Image Schemas, Cognitive Metaphor, and Film: Bridging Discourses

There has been active exploration of the role of cognitive metaphor theory and image schemas in the audiovisual analysis of film for a considerable time. Starting from primarily literary concerns, however, many of these remain interpretative in orientation. This means that likely metaphors, blends, and image schemas are proposed for pieces of film and adopted as scaffolds for largely discursive analysis. In the meantime, there has been considerable progress in refining the notion of image schemas and suggestions have been made both for logical formalisations of image schemes and for explicit connections to computational work and reasoning. Until now, these two areas of research involving image schemas have had little contact. In this position paper, I offer a brief review of the current state of the art in discussing film in terms of image schemas and metaphor and consider methods by which this could be brought together more closely with formal and computational accounts with benefits for both sides. As potential lines of development for the future, it is suggested that: (a) filmic representations may offer a highly appropriate method for depicting image schemas, and (b) we still need to consider formalisations of image schemas that directly engage with issues of first-person embodiment and simulation.