Czy idąc prosto przed siebie, nie można zajść daleko?
Is It True that “If You Run Ahead of Yourself, You Cannot Go Very Far”?

Image Schemata and Aphorisms

Summary/Abstract: The author uses a cognitive tool called image schemata to analyse aphorisms. The schemata originate from early bodily experience and are enable to ground the phenomenon of linguistic meaning there. The aphorism is defined not only as a linguistic fact but as a conceptual structure based on an axiological clash. The clash results from profiling opposite values in the used schemata. Considering the language-values relationship, the article adopts a cognitive linguistics approach which claims that valuation is an immanent part of symbolic language units and it mustn’t be relegated to the area of pragmatics. Following Krzeszowski’s concept, the author assumes that preconceptual schemata interact with the SCALE schema. The hearer/reader of the self-contradictory expression must reinterpret it using metaphorical meanings. These are easily available thanks to conceptual metaphors which include image schemata in their source domains.

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