“Metaphors we learnt by”: Cultural traditions and metaphorical patterns in the Old English vocabulary of “knowledge”.

Abstract

This paper deals with the diachronic analysis of the development, form and function of a set of metaphors found in Old English language, literature, society and iconography. More exactly I will focus here on the role of these metaphors as a pervasive factor of diachronic change, with special attention to the earliest stages of development of the English language. Given the Mind-as-Body Metaphor as a background, I will try to reconstruct here some basic connections between the earlier concrete and historically later meanings of perception verbs in Old English. In doing so, I intend to reconstruct some of the semantic connections drawn by Anglo-Saxon speakers and “reflect the culturally important features of objects, institutions and activities in the society in which language operated” (Lyons 43).