Levels of metaphor

Abstract What is the appropriate conceptual structure involved in conceptual metaphors? Various authors offer a large number of terms to discuss the issue. While domain is the most common term, many others are also used, including frame, image schema, cognitive model, idealized cognitive model, scene, schema, scenario, etc. The problem is compounded by the fact that the terms mean different things to different researchers. The main goal of the paper is to create some clarity in this terminological and theoretical confusion. I propose that conceptual metaphors simultaneously involve conceptual structures, or units, on four levels of schematicity: the level of image schemas, the level of domains, the level of frames, and the level of mental spaces. I call the resulting framework the “multi-level view of conceptual metaphor.” The multi-level view of metaphor can provide us with insights into a number of problems that have been raised and debated in the CMT literature. I show that the study of metaphor within such a framework can legitimately be pursued on the four levels of schematicity and that no level can be singled out as the only appropriate level of analysis.