Criticisms of cognitive metaphor theory cited by Haser

In the "Introductory remarks" of her aggressively polemic book Metaphor, Metonymy, and Experientialist Philosophy (2005), Verena Haser cites a number of relatively recent works that criticizing cognitive metaphor theory.

The list contains the following items:

• Michiel Leezenberg: Contexts of Metaphor (2001)
• Matthew McGlone: "Concepts as metaphors," in Sam Glucksberg: Understanding Figurative Language (2001)
• Dirk Geeraerts: "Cognitive semantics and the history of philosophical epistemology," in Geiger and Rudzka-Ostyn (eds.): Conceptualizations and Mental Processing in Language (1993)
• Olaf Jäkel: "Kant, Blumenberg, Weinrich," in Gibbs and Steen (eds.): Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics (1999)
• John R. Taylor: "Category extension by metonomy and metaphor," in Dirven and Pörings (eds.): Metaphor and Metonymy in Comparison and Contrast (2002)
• Petra Drewer: Die Kognitive Metapher als Werkzeug des Denkens (2003)
• Marina Rakova: The Extent of the Literal (2003)

Fortunately, I'm already more or less halfway through this list. Surprisingly, the most prominent scholar on her list happens to sit in an office just across the hall from where I am sitting right now.

Caroline Gevaert: "The ANGER IS HEAT question" (2005)

In defense of Geeraerts and Gondelaers' (1995) hypothesis about the historical origin of the ANGER IS HEAT metaphor, Caroline Gevaert examines some Old English corpus material and concludes that the metaphor was indeed in all likelihood inherited from Latin scholarship.

As a part of her argument, she acknowledges that test subjects' body heat increases slightly (about .1 degree celsius) when they make an angry face, apparently supporting a physiological basis for ANGER IS HEAT. However, she then comments that this temperature increase also occurs when subjects mimic other emotions, suggesting that I was boiling with sadness should be equally natural (p. 197).

She also notes that the evidence from Chinese actually seems to contradict the theory, referring only to chilies (and, presumably, their red color) and not to heat or flames (p. 196). The Native American language Chikasaw similarly does not seem to support the hypothesis.

Zoltán Kövecses: "Anger" (1995)

Looking back at the case study on anger metaphors in Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things (1987), Zoltán Kövecses clarifies and elaborates his views on the respective roles of culture and body in the shaping of languages.

He reiterates that human physiology constrains metaphor systems (p. 195), but now also concedes that "there may be differences between cultures in both conceptualized and real physiology" (p. 193). Thus, upon reflection, he admits that concepts are "influenced by both culture and the human body" (p. 182).

The assertion that anger may differ physiologically across cultures is followed by a reference to a paper by Robert C. Solomon, "Getting Angry" (1984). From what I gather, the paper contains some anthropological reflection on William James' theory of emotions.

The paper is written partly as a response to Dirk Geeraerts and Stefan Gondelaers' contribution to the same volume, "Looking back at anger."

Geeraerts and Gondelaers' point is (according to Kövecses' summary) that the fluid concepts for anger in English are actually remnants of the medieval theory of the humors, in which moods were explained in terms of imbalances between bodily fluids.

Kövecses' paper seems quite sound and insightful. I would perhaps only add that separating body and culture appears increasingly difficult given that bodies differ, body images differ, and that behavior depends on both.