Reconsidering Metaphorical Mapping

As a key term in the study of metaphors, mapping has long been considered to be either a oneway projection from source domain onto target domain or a static matching between the two domains, which may cause some confusion.One solution to this problem is to divide mapping into two categories: matching, as a static form of mapping, and projection, as a dynamic form of mapping.The relationship between source domain and target domain in metaphors is first of all represented as a static matching, which is based on similarities.The nature of the metaphorical process is simply the use of sourcedomainspecific words to highlight those elements in the target domain, which were originally less conspicuous or prominent.The process of projection is not just the borrowing of words, but the spotlighting and clarifying of the corresponding concepts in the target domain.