ON METAPHORIC REPRESENTATION

The article discusses claims that conceptual structure is in some part metaphorical, as identified by verbal metaphors like LOVE IS A JOURNE Y. Two main interpretations of this view are discussed. In the first, a target domain is not explicitly represented but is instead understoo d through reference to a different domain. For example, rather than a detailed concept of love per se, one could make reference to the conce pt of a journey. In the second interpretation, there is a separate rep resentation of love, but the content of that representation is influen ced by the metaphor such that the love concept takes on the same struc ture as the journey concept. It is argued that the first interpretatio n is not fully coherent. The second interpretation is a possible theor y of mental representation, but the article raises a number of empiric al and theoretical problems for it. It is concluded that many of the d ata cited as evidence for metaphoric representations can be accounted for by structural similarity between domains.