Identity Projections and Cultural Stereotypes in the Conceptual Associations of Similes
Identity Projections and Cultural Stereotypes in the Conceptual Associations of Similes

Summary/Abstract: Similes represent “containers of culturally received knowledge” (Veale, Hao and Li 2008) and a part of the linguistic currency of a culture. However revealing about the stereotypical projections of concepts they may be, some similes remain opaque even to the native speakers. Conceptual descriptions that are derived from commonplace similes and clichéd similes are “predictive of ontological structure” (Veale and Hao 2007). Moreover, depending on the cognitive criteria which account for category membership of noun vehicles, there are several identity projections of objects and of people, whose salient properties are universally, regionally or locally acknowledged.

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