A metáfora conceitual "subir na vida"

Abstract

This investigation relates the ways of constructing the conceptual metaphor of MOVING UP IN THE WORLD (SUBIR NA VIDA, in Portuguese) to the abstract representation of the staircase and upward and downward movements. The context in which this metaphor circulates was taken from a journalistic television article that discusses meritocracy as a fallacy to justify social inequalities under the allegation that the individual’s efforts is the only result to social and economic mobility. The object of study discusses the association of different representations of upward and downward movements on staircases and directional orientations to make abstract concepts —such as social mobility and social inequality— more concrete. The purpose is to analyze and explain the processes involved in this metaphorical construction using the premises of Cognitive Linguistics, especially Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) theory of metaphor. This approach understands language as a human ability incorporated into the individual’s global cognition; i.e., it is related to cognitive abilities such as metaphorization, categorization, prototypicality, among others. Within this theoretical background, the methodologic procedures applied were the following: (i) contextualization of how the conceptual metaphor MOVE UP IN THE WORLD was used in the television program selected; (ii) detailing the different associative processes created between the source and the target domains and how they are triggered to produce the metaphor; (iii) explanation of how the investigated phenomenon is a metaphorical and complementary verbal-visual projection. The results indicated that there is an instantiation of a verbal-visual metaphor from the symbolic imagery representation of the “staircase”, exploring its possibilities of directional orientation related to upward and downward movements, with or without mechanical action. It is through this verbal-visual instantiation that the aforementioned metaphor occurs for a critical approach to the concept of meritocracy, supported by the television article.