The Metaphor of Light – Perspectives on Conceptual Metaphors

The language of perception, regarded from the perspective of the sensory modality principle, is common to all humans within similar cultural backgrounds. Its conceptualization, from a semantic standpoint is, however, language-specific. With this view in mind, the prime objective of this study is to investigate, from a cognitive linguistic perspective, various kinds of visual properties experienced in connection with the perceptual metaphor of LIGHT. Its cultural and emotional dimensions will be approached as an integrative part of the context provided by Anthony Doerr’s novel All the Light We Cannot See (2014). The present investigation attempts to shed “light” upon the potential embodiment of meaning assigned to the metaphors of perception in a twofold, intrafield (Matisoff 1978, Evans & Wilkins 2000) and transfield standpoint. The conceptualization of the metaphor of light is observed in a contextualized approach of a single language (English), its secondary objective being that of providing the basis for a larger cross-linguistic investigation of similar matters on English–Romanian corpora.