conceptual metaphor

A theory, associated with COGNITIVE SEMANTICS, in which metaphor is seen as a process of understanding one conceptual domain in terms of another. A typical metaphor is a mapping between a better-known, more concrete conceptual domain (the ‘source domain’) and the conceptual domain which it helps to organize (the ‘target domain’). Thus a conceptual metaphor such as THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS, as described by George Lakoff (b. 1941) and Mark Johnson (b. 1949), has physical objects as source and abstract mental entities as target, and gives rise to an open set of linguistic metaphors, such as Your theories lack foundation and He needs to construct a stronger argument. In its view of metaphor as a general cognitive process, this approach contrasts with the purely STYLISTIC account of metaphor, with its distinction between literal and figurative MEANING, and its focus on rhetorical and literary contexts.