Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. Vol. 2. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)

Studies - Ágnes Deli: Cognition and politeness

most where the elements that make the CONDUIT metaphor fit well are not present - that is, where we do not share the same cultural assumptions, relevant knowledge, and relevant experience, and especially where our conceptual metaphors and folk theories differ. In such cases communication requires special skill; it becomes a matter of imaginative and poetic skill on the part of both participants, not just the speaker" (1985:71). In the cognitive-experientialist view cognition involves some basic schemata which are inherent part of our thinking (cf. Neisser 1976). Lakoff s (1987) and Johnson's (1987) work is based on the conception that meanings derive from our bodily experience of the surrounding world and our bodily interaction with the environment. They argue that the child's early sensorimotor experience in the spatial world determine our thinking, and that abstract thoughts are metaphorically grounded in our preconceptual kinesthetic image schemas. They notice that the basic schemas like 'the Container schema', 'the Link schema', 'the Up-down schema' and 'the Path schema' are mapped onto our abstract modes of thought, and thus they are reflected in the language. The discovery that the physical world and our experiences of it are present in the language via imagination and metaphorical projection led Johnson to "put the Body back into the Mind" (cf. Johnson (1987)). Johnson (ibid.) suggests that image schemata are central to meaning structure, and that they influence the ways in which we can make sense of things and reason about them. He points out that "Metaphorically, we understand the process of reasoning as a form of motion along a path - propositions are the locations (or bounded areas) that we start out from, proceed through and wind up at. Holding a proposition is understood metaphorically as being located at that point (or in that area)" (1987:38). To illustrate how the above described general metaphorical system is reflected in the English language about reasoning Johnson (ibid.) provides the following examples: Let us start out from the proposition that Hamlet feared his father. You can't move to that conclusion form where you are now. From here I'll proceed to show that humans are slaves of their passions. 87