the meanings of the noun love in some english expressions (from cognitive semantics perspective) = tìm hiểu ý nghĩa của danh từ love trong một số cụm từ trong tiếng anh xét từ góc độ ngữ nghĩa học tri nhận

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VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************




NGUYỄN THỊ THƠM



THE MEANINGS OF THE NOUN LOVE
IN SOME ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS
(FROM COGNITIVE SEMANTICS PERSPECTIVE)

(TÌM HIỂU Ý NGHĨA CỦA DANH TỪ LOVE
TRONG MỘT SỐ CỤM TỪ TRONG TIẾNG ANH
XÉT TỪ GÓC ĐỘ NGỮ NGHĨA HỌC TRI NHẬN)



M.A. Minor Programme Thesis
Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60 22 15

Hanoi - 2010



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VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************





NGUYỄN THỊ THƠM


THE MEANINGS OF THE NOUN LOVE
IN SOME ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS
(FROM COGNITIVE SEMANTICS PERSPECTIVE)

(TÌM HIỂU Ý NGHĨA CỦA DANH TỪ LOVE
TRONG MỘT SỐ CỤM TỪ TRONG TIẾNG ANH
XÉT TỪ GÓC ĐỘ NGỮ NGHĨA HỌC TRI NHẬN)


M.A. Minor Programme Thesis
Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60 22 15
Supervisor: Dr. Hà Cẩm Tâm

Hanoi - 2010




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TABLE OF CONTENTS


Page
Acknowledgement…………………………………………………………………………… i
Certificate of originality of study project report……………………………………………… ii
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………… iii
Table of contents……………………………………………………………………………….iv
PART I: INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………… 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Aims of the study 2
3. Scope of the study 3
4. Research question 3
5. Organization of the study 3
PART II: DEVELOPMENT 4
CHAPTER 1: THEORITICAL BACKGROUND 4
1.1. Cognitive semantics 4
1.2. Cognitive metaphor theory 5
1.2.1. Structural metaphors 6
1.2.2. Orientational metaphors 12

1.2.3. Ontological metaphors 13
1.3. Image schemas 15
1.4. Collocation 16
1.5. The notion love in English 17
CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 20
2.1. Research question 20
2.2. Data collection 20
2.3. Analytical framework 20
2.3.1. Love is a container 21
2.3.2. Love is a journey 21
2.3.3. Love is a fluid in a container 21
2.3.4. Love is madness 21
2.3.5. Love is insanity 21

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2.3.6. Love is rapture 22
2.3.7. Love is natural/ physical forces 22
2.3.8. Love is fire/ heat 22
2.3.9. Love is a nutrient 22
2.3.10. Love is a valuable commodity (in an economic exchange) 23
2.3.11. Love is a social superior and opponent 23
2.3.12. Love is a patient 23
2.3.13. Love is war 23
2.3.14. Love is a captive animal 23
2.3.15. Love is a unity (of two complementary parts) 23
2.3.16. Love is a hidden object 24
2.3.17. Love is magic 24
2.3.18. Love is a plant 24
2.3.19. Love is a collaborative work of art 24
2.4. Data analysis and discussion 24

2.4.1. Love is a container 25
2.4.2. Love is fire/ heat 27
2.4.3. Love is a social superior and opponent 27
2.4.4. Love is a valuable commodity 29
2.4.5. Love is natural/ physical forces 30
2.4.6. Love is a fluid in a container 31
2.4.7. Love is a journey 31
2.4.8. Love is a nutrient 33
2.4.9. Love is rapture 34
2.4.10. Love is insanity 35
2.4.11. Love is a unity (of two complementary parts) 35
PART III: CONCLUSION 37
1. Major findings 37
2. Implications 38
3. Suggestions for further study 39
REFERRENCES…………………………………………………………………………………… 40
APPENDIX…………………………………………………………………………………… I

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PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Language is a means to express people‟s thought. It is also used to express people‟s
emotions, feelings including love, hate, anger, etc. In Talmy‟s view, language is a major
cognitive system in its own right, distinct from the other major ones: perception, reasoning,
affect, attention, memory, cultural structure, and motor control. As such, language has some
structural properties that are uniquely its own and some others that are in common either with
only a few other cognitive systems, or with all other cognitive systems (Talmy, 2000a: 16).
In recent years, the study of emotions has been one of the most important areas of research
in the Social Sciences.
Expressing love is not an easy task and different languages may have different

conventions. In our daily life love is an important emotion. Love is not clearly defined in our
experience and may be inconceivable without using metaphors (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: 85).
Love, as well as other feeling and emotions, is quite an abstraction. It is difficult for us, if not
impossible, to comprehend these concepts without metaphor. According to Lakoff, we
conceptualized the more abstract concept in terms of more concrete, “the non-physical in
terms of the physical” (Lakoff, 1980: 59). This present study investigates the concept of love
in some English set expressions. The theory of metaphor from the point of view of cognitive
linguistics (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff & Turner, 1989; Lakoff, 1993, 1987; Kovecses,
2002) is adopted in this study. This new approach on metaphor states that metaphor is a
process of understanding our world, particularly those abstract concepts such as love which are
often expressed in terms of more concrete ones. Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 7) point out that:
“Since metaphorical expressions in our language are tied to metaphorical concepts in a
systematic way, we can use expressions to study the nature of metaphorical concepts and to
gain an understanding of the metaphorical nature of our activities.” The metaphorical concept
Love is a journey is reflected in contemporary English through a wide variety of expressions
(Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: 44-45):
LOVE IS A JOURNEY
Look how far we've come.
We're at a crossroads.
We may have to go our separate ways.
We‟re stuck.

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It's been a long, bumpy road.
This relationship is a dead-end street.
We're spinning our wheels.
The marriage is on the rocks.
Our relationship is off the track.
In the above examples, love is structured by the concept of a journey. These everyday
English expressions are used for reasoning about love. The metaphor can be understood as a

mapping exercise from a source domain (in this case, journeys) to a target domain (in this case
love). Entities in the domain of love correspond systematically to entities in the domain of a
journey (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: 207-208).
Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 29) claim that “…most of our non-physical reality is structures,
understood, and created by metaphors…” We come to know our thoughts and feelings by
analogy to the physical world. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) proposed that metaphor was a basis
structure of understanding through which we conceptualize on domain (the target domain
which is unfamiliar or abstract) in terms of another (the source domain, most often familiar
and concrete).
In short, the conceptual metaphor of love is conventional in different languages, so I
applied the theory of conceptual metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff & Turner, 1989;
Lakoff, 1993, 1987; Kovecses, 2002) to the study of recognition of metaphors of love in some
English expressions of love. It is expected that this study will provide invaluable
understanding of correspondence between the domain of love experience and another domain
of experience.
2. Aims of the study
The present study aims at studying the conceptualization of the noun love in some English
expressions of love. The qualities of love are identified in English based on analyzing the data
under the study.
3. Scope of the study
This study focuses on investigating how love is conceptualized in English evidenced in
115 English expressions of love.
There are three different categories according to the function of metaphors: Structural,
orientaitonal, and ontological metaphors (Kovecses, 2002: 32, 33). In this study, structural
metaphors was used as the analytical framework.

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4. Research question
The question addressed in this study is:
- How is love conceptualized in English evidenced in some English expressions of love?

5. Organization of the study
The study comprises 3 parts.
Part I provides the significance, aims, framework, scope and organization of the study.
Part II is subdivided into 2 chapters: Chapter 1 provides the general theoretical background
of the study and Chapter 2, the backbone of the study. It provides the data collection, the
analytical framework and data analysis.
Part III demonstrates the major findings of the study, implications and suggestions for
further cognitive studies. Appendix and references are also included.

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PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORITICAL BACKGROUND
In this study, cognitive semantics, especially the theory of cognitive metaphor is the main
interest which provides gateways for the understanding and analysis of linguistics expressions
containing the word love which are the object of the study. This chapter explores the field of
cognitive semantics, thus enabling the writer to provide a thorough theoretical framework or
background for the study.
1.1. Cognitive semantics
A new semantic theory, called cognitive semantics, has been developed (Lakoff, 1987;
Langacker, 1986, 1987; Croft and Cruse, 2004; Evans, 2006). The prime slogan for cognitive
semantics is: Meanings are in the head. More precisely, semantics for a language is seen as a
mapping from the expressions of the language to some cognitive or mental entities. Langacker
(1986a: 3) formulates it crisply: “Meaning is equated with conceptualization.” This paradigm
of semantics is thus conceptualistic or cognitivistic. It rejects the formal traditions of
attributing linguistics into phonology, syntax, pragmatics, etc., and that the meaning is
independent from syntax. Moreover, cognitive semantics states that meanings come from our
mind; or rather, meanings are in the head (Gardenfors, 1994).
An important tenet of cognitive semantics is that the structures in our heads that are
carrying the meanings of words are of the same nature as those that are created when we
perceive- when we see, hear, touch, etc. different things. (Gardenfors, 2007: 58).
Cognitive semantics is concerned with investigating the relationship between experience,
the conceptual system, and the semantic structure encoded by language. In specific terms,
scholars working in cognitive semantics investigate knowledge representation (conceptual
structure), and meaning construction (conceptualization). Cognitive semanticists have
employed language as the lens through which these cognitive phenomena can be investigated.
Consequently, research in cognitive semantics tends to be interested in modeling the human
mind as much as it is concerned with investigating linguistic semantics (Vyvyan, 2007).
Cognitive semantics has established close ties between semantics and cognition.
Cognitive semantics as a multi-disciplinary theory of language attempts to describe language

phenomena from a cognitive, cultural and physiological point of view taking into account the
sociological and anthropological differences as well as the experiential realisms and natural
surroundings that are embodied. A major question in cognitive semantics research is how

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different languages and cultures utilize the resource in the language system (the grammar and
lexicon) to construe the world.
Thus, the use of cognitive semantics as an approach to human discourse seen through
underlying conceptual schema patterns could be significant an understanding cross-cultural
communication. Cognitive semantics, in general, agrees that there are universal as well as
language specific construal. For instance, Asmah (1996) and Yu (2003) have found that the
conceptualization and metaphorisation of the body is influenced by and interacts with the folk
cultural elements in society. Kovecses (1999) also agrees that the conceptualization of the
body and body parts is in the large part culture-specific with several universal conceptual
structures at the categorical and schematic level.
1.2. Cognitive metaphor theory
The Cognitive Theory of Metaphor - initiated by Reddy‟s (1979) study on the “conduit
metaphor”- had been developed mainly by Lakoff, Johnson and their colleagues (Lakoff &
Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 1987, 1993; Lakoff &Turner, 1989). It met with wide response. It is
also called Conceptual Metaphor Theory. It is one of the first products of cognitive semantics.
Conceptual Metaphor Theory is an area of research which deals with the concept of
metaphorical language. Conceptual metaphors pervade our thoughts and are reflected through
our language. Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 3) state that: "Our conceptual system is not
something we are normally aware of. In most of the little things we do everyday, we simply
think and act more or less automatically certain lines. Just what these lines are is by no means
obvious. One way to find out is by looking at language.” Lakoff and Johnson (1980) pointed
out that the concepts that govern our thoughts govern our everyday functioning. Our concepts
structure what and how we perceive and experience the world. Our conceptual system thus
plays a central role in defining our everyday realities. If we are right in suggesting that our
conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we think, what we experience, and

what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor.
They (1980) also identify metaphor as a transfer between the source domain and the
target domain. This has become known as the “two-domain theory” of metaphor. The
cognitive view on metaphor regards it as cognitive mechanism whereby one conceptual
domain (source domain) is partially mapped, that is, projected, onto another conceptual
domain (target domain). The target domain (abstract conceptual reality) is then understood in

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terms of the source domain (physical reality). According to Lakoff (1994: 43), metaphor is
thus “a cross-domain mapping in the conceptual system”. Let‟s look at the examples:
Life is difficulty.
Love is a journey.
Argument is war.
Anger is a hot fluid in a container.
As we can see in the examples above, life, love, argument and anger are target domain,
while difficulty, journey, war and a hot fluid in a container are source domain (Kovecses,
2002: 6). In order to understand the target domain in terms of source domain, we have to have
appropriate knowledge of the source domain (Lakoff & Turner, 1989: 60).
To sum up, according to Lakoff and Johnsons‟ research (1980), from everyday
expressions we know that most of our concepts are partially understood in terms of other
concepts and that most of human beings‟ normal conceptual system is metaphorical.
Lakoff and Johnson identify three types of metaphors: structured, orientational and
ontological. In the following sections, a brief discussion of each type of metaphor will be
outlined.
1.2.1. Structural metaphors
According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 40) state that structural metaphor refers to a
conceptual metaphor that is constructed from one conceptual structure to another. In other
words, in the structural metaphor model, one concept is understood and expressed in terms of
another structured, sharply defined concept. With the help of the structural metaphor, we can
use the words concerning one concept to talk about another concept. For instance, war is a

concept that is frequently mapped onto the target domain such as argument. As we know war
is a concrete concept that we are very familiar with, so we often talk about argument in terms
of war. Moreover, we also know that war is a very complex process that involves plan, attack,
defense, counterattack, fight, win, lose, truce, etc., while argument is complex and abstract
concept. As a result, the knowledge of war can be used to talk about the unknown abstract
concepts.
These metaphors are the most clearly perceived. Let‟s consider the examples (Lakoff &
Johnson, 1980: 4) below because this kind of metaphor is reflected in our everyday language
by a wide variety of expressions:
ARGUMENT IS WAR

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Your claims are indefensible.
He attacked every weak point in my argument.
His criticisms were right on target.
I demolished his argument.
I‟ve never won an argument with him.
You disagree? Okay, shoot!
If you use that strategy, he‟ll wipe you out.
He shot down all of my arguments. (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 4)
In Lakoff and Johnson‟s (1980) examples, we see that although there is no physical battle,
there is a verbal battle we perform in arguing. These expressions are all structured by the
underlying conceptual metaphor Argument is war. Arguments and wars are different kinds of
things and the actions performed are different kinds of actions. But we can use our knowledge
about war to understand and to talk about argument. Here, war is the source domain, and
argument is the target domain. Therefore, the knowledge from the source domain is mapped
onto the target domain. Lakoff & Johnson (1980: 148) assert that the similarities between war
and argument do not exist independently of the metaphor.
Such these linguistic metaphors are grounded in ourselves and our own human traits and
actions, it makes them easier to understand (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003: 30; Kovecses, 2002:

35).
Conceptual metaphors are understood as cognitive devices which provide a link between
the concrete knowledge of the world people hold in their memory and the figurative meaning
of a given expression. Some of the most typical conceptual metaphors that characterize
emotions include as the followings (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; and Kovecses, 1986):
LOVE IS A CONTAINER: He is in love; He entered a state of euphoria; We are out of
trouble now; etc (Lakoff 1980: 32) clearly show that we conceptualize our emotions and states
as a container and conceptualize what we feel and experience as being inside it (Lakoff 1980:
30).This type of metaphor turns our experiences into objects or substances. So in English we
can say we‟re “in love”, which suggests we‟re in a container called “love”. What‟s more, we
can have a “falling out”, when we fall out of the container metaphorically speaking.
LOVE IS A JOURNEY: Look how far we have; We are at a crossroads; We shall just
have to go our separate ways; I do not think this relationship is going anywhere; Where are
we?; We are stuck; We have gotten off the track (Lakoff 1980:44-45).Who loved, who has

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loved, who is loving, all find that “The course of true love never did run smoothly”
(Shakespeare). In English this metaphor is not homogeneous in nature, as it refers to different
kinds of journeys. “Car trip: It‟s been a long, bumpy road; Train trip: We‟ve gotten off the
tracks; Sea voyage: Our marriage is on the rocks”, the fact that they “are all journey
metaphors, makes them coherent” (Lakoff 1980:45).
LOVE IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER: Warm feelings welled up inside him; He
poured out his affections on her; She couldn't hold in her love for him any longer (Kovecses;
2002). Love as well as the passion, when reaching a limit, must find a way out. Thus the
correspondences with the two domains and structured and we get metaphorical entailment or
carryover from the source domain to the target domain: when the intensity of love increases,
the fluid rises
LOVE IS MADNESS: I am crazy about her; She drives me out of my mind; He has
gone mad over her; I am just wild about Harry; I am insane about her; (Lakoff & Johnson;
1980: 49). Wild, mad, angry and crazy are well-understood by us. We do not have any

difficulties in specifying our feeling or behavior when we experience any of these emotions or
mental states. As we know madness with all its implications belongs to our most natural and
basic experiences and therefore gives us a clue of how we feel about love.
LOVE IS INSANITY: I'm crazy about her; She drives me out of my mind; He
constantly raves about her; I'm just wild about Harry (Lakoff & Johnson; 1980; Kovecses,
1986). Love is represented as mental illness, such that the person causing the insanity
represents the person with whom one is in love, the insane person represents the person in
love, and the insane behavior represents the behavior of the person in love.) The behavior of
the person affected by the emotion usually is very similar to the behavior of an insane person.
Insanity is the ultimate lack of control. The rational self loses all control as a result of an
intense psychological force and becomes completely irrational (Lakoff, 1980; Kovecses,
2000).
LOVE IS RAPTURE: I am giddy with love; She was drunk with emotion (Kovecses,
1986). Kovecses (2000: 74) states the emotion is view as some kind of alcoholic beverage
capable of affecting a person‟s intellectual abilities in adverse way. The metaphor captures the
idea of the inability to speak and think.
LOVE ARE NATURAL AND PHYSICAL FORCES: I could feel the electricity
between us, I was magnetically drawn to her; They are uncontrollably attracted to each other;

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His whole life revolves around her; The atmosphere around them is always charged; There is
incredible energy in their relationship (Lakoff 1980:49). This metaphor arises naturally from
our awareness of the external world. According to the discoveries of such scientists as
Newton, Einstein and others we have learned about natural forces, magnetism, electricity,
gravitation, etc. Moreover, we can observe, measure and try them, and through them we can
define and measure the strength of our emotions.
LOVE IS FIRE/ HEAT: I am burning with love; Love is fire that melts the snow
(Kovecses, 2002). This means that “fire and heat metaphors” are used to described love. The
meeting-point of Fire and Heat is the doctrine of bodily humors, in which the idea of the
emotions as contain in the body may partly originate (Geeraerts & Grondealaers, 1995;

Gevaert, 2005).
LOVE IS A NUTRIENT: She's starved for affection; He’s love-starved; He hungered
for love (Kovevses, 1986). Here love is represented as necessary sustenance. The nutrient
metaphor for love utilizes chiefly the “hunger/ thirst” and the corresponding “desire/ effect”
aspect of the concept nutrient.
LOVE IS A BOND: There is a close tie between them; She has an attachment to him;
There are romantic ties between them; There is something between them (Kovecses; 1987).
Love is represented as a physical connection between the lovers.
LOVE IS A VALUABLE COMMODITY (IN AN ECONOMIC EXCHANGE): I gave
her all my love; I didn't get much in return; What am I getting out of this relationship
anyway?; I am putting more into this than you are; She's invested a lot in that relationship
(Kovecses, 1986). These metaphors express how love can be given, handed over, and assigned
a value. As a commodity that can be exchanged, people expect to receive something back (that
is love) when they give it away. Love is represented as a valuable substance to be traded, thus
entailing mutuality of the trade and comparability of the amounts traded.
LOVE IS A SOCIAL SUPERIOR AND OPPONENT: She was ruled by her emotions;
His emotions dominate his actions; She was struggling with her feelings of love; He was
seized by emotion (Kovecses, 2000: 70). In this metaphor, we have two forces: the superior
that is the emotion and the inferior that corresponds to the person. Here love is represented as
a foe in a fight, such that winning the fight represents maintaining control over one's feelings
of love and losing or surrendering represents loss of control. According to Kovecses (2000:
70): “This metaphor primarily applies to a person whose behavior is controlled by emotion,

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not by reason… A superior has long-term control over an inferior, whose behavior over a long
period of time.”
LOVE IS A PATIENT: This is a sick relationship; They have a strong, healthy
marriage; We are getting back on our feet; Their marriage is on its last legs; It is a tired
affair; It takes time to cure one’s heart (Lakoff 1980:49). Obviously, it is folly to pretend that
one wholly recovers from a disappointed passion. Such wounds always leave a scar. Most of

us know what it means to be ill; it is a very basic experience for all human beings, which is
why we are able to comprehend this aspect of any relationship.
LOVE IS WAR metaphor makes us think that this aspect of love namely war, for
examples, He is known for his rapid conquests; She fought for him but his mistress won out;
He overpower her; He made an ally of her mother; He is slowly gaining ground with her
(Lakoff & Johnson; 1980: 49). These examples clearly show that we not only talk about love
in term of war. We can actually fight for a person in order to save a relationship. Any war
presupposes two different sides, between which the fight is going on, we see the same
situation in a marriage: either the partners can attack the other (the competition between male
and female), or the enemy can come from the outside. To fight, an ally, to overpower, to gain
ground or battalions, etc. are instances of the same defining domain, that of war (Lakoff,
1980: 61-68). We coherently use the war terminology when talking about feeling.
LOVE IS CAPTIVE ANIMAL: He couldn't hold back his love; She let go of her
feelings (Kovecses, 1986); Her love is not the hare that I do hunt (Shakespeare). Kovecses
(1986)‟ view Love is captive animal metaphor is a conventional metaphor in which love is
represented as a captive animal, external to the person in love but held onto by him or her,
such that letting the animal loose represents loss of control over the feelings of love, and
holding onto the animal represents retention of control. According to Lakoff (1987: 392-395),
this metaphor characterizes our attempts to control our “wild” and irrational emotion.
LOVE IS A UNITY OF TWO COMPLEMENTARY PARTS: We're one. They’re
breaking up; We’re inseparable. Theirs is a perfect match. She is my better half (Kovecses,
1986). These instances form a whole correspond to the lovers in a relationship It is the
particular complementary functions of each part (i.e. the two lovers) tried to emphasis by the
unity metaphor in conceptualizing love. This conceptual metaphor entails the notion that
finding love, living somebody, or being in a relationship is what makes a human being a

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complete entity. It contains the central notion that real love is the union with that better half
that needs to be searched for and found in life (Kovecses, 1986).
LOVE IS A HIDDEN OBJECT: He sought for love in the wrong places; His search for

love wasn't successful; You're lucky to have found her (Kovecses, 1986). In this kind of
metaphor, love is represented as a hidden object to be sought after.
LOVE IS A PLANT: Their love just begins to sprout lately; My love for him has grown
gradually; Their love has yielded positive results; Her love starts to root (Lai and Ahrens,
2001). Love as a plant is a conventional metaphor in which an idea is thought of as a plant in
comparisons such as the following: the stages of growth and fruition of the plant represent the
stages of development of an emotion and the branches represent relates disciplines (Lakoff &
Johnson, 1980). This metaphor also states that love is understood as plant because plants
involve physical growth and love involves emotional growth.
LOVE IS A COLLABORATIVE WORK OF ART: This metaphor is unconventional
metaphor. It is the product of two ordinary people attempting to make sense of their everyday
love experience (Kovecses, 2002: 36). This emphasizes the more action- oriented aspect of it.
If love is a collaborative work of art, the two lovers should be able to work out their common
goals, the premises of the work, the responsibilities that they do or do not share. The
unconventionality of this conceptual metaphor is shown by the fact that Lakoff and Johnson
(1980) do not provide any metaphorical linguistic expressions to demonstrate it. The reason is
that there are no such conventionalized expressions (Kovecses, 2002).
LOVE IS MAGIC: She cast her spell over me; The magic is gone; I was spellbound;
She had me hypnotized; He has me in trance; I am charmed by him; She is bewitching
(Lakoff 1980:49). For centuries humans have been fascinated with things connected with
magic, as it provided the explanation for the unknown. We are unlikely to find out how the
very sensation of love appears, that is why we call it magic. This metaphor is extremely
productive in English, moreover, the verbs to hypnotize, to cast spell are most commonly used
when talking about women‟s ability to charm men, and not vice versa.
1.2.2. Orientational metaphors
Another kind of the cognitive metaphor which Lakoff and Johnson have called is
orientational metaphor. They claim that “one that does not structure one concept in terms of
another but instead organizes a whole system of concept with respect to one another” and
“Spatial orientations arise from the fact that we have bodies of the sort we have and that they

19
function a they do in our physical environment” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: 14). The cognitive
function of orientational metaphors is to allow for coherency among the target concepts in the
conceptual system. Most of the metaphors in this category have to do with the basic human
spatial orientations: up – down, in – out, front – back, on – off, deep – shallow, central –
peripheral. In the following part, I will take up/ down orientation as an example to illustrate
how orientational metaphors act in set expressions.
Good is up; bad is down.
Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 16) mentioned “the physical basic of a personal well-being:
happiness, health, life, and control-the things that principally characterize what is good for a
person-are all up.” Let‟s look at the examples below:
(1) I‟m feeling up.
(Tôi đang vui.)
(2) It‟s polite to yield up your seat on the bus to an old lady.
(Anh hãy lịch sự nhường ghế cho người già.)
(3) He lives down and out.
(Anh ấy đang thất cơ lỡ vận.)
(4) I fell into a depression.
(Tôi rất chán nản.)
As we can see the examples above, the up/ down metaphors in the English expressions
are different form of the equivalents in Vietnamese. Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 14-21) also
state that the orientational metaphors are based on physical and cultural experience. They can
vary from culture to culture. They are culture-specific, that is, not all cultures give priority to
the up – down orientation. In some cultures more emphasis may, for example, be put on an
active-passive orientation or in-out orientation.
1.2.3. Ontological metaphors
Ontological metaphors are “ways of viewing events, activities, emotions, ideas, etc., as
entities and substances” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: 25) in order to refer to them, categorize
them, group them and qualify them. We conceive of our experience in terms of objects,
substances, and containers in general, without specifying what object, substance or container

is meant (Kovecses, 2002: 34). Ontological metaphors provide a more delineated structure to
undesignated experiences. The following examples illustrate the way in which these
metaphors are used.

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(1) My fear that she should leave proved to be totally unfounded. (referring)
(2) She is full of hatred for the one who killed her friend. (quantifying)
(3) The enormity of the task caused him to quit the job. (identifying cause)
(4) The brutality of the genocide shocked people all over the world. (identifying aspects)
Lakoff & Johnson (1980) assert that people hardly notice metaphors such as these,
because they are so basic to everyday conceptualization and functioning. They are
nevertheless a means by which people understand either non-physical or not clearly bounded
things as entities.
Understanding our experiences in terms of objects and substances allow us to pick out
parts of our experience and treat them as discrete entities or substances of a uniform kind.
Container metaphor is the most typical kind of ontological metaphor. We are physical beings,
bounded and separated from the rest of the world by the surface of our skins, and we
experience the rest of the world outside us. According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 29) “Each
of us is a container, with a bounding surface and an in-out orientation. We project our own in-
out orientation onto other physical objects that are bounded by surfaces.” Thus we also view
them as containers with an inside and an outside. Let‟s look at examples below:
(1) He is out of sight.
(2) We‟re out of trouble now.
(3) He fell in love with him.
In the above examples, sight, trouble, and love are all abstract concepts which are
metaphorically viewed as concrete concept being boundaries.
Moreover, Kovecses (2002: 35) expresses the opinion that personification is to be
conceived of as a form of ontological metaphor. Personification is an ontological metaphor
which allows us to use knowledge of itself to maximal effect, to use insights to help them
comprehend such things as forces of nature, common events, abstract concepts, and inanimate

objects (Lakoff & Turner, 1989: 72). Just how common personification is in literature and
everyday discourse becomes apparent in the examples below:
(1) Death is a thief.
(2) The wind whistled in the chimney.
(3) Life has cheated her.

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The non-human entities death, wind, and life are given qualities, such as robbing,
whistling, and cheating. In this way, humans can come to a better understanding of the abstract
concepts, for the person now serves as the source domain.
Lakoff and Turner (1989: 73) insist that “In some metaphors, a person in one schema is
understood in terms of a person in another” that is related to.
1.3. Image schemas
Image-schemas, for instance, container, path, force, part-whole, centre-
periphery, and link are meaningful, dynamic patterns which recur in everyday action and
thought and which allow us to mentally structure our experiences and perceptions (Johnson,
1987; Lakoff, 1987, 1989; Turner, 1992, 1996; Gibbs and Colston, 1995). In Johnson‟s words
(1987: 29) “image schemata operates at a level of mental organization that falls between
abstract propositional structures, on the one side, and particular concrete images, on the
other”.
We usually map this image schema onto abstract target domains which do not
inherently contain image, such as wakefulness, alertness and living, to be understood in terms
of physical objects and spatial relations. Image schemas can be divided into five schemas as
follow (Lakoff, 1987: 272-275). For Lakoff (1987), the container schema that defines the
predicates in and out would work as the basis for understanding the body as a container, the
visual field, and set models, among others. The part-whole schema is transferred to domains
such as families, teams, organizations, marriage, etc. The link schema helps conceptualize
social and interpersonal relationships. The centre-periphery schema gives us the difference
between the important things or matters, understood as central, and less important or
secondary matters considered to be peripheral. Finally, the source-path-goal schema gives the

clue for purposes in our daily life as destinations of a journey.
According to Lakoff (1987), these image schemas might be so deeply grounded in
common human experience that they constitute universal linguistic cognitive structures. Many
of the schemas clearly derive from the most immediate of all our experience of the human
body.
Johnson (1987) explained the mechanism of transfer from some domains into more
abstract domains. According to this author, there are metaphors that map image into abstract
domains, preserving their basic logic. The metaphors used are not arbitrary but motivated by
structures inherent in everyday bodily experience.

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1.4. Collocation
In recent linguistic studies, the term “collocation” is often associated with Firth (1957).
Firth maintains that meaning by collocation is lexical meaning “at the syntagmatic level”.
Firth (1951, quoted in Palmer, 1981: 75) claimed that: “You shall know a word by the
company it keeps” and this keeping company- collocation, he called, was part of the meaning
of a word.”
Collocation, as is defined by Robbins (1989: 65), is the habitual association of a word in
a language with other particular words in sentences. Leech (1974: 20) also discusses
collocative meaning. He holds that collocative meaning comprises the associations a word
acquires by virtue of the meanings of words which are likely to occur in its environment.
Palmer (1981: 76) argues that collocation is not simply a master of association of ideas;
it is sometimes fairly idiosyncratic and cannot be predicted by virtue of the meaning of the
associated words. For example, white pain is common enough to say, but white milk is not,
though milk is white; and blond hair is acceptable while blond door is not, though with the
same color. Other examples are those of “rancid” and “addle” meaning stale, rotten, bad:
“rancid” collocating only with bacon and butter, “addle” with brains and eggs, and “milk”
with neither “rancid” nor “addle” but with sour.
In Baker‟s discussion of collocation (1992: 49), every lexeme can be said to have a
collocational range, which refers to the set of collocates or other words typically associated

with the word in question. Some words have a broader collocational range than others, for
instances, “run” and “shrug” at the end of the scale. “Run” has a vast collocational range with
some of its typical collocates, such as company, business, show, car, stockings, tights, nose,
wild, debt, bill, course, water, and color among others. In contrast, “Shrug” has a restricted
collocational range, typically collocating with shoulders.
Beekman and Callow (1974, quoted in Baker, 1992: 50) suggests two main factors that
can influence the collocational range of a word. One is its level of specificity: the more
general a lexeme is, the broader it is collocational range; the more specific it is, the more
restricted its collocational range. For example, “bury” collocating with people, a treasure,
one’s head, feelings, and memories; but “inter” with people only. The second factor is the
number of senses the world has. The tends to attract a different set for each sense; for
example, “run”, in its sense of manage, collocates with company, institution and business; in

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its sense of operate or provide, it occurs with “service” or “course”. It follows that there is a
strong relationship between the number of senses of a word and its collocational range.
It is obvious that collocation involves the associations of ideas, and the meaning of the
entire expression can be predicted from the meaning of individual lexemes. Some collocations,
however, are idiosyncratic and the meaning cannot be predicted from the meaning of
individual lexemes. Collocation can be unrestricted with a wide collocational range, but
restricted with a limited collocational range.
1.5. The notion love in English
In principle, sadness, anger, and fear are emotions, and so is love. In general, it is
usually considered that emotions are natural body-experiences that are then expressed through
language and that language, in turn, is often described as irrational and subjective. That is,
what we first feel our bodies, later comes out of our mouths in the form of a discourse which
is, in some way, opposed to reason. Emotions are also said to be gestated in the unconscious
and not in the will. Recently, it is considered that emotions are not the exclusive preserve of
the individual‟s interiority, process, determinants, and consequences of emotions depend on
language use. Thus, we will deal with the strict relationship between emotions and language.

Especially, we will deal with one emotion, which has been, in the history of mankind in
Western culture, really important (Oatley, 2004). We refer to love, understood in the broadest
sense. Love has helped to define the essence of human-beings. Without a history of love and
lovers, we would know nothing on how to cope with such a fundamental emotion as well as on
why this particular emotion has been investigated in its many facets and the strength of the
interest when it comes to the relationship between emotions and language.
Collins Cobuild Dictionary (2003: 855) defines love as a very strong feeling of affection
towards someone whom you are romantically or sexually attracted to.
The instances of the noun love were first categorized according to their participants, at
least one of whom (or which) experiences love, and one is the target/cause(r) object of love,
mutually being ideal. The notion of participant domains is included in the definitions, because
one cannot always strictly pinpoint who or what (animal, imaginary being, etc.) is
experiencing the motion, while it does tend to be possible to say whether the love being
expressed concerns romance or family relationships, for example. The definitions of these
kinds of love run as follow (Tissari, 2003: 2, 260-361).

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(a) The participants of family love (storge) are members of the same family. This love
occurs in the participant domain of family.
(b) The participants of marital love (storge-eros) are spouses. This love occurs in the
participant domain of marriage.
(c) The participants of sexual love (eros) are (potential) lovers. This love occurs in the
participant domain of sexuality.
(d) The participants of friendship love (philia) are neither members of the same family,
spouses of one another, or (potential) lovers, but this love occurs in the domain of friendship,
between people share thoughts and interests, or out of a wish to do something good to another
human being.
(e) The participants of religious love (agape) include God, or a god, at least indirectly
through a divine command or inspiration, and this love occurs between a human and a divine
being, or pertains to someone who acts out of faith.

(f) At least one of the participants of „love of “thing”‟ is non-human (animal or
inanimate). This love occurs in the participant domain of the “rest of the world”, in contrast to
the above.
It is difficult to have these definitions logically, but it is also assumed that these
categories attest prototype effects and partly overlap with each other (Lakoff, 1987: 91-114;
Tissari, 2003: 9-78, 242-244).
In this study, I mainly focus on the noun love by calling the word love, assuming that
they share these senses and, consequently, a considerable amount of conceptual content.
The design of the study and the data analysis will be represented in the following
section.










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CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY
In this chapter, the research questions will be restated in 2.1, the data will be described in
2.2, the analytical framework of the study will be introduced in detail in 2.3, and data analysis
and discussion will be presented in 2.4. This is the central focus of the present study, the
conceptualization of love in English,
2.1. Research questions
The question below is the heart of the study:
- How is love conceptualized in English evidenced in some English expressions of love?
2.2. Data collection

In this analysis which follows, I concentrate on the basic noun love in some set
expressions. The metaphors containing the word love in expressions are especially typical,
while the verb is much more seldom accompanied.
An inventory of more than 115 English expressions used to talk about the emotion love
in English was compiled from dictionaries and some plays of Shakespeare, more than 20
expressions of love have been collected from the plays, such as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet,
Othello, Two Noble Kinsmen, Richard III, Taming, and Coriolonus. In the novels, love is
appeared in many expressions. Moreover, the data is also compiled from the website
accessed on July 8
th
, 2010. This website collects and
acknowledges many expressions of love. Some Vietnamese expressions are found to compare
with the conceptualization of love in the English expressions.
The expressions in the data were grouped into source domains (container, fire/ heat,
social superior or opponent, valuable commodity, natural/ physical forces, fluid in a container,
journey, nutrient, rapture, insanity, and unity of two complementary parts). The following part
represents the analytical framework to analyze the data.
2.3. Analytical framework
According to structural metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980 and Kovecses,
1986), love is conceptualized as journey, war, container, a fluid in a container, natural/
physical forces, rapture, insanity, captive animal, nutrient, valuable commodity, war, patient,
madness, magic, unity of two complementary, fire/ heat, social superior or opponent, hidden
object, and collaborative work. In the following section, the details of all the source domains
will be outlined.


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2.3.1. Love is a container
The meaning of container is understood or implied when love is used with prepositions
such as “in” and “out”. For instance, “A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through

her ears.” or “Sadly when we're falling out of love, we often don't see it coming.”
2.3.2. Love is a journey
Love is used as a journey when it is combined with the nouns such as course, track, or
distance and with the verbs like come, walk, run, trip or go. For instance: “The course of true
love never did run smoothly.” or “You have to walk carefully in the beginning of live; the
running across fields into your lover‟s arms can come only later when you‟re sure they won‟t
love if you trip.” Love is also combined with the prepositional phrase on the rock, for example,
“I‟m having a love affair with this guy but it‟s on the rocks.”
2.3.3. Love is a fluid in a container
The verbs such as fill, pour out, popple, moisten, or well up are used to conceptualize
love as a fluid in a container. They combine with love in the expressions, for example, “She
was overflowing with love.” or “She was filled with love.”
Some nouns like fountain, dew, or ocean, and the adjective such as full is used to
represent love as a fluid in a container for instance, “Love is like dew falls on both nettles and
lilies.” Or “Love is a an ocean of emotions entirely surrounded by expenses”
2.3.4. Love is madness
The words like crazy, blind, madness, or out of mind are collocated with love in some
expressions to conceptualize it as madness, for example “And most of all would flee from the
cruel madness of love.” or “He was blinded by love.”
2.3.5. Love is insanity
Love is used with the adjectives such as blind, incapable or stupid to conceptualize love
as insanity. For example, “Love is being stupid together.” The nouns like folly or fool and the
verbs such as rave, drive out of mind, unable to think straight or distract are combined with
love to conceptualized love as insanity, for instances, “(1) Love drives me out of mind” or
“Well, love is insanity. The ancient Greeks knew that. It is the taking over of the rational and
lucid mind by delusion and self-destruction. You lose yourself, you have no power over
yourself, you can’t even think straight.”
2.3.6. Love is rapture

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The meaning of rapture is understood or implied when love is used with the verbs such
as intoxicate or drunk and the adjectives such as giddy, high, ecstasy, silly or irresistible. For
example, “He is intoxicated with love.” or “Anyone can be passionate, but it takes the real
love to be silly.”
2.3.7. Love is natural/ physical forces
The meaning of natural force or physical force is understood when love is combined with
the verbs such as carry away, attract, revolve, take away, touch, restrain, or open, for
example, “She was carried away by love.” or “If love has touched you, naught remain but
so.” Also, in this kind of metaphor love is collocated with the nouns such as electricity,
energy, misty rains, flood or atmosphere, for example “Let your love be like the misty rains,
coming softly, but flooding the river.”
2.3.8. Love is fire/ heat
Love is used as fire or heat when it is combined with the verbs such as burn, scorch, stir
up, ignite, put out, warm, melt, kindle, consume, throb, or light. For example: “Love burns
across the infinitude.” or “His love has warmed my heart.” It is also used with the nouns, for
instance, smoke or flame. Let‟s see the examples: “Love is a smoke made with the fume of
sigh.” or “Love must be as much as light, as it is flame.”
2.3.9. Love is a nutrient
The meaning of a nutrient is understood when love is collocated with the verbs such as
starve, live, need, scoop or thrive. For instance, “I cannot live without love.” or “Scoop love
from him.” Moreover, the nouns like refreshment, hunger, vitamin, or food are used to
understand love as a nutrient, for instance, “The hunger for love is much more difficult to
remove than the hunger for bread.” or “Love is the greatest refreshment in life.”
2.3.10. Love is a valuable commodity (in an economic exchange)
Love is conceptualized as a valuable commodity when it is collocated with the verbs and
the nouns, such as give, get, exchange, invest, lose, buy or get out of. For instance, “Success;
happiness and the ability to give and receive love all hinge on our relationship.”, “Love is
neither bought nor sold.” or “Love is priceless.”
2.3.11. Love is a social superior and opponent
Love is implied as a social or superior and opponent when it is used with the verbs such

as, rule, dominate, seize, overcome, fight off, force, beat, struggle or conquer. For example:
“She is completely ruled by love.” and “She was struggling with her feeling of love.” It is

28
also combined with the nouns like law, transgression or attack. For instance, “Love is unto
itself a higher law.”
2.3.12. Love is a patient
Love is understood as a patent when it is combined with the adjectives such as sick,
strong, tired, or dead, for example, “Love is not strong.” It also can be understood as a patient
with the combination with the verbs such as cure or revive”, for example “Love cannot be
cured by herbs.”
2.3.13. Love is war
Love is understood as war when it is collocated with the verbs such as capture,
overpowered, win, or lose, for example “Once a man has won a woman‟s love, the love is his
forever. He can only lose the woman.”
2.3.14. Love is captive animal
The meaning of captive animal is understood when it is used with the verbs, such as
hold back or hunt, etc., for example, “He couldn't hold back his love.” or “Her love is not the
hare that I do hunt.”
2.3.15. Love is a unity (of two complementary parts)
Love is understood as a unity of two complementary parts when it is combined with
the nouns, such as unity, knot or one for example, “Only in love are unity and duality not in
conflict.” or “Religion is one with love.”, the verbs, such as tear, for example “It just tore us
as apart as it more out of spite than real love for the guy I lived with.”
2.3.16. Love is a hidden object
Love is conceptualized as a hidden object when it is combined with the verbs, such as
find, search for, hide, or sought for. For example, “I have found great love amongst them.”,
“From whom we thought it meet to hide our love” or “He sought for love in the wrong
places.”
2.3.17. Love is magic

Love is conceptualized as magic when it is combined with the verbs in the expressions
such as spellbind, hypnotize, entranced, charm, or bewitch, for example “I am charmed by
her love.”, and love is also conceptualized as a magician, for example “Love is the magician
that pulls man out of his own hat.”