter 1, Introduction, is spared for the presentation of the rationale, aims, significance, scope, and the structure of the study
Chapter 2, Literature review, provides the necessary information about the theoretical background related to metaphor based on Lakoff & Johnson‘s perspective
Chapter 3, Methodology, provides information about the principles that govern the research and the methods to be employed
Chapter 4, Findings and Discussion, presents the findings obtained and sound discussions on those findings
Chapter 5, Conclusion, provides a recapitulation of the main issues and problems presented in the study The main content in this chapter is the specific conclusions on each of the research question Also, implications for teaching and suggestion for further research have been supplied This subsection brings about the practical value to the thesis from which readers can, to different degrees, benefit.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Overview of different theories on metaphor
Put very generally, there are two main approaches in the study of metaphor: firstly, the traditional approach, which encompasses many different theories but shares some fundamental presumptions, secondly, the cognitive approach, which, despite being very recent, has become the most influential theory of metaphor (Richardt,
Traditionally, According to website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor,
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that describes a subject by asserting that it is, on some point of comparison, the same as another otherwise unrelated object
Metaphor is a type of analogy and is closely related to other rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via association, comparison or resemblance including allegory, hyperbole, and simile
From cognitive point of view, as stated by Lakoff and Johnson, our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature Without knowing it, we use metaphors on a daily basis in our language, thought and in the way we experience things because our conceptual system is largely metaphorical This means that metaphor consists of conceptual metaphors, which is cognitive in nature, and various linguistic expressions of these conceptual metaphors (Lakoff & Johnson 2003: 50)
Lakoff and Johnson explore our conceptual system by looking at language They argue that as communication is based on the same conceptual system that we use in thinking and acting, language is an important source of evidence for what that system is like They use ARGUMENT IS WAR as an example There are manifestations of this metaphorical concept in everyday language: ―Your claims are indefensible,‖ ―I demolished his argument,‖ ―I‘ve never won an argument with him‖ and ―If you use that strategy, he‘ll wipe you out.‖
ARGUMENT IS WAR is not just a way of talking about argument Many of our actions during an argument are actually structured by the concept of war It is a metaphor ―that we live by in this culture; it structures the actions we perform in arguing‖.
Conceptual metaphor
The word ―metaphor‖ means to ―carry over‖ or to ―transfer‖ For Lakoff & Johnson (1980: 5), metaphor is used for us to realize ―one kind of thing in terms of another‖
A metaphorical expression can be just one word, or it can be a phrase or a sentence
It is even possible to regard an entire story as a metaphor for life or the world (Goatly, 2011: 109) The following part will look into the structure and mechanics of metaphor in order to arrive at a definition of metaphor that will be used in this study
2.2.2 How metaphor structures our thoughts
According to Lakoff and Johnson‘s theory, a conceptual metaphor is a concept about the world By adding the conceptual level to the linguistic level of metaphor, the theory of conceptual metaphor expands the idea of metaphor This means that metaphor consists of conceptual metaphors, which is cognitive in nature, and various linguistic expressions of these conceptual metaphors (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003: 50)
We can take TIME IS MONEY metaphor as a common example of how metaphor is more than a matter of language, this metaphor enable us to use expressions such as ―that flat tire cost me an hour‟ (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003: 8), TIME IS MONEY metaphor also allows us to treat our time as something value that should not be wasted or should at least be spent or even invested wisely
It is the fact that metaphor not only rules the way we think of the world, but also how we interact with it An unconventional conceptual metaphor, on the other hand, would require an unconventional linguistic expression, at least to a certain degree
2.2.3 Mapping as a major function of metaphors
There are two main parts of a conceptual metaphor namely source domain and target domains The mapping of a source domain onto the target domain is the way metaphor transfers meaning from one area to another In fact, metaphor is a relation between conceptual domains, so that the way we talk about the source domain can be used for the target domain thanks to the systematic correspondences between the two That it is systematic means that multiple aspects of the source domain – appearances, functions, and relations – may be mapped onto the target domain
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 (Wiki)
According to the invariance principle, held by Lakoff (as well as others), all of the image-schematic structure of the source that is consistent with the target is mapped onto the target (Kửvecses, 2003: 84) Kửvecses claims that mappings are based on the ―main meaning focus‖ of a source domain, i.e ―the central knowledge that pertains to a particular entity or event within a speech community.‖ (Kửvecses, 2003: 82)
According to Kửvecses (2003: 311 - 312), the structure of a conceptual metaphor is complex because the two domains of thought exist simultaneously; he also shows ten interacting components that make up a conceptual metaphor known as experiential basis, source domain, target domain, relationship between the source and the target , metaphorical linguistic expressions, mappings, entailments, blends, non-linguistic realization and cultural models.
Highlighting and Hiding
According to Lakoff & Johnson, Metaphorical structuring is always partial and never total It can never be full because of the two main reasons; firstly, the two concepts would be exactly the same thing instead of one concept structuring another The part of the metaphorical concept which does not fit is left out because it is not relevant On the other hand, metaphorical structuring also keeps the focus off certain aspects of a concept because these aspects do not fit in with that metaphor So part of a concept is highlighted, while other parts remain hidden
Lakoff & Johnson use ARGUMENT IS WAR as an example In this metaphorical concept, we focus on the aspect of attack and defence in arguments This aspect of the metaphor, therefore, is highlighted What is left out, however, is that you also have a cooperative aspect to argument Lakoff and Johnson write that the person you are having an argument with could also be seen as someone who is ―giving you his time, a valuable commodity, in an effort at mutual understanding‖ But the cooperative aspect of argument is hidden because we use the metaphorical concept ARGUMENT IS WAR Metaphorical concepts thus always have a part which is used and an unused part
The metaphorical concept Lakoff and Johnson use to show how the used part and the unused part work can also be seen in metaphor THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS
The part of the metaphor which is being used can be found in expressions such as
―Is that the foundation of your theory‖ and ―The theory needs more support‖ On the contrary, buildings have aspects beside the outer shell and construction They have doors, windows, a roof, rooms, hallways, etc These aspects of buildings are unused in our everyday language when using the metaphor.
Coherence and Consistence
Lakoff and Johnson mention that metaphorical concepts can be coherent or consistent Consistent metaphors ―form a single image,‖ while coherent metaphors are ―subcategories of a major category and therefore share a major common entailment‖ They do not form a single image but they ―fit together.‖ These authors use two metaphors to clarify this idea
The first example is TIME IS A MOVING OBJECT metaphor, this metaphor is expressed in sentences such as ―Time flies‖, ―The time will come‖, and ―The time for action has arrived‖
The second illustration is TIME IS STATIONARY AND WE MOVE THROUGH
IT metaphor with the manifestation in the sentences ―We‘re approaching the end of the year‖, ―As we go through the years‖
It can be noticed two metaphors above do not form one single image In the first case, we stand still and time moves In the second case, we move while time stands still But, as Lakoff and Johnson describe it, the two metaphorical concepts do share one ―major common entailment.‖ From our point of view, time goes past us, from front to back Because of this shared entailment, the two concepts fit together and, therefore, are coherent even when they are not consistent
It is important to note that conceptual metaphors can vary in different cultures
Lakoff and Johnson use TIME IS MONEY because this is typically associated with the Western culture This metaphorical concept is typical for modern industrialised societies but there are cultures where this is not the case.
Previous studies related to the theme of this thesis
Life and Death as an abstract field has drawn much attention from many linguists and scholars, and so far many studies of metaphors of Life and Death from different angles have been done Among them, there are several outstanding studies that are related to the topic of the present paper
First of all, the research by Hurtado (2011) is about the analysis of metaphorical language in the studied corpus which demonstrates the existence of conceptual metaphor in the field of poetry Moreover, this paper sustains that poetic thought is rooted in the human cognitive experience
Having analyzed different theories of metaphor, the researcher concludes that the cognitive dimension of metaphor is undeniable Metaphor is not a matter of literal falsehood or a violation of the Cooperative Principle, but it resides in thought and not merely in words
On the other hand, this research gives evidence that poetic metaphor, deals with central and indispensable aspects of our conceptual systems Through the masterful use of metaphoric processes on which our conceptual systems are based, poets address our most important issues, as life and death, and help us illuminate them through the extension, composition, and criticism of the basic metaphoric tools through which we comprehend reality
To the same topic, Nguyen, (2011) investigates the metaphor of life, death and time in English and Vietnamese in the light of cognitive semantics based on the frame work by Lakoff and Turner The researcher tries to find out the similarities and differences in the use of conceptual metaphors for life, death and time in English and Vietnamese The study brings about some contribution to not only the theory and the appropriate use of conceptual metaphors but the translation work as well
The study also points out that cultural awareness is at the heart of intercultural communication A lot of this has to do with language and behavior; with pragmatics, beliefs and values But intercultural communication should also highlight the areas of commonality as well as divergence in terms of cultural and linguistic behavior All too often culturally stereotypical behavior is objectified and described with insufficient reference to underlying factors that help explain and elucidate A conceptual approach to language can draw into focus areas of divergence and commonality at another level of awareness and provides an extra dimension to the understanding of linguistic and cultural norms More specifically, advanced learners in particular need to develop a "metaphoric competence" if they are to attain a level of proficiency in English that will equip them for professional lives that require a high level of language awareness, knowledge, understanding and resourcefulness
Another research on this theme is taken by Ruiz (2007) in which the researcher studies how several death metaphors for example Death is departure, Death is cold, Death is sleep are able to account for the basic meaning and interpretation of more than thirty popular tales and myths Besides, the researcher offers the possibility of classifying tales according either to the basic metaphor they contain or to the combination of metaphors that may comprise them Additionally, the paper explores in what ways the metaphors under scrutiny allow us to explain some of the uncanny elements of tales Finally, he suggests that these metaphors may have contributed to an easier transmission of many fairy tales and also to make tales alike in different socio – settings
Sánchez (1999) tries to demonstrate that Stephen Dobyns makes an imaginative use of conventional metaphors, and this imaginative use includes the modification of some conventional metaphors, either by using parts of them, as in the case of ‗the body is a vehicle‘, or by the modification of the ‗frame‘ as in the case of ‗life is a journey‘ In the first case, the restriction of both domains results in a more powerful metaphor This is also achieved by means of negative metaphors such as ‗people are not plants‘ And in the second case, the metaphorical concept ‗life is a journey‘ is widened to cover a broader aspect of ‗life‘, i.e., life after physical death.
Summary
This chapter has provided a brief overview of different metaphor theories with the focus on the theory employed as the basis for this research: the theory of conceptual metaphor introduced in the work ―Metaphor We Live By‖ by Lakoff & Johnson
(1980) From such reviewing, a working definition of metaphor can be obtained for this thesis Moreover, in order to get deeper view of conceptual metaphors, some outstanding studies that are related to the topic of the present paper are presented at the end of the chapter.
METHODOLOGY
Principles governing the research
3.1.1 Principles governing the research type
This is a qualitative study which is intended to provide an overview of the conceptual metaphors used in Jack London‘s short stories about Life and Death
Shank (2002: 5) defines qualitative research as ―a form of systematic empirical inquiry into meaning‖ By systematic he means ―planned, ordered and public‖, following rules agreed upon by members of the qualitative research community By empirical, he means that this type of inquiry is grounded in the world of experience
Inquiry into meaning says researchers try to understand how others make sense of their experience Denzin and Lincoln (2000: 3) claim that qualitative research involves an interpretive and naturalistic approach: ―This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or to interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them‖
In the ground-breaking work ―Metaphors We Live By‖ (1980), Lakoff and Johnson showed that metaphors are in fact a fundamental, structuring mechanism in the way we interact with and perceive the world around us; a linguistic phenomenon so common and easily accessible that we often do not notice that something is in fact a metaphor
As stated before, the purpose of this research is to find out the conceptual metaphor of Life and Death in Jack London‘s short stories For sayings of Life and Death, Lakoff and Turner (1989: 1-2) present a very common basic conceptual metaphor in western culture know as Death is departure Instead of saying someone has died, it is very common to say that someone is gone or that he has left this world or that he has passed on In the Western culture, life and death are extremely common to be spoken of, written and even thought with a set of basic conceptual metaphors
According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 3), we often fail to notice them as metaphors at all because of their mundane nature Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 6) go on to explain that the reason for this is that human thought processes are largely metaphorical, and that metaphor is in fact a primary tool for understanding our world and ourselves
Because of the fact that metaphors reside in thought instead of only in words, and that we know unconsciously and automatically many basic metaphors for understanding life, the writer does not have to state in detail and explain the metaphors he uses, but can rely on the reader to know them by virtue of knowing the basic conceptual metaphor
3.1.2 Principles for the formulation of research questions
The researcher approaches the first question by looking at the metaphors of Life and Death in the selected short stories in order to gain an understanding of the variety of the metaphors used by Jack London According to Lakoff and Turner (1989: 15), a very large number of metaphorical expressions for Life and Death throughout Western literature works are instances of a very small number of basic conceptual metaphors through which we comprehend Life and Death, and the researcher hopes to find out whether this can be applied in those short stories by Jack London as well
The researcher also look at the metaphors of Life and Death presented in works by Jack London and see if they could be traced back as an extension of some of the most common basic conceptual metaphors in the Western world
The hypothesis concerning the first research question is that there will be a great deal of versatile metaphors of Life and death in Jack London‘s works, but also that the majority of them can be traced back to a small number of basic conceptual metaphors of death and also life According to Goatly (1997: 21), it is not always clear whether something is metaphorical or not – it can for example only be a sub categorization – and analyzing texts examining metaphors usually requires some interpretation The researcher understands that someone may wish to argue some of the choices she have made examining the data, since the metaphor exists in the readers mind, and what is metaphorical for one reader may not be metaphorical for another Therefore, this hypothesis is based on both the researcher‘s personal experiences as a reader of literary works and on her knowledge concerning the use of metaphors
The researcher approaches the conclusion on the first research question from the point of view of the mapping for conceptual metaphor which was held by Lakoff and Kửvecses (2003: 84) that all of the image-schematic structure of the source that is consistent with the target is mapped onto the target
In order to answer the second research question the researcher looks into the connection between Life and Death in terms of cognitive perspective which is inherited from the Western culture According to Lakoff & Johnson, Metaphorical structuring is always partial and never total and that metaphorical concepts can be coherent or consistent Consistent metaphors ―form a single image,‖ while coherent metaphors are ―subcategories of a major category and therefore share a major common entailment‖ They do not form a single image but they ―fit together.‖ For that reason, the researcher tries work out the link between the Life and Death metaphor
Finally, the purpose of this study is never to find every single metaphor of Life and death – or something that can be counted separately – within these selected short stories, but instead to gain a general understanding of the use of these metaphor in literature and then to find out the possible implication for English language teaching and learning.
Methods employed for the research
The major methods which are used for this method are documentary analysis and observation First of all, official documents include journals and textbooks are collected Any of these might give useful information, but they do not all provide objective for the purpose of the research; therefore, they have to be contextualized within the circumstances which the research needs for The task for the researcher is not to take such documents at face value, but to find out how they were constructed, and how they are used and interpreted This is why the researcher has to take observation as one of the favored approaches Here, the researcher adopts a role as a member of American society to get a more comprehensive perspective of life and death in everyday language
Because of the particular characteristics of the study, it seems that reading and reviewing documents are the most important and effective way to collect materials for the research Since it‘s very hard to find the original printing short stories of Jack London, the researcher relies mainly on the materials from reliable websites in the Internet One of the outstanding advantages of this method is up dated, abundant and authentic After the process of researching and collecting data, the information continues to be classified into different categories depending on the requirements of the research in order to make it easy for the researcher to find and to analyze the data Besides collecting and reading the materials from the Internet, the most relevant references from the library at Hanoi National University have been selectively read in order to support the researcher with necessary and useful information
After the process of reading and collecting data from Jack London‘s short stories, the researcher starts to analyze the image of Life and Death in terms of conceptual metaphor From numerous samples taken from short stories by Jack London, the researcher tries to choose the most interesting and concrete ones to illustrate important points under the investigation The next step is to synthesize the information analyzed in order to fit into the thesis The stage of analyzing and synthesizing are all conducted manually By analyzing and synthesizing, the researcher hopes to be on the right way of mapping out the image of Life and Death in Jack London‘s works
The study begins with a presentation of the theoretical background, namely the theory of conceptual metaphor as formulated by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and Lakoff and Turner (1989), and for the purpose of the study, the researcher collects data through reading short stories by Jack London While reading these references, an action of selecting relevant information is taken simultaneously After the data is collected, the researcher starts analyzing and classifying the data into the suitable categories of the thesis purpose After that, the researcher synthesizes all the metaphors to come the conclusion on the first research question by drawing image- schematic structures of the sources which are mapped onto the target domain from the point of view by Lakoff and Kửvecses To find the connection between Life and Death in terms of cognitive perspective, the researcher try to interpret the possibility of forming a single image or just being subcategories of a major metaphor of the mapping which are found in the first research question based on Lakoff‘s view.
Summary
To conclude, in this chapter the two main methodological points haven been presented (i) The major principles governing the research (ii) The main methods employed for the research which includes collections instrument, data analysis techniques and data analysis procedure.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Life Metaphors
Traditionally, metaphor, along with other parts of ―creative‖ speech like similes, hyperboles, etc., is viewed as fundamentally linguistic in nature and is ―assigned a peripheral role in language, as an ornament or, at best, a mechanism for filling lexical gaps in the language‖ (Deignan, 2005: 2) In their groundbreaking work
―Metaphors We Live By‖, Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 4) maintained the idea that
―the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another‖ but suggested that metaphors do not have a linguistic basis, but rather a conceptual one
One of the main basic metaphors that Lakoff and Turner use in their guide to poetic metaphor is LIFE IS A JOURNEY Following this metaphor, authors imply that the structure of the LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor leads to consider certain correspondences as a mapping between two conceptual domains, the source domain – JOURNEY and the target domain - LIFE
Literarily, Journey means ―an act of travelling from one place to another‖ ( Oxford Dictionaries online) However, in Jack London‘s short stories, for the conceptual metaphor ―LIFE IS A JOURNEY‖ the writer uses the source domain of a JOURNEY to understand the target domain of LIFE in which, the metaphor envisages life as a journey, with birth as the point of embarkation and death as the final destination
In a manner that closely resembles ―LIFE IS A JOURNEY‖ metaphor mapped by Lakoff & Johnson, ―LIFE IS A JOURNEY‖ in works by Jack London can be mapped out in the following way
Life is often described as having a beginning, direction, destinations, obstacles, turns and an end In Jack London‘s works, the language which is used to describe life is shaped by the superimposed imagery of a journey are nouns like ―trail‖,
―routine‖, ―peregrination‖, ―journey‖, ―the way of life‖, and verbs like ―follow‖,
―pass out‖, and ―come to the end‖ The following examples taken from some short stories will help us to realize how this conceptual metaphor is mapped through the means of lexical items
―The long trail waited while the short day refused to linger Life called her, and the duties of life, not death.‖ (The law of life)
―Ah, there it was that the long trail began Well, he had lasted longest.‖ (Lost face)
―Prince was led away by these uncrowned heroes who had seen history made, who regarded the great and the romantic as but the ordinary and the incidental in the routine of life.‖ (An Odyssey of the North)
―Since then my life had been one long peregrination - from the Orient to the Occident, from the Arctic to the Antarctic to find myself at last, an able seaman at thirty, in the full vigour of my manhood, drowning in San Francisco bay because of a disastrously successful attempt to desert my ship.‖(A thousand deaths)
The way a traveler is described as part of the LIFE IS A JOURNEY conceptual metaphor can be very revealing through the mapping of the traveler as human as in the sentence ― Sole speck of life journeying across the ghostly wastes of a dead world, he trembles at his audacity realizes that his is a maggot's life nothing more.‖
A traveler‘s physical trouble can be considered the difficulty in accomplishing a goal This can be considered an extension of the Traveler - Human mapping If a traveler conducts her journey and reaches her destination injured, blind, in physical pain, etc., it implies an unexpected, additional degree of difficulty
―Then began as grim a tragedy of existence as was ever played a sick man that crawled, a sick wolf that limped, two creatures dragging their dying carcasses across the desolation and hunting each other's lives.‖ (Love of life)
A further extension of the mapping has to do with the burden of the traveler Here we see the incorporation of the DIFFICULTY IS A BURDEN conceptual metaphor into LIFE IS A JOURNEY In general, the challenge of the journey grows exponentially alongside the size and weight of the traveler‘s burden, something that is reflected in the recorded speech samples below:
―He had carried his life too long in his hands, on that weary trail from Warsaw to Nulato, to shudder at mere dying‖ (Lost face)
―Then the great tree, burdened with its weight of years and snow, played its last part in the tragedy of life‖ (The White silence)
Weather conditions are Degree of hardships
One of the aspects of the journey domain that is used metaphorically when talking about the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY is the weather condition The course of one‘s life may change suddenly or even come to an end just as the weather is unpredictable and changeable A clear view of the horizon means a clear view of what lies ahead in life, in terms of both challenges and achievements
Favorable weather means that life is going on without particular difficulty and trouble On the other hand, the hardships, often unexpected are manifested metaphorically by the bad weather In jack London‘s short stories, hardships of life can be found in the following examples in short story The Great Interrogation
―His bleak life rose up and smote him,—the vain struggle with pitiless forces; the dreary years of frost and famine; the harsh and jarring contact with elemental life‖
Different Roads represent different Choices
On the way to reach their destination, travelers must choose and follow the certain route When they are flanked with many options along the way, humans must determine which course they want their lives to take When humans make decisions about their career, morality, love, life, and so on, this is the equivalent of travelers choosing to follow one road over another Further proof that life is conceptualized the same way as a journey can be found in the aspect that when journeying, people may choose different directions and road in ―Sole speck of life journeying across the ghostly wastes of a dead world, he trembles at his audacity realizes that his is a maggot's life nothing more.‖ (The white silence) and ―It was the way of life, and it was just.‖ (The law of life), also human beings have to follow the different parts of their life as in ―There was life in the Northland He would follow it, look upon it, gloat over it.‖ (In a far country), this idea can be also illustrated in the following example taken from the short story The god of his fathers: ―But when I was come to that place, the priest stood in my way, and spoke soft words, and said a man in anger should go neither to the right nor left, but straight to God‖
To describe coming to an impasse in life, that is to feel left without choices, the journey without any choices invoke the imagery of a dead-end as in ―From the beginning, at Warsaw, at St Petersburg, in the Siberian mines, in Kamtchatka, on the crazy boats of the fur-thieves, Fate had been driving him to this end” (Love of life)
4.1.2 Life is a fighting/ Life is a battle
Death metaphors
We conceive of death as something to which we are all subject Death is inevitable and final It would be appear that these correspondences between the domains LIFE and JOURNEY do not appear without the existence of the other As mentioned above, when the mapping of Human are traveler shows the idea of person leading a life in terms of a traveler, it is quite obvious that he will have a destination for his trip
Having stated this, it is possible to point out that the conventional understanding of LIFE does not come in isolation The concept of LIFE comes intimately associated to the concept of DEATH When Lakoff and Turner (1989) refer to life in terms of a journey, death is certainly part of this journey Lakoff and Turner (1989) refer to death with almost the ideas that LIFE IS A JOURMEY always has a stopping point
In Jack London‘s short stories, the final correlation that occurs between journey and life for the purposes of the LIFE IS A JOURNEY conceptual metaphor is that of a final destination and death Travelers may make various stops along the way, but inevitably their journey will come to an end The physical aspect of approaching death, as one would approach a final stop, is apparent in much of the discourse on death through some common words such as close to, in the end, pass away, pass over, meeting, down to the dark gate of death, end, come around, etc
When come to the end of the journey, people come to the end of their life This means that the traveler has finished their journey The concept of having finished the journey and come to the end of the trail is expressed through some verbs such as pass out, come to the end, close to, pass away, meeting, end, go down, etc,
In The Law of Life, The grit of woman and Love of Life short story, Jack London says ―He followed the trail of the other man who dragged himself along, and soon came to the end of it” (Love of life), ―The trail ends here, and I am tired‖ (The girt of woman) and ―And he was very close to death now.‖(The law of life)
Other illustrations for the DEATH IS THE END OF A JOURNEY metaphor are described in ―And in the end, Death waited, ever-hungry and hungriest of them all.‖ (The law of life)
―They had passed out of his life, and he faced the last bitter hour alone.‖ (The law of life)
―They had passed away like clouds from a summer sky He also was an episode, and would pass away.‖ (The law of life)
―This is the end of the trail for Passuk; but your trail, Charley, leads on and on, over the great Chilcoot, down to Haines Mission and the sea And it leads on and on, by the light of many suns, over unknown lands and strange waters, and it is full of years and honors and great glories It leads you to the lodges of many women, and good women, but it will never lead you to a greater love than the love of Passuk.‖ (The grit of woman)
Other examples taken from two shorts stories such as To build a fire, The God of his fathers also reveal this concept of this metaphor
―When he had recovered his breath and control, he sat up and entertained in his mind the conception of meeting death with dignity.‖ (To build a fire)
He pictured the boys finding his body next day Suddenly he found himself with them, coming along the trail and looking for himself And, still with them, he came around a turn in the trail and found himself lying in the snow He did not belong with himself any more, for even then he was out of himself, standing with the boys and looking at himself in the snow (To build a fire)
―And he felt a great envy of the man who could go down serenely to the dark gates of death.‖ (The god of his fathers)
For many cultures, Death is associated with cold, this connection between cold and death may be due to the existence of seasons During the warm seasons, such as spring and summer, plants may grow, and this is also the time for animals to get off- spring Thus, warmth is associated to fertility and life The connection between cold and death also has to do with the fact that a dead body loses its heat (37 degrees Celsius) after death This is true in climates where the air temperature is below 37 degrees Celsius, which is certainly the case in the areas where the pertinent languages are spoken America is the cold region, where people often have to face with the cold around the year and fire becomes vital for their life This can be seen clearly in Jack London‘s short stories about the Northland, in which people have to struggle against the nature to build up a fire for their survival
To describe the feeling of desperation, fear and death, the cold is painted with an amazing brush through numerous metaphorical expressions in the following examples
―It was very like a sea, this deadly languor, that rose and rose and drowned his consciousness bit by bit.‖ (Love of life)
―A good idea, he thought, to sleep off to death It was like taking an anaesthetic
Freezing was not so bad as people thought There were lots worse ways to die.‖
―But the tremendous cold had already driven the life out of his fingers” (To build a fire)
―He was losing in his battle with the frost.” (To build a fire)
―A good idea, he thought, to sleep off to death It was like taking an anaesthetic
Freezing was not so bad as people thought There were lots worse ways to die.‖
―And all things were dead There were no ptarmigan, no squirrels, no snowshoe rabbits, nothing The river made no sound beneath its white robes The sap was frozen in the forest And it became cold, as now; and in the night the stars drew near and large, and leaped and danced; and in the day the sun-dogs mocked us till we saw many suns, and all the air flashed and sparkled, and the snow was diamond dust And there was no heat, no sound, only the bitter cold and the Silence.‖ (The grit of woman)
"And when she grew cold in my arms I arose, and sought out the well-filled pouch, and girt on my snowshoes, and staggered along the trail.‖ (The grit of woman)
4.2.3 Death is night/ Death is darkness
Life, with all that it means, is most important to us and, together with death, is often spoken of metaphorically and entails each other
According to Lakoff and Tunrner (1989), many metaphor are related and may imply the others not because they are special cases of a more general metaphor or because they map onto the same target structure, but because they have the same grounding in everyday experience or commonplace knowledge This is the cause of metaphors such as LIFE IS LIGHT and DEATH IS DARKNESS/ DEATH IS NIGHT These two conceptual metaphors are linked by the shared knowledge that relates their source and target domain, in this connection, the daytime is full of life and people are active at that time However, night is usually cold and dark, people stop their work at night, and they sleep and rest Physically, death people are cold, as is the night for there is no sunlight, and are immobile, as if at rest Therefore, the metaphor DEATH IS NIGHT/ DEATH IS DARKNESS is exactly evoked from LIFE IS LIGHT metaphor
In Jack London‘s short stories, we find this metaphor not only with the words indicating directly to the darkness as darkness, shade, no sun, light (had gone) but also with the lexis related to the darkness and the coldness such as stillness
In the short story, The law of life, ―And through the long darkness the children wailed and died, and the women, and the old men; and not one in ten of the tribe lived to meet the sun when it came back in the spring.‖
In short story The flush of gold we see "Because of the darkness on her soul that is the same as the darkness of death.”
"She was more strangely beautiful before the darkness fell upon her,"
―And now she lives in darkness, and she who was always fickle, for the first time is constant - and constant to a shade, to a dead man she does not realize is dead.‖
Coherence and consistence of Life and Death metaphors
Metaphors are a systematic, partial structuring of one concept in terms of another
According to the Highlighting and Hiding characters, it is partial since complete equivalency would mean that the two concepts are identical Metaphors are coherent, though not necessarily consistent, in our conceptual system That is, different metaphorical structuring of the same concept will usually overlap in a logical way (coherence) or form subsets of a more general metaphor But metaphors for a single concept rarely form a single image (consistency) For example, when people want to talk about love, they can consider love a journey But this can be a car trip (a long, bumpy road; spinning our wheels in this relationships), a train trip (been derailed), or even a sea voyage (we're on the rocks; foundering) These three images are coherent in that they are all journeys, but they do not create one image; therefore, they are not consistent
Life and Death are such all encompassing matters that there can be no single conceptual metaphor that will enable us to comprehend them There is a multiplicity of metaphors for life and death, and a number of the most common ones show up in the selected short stories by Jack London Of course these metaphors have connection with each other and this link is presented through the coherence and the consistence
4.3.1 Coherence of Life and Death metaphors
The present study in Jack London‘s short stories has proved that Life and Death metaphors are very popular with variety of expressions Among various expression, the researcher finds that there are four outstanding conceptual metaphor for life as LIFE IS A JOURNEY, LIFE IS A FIGHTING/ BATTLE, LIFE IS LIGHT, LIFE
IS LIGHT and corresponding four conceptual metaphor for Death known as, DEATH IS THE END OF THE JOURNEY, DEATH IS COLD, DEATH IS DARKNESS, and DEATH IS REST/ SLEEP
In term of Lakoff and Turner (1989), many of these metaphors are related and may imply the other not because they map onto the same target structure, but because they have the same grounding in everyday experience or common knowledge For the Life and Death metaphors found in works by Jack London, these metaphors evidently related because of the same target structure and the same grounding in life
This is the case of metaphors such as death is night, death is cold, death is darkness, death is sleep, and death is rest, all of them linked by common shared knowledge that relates their source and target domains In this connection, night is usually cold and dark, people sleep at night, and sleep is rest Moreover, dead people are cold, as is the night because there is no sunlight, and are immobile, as if at rest Hence, night, dark, clod, sleep, and rest are correlated with one another in our common place knowledge It is the correlation that makes the metaphors coherent with one another and explains the relationship between them Therefore, it can be concluded that DEATH IS COLD, DEATH IS DARKNESS, and DEATH IS REST/ SLEEP are coherent with each other
For Life metaphor, when taking the same explanation for the coherence of Death metaphor, we see that as LIFE IS LIGHT and LIFE IS FIRE also share the same common knowledge The LIFE IS LIGHT metaphor provides a cognitive schema of life circle that starts with light and ends with darkness at the moment of the death
This metaphor is coherent with the metaphor LIFE IS FIRE
4.3.2 Consistence of Life and Death metaphors
When we think of life, we think of it as having destinations and paths toward those destinations, which makes life a journey and we have LIFE IS A JOURNEY conceptual metaphor We can speak of a life with a long journey with starting point in " Since then my life had been one long peregrination” (A thousand deaths) '' in life and of the aged as being ―came to the end of it‖ (Love of life) We describe people as "It was the way of life, and it was just.‖ (The law of life) People worry about whether they "are getting anywhere‘‘ with their lives and about "giving their lives some direction.'' People who "know where they're going in life'' are generally admired In discussing options, one may say "I don't know which path to take.''
Life is also a journey with a stopping point, and that stopping point is death's point
Consequently, death too can involve a journey with a destination So we speak of going to the great beyond, a better place, our final resting place, the last roundup and we have DEATH IS THE END OF A JOURNEY
We can be fairy certain that this is concerned with issues of life and death But what makes us to confident that two images in Jack London‘s works have the deeper and underlying interpretation? Given the cognitive linguistic view of metaphor, we can suggest that our judgment is based on a conceptual metaphor that links Life and Death to a journey The metaphor is now well known to us: LIFE IS A JOURNEY and DEATH IS THE END OF THE JOURNEY With the intensity of these two metaphors, the journey metaphor for Life and Death guides us in making sense of a common image – THE JOURNEY Therefore, these two conceptual metaphors LIFE IS A JOURNEY and DEATH IS THE END OF THE JOURNEY are consistent.
Summary
This chapter has showed that Life and Death metaphors are very popular with variety of expressions Among these expression, four major conceptual metaphors for life and four conceptual for death which are notable in Jack London‘s works are LIFE IS A JOURNEY, LIFE IS A FIGHTING/ BATTLE, LIFE IS LIGHT/
DAYTIME, LIFE IS LIGHT, DEATH IS THE END OF THE JOURNEY, DEATH
IS COLD, DEATH IS DARKNESS, and DEATH IS REST/ SLEEP
For having mapped onto the same target structure and having the same grounding in everyday experience or common knowledge, the metaphors DEATH IS COLD, DEATH IS DARKNESS, and DEATH IS REST/ SLEEP are coherent with each other For Life metaphor, LIFE IS IS LIGHT is coherent with the metaphor LIFE IS FIRE
Because the Life and Death guides us in making sense of a common image – THE JOURNEY, two conceptual metaphors LIFE IS A JOURNEY and DEATH IS THE END OF THE JOURNEY are consistent.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUDING REMARKS
5.1.1 Concluding remarks on objective 1 – The common type of metaphor for Life and Death image in Jack London’s short stories
After the investigation into conceptual metaphors for Life and Death in short stories by Jack London in the light of cognitive perspective by Lakoff and Johnson, the result has shown us interesting knowledge about conceptual metaphors in those short stories
Life and Death are polysemous It can be seen that there are four conceptual metaphors for Life known as LIFE IS A JOURNEY, LIFE IS A FIGHTING/
BATTLE, LIFE IS LIGHT/ DAYTIME, LIFE IS LIGHT Among the four conceptual metaphor for Life, the mapping LIFE IS A JOURNEY and LIFE IS A FIGHTING/ BATTLE seem to be the most popular ones with the density of sentences which are related to these metaphors in the short stories taken into consideration
The image of Death also evokes four senses of metaphor namely DEATH IS THE END OF THE JOURNEY, DEATH IS REST/ SLEEP, DEATH IS COLD, and DEATH IS DARKNESS
5.1.2 Concluding remarks on objective 2 – The markers of coherence and consistence between the Life and Death metaphors
The most interesting thing of this study is the findings of the coherence and consistency of LIFE and DEATH conceptual metaphors in these short stories
Based on the result, many of life and death metaphors are related and implied each other
Because of the same target structure and the same grounding in life, metaphors such as DEATH IS NIGHT, DEATH IS COLD, DEATH IS DARKNESS, DEATH IS SLEEP, AND DEATH IS SLEEP are linked by common shared knowledge that relates their source and target domains Following this connection, DEATH IS
NIGHT, DEATH IS COLD, DEATH IS DARKNESS, and DEATH IS REST/
SLEEP are coherent with each other
In terms of Life metaphor, The LIFE IS LIGHT is coherent with the metaphor LIFE
It is clearly observed that there is a concern with issues of life and death When applying the cognitive linguistic view of conceptual metaphor into this case, we can suggest a connection of Life and Death to a journey Apparently, the two metaphors are constructed in a mapping as LIFE IS A JOURNEY and DEATH IS THE END
OF THE JOURNEY which guides us in making sense of a common image – THE JOURNEY Therefore, these two conceptual metaphors LIFE IS A JOURNEY and DEATH IS THE END OF THE JOURNEY are consistent
5.1.3 Concluding remarks on objective 3 - The possible implications for English language teaching and learning
In using a new language, it is expected not only to know its vocabulary, grammar as well as needed skills but also to comprehend the culture brought by that language It cannot be denied that literature is a part of culture and also plays a very important part in nourishing it From that point, literature is essential for teaching and learning a language It not only inspires the desire of discovering a new language but also supplies the learners an extreme knowledge about the theme, the writing style, and the profound message of the authors More specifically, Jack London was one of the greatest authors of American literature at the turn of the twentieth century being famous for the use of realism point and naturalism point in their writings Moreover, due to the target of this graduation paper is to find out the LIFE and DEATH metaphor in Jack London‘s short stories, a deeper view of metaphor, especially conceptual metaphor is worked out
More generally, for the universal implications that go along with researching conceptual metaphors, as Lakoff & Turner, (1989) mention ―because metaphor is a primary tool for understanding our world and our selves, entering into an engagement with powerful Metaphors are grappling in an important way with what it means to have a human life‖ The identification and charting of universal metaphors has the potential to shed light onto some fundamental aspect of our cognitive functions and our human existence at large Thus, metaphor studies should be an area of inquiry for researchers in a variety of areas, including linguistics, anthropology, history and the cognitive sciences
In teaching literature, including short stories demands a close look at figurative language especially metaphor for it is a powerful device to construct analogies, link ideas and give explanation for abstract thought Without the existence of metaphor and other figures of speech, literature seems to be soulless and tasteless When the ideas and the messages of the author come to the reader without any contemplation, association and interpretation, reading will bring no pleasure for the reader
Regarding the importance of literature and metaphor in creating language, the teacher should notice of the guidance for students to realize how to explore conceptual metaphors to understand those concepts, how they are mapped and what meaning they carry on
Moreover, Cultural awareness is at the heart of communication A lot of this has to do with language and behavior; with pragmatics, beliefs and values According to Lakoff and Johnson (1989) ―The most fundamental values in a culture will be coherent with the metaphorical structure of the most fundamental concepts in the culture.‖ Therefore, a conceptual approach to language can draw into focus areas of divergence and commonality at another level of awareness and provides an extra dimension to the understanding of linguistic and cultural norms More specifically, advanced learners in particular need to develop a "metaphoric competence" if they are to attain a level of proficiency in English that will equip them for professional lives that require a high level of language awareness, knowledge, understanding and resourcefulness For these students attaining a grasp of the conceptual nature of language is likely to be a revealing and enriching challenge.
LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
In the present study, the researcher has tried to find out the use of conceptual metaphors for Life and Death in short stories by Jack London However, this is just a minor part in the research of on conceptual metaphors The present study is far from exhaustive I have attempted to cover a lot of ground in a relatively short paper, which means there are many points that could be expanded upon At the same time, I tried to avoid giving any of the areas I covered a superficial treatment, which inevitably means there are many points that have yet to be touched upon
Actually, there are still more conceptual metaphors for love, happiness, sadness and fear that should be investigated in further researches Moreover a cross-cultural study of conceptual metaphors should be investigated more
My hope is that this study will lay the groundwork for - and perhaps invite - additional research into the LIFE and DEATH metaphor not only in literature but also in other fields
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2 Goatly, A (2011) The language of metaphors, Routledge, London, pp 109
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Seamus Heaney and Robert Frost Unpublished master's thesis Universidad
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Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2nd ed.), pp 208
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WEBSITES AS SOURCE FOR THE DATA OBTAINED IN THE THESIS
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_metaphor
2 http://www.jacklondons.net/northstories.html
3 http://www.jacklondons.net/writings/ShortStories/index.html
THE TARGET, SOURCE DOMAIN AND THE SET OF MAPPINGS
OF LIFE AND DEATH METAPHOR
APPENDIX A: LIFE IS A JOURNEY APPENDIX B: LIFE IS A FIGHTING/ LIFE IS A BATTLE APPENDIX C: LIFE IS FIRE/ HEAT/ WARMTH
APPENDIX D: LIFE IS LIGHT/ LIFE IS DAYTIME APPENDIX E: DEATH IS THE END OF A JOURNEY APPENDIX F: DEATH IS COLD
APPENDIX G: DEATH IS NIGHT/ DEATH IS DARKNESS
APPENDIX H: DEATH IS REST/ DEATH IS SLEEP
1 Journey Life The long trail waited while the short day refused to linger Life called her, and the duties of life, not death
Ah, there it was that the long trail began Well, he had lasted longest (Lost face)
Prince was led away by these uncrowned heroes who had seen history made, who regarded the great and the romantic as but the ordinary and the incidental in the routine of life (An Odyssey of the North)
Since then my life had been one long peregrination - from the Orient to the Occident, from the Arctic to the Antarctic to find myself at last, an able seaman at thirty, in the full vigour of my manhood, drowning in San Francisco bay because of a disastrously successful attempt to desert my ship.( A thousand deaths)
2 Traveler Human He had carried his life too long in his hands, on that weary trail from Warsaw to Nulato, to shudder at mere dying (Lost face)
His bleak life rose up and smote him, - the vain struggle with pitiless forces; the dreary years of frost and famine; the harsh and jarring contact with elemental life
―Sole speck of life journeying across the ghostly wastes of a dead world, he trembles at his audacity realizes that his is a maggot's life nothing more.‖ (The white silence)
―It was the way of life, and it was just.‖ (The law of life)
―There was life in the Northland He would follow it, look upon it, gloat over it.‖ (In a far country)
―But when I was come to that place, the priest stood in my way, and spoke soft words, and said a man in anger should go neither to the right nor left, but straight to God‖
―From the beginning, at Warsaw, at St Petersburg, in the Siberian mines, in Kamtchatka, on the crazy boats of the fur-thieves, Fate had been driving him to this end” (Love of life)
APPENDIX B: LIFE IS A FIGHTING/ LIFE IS A BATTLE
Life is a strange thing Much have I thought on it, and pondered long, yet daily the strangeness of it grows not less, but more Why this longing for Life? It is a game which no man wins.( The grit of woman)
2 Opponents Life Fate asked too much of him And, dying, he
/Death declined to die It was stark madness, perhaps, but in the very grip of Death he defied Death and refused to die.(Love of life)
The sudden danger, the quick death, — how often had Malemute Kid faced it! (The white silence)
For five years, shoulder to shoulder, on the rivers and trails, in the camps and mines, facing death by field and flood and famine, had they knitted the bonds of their comradeship? (The white silence)
I had faced death and weighed my chances in many a desperate venture, but never in one of this nature (A thousand deaths)
Then an Indian boy, at the head of half a dozen frightened dogs, racing with death, dashed into the crowd (The man of forty mile)
He rested wherever he fell, crawled on whenever the dying life in him flickered up and burned less dimly He, as a man, no longer strove It was the life in him, unwilling to die, that drove him on
His bleak life rose up and smote him,—the vain struggle with pitiless forces.( The Great Interrogation)
On every hand stretched the forest primeval, the home of noisy comedy and silent tragedy Here the struggle for survival continued to wage with all its ancient brutality (The god of his father)
Already, over unknown trails and chartless wildernesses, were the harbingers of the steel arriving, - fair-faced, blue-eyed, indomitable men, incarnations of the unrest of their race By accident or design, single-handed and in twos and threes, they came from no one knew whither, and fought, or died, or passed on, no one knew whence
So many an unsung wanderer fought his last and died under the cold fire of the aurora, as did his brothers in burning sands and reeking jungles, and as they shall continue to do till in the fulness of time the destiny of their race be achieved (The god of his father)
To live is to toil hard, and to suffer sore, till Old
Age creeps heavily upon us and we throw down our hands on the cold ashes of dead fires In pain the babe sucks his first breath, in pain the old man gasps his last, and all his days are full of trouble and sorrow; yet he goes down to the open arms of Death, stumbling, falling, with head turned backward, fighting to the last (The grit of woman)
Two died under it; others were injured for life; and the rest took the lesson to heart and ran away no more (Lost face)
And as they shall continue to do till in the fulness of time the destiny of their race be achieved (The grit of woman)
It is a very great medicine It has saved my life many times.(Lost face)
He was losing in his battle with the frost (To build a fire)
When the last stick had surrendered up its heat, the frost would begin to gather strength (Love of life)
And Kid! He stooped lower to catch the last faint words, the dying man's surrender of his pride "I'm sorry – for - you know - Carmen." (The white silence)
APPENDIX C: LIFE IS FIRE/ HEAT/ WARMTH
A life can be a promising flame as There was the fire, snapping and crackling and promising life with every dancing flame ( To build a fire)