ABSTRACT
Metaphors vary in terms of the source from which they ultimately derive, which may be people's bodies' interaction of the world, their knowledge of how it works or their ability to recognise physical similarity between different objects. Arguably, the image-schematic layer reveals itself most frequently in simple metaphorical expressions of a prepositional nature, where particular interaction between physical objects is superimposed onto a relationship involving more abstract concepts. It is a major contention of at least some proponents of the cognitive theory of metaphor that much of people's ability to think figuratively is determined by a physical awareness that was laid down in their minds at a time when they were still very young. Image schemas are described as preverbal, mostly non-conscious, and emergent, rather than innate. There is a far greater tendency to replace a rich image with a non-rich image in translation than vice versa, and in line with this, loss of specificity is commoner than the opposite.
