web links

https://d-nb.info/121996610X/34

definitions

Johnson: (1987 xiv) An image schema is a recurring, dynamic pattern of our perceptual interactions and motor 
programs that gives coherence and structure to our experience.
Johnson: "structure indefinitely many perceptions, images, and events"
Johnson: (1987) emerge as meaningful structures for us chieﬂy at the level of our bodily movements through space, our manipulations of objects, and our perceptual interaction

Lakoff and Turner, 1989: 97 thus when we understand a scene, we naturally structure it in terms of such elementary image-schemas"
Lakoff and Turner, 1980, Ch 9, 15-17 : image schema allow metaphors to cohere and be structured. 
Metaphors may cohere if their source domains are special cases of a more general one.

From http://scodis.com/for-students/glossary/image-schema/#:~:text=reaching%20their%20aim.-,Johnson%20and%20G.,also%20described%20through%20image%20schemas.

Image schema is a notion that first appears in the works of M. Johnson and G. Lakoff in the 1980s. The scholars speak of a close connection between image schemas and the bodily experience that a person acquires in the process of interaction with the world around. Image schemas present notions schematically, reflecting the shape of an object, its location, the trajectory of movement etc.

Many concepts and everyday expressions can be presented as image schemas. M. Johnson and G. Lakoff single out a number of basic image schemas. Here are some examples:

1. Container. Every day we come across a great number of containers in the broadest sense: we inhale air INTO our lungs and exhale it OUT OF them (that is, our lungs are in fact containers for air), every morning we squeeze toothpaste OUT OF the tube, and after that pour coffee INTO a cup (Johnson). On the basis of this bodily experience an image schema of container is formed in our mind. The parts of the schema are borders, which divide the outside from the inside (Lakoff). There are a lot of expressions and metaphors that are based on this idea. For instance, the English expression “to be in love” can be seen in the following way: love is a container, and the person is inside this container. We can also think of a Russian expression “уйти с головой в работу” (to immerse oneself in the work). Here work can also be seen as a container with this very workaholic inside it.

2. Part-whole. We can find the relations between a part and the whole everywhere. We speak of body parts, military units, about faculties that are parts of a single educational institution. The elements of this image schema are parts, the whole and their configurations (Lakoff). Numerous metaphors are based on this image schema. As a vivid example, we can think of the idea of family in Russian culture, where the husband is seen as the head and the wife – as the neck, and together they form a whole, with the marriage as the basis for this unity: bride and groom become man and wife, they become parts of a single organism – a family. The divorce is in its turn regarded as a reverse process, when a family as a whole splits in two parts. This conceptualization of divorce is reflected in one of its names: “splitting up”, which literally means “division” (Lakoff).

3. Source-path-goal. Whenever we go, we depart from a starting point, make a journey, and in the end reach the goal. As the main components of this image schema we can single out the starting and the ending point, the path and the direction (Lakoff). The classical example of this image schema is “to go a long way towards” fame/success, which exists both in English and Russian (“проделать долгий путь к чему-либо”). In this case the beginning of the career is the starting point, the fame is the ending point, the direction is the direction towards success, and the way is all the stages that a person has to go through before reaching their aim.

M. Johnson and G. Lakoff also give examples of other image schemas: “connection”, “centre-periphery”, “up-down” etc. The meaning of prepositions, different notions of grammar are also described through image schemas. The idea has found further development in the works of many authors (J. M. Mandler, C. P. Cánovas, R. W. Gibbs), who write about their different characteristics and spheres of application.

Рекомендуемая литература

Johnson M., The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. – Chicago – London: The University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Lakoff G. Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

Mandler J. M., Cánovas C. P. On defining image schemas // On Language and Cognition, UK Cognitive Linguistics Association, 2004. – Vol. 6. – P. 510–532.

— Valeriya Denisova (Ph.D. student) Translated by Alina Strugova

http://www.ello.uos.de/field.php/CognitiveApproaches/ImageSchemas

image schemas can be described as fundamental and deeply rooted concepts, acquired in early childhood, some maybe even earlier.

Whereas image schemas are of course meaningful themselves and can be expressed language, they also give rise to more abstract concepts via use of conceptual metaphors such as the application of the schema CONTAINER to other areas such as emotional states.

Image schemas are said to be derived directly from embodiment, i.e. the ways our human bodies perceive and interact with the external world. It is important however, to notice, that even though this might be true, embodiment does does not always have to result in concepts that remain constant over the years.

We have been talking about the image schema or concept of CONTAINMENT a couple of times already and have stated that we arrive at this very basic concept or schema very early because of the way our bodies interact with the external world. But did you ever think about how frequent really we come across the notion of containment in everyday life? The following passage from Johnson’s book: “the body in mind” illustrates (by the recurrent use of the expressions in, into and out) that a great number of not only obvious objects like toothpaste tubes but also states like sleep or stupor evoke and express the notion of containment in everyday life, which is, in this line of argumentation, the reason for this concept being so deeply rooted within us:

You wake out of a deep sleep and peer out from beneath the covers into your room. You gradually emerge out of your stupor, pull yourself out from under the covers, climb into your robe, stretch out your limbs, and walk in a daze out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. You look into the mirror and see your face string out at you. You reach into the medicine cabinet, take out the toothpaste, squeeze out some toothpaste, put the toothbrush into your mouth, brush your teeth in a hurry, and rinse out your mouth.

Properties of image schemas

Image schemas like CONTAINER OR UP-DOWN relate to and derive from sensory experience, which means that they are pre-conceptual in origin. The psychologist Mandler (2004) argues that they arise from sensory experiences in the early stages of human development that precede the formation of concepts. However, once the recurrent patterns of sensory information have been extracted and stored as an image schema, sensory experience gives rise to a conceptual representation.

This means, that image schemas are concepts, but of a special kind: they are the foundations of the conceptual system, because they are the first concepts to emerge in the human mind. They are, of course, so fundamental to our way of thinking that we are not consciously aware of them: we take our awareness of what it means to be a physical being in a physical world very much for granted because we acquire this knowledge so early in life, and certainly before the emergence of language. An image schema can give rise to more specific concepts As you have seen already in the passage of Johnson’s book, the concepts lexicalised by prepositions such as in, out, into and so on, are all related to the container schema: an abstract image-schematic concept that underlies all these much more specific lexical concepts. Now think about the image schema UP-DOWN. What do you think, where does it derive from and with how many abstract conceptual domains can you come in terms of conceptual metaphor?

image schemas that have been suggested are the following: - Blockage - Enablement - Cycle - Part-whole - Full-empty - Iteration - Surface - Balance - Counterforce - Attraction - Near-far - Merging - Matching - Contact - Object - Compulsion - Restraint-count - Center-periphery - Splitting - Superimposition - Collection - Process - ...

examples

specialized forms of 
Metaphor/LIFE AS CYCLE

Life is a frequent target domain of metaphors. According to the relevant literature, 24 possible metaphorical source domains of life can be found (e.g.

specialized forms of Metaphor/LIFE AS WAXING AND WANING CYCLE OF HEAT AND LIGHT

Oakley: (2006)...a condensed re-description of perceptual experience for the purpose of mapping spatial structure onto conceptual structure.

Hampe [2005], is that image schemas are “...directly meaningful (“experiential”/“embodied”), pre-conceptual structures, which arise from or are grounded in human recurrent bodily movements through space, perceptual interactions and ways of manipulating objects”. Further, she points out that it follows that they are highly schematic  Image_Schema/Gestalts that capture the structural contours of sensory-motor experience, integrating information from multiple modalities and exist as continuous and analogue patterns beneath conscious awareness, prior to and independently of other concepts; and are both internally structured and highly ﬂexible.
Image schemas are integrally tied to perception and motor function, but serve as the bridge to higher-level cognition.

Michael Sinding Image schemas are simple, skeletal spatial relations concepts with a small number of parts and relations

Problems with Literature describing Image Schema

Definitions don't provide individuation criteria
Structure Problem : difficult to identify what constructs qualify to be defined by an image schema as similar structures are under the same image schema
Categorisation Problem : difficult to determine which image schema a particular construct belongs to.
Static vs Dynamic Problem
Maria M. Hedblom, O. Kutz, R. Peñaloza , G. Guizzardi static forms (e.g. Link, Containment and Center Periphery) and in dynamic, temporally-dependent forms (e.g. Linked Path, Going In and Revolving Movement)
Bennett and Cialone list eight kinds of static Image_Schema/Containment not including Image_Schema/In and Image_Schema/Out

Image_Schema/Static Image Schema Categories

In general, Image_Schema/Static Image Schemas ( Image_Schema/Static) fall into one of these categories: Image_Schema/Orientational, Image_Schema/Topological, and Image_Schema/Forcedynamic.

Image_Schema/Orientational

it specifies an orientation in space relative to the gravitational pull one feels on one’s body. Usually a human orientation

there are a number of topological schemas :

a Image_Schema/Topological schema of Image_Schema/Contact indicates an absence of a gap.

Image_Schema/Forcedynamic

there are several schemas that are forcedynamic in nature;
it indicates the direction and nature of a  Image_Schema/Force

in the Image_Schema/Support Image_Schema/Support Force Image_Schema/Balance to allow the Image_Schema/Supportee to stay on the Image_Schema/Surface of the Image_Schema/Supporter.

Image_Schema/Dynamic Image Schema Categories

shaped by culture and context (Hampe et al. 2005)

from Gibbs and Steen (1999) and Hampe (2005)

Image_Schema/Concrete Concept

Image_Schema/Abstract Concept

Image_Schema/Image Schema

Image_Schema/Metaphor

Image_Schema/Event

Image_Schema/Word

Image_Schema/Story

from Michael Sinding 2011 pp 239-257

from Don Freeman (1999) Image_Schema/Dynamic Image Schema amalgam of Image_Schema/Container and Image_Schema/Links and Image_Schema/Path provide a three stage progression in Antony and Cleopatra over figurative language imagery, plot, stage, offstage, business, and character.