Phraseology and Culture in English

3.2.1.1. Attributive use of 
hot
A survey of collocations of the type of hot + noun is given in the appendix 
(see appendix Table 1). In the following I focus on their semantic analysis, 
examples will be given where necessary. 
A semantic analysis of the identified adjective-noun (AN) combinations 
in context has revealed the following senses of hot:
Literal sense: 
(a) Having a high temperature 
(b) Causing the sensation of heat 
I consider this to be just one sense. For, the (b) sense is a consequence of 
the (a) sense, both are related as cause and effect: only hot things can cause 
the sensation of heat, and they always do when there is a “sensor” around, 
though (a) and (b) can, of course, also be understood as two metonymically 
related senses. My decision rests on the fact that neither aspect can be sepa-
rated clearly in the usage of hot + noun. 
Hot in its literal sense co-occurs with concepts from the (semantic) field 
of weather and food, and with those whose temperature human beings are 
usually concerned with. Both the cause and the effect aspect of the literal 
sense is activated, though with a difference in focus as indicated by bold 
print.
Weather (a/b) summer, weather, day, sun, afternoon, night, sunshine, spell 
Food (a/b) meal, chocolate, drink, tea, coffee, milk, potato, dinner, dish 
Others (a/b) water, bath, springs, tap, gas, metal, oven, plate, liquid 

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Doris Schönefeld 
The extended senses of hot can be arranged according to a hierarchy of 
metaphorical mappings: the mapping 
INTENSITY IS UPPER END OF SCALE 
is
the most general one that can be abstracted away from all the expres- 
sions underlying my analysis. Lakoff & Johnson (1989: 80f) call such 
mappings “‘generic-level metaphors’ since they lack specificity in two 
respects: they do not have fixed SD and TD, and they do not have fixed 
lists of entities specified in the mappings.” If one asks for the experiential 
motivation for the generic-level metaphor abstracted from the data, one
will recognize at least one primary metaphor motivating this mapping: 
MORE IS UP 
(
AFFECTION IS WARMTH 
may play an additional role in the
more specific emotion mapping, such as 
LUST IS HEAT
). Grady (1999:
80f) argues that a primary metaphor arises from our experience and thus
is not completely arbitrary, which is supported by their wide cross-
linguistic distribution: “The recurrence of particular metaphorical map-
pings across cultures is so striking that any experiences which could give 
rise to these metaphors must be fundamental to human life in general, 
rather than based on any particular, local, culturally bound type of ex-
perience.”
In a similar argument, Lakoff & Johnson (1999: 56) conclude that 
“[p]rimary metaphors are part of the unconscious. We acquire them
automatically and unconsciously via the normal process of neural learn- 
ing and may be unaware that we have them. ... When the embodied ex-
periences in the world are universal, then the corresponding primary
metaphors are universally acquired.” This does, however, not imply that 
they are culture-free. As Lakoff & Turner (1980: 57) put it “what we call 
‘direct physical experience’ is never merely a matter of having a body of
a certain sort; rather every experience takes place within a vast back- 
ground of cultural presuppositions. ... Cultural assumptions, values and 
attitudes are not a conceptual overlay which we may or may not place
upon experience as we choose. It would be more correct to say that all
experience is cultural through and through, that we experience our “world” 
in such a way that our culture is already present in the very experience it-
self.”
A second hierarchical level of metaphorical mappings at which cultural 
aspects are perhaps more easily noticeable is the level of what Lakoff & 
Johnson (1989: 81) call “specific-level metaphors”.
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Those have fixed do-
mains involved in the mapping and also fixed lists of entities specified in 
the mappings. Lakoff & Johnson (1999: 60) discuss this type of metaphor 
as complex metaphors, which emerge when primary metaphors (atoms) are 

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Hot, heiß, and gorjachij
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put together to form molecules. These “complex, everyday metaphors are 
built out of primary metaphors and forms of commonplace knowledge: cul-
tural models, folk theories, or simply knowledge or beliefs that are widely 
accepted in a culture”, such as 
ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN A CONTAINER
.
Whereas the content of the primary metaphors is highly schematic, these 
complex metaphors make use of highly structured rich images (cf. also 
Hampe 2005a). 
It will be interesting to see from my data if there are any such complex 
metaphors traceable and if at that level of metaphoric mappings cultural 
differences can be identified. Since both the source domain (SD) and target 
domain (TD) concepts, can be instantiated at a lower, i.e. more specific, level 
(intensity of something and scale of something), we also have the resources 
for more specific mappings, drawing on such rich mental images. 
The source domain in this case study is that of temperature, more spe-
cifically the upper part of its scalar sensation, that part which is covered by