Conceptual Metaphors, Geography, Literature, and the Implications on the In-place or Out-of-place of People and Actions

There are three primary aims of this study: first, to investigate how geographical locations, countries of origins, building typologies, and vehicles/machines are presented as source domains frequently activated in metaphorical linguistic expressions to point to entangled socio-economical, environmental, and political issues within Douglas Coupland's narratives. Second, to discuss the ways in which the author juggles what is coherent/incoherent with a mainstream spatialization or orientational metaphor; third, to ascertain if, beyond the author’s interest in “his geographical and historical surroundings” (McGill, 2000) and beyond his need to portray a subcultural logic of priorities, geographical metaphors allow Coupland to borrow labels of origin, both global and localised ones, and reshape them as a way of thinking that is socio-political and post-colonial in scope, questioning what is proper or inappropriate and for whom. A collection of evidence from different novels will be provided and analysed to demonstrate the expanded conceptual phenomenon Coupland generates from geographical metaphors “as a way of thinking and acting with geographical and political implications” (Cresswell, 1997).