Conceptual metaphors of spring in lyrics of country music in english

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

NGUYỄN THỊ ÚT MY

CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS OF SPRING
IN LYRICS OF COUNTRY MUSIC IN ENGLISH

FIELD: English Linguistics
CODE: 8220201

Supervisor: HÀ THANH HẢI, Ph.D

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TAO
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

NGUYỄN THỊ ÚT MY

ẨN DỤ Ý NIỆM VỀ MÙA XUÂN TRONG LỜI BÀI HÁT
ĐỒNG QUÊ BẰNG TIẾNG ANH

Ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh
Mã số: 8220201

Người hướng dẫn: TS. HÀ THANH HẢI

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby confirm that the thesis entitled CONCEPTUAL

METAPHORS OF SPRING IN LYRICS OF COUNTRY MUSIC IN
ENGLISH is submitted to complete fulfillment for my degree of master of
English Linguistics at Quy Nhon University and has not been submitted
elsewhere in any other form for the fulfillment of any other degree or
qualification.

This thesis does not contain any materials which have been written by
another person except where referenced within the text.

October 2023
Nguyễn Thị Út My

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The completion of my master‘s thesis is due not only to my own
efforts, but also to the assistance of organizations and individuals to whom I
am extremely grateful.

First and foremost, I would like to thank several individuals for
assisting me with my master‘s thesis. I would like to express my deepest
appreciation to my advisor, Dr. Hà Thanh Hải, for his continuous support and
counsel, as well as his excellent guidance, which enabled me to complete this
thesis.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of the lecturers in
my master‘s program for their insightful lectures, which helped me cultivate
and acquire a thorough understanding of linguistics and research techniques.

In addition, I would like to express my gratitude to my parents, who
have cared for my mental and physical health with unconditional love for the
past 27 years. I could not have completed this thesis without their consistent
encouragement and support, which gave me the courage and confidence to
pursue my ambition.

Special thanks from the bottom of my heart to my classmates who
supported me throughout all phases of my postgraduate program studies and
helped me complete this thesis.

October 2023
Nguyễn Thị Út My

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ABSTRACT

Conceptual metaphor, a cognitive device, reflects how individuals
conceptualize their surroundings, particularly in song lyrics. In fact,
conceptual metaphors play an essential role in enabling musicians to impart
their emotions to listeners vividly and effectively. This is the impetus for the
current investigation. On the basis of the cognitive perspective of Lakoff and
Johnson (1980, 2003), 92 song lyrics from well-known musicians (Gano,
Nyro, Landesman, Craig Douglas, Luke Bryan, Baum, Watkins, Brennan, Bill
Evans, Robbins, Bart, etc.) are collected to demonstrate how conceptual
metaphors of Spring are used in English song lyrics. This study seeks to
provide a general overview of cognitive linguistics and analyze the conceptual
metaphors of Spring found in English song lyrics. The collected data contain
only two categories of conceptual metaphors, namely structural and
ontological metaphors, with varying frequencies and percentages. This

finding also suggests that English musicians frequently employ ontological
and structural metaphors when expressing and communicating their ideas.
When discussing ontological metaphors, entity metaphors are the most
common type that come up. The greatest number of examples use metaphors
involving containers. CONCRETE OBJECTS, CONTAINER OBJECTS,
CONTAINED ENTITIES, MOVING OBJECTD, and PERSON are all
examples of things that are commonly thought of in connection with the
concept of spring. Despite the limitations of a small study and the lack of
time, the researcher hopes that the findings will cast more light on the
conceptual metaphors of Spring as a whole.

Keywords: Cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphors, spring, source
domain, target domain, structural metaphors, orientational metaphors,
ontological metaphors, song lyrics.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.............................................................................. ii
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................ iv
LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................... vi
LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................ vii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................. 1

1.1 THE RATIONALE TO THE STUDY .................................................... 1
1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY........................................ 2

1.2.1 Aims of the study .............................................................................. 2
1.2.2 Objectives of the study ...................................................................... 2
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ..................................................................... 2
1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY ....................................................................... 3
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ........................................................ 3
1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY ..................................................... 3
1.7 SUMMARY ............................................................................................ 4
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................... 5
2.1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ........................................................ 5
2.1.1 An overview of conceptual metaphor ............................................... 5
2.1.2 Constituent parts of a conceptual metaphor ...................................... 8
2.1.3 Mapping mechanism in conceptual metaphor theory ....................... 8
2.2 CLASSIFICATION OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR ........................ 9
2.2.1 Structural conceptual metaphor......................................................... 9
2.2.2 Orientational conceptual metaphor ................................................. 11
2.2.3 Ontological conceptual metaphor.................................................... 13
2.3 CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN SONG LYRICS ............................. 15

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2.4 PREVIOUS STUDIES .......................................................................... 16
2.5 SUMMARY .......................................................................................... 18
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ....................................... 19
3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN .......................................................................... 19
3.2 RESEARCH PROCEDURES ............................................................... 19
3.3 DATA COLLECTION .......................................................................... 20
3.4 DATA ANALYSIS ............................................................................... 21
3.5 SUMMARY .......................................................................................... 21
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION......................................... 22
4.1 CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS OF SPRING IN ENGLISH SONG

LYRICS....................................................................................................... 22
4.2 STRUCTURAL METAPHORS............................................................ 25
4.3 ORIENTATIONAL METAPHORS ..................................................... 27
4.4 ONTOLOGICAL METAPHORS ......................................................... 27

4.4.1 SPRING AS INANIMATE ENTITIES .......................................... 28
4.4.2 SPRING AS ANIMATE ENTITIES............................................... 40
4.4 SUMMARY .......................................................................................... 54
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS ........................... 55
5.1 MAJOR FINDINGS .............................................................................. 55
5.2 IMPLICATIONS ................................................................................... 56
5.3 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES ...................................... 56
5.4 SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTER ........................................................ 57
REFERENCES ............................................................................................. 58
APPENDIX

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1a Conceptual Metaphors of SPRING in English song lyrics ........... 22
Table 4.1b Conceptual Metaphors of SPRING in English song lyrics .......... 24
Table 4.4 Ontological Metaphors in Conceptual Metaphors of Spring in

English song lyrics ....................................................................... 27
Table 4.4.1 Spring As Inanimate Entities....................................................... 29
Table 4.4.2 Spring As Animate Entities ......................................................... 40
Table 4.4.3 Spring As Other Domains ........................................................... 48

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Mapping between the domains of Time and Money....................... 9
Figure 4.1a Number of Conceptual Metaphors of SPRING in English song

lyrics ............................................................................................. 23
Figure 4.4 Number of Ontological Metaphors of Spring in English song

lyrics ............................................................................................. 28
Figure 4.4.1 Number of Spring As Inanimate Entities ................................... 29
Figure 4.4.2 Number of Spring As Animate Entities ..................................... 40
Figure 4.4.3 Number of Spring As Other Domains........................................ 48

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 THE RATIONALE TO THE STUDY

Humans utilize language to communicate their ideas, thoughts, and
feelings in a variety of contexts. Composers utilize song lyrics as a medium to
communicate thoughts and messages to listeners or music enthusiasts. Lyrics
can be used as a media to convey information and opinion about social issues
that have occurred in a community or a country, in addition to serving as an
entertainment facility.

Metaphor is one of the most common building blocks in song lyrics.
The usage of metaphor in the lyrics has an artistic function, making the song
appealing and enjoyable to listen to. Since metaphors have a unique quality
that literal expressions do not, they are typically difficult to understand

literally. Although most people find metaphor difficult to understand, song
writers frequently utilize it to convey societal themes because they believe it
to be more understandable than presenting a literal example.

There has been tremendous progress in cognitive linguistics in general,
and cognitive semantics in particular, in the last few decades, providing the
basis for a growing field of conceptual metaphor in recent years. Thus, it is no
surprise that many studies have been conducted in order to examine metaphor
related to human beings around the world, with a focus on both abstract and
concrete concepts. Studying conceptual metaphors has focused a lot of
attention on abstract concepts as target domains for conceptual metaphors.
The reason for this is that conceptual metaphors are a process by which an
abstract area is conceptualized within the context of a more concrete area, and
it is easy to understand how that works (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980).

So far, a variety of abstract concepts have been studied, such as the
concept of life, emotions, sadness, etc. In the same way, foreign and
Vietnamese authors have both devoted a great deal of time to studying the

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abstract concept of time (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Kövecses, 2010;
Shinohara and Pardeshi, 2011; Nguyen Hoa, 2007; Nguyen Van Trao, 2007,
etc.). As a result, past research is limited because it rarely looks at the season
and spring as the target domain. Thus, in order to add to the literature on
conceptual tropes in country music lyrics in English, this study undertakes the
task of identifying conceptual tropes of spring in the lyrics in order to enrich
the literature on conceptual tropes. Furthermore, the results also show how
English musicians think of the season.
1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1.2.1 Aims of the study

The purpose of this research is to adopt the conceptual metaphor theory
highlighted by Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 2003) and Kovesce (2002, 2010) to
identify conceptual metaphors in of SPRING in the lyrics of country music in
English. Through the analysis of the lyrics of these English songs, we will
find out the mapping mechanism used in these songs.

Additionally, we are trying to classify the frequency of occurrences of
conceptual metaphors of SPRING in the lyrics of the songs. As a result, the
figures are compared in order to get a general view of the types of conceptual
metaphors.
1.2.2 Objectives of the study

Based on the research focus, the objectives of the research are stated as
follows:

- To identify the types of conceptual metaphors of SPRING used in the
lyrics of country music in English;

- To classify the frequency of occurrences of conceptual metaphors.
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Based on the aims of the study, the following research questions are

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expected to be answered:
1. What conceptual metaphors of SPRING are used in the lyrics of country
music in English?

2. What are the effects of using metaphors of SPRING in the lyrics of country
music in English?
1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study is expected to identify and gather metaphors of SPRING in
lyrics of country music in English from 1960 to 2020, which is considered to
be the main source of research data. Specifically, it is focused on finding out
the mapping mechanisms of conceptual metaphor on expressing musicians‘
feeling.

The number of songs for the analysis of conceptual metaphor is
expected in 92 songs.
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

It is expected that this research will provide information and improve
the body of knowledge specifically related to conceptual metaphors in
cognitive linguistics. It contributes to the knowledge of conceptual metaphors,
particularly in the use of metaphorical expressions in country music, and will
be helpful to students as an authentic source of study in cognitive linguistics.
This study can be utilized as a teaching tool and illustration when discussing
the effects of conceptual metaphors. It can also be utilized to improve the
lecturers‘ understanding of this linguistic issue.
1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

The study consists of 5 chapters as follow:
Chapter 1, Introduction, includes the rationale, the significance of the
study, the aims and objectives, the scope of the study, research questions, and
organization.

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Chapter 2, Literature review and theoretical background, reviews all
theories related to conceptual metaphors introduced by Lakoff & Johnson
(1980), in which previous studies from the other perspective of the theory are
also introduced.

Chapter 3, Research design and methodology, encompasses research
methods, research procedures, description of samples, and the procedure of
data collection and data analysis for the study.

Chapter 4, Findings and discussion, presents the results of the data
analysis to figure out metaphorical expressions of SPRING used in lyrics of
country music in English.

Chapter 5, Conclusion and implications, summarizes the major
findings, draws conclusions and implications, limits and a few
recommendations for further study.
1.7 SUMMARY

The first chapter aims to provide an overview about the research,
including the rationale, the objectives and purposes, research questions and
the scope of the study. A summary of the research, including the justification,
the goals and purposes, the research questions, and the scope of the study, is
intended to be given in the first chapter. Additionally, the importance of the
study and the thesis‘ structure are presented in this section. This can aid
readers in comprehending the thesis‘ primary points as well as the study‘s
historical context.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
The theoretical foundation of the thesis will be reviewed in this chapter.
The main academic theories that underpin this study will be covered first. We
will then discuss the purposes of metaphors before presenting a theoretical
basis for the method of analysis used in this study. An overview of earlier
studies that are pertinent to the subject of this study will next be gi ven.

2.1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.1.1 An overview of conceptual metaphor
We will investigate the main propositions of conceptual metaphor

theory in this chapter. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson first introduced this
paradigm in their 1980 book Metaphors We Live By, and it has since been
expanded upon in a number of other works. One of the earliest theoretical
frameworks recognized as a component of the cognitive semantics endeavor
was conceptual metaphor theory, which served as a major theoretical
foundation for the cognitive approach. The essential tenet of conceptual
metaphor theory is that mind itself is intrinsically metaphorical in character
and that metaphor is not merely a stylistic aspect of language. This viewpoint
holds that conceptual structure is organized in accordance with
correspondences or cross-domain mappings between conceptual domains.
While some of these mappings are the result of pre-conceptual bodily
experiences, others expand upon them to create more sophisticated conceptual
frameworks. For instance, we can think of and discuss quantity in terms of
VERTICAL ELEVATION, as in the sentence She received an extremely high
mark in the test, where high refers to a good grade rather than a literal height.
This, according to Conceptual metaphor theory, is due to the traditional
structure and understanding of the conceptual domain QUANTITY in terms
of the mental domain VERTICAL ELEVATION. Conceptual projection is a

more comprehensive term for conceptual operations requiring mappings,

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including conceptual metaphor. Two of the fundamental tenets of cognitive
semantics are intimately related to the arguments made by conceptual
metaphor theorists like Lakoff, Johnson, and their associates. The embodied
cognition thesis asserts that conceptual structure is rooted in embodied
experience, whereas the semantic structure hypothesis contends that
conceptual structure is reflected in semantic structure.

According to conceptual metaphor theory, the formation of metaphorical
meaning is merely a matter of how our metaphors emerge from correlations in
our personal experience (for correlation metaphors) or from resemblances
between sensory domains (for resemblance metaphors). A collection of
systematic correspondences, or mappings, between these two dimensions of
experience might be assumed to constitute the source of metaphorical meaning
in both instances. However, evidence from both earlier and more current study
suggests that this perspective is inadequate and oversimplified, and that a more
nuanced approach is required. The question of context and how it affects the
understanding and production of metaphors is at the center of the component of
metaphorical meaning building that has to be addressed. In this chapter, I
demonstrate how conceptual metaphors, the mappings that make them up, and
any possible metaphorical entailments are not the only sources of metaphorical
meaning in language use (or other forms of communication). I demonstrate
that, in addition, the construction of metaphorical meaning depends
significantly on context and involves two context-related issues that are, if not
identical, at least closely related. These two perspectives are those of the
conceptualizer who attempts to understand a metaphor in context and the
conceptualizer who creates or creates a metaphor in context. Van Dijk (2009:5)

provides the concept of context that I find most relevant for my needs at this
early level of the discussion. A context is what the participants themselves
define as important in the social situation, according to this statement.

Metaphor is defined extremely broadly in conceptual metaphor theory as

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the conceptualization of one domain of experience in terms of another. In contrast
to the domain we desire to comprehend, which is often more abstract, less directly
experienced, and less known, the domain of experience utilized to understand
another domain is typically more physical, more immediately experienced, and
more known. The more physical or concrete realm is referred to as the source
domain and the more abstract one is referred to as the target domain in the
cognitive linguistic theory of metaphor, which was developed by George Lakoff
and Mark Johnson in their 1980 book Metaphors We Live By (Kövecses, 2010).
In the mind, concepts provided as mental frames, or cognitive models, are used to
represent different experience domains. Consequently, we discuss conceptual
metaphors. A group of conceptual mappings, or correspondences, link the source
frame and the target frame. Therefore, according to this perspective, a metaphor is
a series of correspondences, or mappings, between the components of two mental
frames. A set of mappings that make up the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A
JOURNEY, for instance, consist of correspondences between a traveler and a
person living a life, including the way the traveler is traveling and the way the
person lives, the destination the traveler wants to reach and the person‘s life goals,
and the physical obstacles along the way and the difficulties the person encounters
in life. In order to discuss the target domain, conceptual metaphors frequently use
a variety of linguistic manifestations (metaphorically used words and more
sophisticated formulations). The expressions I hit a roadblock, She wanders
aimlessly in life, This is not the right way to live, and others in the example

illustrate or merely state the correspondences between the concepts of barrier and
difficulty, destination and purpose, and path and method, respectively. Together,
they show that the incredibly ethereal idea of life may be partially comprehended
in terms of the more tangible idea of a journey. The conceptual correspondences,
or mappings, serve as the foundation for the meanings of the specific metaphorical
expressions.

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2.1.2 Constituent parts of a conceptual metaphor
Metaphor, in the opinion of Geogre Lakoff and Mark Johnson, is a

cognitive mechanism in which one mental domain is partially projected onto
another. With the use of the linguistic metaphor derived from those domains,
the second domain can be comprehended in part in terms of the first one. The
source domain/donor domain is the one that is mapped. Target
domain/Recipient domain is the domain into which it is mapped.

Lakoff and Johnson also make a distinction between a source domain
and a target domain as a result. Although the source domain is concrete, the
target domain is abstract. In the conceptual metaphor TIME IS MONEY, the
aim, which is TIME, which is much more abstract, is the target domain, and
the source domain is MONEY since it is much more concrete. The study
claims that more concrete domains, like the metaphor TIME IS MONEY, are
frequently used as sources for abstract goals.

After examining a large number of conceptual metaphors that have
already been discovered and researched in the literature (such as TIME IS
MONEY, ARGUMENT IS WAR, and LIFE IS A JOURNEY), this
conclusion is made. The assumption that the majority of conceptual

metaphors use more physical domains as suppliers and more abstract domains
as targets makes a lot of intuitive sense. For instance, the complexity of life
makes it difficult to define, rage is a personal feeling that is typically kept
hidden from us, theory is a complicated mental construct, and so on. Each of
them conceptualizes and looks at a source notion that is less tangible as one
that has been conceptualized and seen from the perspective of a target concept
that is more tangible and, therefore, more easily accessible from the
perspective of the source notion.

2.1.3 Mapping mechanism in conceptual metaphor theory
According to Charteris-Black (2004), a mapping is a systematically

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organized collection of correspondences between the constituent parts of the
source domain and the target domain. It implies that a metaphorical mapping is
the methodical identification of the source domain and target domain. In
discussing metaphorical mappings, Lakoff contends that they maintain the
source domain‘s cognitive topology in a way that is consistent with the target
domain‘s fundamental structure (1993:215). A set of conceptual
correspondences between components of the source and target domains is
another way that Kövecses (2010:371) describes how conceptual metaphors are
distinguished from other types of metaphors. These connections between the two
realms can also be seen in mapping. Conceptual metaphors can be given by
means of the formula A is B or A as B, i.e., A denotes the target domain and B
the source domain as in the metaphor time passing as a moving object mentioned
above, where the concept of moving object is mapped to the concept of time
passing (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980a; Lakoff, 1993; Kövecses, 2021).

Figure 2.1 Mapping between the domains of Time and Money

2.2 CLASSIFICATION OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR
According to Lakoff and Johnson, metaphor consists of three types

including structural, orientational, and ontological.
2.2.1 Structural metaphor

By contrasting it with the structure of another concept, structural
metaphors attempt to describe the structure of one concept. In other words,
when an idea is understood in terms of another structured, clearly defined

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concept, a structural metaphor is produced. Lakoff and Johnson (1980)
regarded structural conceptual metaphors as the category with the greatest
number. In this type of conceptual metaphor, complex and abstract concepts
are imagined using the knowledge of concrete, straightforward concepts. An
example often used to illustrate this type is the conceptual metaphor
―ARGUMENT IS WAR‖ which is expressed through a series of the following
expressions in English:

 Your claims are indefensible.
 He attacked every weak point in my argument.
 His criticisms were right on the target.
 I demolished his argument.
 I’ve never won an argument.
 You disagree? OK, shoot!
 If you use that strategy, he’ll wipe you out.
 He shot down all my arguments.
(Lakoff & Johnson, 1980:4)

The aforementioned illustrations demonstrate how many of the
behaviors we take during debates are designed around the idea of WAR. In a
debate, we can prevail or fail. We think of the person we are debating as our
opponent during the discussion. As a result, we ―attack‖ the other viewpoint
and ―protect‖ our own. We can employ strategies to win or lose. We
frequently ―retreat‖ and establish a new attack route when we observe that the
circumstances are unfavorable and making it difficult to defend our
viewpoints. Even without a physical altercation that results in casualties, we
have a verbal conflict in this instance because of the language we employ.

Through these examples, Lakoff and Johnson explained that an abstract
conceptual domain ―debate‖ is understood through a specific conceptual
domain of ―war‖. Therefore, the concepts used in the sample expressions

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above come conceptual domain of ―war‖. This is the basic characteristics of
the structural conceptual metaphor. Besides, in this group of conceptual
metaphor, the phenomenon of highlighting and hiding in the conceptual
domain is an important characteristic. For example in a fierce war of words,
where people only seek to put the views of their opponents down and defend
their opinion, they cannot see the aspect of ―cooperation‖ in the war of words.
When someone argues, he or she spends time with us and tries to find out
what we think and why we have have such views to understand each other
better. However, while focusing on the debate, we often forget this aspect of
cooperation. In other words, the aspect of debate is highlighting and aspect of
cooperation is hiding.

2.2.2 Orientational metaphor

The scenarios where one notion is metaphorically structured in terms of

another are what we will refer to as structural metaphors and are what we
have looked at thus far. However, there is another type of metaphorical
notion, one that organizes an entire system of concepts in relation to one
another rather than structuring one concept in terms of another. Since the
majority of these metaphors relate to spatial direction, we will refer to them as
orientational metaphors: up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow,
central-peripheral. We have bodies of the kind we have, and they behave as
they do in our physical environment, which leads to these spatial orientations.
Orientational metaphors, like HAPPY IS UP, give a concept a spatial
orientation. I‘m feeling up today is an example of an English idiom since
HAPPY is directed UP.

These metaphorical inclinations are not random. They stem from our
embodied and cultural experiences. The orientational metaphors based on the
polar oppositions up-down, in-out, etc. might differ from culture to culture
even if they are physical in nature. For instance, in some cultures, the future is