Idioms

2.1 Idiomatic blends in journalism

This section of the paper is partly based on the ‘double-grounding’ theory of Feyaerts and Brone (2002), who focus on the interplay between metaphorical and literal (non-metaphorical) information. They explore an integration process where the simultaneous interpretation of a metaphorically interpreted lexical item with a metonymically driven literal interpretation yields humor. At the same time, blending can in no way be separated from appropriateness and the need for pragmatic considerations. In Thomas’ words (1995) “in producing an utterance a speaker takes account of the social, psychological and cognitive limitations of the hearer”, the hearer then takes account of social constraints leading the speaker to formulate the utterance. Further underpinnings of pragmatic aspects are demonstrated by Coulson and Pascual (2006) when they point out how speakers’

compressions in unrealistic blended models allow them to frame controversial issues for argumentative purposes. There may be several ways to explain the occurrence of the discourse-based dichotomy involving idiomatic-metaphorical interpretations and their literal counterparts as is elucidated below.

2.1.1 The first example; ‘Food for thought’, a headline about an innovative Japanese restaurant chain, exploits the conceptual metaphor IDEAS ARE FOOD. The idiom food for thought is a manifestation of the underlying conceptual metaphor IDEAS ARE FOOD.

Mappings are established between various entities in the FOOD domain and others in the IDEA domain. The source domain serves to establish correspondence between metaphorical and non-metaphorical meanings. Cognitively speaking, the latter evokes and activates the more salient metaphorical sense, whereby the overall article implies an advisory stance i.e.

establishing a successful food-chain is worth considering, i.e. ‘food for thought’. In general, ontological correspondence can be observed between the domain of FOOD and IDEAS or THOUGHTS. We tend to ‘digest ideas’ just like ‘food’, and ‘swallowing’ signals

‘acceptance’ (‘a bitter pill to swallow’, ‘have had your fill’).

The question arises: What pragmatic pressures are behind this blend? Producing headlines that repackage the metaphorical content of an idiom to be integrated with the literal meaning may create humor as well as linkage between the context of the article and the metaphor-evoked message suggesting: ‘Opening a profitable restaurant-chain is worth considering.’ Such correspondences permit us to reason about the pragmatic aspect of why a blend is created out of the conceptual metaphor above. Given the fundamental role of metaphorisation in the conceptualization of the world, the two-stage, delayed blending (a metaphorical mapping is integrated with context-dependent, easily decodable literal rendering) exploits the conceptual metaphor for the dynamic construal of an utterance which is manifested as illocutionary force; advice, or an object lesson for would-be entrepreneurs.

2.1.2 Flying high – (Lufthansa)

The second example facilitates our understanding of how merging a metaphorical scenario to its literal interpretation can enrich a blend. It follows straightforwardly that in this interplay fundamental bodily experiences may be a key factor, owing to the fact that humans, as

HUSSE 10 Proceedings Gyula Dávid

158

cognitive creatures, conceive of the world in a way which is grounded primarily in embodied experience.

In line with these facts, Coulson (2001, 173) suggests that the two main properties of American life are success and power. There is a metonymic connection between SUCCESS and MONEY (that motivates an extensive array of entrenched mappings between domains of success and paid labour – this metonymic structure mapping is called pragmatic function mapping –often results in shared vocabulary between the two domains.

The blend, ‘flying-high – Lufthansa’, employs the conceptual metaphor SUCCESS IS UP, which recruits several other idiomatic configurations belonging to orientational metaphors arising from perception and bodily experience. A few other idioms manifesting cohesion concerning vertical orientation in human thinking are at/on the crest of a big wave, be flying high, change the tide, come through/pass with flying colours Lakoff and Johnson (1980,14) propose that there are instances of up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow and central-peripheral orientation gained from human experience. Our perception and cultural experience suggest that from a conceptual point of view HAPPINESS, CONSCIOUSNESS, HEALTH, CONTROL, STATUS etc. are linked to UP-DOWN-orientation. In this sense, our perceptual, social as well as pragmatic knowledge about the world facilitates our understanding of the position and hierarchy of entities, event-scenarios as well as complex processes. In Fauconnier and Turner’s terminology (2002, 40) “In the neuronal interpretations of these cognitive processes, mental spaces are sets of activated neuronal assemblies, and the lines between elements correspond to coactivation-bindings of a certain kind.”

Figure 1. Flying high (Lufthansa)

entity motion

success high rate

company high profit

planes flying

Input 1 Input 2 Input 3

Lufthansa flying high-successful Genericspace

Blended space

159 2.1.3 More hot air (Asian environmentalists)

A cause-and-effect relationship emerging in the article as the literal extension of the idiom is blended with the metaphor. What pragmatic knowledge suggests is that too much talk incurs lack of action or little action. Fundamentally, recruiting associations between experience-based pragmatic considerations and conceptual metonymies such as MOUTH STANDS FOR SPEECH suggests through interactional experiences that speech need not lead to the instantiation of relevant acts, as is exemplified by the idioms: be all mouth and (no) trousers, hot air and sound hollow, which, in the public mind, might invoke the metaphor: EMPTY SPEECH IS LACK OF ACTION. The examples above illustrating the use of delayed blending show that blends exploiting conceptual metaphors available in discourse, may account for an illocutionary effect brought about by the process of integrating first-stage, pre-grounded conceptual mapping with its non-figurative, non-idiomatic counterpart. Thus, the two inputs employ the metaphorical and the literal meanings of the utterance, but the emergent structure in the blend contains partially-selected input information, whereby a felicitous blend arises.

In the figure below, the generic space only provides general, skeletal information about the relevant aspects of the input spaces, which blend through partial cross-domain mapping.

Figure 2. More hot air (Asian environmentalists) Generic space

Blended space

The preceding examples have provided some evidence that pre-grounded metaphorical or metonymic information may prove valuable input information for delayed blending, which involves the literal counterpart of the idiom in another input space. Unlike double-grounding, however, where further input spaces may be incorporated, this discourse-based scenario does not necessarily require one or more further inputs as pillars of blending.

event consequences

no action rising temperament risks

global warming rising temperature doom

Input 1 Input 2

environmental collapse

HUSSE 10 Proceedings Gyula Dávid

160