Embodiment is not the answer to meaning: a discussion of the theory underlying the article by Carina Rasse and Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. in JLS 50(1)

Abstract

Abstract This article offers a critical response to the discussion in Carina Rasse and Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. article in JLS 50(1) entitled, Metaphorical Thinking in Our Literary Experiences of J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”. My paper reconsiders how different the paradigm of cognitive linguistics, particularly in the tradition of conceptual metaphor research, is to that of discourse linguistics, especially in the hermeneutic tradition. Do the two approaches aim at irreconcilable objectives, particularly as cognitive linguistics is focussed on what happens in people’s heads and/or bodies when creating an utterance, whereas I argue that as language is social, it is about the communication of meaning. Discourse linguistics explores what it takes to make sense, to consciously interpret utterances in their contexts, as what an utterance means is how it is intertextually linked to other related utterances. In other words, the meaning of any segment of an utterance of a text, is the sum of the ways in which this segment has been paraphrased in related occurrences. In this paper, I present the two frameworks from my own, strongly biased, perspective.