The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics

[ Article ]

Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 22, No. 0, pp.136-152

ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print) 2586-7474 (Online)

Print publication date 31 Jan 2022

Received 22 Nov 2021 Revised 18 Feb 2022 Accepted 27 Feb 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.21..202202.136

Primary Metaphors for LIFE IS A BASEBALL GAME

Youngju Choi

Professor, Chosun Univ., Tel: 062-609-5132 ychoi1@chosun.ac.kr

© 2022 KASELL All rights reserved
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Grady (1996, 1997a, 1997b) argues that some metaphors, such as THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS, IDEAS ARE FOOD, and LIFE IS A JOURNEY, are complex metaphors that can be reanalyzed with primary ones. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that LIFE IS A BASEBALL GAME is one such metaphor. The metaphor is decomposed into two primary metaphors, PURPOSES ARE DESIRED OBJECTS and MAKING PROGRESS IS SCORING. This reanalysis will reveal that the metaphor LIFE IS A BASEBALL GAME is a dual of the LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor. This discovery suggests that many other well-known metaphors could be fruitfully reanalyzed as complex metaphors, allowing their relationships with other metaphors to be much more clearly recognized.

Keywords:

primary metaphor, LIFE IS A SPORTING GAME, LIFE IS A JOURNEY, metaphorical duality

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by research fund from Chosun University, 2021.

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