Integral Semantics and Conceptual Metaphor: Rethinking Conceptual Metaphor Within an Integral Semantics Framework

Abstract

The paper focuses, on the one hand, on two theoretical problems of Conceptual Metaphor Theory: namely, the cognitive status and the creative dimension of the conceptual metaphors; on the other, it aims at approaching some descriptive findings from Conceptual Metaphor Theory within the perspective of Coseriu’s semantics. Over the past years, the universalist claim of pre-linguistic embodiment via image schemas has been subject to much criticism. Recent attempts to simply situate conceptual metaphors within a social and cultural context did not bring the expected results. Therefore, the need for a radical breakthrough from the old conceptual and theoretical framework of Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory became urgent. The reconstruction of cognitive science on phenomenological and hermeneutical bases is on the way to being pursued within the rising of the third generation of cognitive science. It will certainly represent a major advance for bridging the gap between cognitive science and other traditions of research, such as integral semantics.