Métaphores chroniques. Pour une théorie de l’histoire des métaphores

Abstract

By developing a historical approach of the metaphor, this study aims to reconcile two opposing theoretical linguistic traditions, cognitive theory by one side, semantic theory by the other side. It is then to make compatible the analysis of metaphors called "usual" and metaphors called "creative". The approach is unique since this linguistic phenomenon has almost never been questioned in terms of the historian. It shall take account of the principle that a metaphor is a fact language as much as a historical fact and therefore it can be "signed and dated." For the purpose of the demonstration, with the search engine of Le Monde, the article specifically is interested in the metaphors present in newspapers ("Iron Curtain", "bamboo curtain", "paper tiger", etc.). On the assumption that conceptual metaphor, carrying a prejudgment, is only a raw material from which invents a phrasal expression, the historical behaviour of the studied metaphors follows a double movement (from creation to the evanescence and from conceptual generality to actualization). This reasoning leads to several significant dichotomies: the original metaphors (signed by author) oppose reported metaphors, endogenous metaphors (from the author's reference universe) to exogenous metaphors. In practical terms, this new conception of metaphor solves aporias and opens new theoretical horizons.