THE CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR CHANGE IS MOTION AND ITS EXTENSION IN SCIENCE FICTION

The argument and objective presented in this paper is that the ideology of change in the unique genre of science fiction is expressed in the key/primary/background/source conceptual metaphor Change is motion/movement which refers to human evolution (physical, mental, psychological), socio-political and scientific-technological progress, and extends to form numerous conceptual sub-metaphorical variations which are conditioned and motivated by the same social and scientific-technological functional orientations as the key metaphor. Change is motion thus is identified as a multifaceted “classical” science fiction conceptual metaphor which allows a number of micro-interactions between cognition and imagination and is open to wide research. To achieve this objective, different science fiction sources have been selected and Lakoff’s conceptual metaphor identification method has been applied for the analysis of the data to conclude that the primary formulaic conceptual metaphor Change is motion demonstrates immense generative power in science fiction going far beyond its original model, extending into a large variety of conceptual sub-metaphors underlying and referring to some other concepts of cognition reflected in certain parts of science fictional contexts. My proposition will be that Change is motion not only reigns supreme in science fiction but also testifies to broad scientific-technological, social, cultural, political, physical, mental, psychological and many other transformations, modifications, transferences, replacements or substitutions of our information age.