Ibérica (Nov 2016)
Metaphors in Photography Language
Abstract
Metaphors have been the focus of many studies that embrace a wide range of aspects and diverse fields of knowledge given the colossal diversity of work now being undertaken (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 1987, 1993; Ortony, 1993; Kövecses, 1990, 2003, 2005, 2010; Gibbs, 2008; Forceville & Urios-Aparisi, 2009). They are no longer restricted to literature or poetry as an ornamental device, but they are present in everyday language including the technical fields. Numerous studies have been carried out on metaphor in different specialized discourses. However, little attention has been paid to the photography genre so far. The present paper, thus, focuses mainly on the use of verbal metaphor in the language of photography as one of many fields of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). The aim of this research is to investigate metaphors used to construct photographic concepts in the photography blogs which constitute the data of this study. The Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP) developed by the Pragglejaz Group (2007) has been used to identify metaphoric expression. The analysis of these metaphoric expressions was based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). The data analysis indicates that there is a great variety of conceptual metaphors present in photography blogs, projected through conceptual mapping from different source domains into the target domain, such as PHOTOGRAPHY IS A WAR, PHOTOGRAPHY IS HUNTING, PHOTOGRAPHY IS A GAME, A CAMERA IS A GUN, A CAMERA IS A PERSON, among others.
