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Figurative language in talking about the loss of a father: The example of Americans and Poles
Abstract
The subject of this paper is loss and grief described by different people from two language groups: Americans and Poles. The analyzed data comes from the responses to two online questionnaires, and belongs to a larger PhD research project. In looking for examples of conceptual metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, Kövecses 2005) and conceptual blends (Fauconnier and Turner 1996, Dancygier and Sweetser 2014), we present various cases of conceptualization of loss and grief. Given the limited size of this paper, we selected examples referring to loss of a father. The aim is to compare different ways of talking about apparently the same type of loss, highlighting the fact that grief is very subjective and personal. It is also a way to present differences and a variety in viewpoint when talking about this type of loss.
We assume that despite the universal presence of death, the response to it might vary
from culture to culture. The way people think about their loss and grief might be all the more different.
The aims of this dissertation are: to study how Americans and Poles conceptualize loss and grief, to examine cultural differences in conceptualizing loss and grief, and to explore in what ways culture and individual experience might affect conceptualization of loss and grief.
We conducted a qualitative research study (questionnaires). A total of 37 Americans and 42 Poles, who had lost a loved one within 1–5 years, took part in the survey.
The data was analyzed in three chapters. The metaphors and blends (Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Fauconnier & Turner 2002) were grouped according to the semantic patterns we identified. This allowed us to develop the models of the concepts of loss and grief. A separate chapter concerned loss and grief in relation to the mode of death and the type of previous relationship with the lost one.
In general, both Americans and Poles viewed loss negatively. The most common way of seeing LOSS was ABSENCE OF SOMEONE. Other categories were more metaphorical. Although LOSS was mainly viewed negatively, this was not always the case with GRIEF.
We hope that this dissertation will be useful not only to linguists and scholars within culture studies, but also to psychologists, therapists, and anyone interested in the topics of loss and grief.
An investigation of the way in which the basic mental operation of conceptual integration ("blending") is central to grammar.This is an expanded web version of Fauconnier and Turner, 1996 ("Blending as a Central Process of Grammar." in Conceptual Structure, Discourse, and Language. Edited by Adele Goldberg. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information [CSLI] [distributed by Cambridge University Press]. Pages 113-129.)This expanded version consists of the original article, additional diagrams for the caused motion construction that were edited from the original article to save space, and an additional section on the ditransitive construction, which is excerpted from Turner and Fauconnier, 1999, "A Mechanism of Creativity," Poetics Today.
Over the past decade, Cognitive Linguistics has grown to be one of the most broadly appealing and dynamic frameworks for the study of natural language. Essentially, this new school of linguistics focuses on the meaning side of language: linguistic form is analysed as an expression of meaning. And meaning itself is not something that exists in isolation, but it is integrated with the full spectrum of human experience: the fact that we are embodied beings just as much as the fact that we are cultural beings. Cognitive Linguistics: Basic Readings brings together twelve foundational articles, each of which introduces one of the basic concepts of Cognitive Linguistics, like conceptual metaphor, image schemas, mental spaces, construction grammar, prototypicality and radial sets. The collection features the founding fathers of Cognitive Linguistics: George Lakoff, Ron Langacker, Len Talmy, Gilles Fauconnier, and Charles Fillmore, together with some of the most influential younger scholars. By its choice of seminal papers and leading authors, Basic Readings is specifically suited for an introductory course in Cognitive Linguistics. This is further supported by a general introduction to the theory and, specifically, the practice of Cognitive Linguistics and by trajectories for further reading that start out from the individual chapters. © 2006 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin. All rights reserved.
Loss and bereavement are inevitable parts of life. Grief and mourning are the ways we have of expressing and assimilating these experiences. Many aspects of Gestalt therapy are well suited to working through the mourning process. In this paper the tasks of mourning are defined, and the Gestalt approach is compared with traditional bereavement counseling to see where and how they can be integrated and in what ways they may be different. Illustrative examples are drawn from current and past historical periods, cross-cultural customs and rituals, and the author's experience as a social worker working with people with HIV/AIDS, the elderly, hospice patients, and their families.
Loss, grief, and trauma come into the lives of adolescents in many forms and with more frequency than the adults in their lives may realize. Assessing the depth and nature of their emotions can be difficult; adolescents are typically reluctant to show strong emotions and can be difficult to reach, particularly when they experience the untimely death of a loved one. How best to work with a young person who may have trouble communicating their emotions even under the best of circumstances? And what if he or she has learned about the death of a loved one or classmate from another peer rather than a family member? What about gender differences and the influence of culture and family? What role do cell phones, text messaging, and technologies such as Facebook play in the adolescent grief experience? Adolescents' use of technology creates unlimited access to friends, support systems, and information, but news that spreads quickly without buffering effects can intensify the strength of the adolescent grief responses. Counseling Adolescents Through Loss, Grief, and Trauma not only examines these issues; it also provides clinicians with a wealth of resources and time-tested therapeutic activities that are sure to become an indispensable part of any clinician's practice.
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson take on the daunting task of rebuilding Western philosophy in alignment with three fundamental lessons from cognitive science: The mind is inherently embodied, thought is mostly unconscious, and abstract concepts are largely metaphorical. Why so daunting? "Cognitive science--the empirical study of the mind--calls upon us to create a new, empirically responsible philosophy, a philosophy consistent with empirical discoveries about the nature of mind," they write. "A serious appreciation of cognitive science requires us to rethink philosophy from the beginning, in a way that would put it more in touch with the reality of how we think." In other words, no Platonic forms, no Cartesian mind-body duality, no Kantian pure logic. Even Noam Chomsky's generative linguistics is revealed under scrutiny to have substantial problems.
Parts of Philosophy in the Flesh retrace the ground covered in the authors' earlier Metaphors We Live By , which revealed how we deal with abstract concepts through metaphor. (The previous sentence, for example, relies on the metaphors "Knowledge is a place" and "Knowing is seeing" to make its point.) Here they reveal the metaphorical underpinnings of basic philosophical concepts like time, causality--even morality--demonstrating how these metaphors are rooted in our embodied experiences. They repropose philosophy as an attempt to perfect such conceptual metaphors so that we can understand how our thought processes shape our experience; they even make a tentative effort toward rescuing spirituality from the heavy blows dealt by the disproving of the disembodied mind or "soul" by reimagining "transcendence" as "imaginative empathetic projection." Their source list is helpfully arranged by subject matter, making it easier to follow up on their citations. If you enjoyed the mental workout from Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works , Lakoff and Johnson will, to pursue the "Learning is exercise" metaphor, take you to the next level of training. --Ron Hogan Two leading thinkers offer a blueprint for a new philosophy.
"Their ambition is massive, their argument important.…The authors engage in a sort of metaphorical genome project, attempting to delineate the genetic code of human thought." -The New York Times Book Review
"This book will be an instant academic best-seller." -Mark Turner, University of Maryland
This is philosophy as it has never been seen before. Lakoff and Johnson show that a philosophy responsible to the science of the mind offers a radically new and detailed understandings of what a person is. After first describing the philosophical stance that must follow from taking cognitive science seriously, they re-examine the basic concepts of the mind, time, causation, morality, and the self; then they rethink a host of philosophical traditions, from the classical Greeks through Kantian morality through modern analytical philosophy.
The Chomskyan framework assumed by F. J. Newmeyer (see record
1991-23770-001) in his article on functional explanation in linguistics and the origins of language has been rejected on empirical grounds by a large proportion of the linguistics community, especially those concerned with cognition and communicative function. Newmeyer's entire argument rests on the Chomskyan commitment. If one does not accept that commitment and makes the cognitive commitment instead, then his argument collapses, since there is no autonomous syntax and no innate principles of pure syntactic form, but only innate conceptual and processing restrictions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
On grief and grieving: Finding the meaning of grief through the five stages of loss
- E Kübler-Ross
- D Kessler
Kübler-Ross, E., Kessler, D. (2005): On grief and grieving: Finding the meaning of grief
through the five stages of loss, New York: Scribner.
- L Mueller
Mueller, L. When I am asked,
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I wasn't ready to say goodbye. Surviving, coping & healing after the sudden death of a loved one
- B Noel
- P D Blair
Noel, B., Blair, P. D. (2008): I wasn't ready to say goodbye. Surviving, coping & healing
after the sudden death of a loved one (updated ed.), Naperville: Sourcebooks, Inc.