engleski

Space and time dimension in the conceptual metaphor life is a journey: The concept of success and failure in business on the examle of Lee Iacocca

Our cognition of Life and Death is closely connected with our cognition of time and space. What we used to be, what we are, and what we shall be is spinning in a vicious circle of a man's dream of Success, and fear of Failure. In order to make intangible abstract concepts such as TIME, SUCCESS, FAILURE, tangible, we turn them into “ semantically grounded” concepts from lower-level domains of physical experience that are reflected in conceptual metaphors. In fact, it is the analysis of abstract concepts that gives us the proof of the omnipresence of conceptual metaphors in the usage of language in everyday life. For example, by means of series of events and space metaphors, subconsciously and automatically we experience Time as physical experience of our body and mind. Hence, our understanding of the abstract concepts of TIME, SUCCESS, FAILURE depends on understanding metaphors for TIME, SUCCESS, FAILURE. In this paper, we have focused on primary metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY, as it is one of our fundamental ways of conceptualising a business career. Since metaphorical mappings are rarely identical in two different languages, we have analysed English original and Croatian translation of metaphors and image schemas in Lee Iaccocca’ s Autobiography whose name is connected with two famous corporations Ford and Crysler. Generally speaking, UP always carries positive attributes, whereas DOWN denotes failure and negative trends. Therefore, as expected, Iaccocca describes the beginning of his successful business career with image schemas such as Climbing UP, his great success as being on the Top of the World and then, his failure as a Fall from Mt, Everest.

conceptual metaphor; image schema; abstract concept; time; success; failure

nije evidentirano