Touching Matters: Metaphorical Extensions of dotknąć and touch

Abstract

In metaphorical extensions of the verbs of sensory perception, these verbs often stand for mental states, as meaning shifts typically involve the transfer from concrete to abstract domains. Concerning metaphors of touch Sweetser (1991) points out that “the sense of touch is not only linked with the general sense perception, but is also closely tied to emotional “feeling.” Lakoff and Johnson (1980) propose a more general metaphor: AFFECTING IS TOUCHING. While English and Polish agentive verbs of touch lend themselves to metaphorical extensions and these extensions concern emotions and well-being of people and places, they show dramatic contrasts in interpretation: those with touch are typically positive, while those with dotknąć are uniformly negative. Thus, I argue, metaphorical extensions of verbs of perception cannot be considered universal, but must be filtered through lexical semantics and cultural values. Based on the data presented in the paper, inclusion of HURTING IS TOUCHING in the list of “touch” metaphors seems warranted.