Conceptual Metaphor Theory: Comparison between Czech and English

Metaphors. A term you have probably once heard in your literature class. But of course, time flies,
and it might have easily slipped your mind. If that is your case, read the previous sentence again.
Now, did you catch the hint(s)?

You may be used to thinking about metaphors as a matter of famous poems or Shakespearan drama. But
as you saw in that tricky sentence, it isn't the only way. In fact, I can tell with certainty that
you alone use metaphors on a daily basis. Does it sound quite hard to believe? Let me introduce you
to the Conceptual Metaphor Theory!


Where did it come from? A brief introduction

Linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson came up with this theory around 1980. They found out that
in language, we often describe some idea in terms of another concept. These terms occur in
systematic patterns, which tells us a lot about how our cognitive thinking works.

The different ideas are called conceptual domains. We can take the hidden example from the
beginning of this article: time flies. If we did not know the idiom, we might as well assume that
time is a flying object. So in this case, our source domain (the term we „borrow“ from a different
field) would be a flying object and the target domain (the concept we want to describe) would be
time.


Plot twist: Different languages are interrelated

Well, what we described above sounds lovely but that's just how metaphors work, am I right? Don't
worry, the most interesting part is yet to come (technically, I've already spoiled it in the
headline). Anyway, the surprising truth is that we can find similar source domains across different
languages.

Not only we have time flies in English, el tiempo vuela in Spanish and čas letí in Czech. Many
languages understand time as a horizontal line or path. We use expressions such as back in the day
and the future lies ahead. But did you know that Mandarin Chinese speakers understand the
progression of time in a vertical manner? They refer to the future as somewhere „down“ (e. g. the
next month is the lower month) and the past as „up“.


English vs. Czech: Is there a connection?

Let's leave other languages aside and look straight at English and Czech. The Conceptual Metaphor
Theory has been explored amongst many languages. However, Czech and English comparison can be found
only in a couple of bachelor theses on the internet. If you don't want to wade through dozens of
pages of academical text, I have made a summary of the most interesting interlingual connections.


The perception of emotions

We can find many similarities in idioms connected to emotions. Both Czech and English for example
consider anger in terms of the source domain heat, and, in opposition, calm in terms of cold. Thus,
we use collocations such as to heat someone up, to explode with anger, to cool down, and in Czech
oči mu plály hněvem (his eyes were burning with anger) or zachovat chladnou hlavu (keep your head
cool).

Both languages also use the directions „up“ and „down“ to describe one's mood. If you are happy,
your mood goes up. In English, you cheer up, and, when it is more intensive, you feel high. On the
other hand, when you are not feeling well, you cheer down, or, even worse, hit the bottom. In Czech
we often say hlavu vzhůru (head up) when someone is skleslý (downcast).

We sometimes refer to emotions as some kind of containers or pits a person falls in. But there is a
slight difference in English and Czech perception. In English, we can fall in love as well as fall
in despair. In Czech we use these metaphors only in a negative sense, as if we fell in a trap:
upadnout do deprese (fall in depression), vyhrabat se z těžké situace (to dig oneself out of a
difficult situation).


The perception of time

Except for the „flying time“ example which we've had enough of, time is also perceived as money or
wealth. Do you spend your time wisely or do you thoughtlessly waste it? In Czech, when something
costs a lot of time – stojí hodně času, are you willing to investovat (invest) it?

Time can metaphorically be a general possession, too. A person can „manage it on his own“. How much
time do you have for me? I can't lose another hour. Věnuj mi chvíli svého času (give me a part of
your time).


Let's wrap it up

If you're running out of time, don't worry, I have only a few words to add. We have learnt about
some of the related language metaphors between Czech and English. This was only a brief
acquaintance with the topic and if it caught your attention (you see? another great refference!), I
highly recommend you to discover more on your own. You can investigate your native language or
compare other languages that you know.

Don't forget to share your insights in the comments and I hope you will stay in a great frame of
mind!