How different would life be with unlimited "undo" commands? Analysis of conceptual metaphor “undo” in three contemporary texts

Abstract

I present, in this article, part of the results of my research. I investigated the emerging meanings of digital experiences by analyzing texts that use digital interface conventions in their multimodal composition. I analyze here three of these texts, which use the “undo” metaphor, instantiated by the representation in the name of the keys that trigger this command (“CTRL” and “Z”) on the keyboard of computers with Windows operating system. This research was carried out in the cognitive perspective of language, through the intersection of the theories of Conceptual Metaphor, Multimodal Metaphor and Conceptual Integration. As a result of these analyzes, it was possible to detect the emergence of new conceptual bases for our network of sense production. By projecting emerging meanings from the digital realm of experience to social discourse, we change our way of seeing and thinking the world, our way of solving problems, and imagining possible solutions.

Full-text of the article is available for this locale: Português (Brasil).