On the problem of the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign in the study of conceptual metaphor

Maikel Alexander Ramírez Álvarez

• Maikel Alexander Ramírez Álvarez Universidad Simón Bolívar

Abstract

The aim of this essay was to question the applicability of the notion of arbitrariness of the linguistic sign in the study of conceptual metaphor.
For this purpose, a corpus was selected that showed that, on the contrary,
the notion that allows the deep study of conceptual metaphor is that of
bodily motivation, understood in the natural and cultural sense of the
term. It was observed that the scheme of meaning proposed by Saussure
(1945) forces a search for primordial images and objective similarities
that are incompatible with corporeality and the imaginative and partial
correspondences with which the conceptual metaphor functions. This
points towards the reformulation of the notions of meaning and dead
metaphor as they function today.

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