Diálogo e Comunicação Intercultural. A Educação com as - Inicio ...

domain mappings” (Lakoff, 1993, p. 203) govern not only
poetic but also ordinary language and are ubiquitous in our
everyday speech. In Spanish ‘mappings’ could be rendered
as ‘correspondencias.’
In this chapter I shall consider, from a contemporary
perspective, a particular kind of metaphor, orientational
metaphor, and some of its “metaphorical expressions” which
are the “linguistic expression[s] (a word, phrase, or sentence)
that [are] the surface realization of such a cross-domain
mapping” (Lakoff, 1993, p. 203). As we shall see, orientational
metaphor is fundamental in our ways of thinking, and
orientational metaphorical expressions pervade our
conventional ways of speaking, so much so that usually we
are hardly aware that we are speaking metaphorically at all.
Orientational metaphors orientate concepts spatially.
For example, HAPPY IS UP and SAD IS DOWN. The notions
that HAPPY is oriented UP, and that SAD is oriented DOWN
are conveyed linguistically in such English expressions as “I’m
feeling up,” “My spirits rose,” “I’m feeling down” and “I fell into
a depression” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p 15). These authors
suggested that the physical basis for these expressions is that
“a drooping posture typically goes with sadness and
depression, and an erect posture with a positive physical
state” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 15).
Our experience as vertical beings who live and interact
in the world gives rise to our spatial concepts UP and DOWN.
As Lakoff and Johnson (1980) point out, “Our constant
physical activity in the world, even when we sleep, makes an
up-down orientation not merely relevant to our physical activity
but centrally relevant” (p. 56). In this way, the huge range of
UP and DOWN metaphorical expressions seen in our
language is grounded on the myriad of different human
experiences as upright beings living and functioning in our
surroundings. For example, CONSCIOUS IS UP and
UNCONSCIOUS IS DOWN (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 15),
which give rise to such examples as “She woke up” and “He’s
under sedation,” are probably based on our upright posture
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