대한언어학회 전자저널

Cho, Youngsoon. (2022). Problem-solving metaphors and their uses. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 30(4), 105-123. The purpose of this study is to describe the conceptual metaphor of problem-solving in American English and to analyze its use based on the COCA corpus. Since the puzzle metaphor was explained as a characteristic problem-solving metaphor of American culture in Lakoff and Johnson (1980), no detailed linguistic research has followed. In this study, we reveal that there are two prevalent types of conceptualizations of PROBLEM and PROBLEM-SOLVING in English: PROBLEM is a given task such as a puzzle, and PROBLEM-SOLVING is fulfilling the task by finding the correct answer; PROBLEM is a danger, and PROBLEM-SOLVING is eliminating the danger with or without the correct answer. In the first type of metaphors, there emerges an entailment that the correct answer is in the problem itself, not in the outside environment. Analyzing the use of metaphors reveals that the machine breakdown metaphor and the disease metaphor are major alternative metaphors to the puzzle metaphor. The two metaphors ask us to find the correct answer before eliminating a danger, showing that, in American culture, finding the correct answer is crucial in problem-solving regardless of how a problem is conceived.

# 문제은유(problem metaphor) # 문제해결은유(problem-solving metaphor) # 퍼즐은유(puzzle metaphor) # 기계고장은유(machine breakdown metaphor) # 질병은유(disease metaphor) # 임무로서의 문제(problem as a task) # 위험으로서의 문제(problem as a danger)

• 맥밀란 사전. https://www.macmillandictionary.com
• 한국어대사전. (2011). 서울: 고려대학교 출판부.
• Clement, D. (1982). Samoan cultural knowledge of mental disorders, In A. J. Marsella & G. M. White (Eds.), Cultural conceptions of mental health and therapy (pp. 192-215). Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company.
• D’Andrade, R. (1984). Cultural meaning systems. In R. A. Shweder & R. A. LeVine (Eds.), Culture theory: Essays on mind, self, and emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Gibbs, R. W. (1994). The poetics of mnd-figurative thought, language, and understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Holland, D., & Quinn, N. (1987). Cultural models in language and thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Kövecses, Z. (2005). Metaphor in culture: Universality and variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Kövecses, Z. (2006). Language, mind, and culture: A practical introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Lakoff, G. (1993). The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (pp. 202-251). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind & its challenge to western thought. New York: Basic Books.
• Lakoff, G., & Kövecses, Z. (1987). The cognitive model of anger inherent in American English. In D. Holland & N. Quinn (Eds.), Cultural models in language and thought (pp. 195–221). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Quinn, N. (1991). The cultural basis of metaphor. In J. W. Fernandez (Ed.), In beyond metaphor: The theory of tropes in anthropology (pp. 57-93). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• Schank, R. C., & Abelson, R. (1977). Scripts, plans, goals, and understanding: An inquiry into human knowledge structure. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbum Associates, Inc.
• Stefanowitsch, A. (2004). HAPPINESS in English and German: Metaphorical- pattern analysis. In M. Achard & S. Kemmer (Eds.), Language, culture, and mind. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
• Stefanowitsch, A. (2006). Corpus-based approaches to metaphor and metonymy. In A. Stefanowitsch & S. Gries (Eds.), Corpus-based approaches to metaphor and metonymy (pp. 1-16). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
• Wheeler, D. D. (2009). Metaphors for effective thinking. In J. Baron & R. V. Brown (Eds.), Teaching decision making to adolescents (pp. 309-328). New York: Routlegde.