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Justice ‘Under’ Law: The Bodily Incarnation of Legal Conceptions Over Time

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Author

Summary, in English

The article uses embodiment and the experiential basis of conceptual metaphor to argue for the metaphorical essence of abstract legal thought. Abstract concepts like ‘law’ and ‘justice’ need to borrow from a spatial, bodily, or physical prototype in order to be conceptualised, seen, for example, in the fact that justice preferably is found ‘under’ law. Three conceptual categories of how law is conceptualised is examined: law as an object, law as a vertical relation, and law as an area. The Google Ngram Viewer, based on the massive library of books that Google has scanned, has been used to study legally relevant conceptions over time within each of these three categories, from 1800 to 2000. In addition, the article suggests a type of analytical method of ‘metaphor triangulation,’ that is, the replacement of prevailing metaphors with unusual ones in order to increase the level of awareness of what conceptual content the prevailing metaphors involve.

Department/s

  • Lund University Internet Institute (LUii)

Publishing year

2014

Language

English

Pages

613-626

Publication/Series

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law

Volume

27

Issue

4

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Springer

Topic

  • Work Sciences
  • Information Systems, Social aspects

Keywords

  • Embodiment
  • Conceptual metaphor
  • Law and justice
  • Law and embodiment
  • Law and metaphor

Status

Published

Project

  • Legal Challenges in a Digital Context

Research group

  • Cybernorms

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0952-8059