The second of the two constituent processes of fusion (2) in LCCM theory. Interpretation involves activation of part of the cognitive model profile to which each selected lexical concept in any utterance affords access. Each lexical concept is interpreted in a way that is in keeping with the larger lexical unit which results from integration. That is, those parts of the cognitive model profiles ( semantic potential ) associated with each lexical concept in the larger unit is interpreted in a way that is in keeping with the larger unit.

Put another way, integration provides (linguistic) instructions which serve to determine how the various lexical concepts are collectively interpreted and thus the access route that each individual lexical concept affords through its cognitive model profile. The result is that any given word will provide a unique activation of part of its meaning potential on every occasion of use. This follows as every utterance and thus the resulting conception is unique. For instance, the interpretation of France in each of the examples below is slightly distinct due to the other lexical concepts it is combined with in each utterance. In the first, France is interpreted as relating to a geographical landmass, while in the second it is interpreted as relating to citizens of France who voted in a particular way in a particular referendum:

1. France is a country of contrasting landscapes
2. France rejected the EU constitution Introspective experience see subjective experience Invariance Hypothesis see Invariance Principle Invariance Principle (also Invariance Hypothesis ) The principle which captures the constraints that govern cross-domain mappings in conceptual metaphor theory. There are two sorts of constraints that the Invariance Principle captures. Firstly, it stipulates which sorts of source domains can serve particular target domains for a particular conceptual metaphor.

Secondly, it stipulates the constraints on metaphorical entailments that can apply to particular target domains. The Invariance Principle does this by stipulating that in a metaphoric cross-domain mapping, the cognitive topology (the conceptual structure ) associated with the source domain is preserved, or remains invariant, in the mapping operation. However, there is a further stipulation that what is mapped from the source domain must remain consistent with the cognitive topology of the target domain.

To illustrate how the Invariance Principle works, consider the concept of death. This can be metaphorically personified in a number of ways (which means that a concept has human-like properties attributed to it such as intentionality and volition). However, the human-like qualities that can be associated with death are restricted: death can ‘devour’, ‘destroy’ or ‘reap’, but death is never metaphorically structured in terms of, for instance, knitting, filling a bath with water or sitting in a rocking chair. What the Invariance Principle does is guarantee that the structure of the source domain must be preserved by the metaphoric mappings in a way consistent with the target domain. This constrains potentially incompatible mappings. As death involves an event of (often sudden) non-existence, only source domains that have an event structure compatible with this can be successfully mapped onto the domain of death. As events such as filling a bath, or sitting in a rocking chair have the ‘wrong’ sort of event structure, the Invariance Principle predicts that they cannot be employed as source domains for metaphorically conceptualising the domain of death.

Nevertheless, not all cross-domain mappings can be predicted by the Invariance Principle. A further constraint is required in order to account for these exceptions.

This is known as the target domain override constraint.