Is 'Generic is Specific' a Metaphor?

MEANING, FORM AND BODY, pp. 309-327, Fey Parrill, Vera Tobin, and Mark Turner, eds., CSLI Publications, 2009

19 Pages Posted: 14 Feb 2010 Last revised: 29 Jan 2014

See all articles by Karen Sullivan

Karen Sullivan

University of Queensland

Eve Sweetser

University of California, Berkeley

Date Written: June 13, 2009

Abstract

Debate has raged for decades over what counts as metaphor. Do proverbs, such as "better the devil you know than the one you don’t," involve metaphor? When we refer to a generic-brand tissue as a Kleenex, is that a metaphor? In this paper, we observe that controversial examples such as these fall into the class of structures called "Generic is Specific" in Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson 1980).

We argue that "Generic is Specific" examples have complicated the debate between proponents of a conceptual theory of metaphor (Lakoff & Turner 1989) and detractors of this type of theory (McGlone 2007, Sperber & Wilson forthcoming). Furthermore, we suggest that Blending Theory (Fauconnier & Turner 2002) has the explanatory power to supersede this debate, and to show that "Is this structure a metaphor?" may be a less meaningful question than "How does this structure work?"

Blending Theory can represent the ways in which "Generic is Specific" blends look more or less like metaphor. In this paper, we find that these blends resemble metaphor to a greater or lesser degree depending on the similarity of the blends’ input spaces, the extent to which these spaces are structured by the same organizing frames, and the complexity of the blends’ mappings. According to our analysis, "Generic is Specific" blends map the family resemblances characterizing a category prototype to other category members. Some of these blends give the impression of metaphor, as in McGlone’s (2007) example "this journal is a gem," which ascribes the qualities of a prototypical valuable object to a journal; while others appear less like metaphor, such as Sperber and Wilson's (forthcoming) example of "here’s a Kleenex" used in reference to a generic-brand tissue.

Keywords: Blending, Mental Spaces, Conceptual Metaphor, Proverbs, Generic is Specific, Brand Names

Suggested Citation

Sullivan, Karen and Sweetser, Eve, Is 'Generic is Specific' a Metaphor? (June 13, 2009). MEANING, FORM AND BODY, pp. 309-327, Fey Parrill, Vera Tobin, and Mark Turner, eds., CSLI Publications, 2009, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1552584

Karen Sullivan (Contact Author)

University of Queensland ( email )

St Lucia
Brisbane, Queensland 4072
Australia

Eve Sweetser

University of California, Berkeley ( email )

310 Barrows Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
United States

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