Metaphor in Precolumbian Mesoamerica: In Honor of John Justeson

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Coffee, Clever T-Shirts, and Papers in Honor of John S. Justeson" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

John Justeson is well-known for contributions to the documentation of Mesoamerican indigenous languages and writing systems. Justeson’s work on metaphor has received less attention, given that work on metaphor in precolumbian Mesoamerica is just now gaining traction. Justeson’s work stands out as being the first to adopt a conceptual definition of metaphor, where metaphor is not solely defined as its rhetorical form or effect but as a conceptual relationship between distinct domains that are revealing of a given culture’s conceptual system at large. Specifically, Justeson (2010) uses a conceptual approach to metaphor to reconstruct concepts for ZERO across precolumbian Mesoamerica. This work is significant for understanding the development of mathematical practice and theory both regionally and globally. This has also allowed for related work that catalogs variations of meaning behind political metaphors in precolumbian Mayan texts and their relation to the political history of the area (Dinkel 2021). Justeson’s work on metaphor is thus a significant development in understanding precolumbian Mesoamerican texts by demonstrating how to reconstruct and understand the conceptual systems behind them, which too often remain opaque. This paper revisits Justeson’s work on metaphor and avenues for future research on metaphor.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)   •
• Coffee, Clever T-Shirts, and Papers in Honor of John S. Justeson

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36656.0