The biblical story retold
-
Zoltán Kövecses
Abstract
In this chapter I offer one, or a small set of, possible interpretation(s) of the basic story of the Bible. I suggest that the symbolic meaning of the story derives in large part from conceptual structures and conceptual mechanisms that are shared by a large number of speakers of English and other languages belonging to the European cultural sphere. My claim is that a large part of the dominant features of Christianity can be understood on the basis of people’s everyday conceptual system and that the understanding of these features does not require an entirely independently existing conceptual apparatus that is somehow unique to the interpretation of the sacred.
Abstract
In this chapter I offer one, or a small set of, possible interpretation(s) of the basic story of the Bible. I suggest that the symbolic meaning of the story derives in large part from conceptual structures and conceptual mechanisms that are shared by a large number of speakers of English and other languages belonging to the European cultural sphere. My claim is that a large part of the dominant features of Christianity can be understood on the basis of people’s everyday conceptual system and that the understanding of these features does not require an entirely independently existing conceptual apparatus that is somehow unique to the interpretation of the sacred.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Editors and contributors vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part 1. Setting the scene
- Convergence in cognitive linguistics 9
- An overview of cognitive linguistics 17
-
Part 2. Consolidating the paradigm
- Pattern versus process concepts of grammar and mind 47
- Metaphor in language and thought 67
- Emotion and desire in independent complement clauses 87
- Schematic meaning of the Croatian verbal prefix iz- 115
- The conceptual motivation of bahuvrihi compounds in English and Spanish 151
- On the subject of impersonals 179
-
Part 3. Expanding the paradigm
- Do people infer the entailments of conceptual metaphors during verbal metaphor understanding? 221
- Corpus data in usage-based linguistics 237
- Cognitive linguistics meets the corpus 257
- Oops blush! 291
- Conceptual construal and social construction 305
- The biblical story retold 325
- Name index 355
- Subject index 359
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Editors and contributors vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part 1. Setting the scene
- Convergence in cognitive linguistics 9
- An overview of cognitive linguistics 17
-
Part 2. Consolidating the paradigm
- Pattern versus process concepts of grammar and mind 47
- Metaphor in language and thought 67
- Emotion and desire in independent complement clauses 87
- Schematic meaning of the Croatian verbal prefix iz- 115
- The conceptual motivation of bahuvrihi compounds in English and Spanish 151
- On the subject of impersonals 179
-
Part 3. Expanding the paradigm
- Do people infer the entailments of conceptual metaphors during verbal metaphor understanding? 221
- Corpus data in usage-based linguistics 237
- Cognitive linguistics meets the corpus 257
- Oops blush! 291
- Conceptual construal and social construction 305
- The biblical story retold 325
- Name index 355
- Subject index 359
