Metaphorical Extension 4w165h

Introduction Extension of meaning is by far the commonest kind of change that takes place in Semantic structure of words, and it is a manifestation of the tendency to language towards economy, or, in the words of Chomsky, to make infinite use of finite resources. It explains why there is always more meaning than words. Existing words are given additional meanings and it helps ambiguity is not likely to arise and hinder efficient communication. Metaphor is an obvious manifestation of extension of meaning and the polysemic nature of language. Words referring to everyday objects and activities very often take on more abstract meaning through metaphorical extension. For example, if I use the word foot in the phrase foot in the hill, I am extending its use metaphorically beyond its application to an extremity of the human body. It covers the sense „bottom part of a natural elevation of the earth‟s surface‟. Projecting the concept of human body onto other concepts, hence the construction of new concepts is called human body metaphor. The human body metaphor is conceptual in nature so that people are able to perceive and understand complicated and abstract concepts in of body parts. Metaphor is deeply rooted in our daily life, and it links the human body and life closely together. The Greek Philosopher Protagoras states that “man is the measure of all things” (Wikipedia 2009 protagoras). Since the primitive society, people have regarded their own body as the measure of all things around, applied the cognitive experience of human body to the cognition of other things, and projected a certain part of the body onto other things in order to understand the world. In this paper, I examine the effects of metaphorical interpretation on the extension of words „hair‟ and „face’. I examine the power of metaphor to explain the non-literal senses of lexis from the field of the human body.

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The hair and face are the most eye-catching part of the body and a universal marker of human identity. They convey a lot of information about its wearer: it signifies his/her gender, social position, cultural heritage, political view and so on. Hair can be shaped into a range of versatile styles and it conveys symbolic meaning throughout the world since ancient times. Hair is not merely a body part, but also an incarnation of their deeply-held believes, evaluations, wishes, dreams and so on. This study is done within the framework of semantics and focuses on how metaphors are reflected in English expressions containing the term „hair‟ and „face’. Analysis and discussion In this part, the analysis and discussion will firstly address the metaphorical extensions. The expressions reflecting metaphors are marked in bold italics. Human body parts are commonly metaphorically used to understand other things in the world, and hair and face are probably among the frequently used body parts to map onto other concepts in order to perceive them. Semanticists (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 1999; Gibbs 1994) maintain that the mind is embodied. Since human beings share a basic body structure, and have many common body experiences, it follows that different languages should have the same, or at least similar metaphors. In the Amharic speaking culture, hair split to mean a critical observation of talks, issues, plans, actions, and results. Curly haired connotes slavery and ugliness. Disparate haired has an extension of dissimilarity in race, religion, language and ideology. Hair cutting and hair blazing connote witchcrafts and their fellows. Hair puffing means that people who deliberately create irritating situations. Most Amharic metaphors of the hair have extension meanings to critical observations, irritation, anger and difference.

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The hair use to describing beauty Hair metaphors in English speaking culture are mostly bound to beauty: the beautiful, the handsome or the ugly. Examples are her hair was silk; her hair was as painfully as chilli powder rubbed into a blister with blood in it; her is hair like a brittle crow’s nest; old women are with hair like feather dusters; she has a beautiful waterfall of hair; a few hairs spread carefully over his head like fiddle strings; Lance’s hair looked as though it could scour pans and finally, her beautiful hair gleamed like molten gold in the warm firelight. The hair is the surface or place where emotions are displayed The hair is metaphorically understood as a place, a stage or a platform where the emotions or the expression are displayed. Consider the following examples: Other than it tells about beauty, there are some non-literal meanings behind the word „hair‟. A hair is being very small in diameter, splitting one would result in something extremely small, not to mention the amount of care and dexterity required perform a task, assuming it is possible in the first place. Idiomatically, „splitting hair‟ refers to arguing about very small differences or unimportant details as in „She earns three times what I earn. ‘Actually, it’s more like two and a half, ‘Oh stop splitting hairs!’. Hair is used idiomatically in the following phrases. To make one’s hair stand on end means to awaken fear, cause alarm that everyone terror in. In response to fear, goose bumps cause the hair to stand up. For example, If I were to tell you some incidents of my life since you and I last met, I should make your hair stand on end. The previous utterance is taken from J.S. Winter Army Society III.

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Another hair metaphor describing about emotion is make someone‟s hair curl is usually used by Americans. It means that to frighten or to alarm someone with sight, sound and or taste. For example, “Don’t ever sneak up on me like that again, you really curled my hair. The horror film made my hair curl. Hair-raising means extremely frightening and often exciting as in but it was Washington who stole the show with a hair-raising interpretation of Hallelujah. Hair usually used to describe fear because hair on skin is the very first human body part which respond to fear and exciting feeling. According to Oxford dictionary 8th edition, let one’s hair down means to behave in a free and relaxed manner. This idiom had used in various fairy tales stories. For example, its best known line (“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let your hair down”) is an idiom of popular culture. To take a hair of the dog or wolf that bite one means to take more of the same or a similar things as caused discomfort, sickness or trouble as a cure especially to drink more liquor in the morning to counteract expresses of the night before. In ancient times it was literally used to say that if a dog were bite you, putting the dog‟s hair into the wound would heal it. This hangover remedy is not recommended because it leads to a bad habit of drinking during the day and it does not really works well. For example, Steve: Man, I’m really paying for all those keg stands I did last night. Tony: Yeah, I’m hurting too. Hair of the dog or wolf? Steve: Why not, man. We got few bars left in the fridge. Similarly, the hair style made by people can have an artistic metaphoric meaning according to the socio-cultural in focus. To illustrate this, old Zandra dyes her hair so often that her port photo has a color-wheel; her hair was so tightly pulled back that she looked like a cod; Joan Collins looks like she combs her hair with an egg beater; his hair was implausibly gelled like a

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photograph of a rainforest that instant after a bomb explosion; her hair was provocatively curled in bouncing question marks. These metaphors are immediate or persistent criticisms to the hair style of the beholders. In addition, the hair metaphor: his bald dome shone brightly as though a snail had covered every inch in a trail of grease, an indirect insult to the bald people. Some hair metaphors may have emotional meanings of loneliness and hopelessness like tonight, I feel like the last hair on a head going bald. The metaphor reflected in the use of face The face is the surface of a concrete domain The face is symbolized as the surface of a person, thus if the human body is used as the source domain to understand other concrete concepts, the face is mapped onto the surface of other concrete objects according to a similarity in structure. Therefore, there is the metaphor about the surface of a concrete thing is the face. The examples are: a) A dice has six faces b) Face of a watch/ clock c) The face of the cliff loomed about them. d) Put a big sign on each face of the building that can be seen from the road. e) They climbed the north face of the mountain. f) She wanted to wipe him off the face of the earth. Obviously, the target domains in these examples are dice, watch, cliff, building, mountain and earth while the other source domains of them all are the human body. According to Great Chain

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of Being Metaphor system (Lakoff and Turner1989: 170), the human body is used to understand concepts at another level of the system. For example, from the higher human level to a lower level- the complex objects level (watch, clock and building) or the natural physical things (cliff, mountain and earth). For example, in example (d) face of the building is drawn of the metaphor a building is a human body. The face is the conceptual external image of an abstract domain People are not satisfied understanding the concrete material world, but turn to perceive abstract field. The human body is frequently used to understand abstract things. When the target is an abstract concept, the face is usually metaphorically used to display the conceptual external image of it. Examples for this kind of metaphor are commonly seen and listed in the following: a) The face of this company. b) The whole face of the country was covered with deep snow, and the frost intense. c) Launching a report on the changing face of England over the past 50 years. d) This new generation has changed the face of business. Conclusion The use of metaphor is based on the rules among language speakers, so it will sound strange. It means that if we did not use to using metaphors in our conversation, it will be strange because the meaning of metaphorical is unreal. It will be complicated if we did not understand well. So, if we want to understand it well, we have to know how it is used in certain aspect or society that metaphor exists. The metaphorical extensions of the body parts are semantically understood as very unrelated to the real, natural or grammatical meaning expected to associate. It is necessary to point out that the domain of body parts is highly metaphorical. They are very productive 6

source concepts for metaphorical extensions. Hence, intercommunication becomes very problematic as they are embodied in the culture of the language are being spoken. They also require meaningful with from the language and the society. These extensional meanings are due to socio-economic, cultural, educational and political experiences of the people who have produced them in history of survival. They are very easy to produce but difficult to interpret and understand; they need a big head, a thoughtful heart, a careful tongue and a pure blood.

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References 1. Goatly, A. (1997). The Language of Metaphors. London and New York: Routledge. 2. Johnson, M. (1987). The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago. 3. Kövecses, Z. (2006). Language, Mind, and Culture: a practical introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 4. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh –The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York : Basic Books. 5. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (2003). Metaphors We Live By (2nd edition). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 6. Kövecses, Z. (2002). Metaphor. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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