THE ROLE OF PERCEPTUAL METAPHOR IN THE IMAGIC REPRESENTATIONS OF BALLROOM DANCING

Abstract

The article discusses the role of perceptual metaphor in representations of ballroom dance. Ballroom dance stimulates a set of feelings and images due to the polymodal perception of body movements. These manifest simultaneously in imagic and verbal modes. The latter appears as a set of linguistic metaphors frequently employed in choreographic discourse.

To discover perceptual images of ball dance and their verbalizations, 200 metaphorical expressions were selected from modern choreographic texts in English (the total of 150 pieces). The results of the study can be summarized as follows: perceptual metaphors play an important role in the processes of encoding knowledge; the content of perceptual metaphors involved in ballroom dance representations correlates with various perception modalities; both intramodal and intermodal patterns of metaphorical transfers are at work; out of the two basic mechanisms involved into metaphorizing processes, the first one deals with associating similarities between dance movements features and those of entities from other cognitive domains (body movement – a wavelike movement of liquid, a flow of water, etc.); the second mechanism of perceptual metaphor formation is based on endowing dance movements with atypical properties, analogically established between the domains of perception and dancing body movements (‘soft’/’sharp’, ‘sweet’/’spicy’, ‘bitter’, ‘tasteful’, ‘smooth’, etc.); all verbal means employed in choreographic discourse to create perceptual metaphors have a positive semantic load. One of the main functions of the perceptual metaphor in choreographic communication is to create vivid images and reveal the art of ballroom dance in all its multiplicity. With the help of the perceptual metaphor ballroom dance is interpreted as a diverse and dynamic phenomenon producing extremely positive emotions that generate experience of pleasure, joy, happiness, and accomplishment. Understanding the role and mechanisms of perceptual metaphor enables a deeper insight into linguistic expressivity, nature of cognitive processes and multimodal semiosis as a culturally appropriate behaviour.