On the afternoon of November 11, 2019, Professor Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez at University of La Rioja, Spain, delivered the first of a series of lectures at School of Foreign Languages. Dedicated to conceptual metaphor and figure of speech, the prominent scholar is lecturing from November 11 to November 15, 2019. His first lecture “Conceptual metaphor theory types: Metaphor types, cognitive prominence,and cognitive constraints” was hosted by Prof. Yang Chaojun, Dean of School of Foreign Languages. Over 100 postgraduates and faculty members sat in the lecture with interest and excitement.
At the beginning, Professor Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez defined metaphor as “conceptual mapping (a set of correspondences) from the source domain(traditional vehicle) to the target domain(traditional tenor)” by using a sentence example: “Life is a journey”. Then he carried out a diachronic description of the research on metaphor. He then traced the origin of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and recalled its initial classification such as ontological, structural, orientational by Lakoff & Johnson in 1980. After a detailed explanation of traditional types of CMT, Mendoza spelled out “image metaphor” coined by Lakoff & Turner in 1989 and its characteristics:one-shot mappings(unconventional), not used in everyday reasoning, non-idiomatic etc. Afterwards, Mendoza continued to introduce the recent development of CMT named a combing perspective by Lakeoff and Johnson in 1999, in which the two scholars argued the integration of theories such as conflation, primary metaphor, neural theory, conceptual blending in 1990s. Finally, he reviewed those theories and refuted some linguists’ criticism on CMT by pointing out their flaws and misunderstandings.
Professor Mendoza’s humorous speech and theoretical interpretation of CMT brought down the house. Graduates were fascinated by his explanation with vivid examples and exaggerating facial expressions. His thought-provoking lecture offers deep insight in conceptual metaphor theory and provides graduates with enlightenment over linguistic research.
Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza is a professor in College of Humanities and Education at the University of La Rioja. With a PhD in English linguistics, Prof. Mendoza works on cognitive linguistics, construction grammar, inferential pragmatics and functional approaches to language. He has coordinated funded work on figurative language from scholars across Europe, many of them part of the Lexicom research group, which he co-founded. He has published extensively on metaphor, metonymy, illocution, and has created, with professor Ricardo Mairal, the Lexical Constructional Model. He has edited or co-edited several books: Cognitive Linguistics: Internal Dynamics and Interdisciplinary Interaction (2005, Mouton), Cognitive Linguistics: Current Applications and Future Perspectives (2006, Mouton), Defining Metonymy in Cognitive Linguistics: Towards a Consensus View (2011, John Benjamins), Theory and Practice in Functional-Cognitive Space (2014, John Benjamins), The Functional Perspective on Language and Discourse: Applications and Implications (2014, John Benjamins). (authors: Li Pandeng, Jian Xuemiao)
