This article draws on phenomenological and sociological notions of the ‘lived’ body in order to develop a dynamic perspective on embodiment in Conceptual Metaphor Theory. My main argument is that even our most basic sensorimotor experiences are more complex, fluid, and more deeply imbued with socio-cultural meanings than many metaphor scholars assume. While our conscious awareness is ordinarily directed towards the world, making our physical actions and perceptions appear to be natural and straightforward, at times of dysfunction, such as illness and disability, the body suddenly seizes our attention and is perceived as alien. In these moments bodily experience often becomes not just the source, but also the target of metaphorical mappings. I demonstrate the usefulness of the notion of dynamic embodiment by applying it to the example of verbal and visual cancer metaphors.
Breitmeyer, B. (2010). Blindspots: The many ways we cannot see. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Cameron, L., Maslen, R., Todd, Z., Maule, J., Stratton, P., & Stanley, N. (2009). The discourse dynamics approach to metaphor and metaphor-led discourse analysis. Metaphor and Symbol, 24(2), 63–89.
Charmaz, K., & Rosenfeld, D. (2006). Reflections of the body, images of self: Visibility and invisibility in chronic illness and disability. In D. D. Waskul & P. Vannini (Eds.), Body/embodiment: Symbolic interaction and the sociology of the body (pp. 35–49). Aldershot: Ashgate.
Couser, G. T. (1997). Recovering bodies: Illness, disability, and life writing. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Deignan, A., & Cameron, L. (2013). A re-examination of understanding is seeing. Journal of Cognitive Semiotics, 5(1–2), 220–243.
Edgley, C. (2006). The fit and healthy body: Consumer narratives and the management of postmodern corporeity. In D. D. Waskul & P. Vannini (Eds.), Body/embodiment: Symbolic interaction and the sociology of the body (pp. 231–245). Aldershot: Ashgate.
El Refaie, E. (2012a). Autobiographical comics: Life writing in pictures. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.
El Refaie, E. (2012b). Of men, mice, and monsters: Body images in David Small’s Stitches: A memoir. The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 3(1), 55–67.
Fauconnier, G., & Turner, M. (2002). The way we think: Conceptual blending and the mind’s hidden complexities. New York: Basic Books.
Featherstone, M. (1991). The body in consumer culture. In M. Featherstone, M. Hepworth & B. S. Turner (Eds.), The body: Social process and cultural theory (pp. 170–196). London, Newbury Park, & New Delhi: Sage.
Forceville, C. (2009). Non-verbal and multimodal metaphor in a cognitivist framework: Agendas for research. In C. Forceville & E. Urios-Aparisi (Eds.), Multimodal metaphor (pp. 19–42). Berlin & New York, NY: Mouton de Gruyter.
Frank, A. W. (1995). The wounded storyteller: Body, illness, and ethics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Gibbs, R. W., Jr. (1994). The poetics of mind: Figurative thought, language, and understanding. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Gibbs, R. W., Jr. (2006). Embodiment and cognitive science. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gibbs, R. W., Jr. (2011). Evaluating conceptual metaphor theory. Discourse Processes, 48(8), 529–562.
Gibbs, R. W., Jr. (2013). Why do some people dislike conceptual metaphor theory?Journal of Cognitive Semiotics, 5(1–2), 14–36.
Gibbs, R. W., Jr., & Franks, H. (2002). Embodied metaphor in women’s narratives about their experiences with cancer. Health Communication, 14(2), 139–165.
Grady, J. (1997). Foundations of meaning: Primary metaphors and primary scenes. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
Horstkotte, S., & Leonhard, K. (2007). Introduction. In S. Horstkotte & K. Leonhard (Eds.), Seeing perception (pp. 1–22). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Howe, J. (2007). Argument is argument: An essay on conceptual metaphor and verbal dispute. Metaphor and Symbol, 23(1), 1–23.
Johnson, M. (1987). The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. Chicago, IL & London: University of Chicago Press.
Johnson, M. (2007). The meaning of the body: Aesthetics of human understanding. Chicago, IL & London: University of Chicago Press.
Kövecses, Z. (2005). Metaphor in culture: Universality and variation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Kristeva, J. (1982). Powers of horror: An essay on abjection. Translated by L. S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. New York: Basic Books.
Marchetto, M. A. (2006). Cancer vixen: A true story. London: HarperCollins.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of perception. Translated by C. Smith. London and Henley-on-Thames, UK: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Montgomery, S. (1993). Illness and image in holistic discourse: How alternative is “alternative”?Cultural Critique, 25(autumn), 65–89.
Morris, K. J. (2012). Starting with Merleau-Ponty. London & New York: Continuum.
Nelsen, E. (1993). “L’invasione smisurata:” The themes of neurological disease and madness in Elsa Morante’s novels. In D. Bevan (Ed.), Literature and sickness (pp. 81–91). Amsterdam & Atlanta, GA: Rodopi.
Ostherr, K. (2013). Medical visions: Producing the patient through film, television, and imaging technologies. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.
Pollio, H. R., Henley, T., & Thompson, C. B. (1997). The phenomenology of everyday life. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Pritzker, S. (2007). Thinking hearts, feeling brains: Metaphor, culture, and the self in Chinese narratives of depression. Metaphor and Symbol, 22(3), 251–274.
Rakova, M. (2002). The philosophy of embodied realism: A high price to pay?Cognitive Linguistics, 13(3), 215–244.
Reisfield, G., & Wilson, G. (2004). Use of metaphor in the discourse on cancer. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 22(19), 4024–4027.
Ritchie, D. (2003). ARGUMENT IS WAR—or is it a game of chess? Multiple meanings in the analysis of implicit metaphors. Metaphor and Symbol, 18(2), 125–146.
Semino, E., Heywood, J., & Short, M. (2004). Methodological problems in the analysis of metaphors in a corpus of conversations about cancer. Journal of Pragmatics, 36(7), 1271–1294.
Sharifian, F., Dirven, R., Yu, N., & Niemeier, S. (Eds.). (2008). Culture, body, and language: Conceptualizations of internal body organs across cultures and languages. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Shildrick, M. (2002). Embodying the monster: Encounters with the vulnerable self. London, Thousand Oaks & New Delhi: Sage.
Small, D. (2009). Stitches: A memoir. New York: W.W.Norton.
Sontag, S. (1978). Illness as metaphor. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Stacey, J. (1997). Teratologies: A cultural study of cancer. London and New York: Routledge.
Stibbe, A. (1997). Fighting, warfare and the discourse of cancer. South African Journal of Linguistics, 15(2), 65–70.
Toombs, S. K. (1988). Illness and the paradigm of lived body. Theoretical Medicine, 9(2), 201–226.
Vidali, A. (2010). Seeing what we know: Disability and theories of metaphor. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, 4(1), 33–54.
Waskul, D. D., & Vannini, P. (2006). Introduction: The body in symbolic interaction. In D. D. Waskul & P. Vannini (Eds.), Body/embodiment: Symbolic interaction and the sociology of the body (pp. 1–18). Aldershot: Ashgate.
Weiss, G. (1999). Body images: Embodiment as intercorporeality. New York: Routledge.
Weiss, M. (1997). Signifying the pandemics: Metaphors of AIDS, cancer, and heart disease. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 11(4), 456–476.
Williams Camus, J. T. (2009). Metaphors of cancer in scientific popularization articles in the British press. Discourse Studies, 11(4), 465–495.
Young, M. (1980). Throwing like a girl: A phenomenology of feminine body comportment motility and spatiality. Human Studies, 3(2), 137–156.
Yu, N. (2008). Metaphor from body and culture. In R. W. Gibbs Jr. (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought (pp. 247–261). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ziemke, T., & Frank, R. M. (Eds.). (2007). Body, language and mind (Vol. 1): Embodiment. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Cited by (5)
Cited by five other publications
Meza, Diego
2024. Las metáforas importan: Desentrañando tres proposiciones esenciales. Estudios de Filosofía :70
Abdel-Raheem, Ahmed
2021. Reality bites: How the pandemic has begun to shape the way we, metaphorically, see the world. Discourse & Society 32:5 ► pp. 519 ff.
Littlemore, Jeannette
2019. Metaphors in the Mind,
Marsh, Peter, Shirley Chubb, Kambiz Saber-Sheikh, Charlie Hooker & Ann Moore
2016. A Gadamerian approach to interpreting pain: model-making metaphors through embodied cognitive theory. Digital Creativity 27:4 ► pp. 347 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 21 december 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.