「読み」の方法としての方向づけの隠喩 : Gary Snyder の詩を例に

Abstract

The joy of reading poetry lies in discovering what has been filtered out from our cognitive processes. Since the early 80's, cognitive linguists have begun studying metaphors from the perspective not only of language but of the human conceptual system. According to this research, metaphors are a way of understanding one concept in terms of another by mapping the structure of a conceptual domain from one to another. What is more, there are highly conventionalized conceptual metaphors that are unconsciously and automatically used in our thought. Because academic interest has lain in showing the ubiquity of metaphors in human cognition, cognitive linguists and others have been emphasizing such basic metaphors as "MORE IS UP", "LESS IS DOWN". However, when interpreting poetry, the reader often has difficulties in understanding texts. This is because metaphors used by poets are not limited to basic ones. Metaphors such as "MORE IS UP" and "LESS IS DOWN" are called orientational metaphors because their conceptual connection occurs between the spatial and other types of conceptual domains. In the analysis of Gary Snyder's poem attempted here, I have reconstructed implied conceptual networks using the updown axis as a prop. For example, from the first line of the poem, Squat in swamp shadows, humidity and darkness are connected to "DOWN". Such networks show how the poet sees the world, and they also present less conventionalized orientational metaphors: "HUMIDITY IS DOWN" and "DARK IS DOWN". The source of knowledge used for constructing conceptual networks is mostly limited to the bodily experiences. As a result, "LIFE", "IN", "HUMIDITY" and "DARK" are all "DOWN". This contrasts with "DEATH", "DRY" and "LIGHT", which are all "UP".