How do conceptual metaphor and deliberate metaphor relate to each other?

Deliberate metaphor can still be seen as the new kid on the block when it comes to cognitive linguistics, even though this kid has been around for almost two decades. Cognitive-linguistic approaches to metaphor are dominated by Conceptual Metaphor Theory, which today is typically represented by the work of Ray Gibbs and Zoltan Kovecses. When a dominant theory such as CMT is at least partly challenged by a newcomer such as Deliberate Metaphor Theory (or DMT), debate ensues and misunderstanding and criticism are rife. In this talk I will therefore address a number of core issues in the relation between CMT and DMT, and sketch how I think deliberate metaphor relates to conceptual metaphor.

The analysis of this relation will draw on a number of general issues in cognitive linguistics. First, CMT is a theory of thought whereas DMT is a theory of language use in discourse. This does not look like a situation of mutual exclusion but more of interaction. How can this be accommodated?

Second, CMT starts out from a reconstructed conceptual system whereas DMT starts out from the reconstructed structures and functions of instances of language use, or utterances. Again, this does not look like a situation of mutual exclusion but more of interaction. How can this be accommodated?

Third, the main bone of contention between the two theories is their conceptualization of ‘understanding one thing in terms of something else’. In CMT, the role of conceptual metaphor has moved from instigating verbal metaphor comprehension to resulting from verbal metaphor comprehension (Gibbs) or playing a role as a contextual factor in verbal metaphor comprehension (Kovecses). In DMT, the role of deliberate metaphor use has been central to the incidence of metaphorical versus non-metaphorical language comprehension. This difference has been thematized in DMT as the one between metaphor in thought versus metaphorical thinking, and raises fundamental questions about the requirements for modeling metaphor comprehension in cognitive linguistics.

As a result, and fourth, the two theories predict a diverse impact of metaphor on metaphorical thinking, of metaphor on thought and language, and by implication of metaphor on living by metaphors. The question for cognitive linguistics is where these predictions exclude each other and need to be investigated as such, versus where they can work together and can be aligned better in an encompassing cognitive-linguistic framework.