The FORCE and BALANCE schemas in journey metaphor animations

A central claim of Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory is that human beings systematically understand abstract and complex phenomena in terms of concrete phenomena, the latter being phenomena that pertain to sensory perception and bodily behaviour. For this reason CMT is also known as the embodied cognition theory of metaphor. One such deeply embodied metaphor is LIFE IS A JOURNEY or, more technically, LONG-TERM PURPOSIVE ACTIVITY IS SELF-PROPELLED MOTION TOWARD A DESTINATION. Human beings often understand achieving goals in life in terms of undertaking a journey. Since metaphor is "not a figure of speech, but a mode of thought" (Lakoff 1993, 210), this metaphor should appear in non-verbal forms no less than in language. In earlier work I analysed the JOURNEY metaphor in a number of animation films. Expanding on these studies, I here focus on two of its specific dimensions: the FORCE and the BALANCE schemas, demonstrating that the metaphorical potential of these schemas is highly pertinent in journey films of the animated kind. Arguably, they moreover retain some of their impact in the medium of dance.

Keywords: conceptual metaphor; visual & multimodal metaphor; LIFE IS A JOURNEY; embodied cognition; FORCE schema; BALANCE schema; animation.