Selected aspects of the conceptualisation of success in English and Polish

Katarzyna Lach-Mirghani

University of Białystok, Poland

Katarzyna Lach Mirghani is a Master’s student of Linguistics at the University of Białystok, Poland. Her research interests include cognitive linguistics and computational linguistics. Her current research focuses on conceptual metaphors.


https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3651-0825


Abstrakt

Conceptualisation is “the process of meaning construction to which language contributes. It does so by providing access to rich encyclopaedic knowledge and by prompting for complex processes of conceptual integration” (Evans 2007: 38). Concrete, non-abstract entities are easy to grasp and to conceptualise with the use of the senses. A problem occurs when the mind has to form an idea about abstract concepts that cannot be seen, heard, smelled, or tasted. Linguists (Evans & Green 2006; Gibbs 1999; Kövecses 2010; Lakoff 1986; Lakoff & Johnson 2003) proved that people share a tendency to create conceptual analogies between abstract concepts and concrete entities by mapping the properties of the latter upon the former. It has been proved (Trojszczak 2016, 2017) that people share conceptualisations
between languages. The primary goal of this comparative study was to examine the conceptualisation of success in two languages, English and Polish, in order to identify differences and similarities. The results of the study proved that people share the conceptualisation of the analysed target domain in both languages, which means they understand success in the same terms. There is a difference in the intensity, however; some metaphors are more widely used in one language and some in the other. There is also a difference in the linguistic expressions that constitute the conceptualisations.


Aijmer, K. 2004. The semantic path from modality to aspect. In: H. Lindquist & C. Mair (eds.), Corpus Approaches to Grammaticalization in English, 57-78. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Aston, G. & Burnard, L. 1998. The BNC Handbook. Exploring the British National Corpus with SARA. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Comrie, B., Haspelmath, M. & Bickel, B. 2015 (May 31). The Leipzig Glossing Rules. Retrieved from https://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/pdf/Glossing-Rules.pdf (21 March 2019)

Croft, W. & Cruse, D. A. 2004. Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cottrell, S. 2003. Skills for Success. Personal Development and Employability. London: Pelgrave Macmillan.

Davies, M. 2010. The Corpus of Contemporary American English as the first reliable monitor corpus of English. Literacy and Linguistic Computing 25(4): 447-465.

Deutscher, G. 2005. The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind’s Greatest Invention. New York: Metropolitan Books.

Drabik, L., Kubiak-Sokół, A., Sobol, E. & Wiśniakowska, L. 2018. Słownik Języka Polskiego PWN. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

Evans, V. & and Green, M. 2006. Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Evans, V. 2007. A Glossary of Cognitive Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Gibbs, R. W. 1999. The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Gunz, H. P. & Heslin, P. A. 2005. Reconceptualizing career success. Journal of Organizational Behavior 26: 105-111.

Heslin, P. A. 2005. Conceptualizing and evaluating career success. Journal of Organizational Behavior 26: 113-136.

Hall, D. T. 2005. Psychological success: When the career is a calling. Journal of Organizational Behavior 26: 155-176.

Kövecses, Z. 2010. Metaphor. A Practical Introduction. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.

Lakoff, G. 1986. The meanings of literal. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity Journal 1(4): 291-296.

Lakoff, G. 1987. Women Fire and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.

Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. 2003. Metaphors We Live By. 2nd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press (1st ed. 1980).

Lakoff, G. & Turner, M. 1989. More than Cool Reason: a Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Łącka-Badura, J. 2016. Metaphorical conceptualization of success in American success books, aphorisms and quotes. Lingua Posnaniensis 58: 39-54.

McEnery, T. & Hardie, A. 2012. Corpus Linguistics. Method, Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McGlone, M. S. 2007. What is the explanatory value of a conceptual metaphor? Language & Communication 27: 109-126.

Pollio, H. R., Barlow, J. M., Fine, H. J. & Pollio, M. R. 1977. Psychology and the Poetics of Growth: Figurative Language in Psychology, Psychotherapy, and Education. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.

Pragglejaz Group. 2007. MIP: A method for identifying metaphorically used words in discourse. Metaphor and Symbol 22(1): 1-39.

Przepiórkowski, A., Bańko, M., Górski, R. L. & Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, B. (eds.), 2012. Narodowy Korpus Języka Polskiego. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

Reddy, M. 1993. The conduit metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language about language. In: A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought, 2nd. ed., 164-201. New York: Cambridge University Press (1st ed. 1979).

Rumelhart, D. E. 1993. Problems with literal meanings. In: A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought, 2nd ed., 71-81. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Rundell, M. & Fox, G. (eds.). 2002. Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners. Oxford: Macmillan Education.

Searle, J. R. 1979. Expression and Meaning. Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Stefanowitsch, A. 2006. Corpus-based approaches to metaphor and metonymy”. In: A. Stefanowitsch & S. Th. (eds.), Corpus-based Approaches to Metaphor and Metonymy, 1-17. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Trojszczak, M. 2016. Selected aspects of conceptualization of ‘insight’ in English and Polish. In: I. Czwenar, D. Gonigroszek & A. Stanecka (eds.), Foreign Languages and Cultures: Contemporary Contexts, 57-68. Piotrków Trybunalski: Naukowe Wydawnictwo Potrkowskie.

Trojszczak, M. 2017. ‘Problem solving’ in English and Polish – a cognitive study of selected metaphorical conceptualizations. In: J. T. Waliński & P. Pęzik (eds.), Language, Corpora, and Cognition, 200-219. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.


Opublikowane
2021-03-27


Lach-Mirghani, K. (2021) „Selected aspects of the conceptualisation of success in English and Polish”, Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies, (31), s. 109–129. doi: 10.15290/CR.2020.31.4.06.

Katarzyna Lach-Mirghani 
University of Białystok, Poland

Katarzyna Lach Mirghani is a Master’s student of Linguistics at the University of Białystok, Poland. Her research interests include cognitive linguistics and computational linguistics. Her current research focuses on conceptual metaphors.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3651-0825