Imagination and nonliterality : a case study of superhuman entities in religion

Abstract

In the present work we would like to emphasize the aspect of imagination as an element of great relevance in the production of metaphorical processes. With the experientialism upheld by the cognitive approach, people's imaginative ability is established as one of the main arguments to face any lexical analysis from a cognitive perspective. A double focus can be appreciated in the religious vocabulary: On one hand, the experience that the members of a linguistic community live directly and personally and on the other hand, a virtual creation of such an experience, a sort of "imagined experience". In it, imagination would be characterized by the ability to transfer certain conceptualizations and ideas to human domains; conceptualizations and ideas which, from a theological point of view, are neither present nor located in such domains. This focus centers on a series of religious lexemes of a superhuman nature, angel and devil.