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In this article, the author recounts that he was struck by a seemingly incidental finding in the area of conceptual metaphor research. Conceptual metaphors “structure our thinking” (p. 120) and are usually physical in nature. For example, “it's hard to get that idea across to him” and “she is a warm person” (p. 120) are conceptual metaphors. What was so striking for the author was a finding that three- and four-year-olds react very emotionally in denying the possible double meaning of a description such as warm. They accept the physical definition, but strongly reject the character-related definition (“she is a warm person”). Older children do not react in such an emotionally charged manner, even when they are unable to understand the conceptual metaphor. The author notes that the younger children's strong reaction has the flavor of denial.
In trying to make sense of this peculiar finding, the author details how the language we learn must correspond in some way to our preverbal experience. He notes that there must be a prelinguistic association pattern that links—for example—warmth with affection, so that when we learn the conceptual metaphor, it feels right: “affection is warmth” (p. 123). Based on this idea, it would seem that young children should be able to accept such a conceptual metaphor, especially when it is pointed out to them, but that has not been seen to be the case. Instead, the young children, closest in age to this preverbal time, were the only children to vehemently deny the double meaning of conceptual metaphors.
The author proposes two possible reasons for this, which he presents as hypotheses in need of further research. First, the younger children may be troubled by the content of the words. Many of the words used in the study—e.g., warm, hard, and soft— “are connected to libidinally invested activities … that are frightening or forbidden or both” (p. 138). Thus, the children would have reason to deny or repress such connections. The second hypoth