Ontological Metaphor
Ontological metaphors are a type of conceptual metaphor that involve understanding abstract concepts as entities or substances, allowing us to talk about them as if they were concrete things. Examples include viewing time as a resource, treating a complex concept as a container, or using personification for abstract ideas. This allows us to reason about and communicate abstract ideas more easily.
Examples of ontological metaphors
- Containers: Viewing a situation as a container, like in “now you’re in trouble” or “how did you get out of doing the washing up?”.
- Substances: Conceptualizing something as a physical substance, such as when we talk about a “heart of gold” or describe someone as “full of energy”.
- Personification: Attributing human-like qualities to abstract concepts, as in “the cancer caught up with him” or “his professionalism wouldn’t let him cheat”.
- Entities: Treating an abstract concept as a discrete entity, for example, ” TIME IS A RESOURCE” from the conceptual metaphor that allows us to say things like “I am almost out of time”.
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[2] https://www.aieti.eu/enti/metaphor_ENG/entry.html
[4] https://journals.pan.pl/Content/131317/PDF/14_LINGUISTICA_30_Kuczok_METAPHOR.pdf?handler=pdf
[5] https://scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1015-87582021000200006