Boxing and chess confronted: an insight into conceptual metaphor theory and blending theory

Abstract

Recent studies in Cognitive Linguistics suggest that the perception of metaphor has changed significantly since the end of the 20th century. As a consequence, several authors have written theories about metaphor comprehension trying to explain the processes beyond that comprehension. The purpose of this paper is to compare two of the most influential theories in this field namely Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Blending Theory as an attempt to explain which processes are beyond the comprehension of metaphorical expressions and which theory accounts better for that comprehension. In order to achieve this purpose, we will analyse several metaphorical expressions according to both theories concerning the domains of boxing and chess. Results will show that Blending Theory accounts better for the comprehension of such utterances than Conceptual Metaphor Theory, since the former provides information that the latter cannot adequately account for. In addition, Blending Theory also illustrates that the two domains proposed in this paper (boxing and chess) are likely comprehensible in terms of each other in contrast to the unidirectionality proposed by Conceptual Metaphor Theory. However, we will argue that these two theories are complementary rather than exclusive. The main implication of this study is that nearly any metaphorical expression can be understood if background knowledge is shared. Furthermore, there can be other theories which can complement the two analysed in this paper and therefore provide an even wider view on metaphor comprehension.