A “NoN-ETHNIC” PEoPlE? 113 two conceptual realms. If one of these conceptual domains is muted or taken away, the meaning is changed or lost 44. A basic premise for this understanding of metaphors is thus that it is possible to identify conceptual domains, with their own related se- mantic networks. Such conceptual domains should be understood as specifically tied to the cultural and historical context within which a given language is used. The identification of such domains should therefore be understood as a pragmatic aspect of how a given language tends to be used, rather than as an absolute claim about how reality is objectively structured in certain domains 45. It is to be observed, at the outset, that a metaphorical interpretation of ethnic terms in Paul presupposes that the concept of ethnicity is un- derstood to have certain borders. In the absence of such borders, it is obviously impossible for Paul to transcend them. It seems that both Buell and Hodge conceptualize ethnicity in a way that makes it diffi- cult to discuss where the borders of the concept of ethnicity are sup- posed to be. Buell writes as follows: “The conceptualization that I have adopted in this book of race and ethnicity as being characterized by both fixity and fluidity suits the prismatic approach because it high- lights the shapeshifting instantiations of these complexly interrelated concepts without insisting that they have any intrinsic essence. ‘Reli- gion’ shares this shapeshifting quality with ethnicity and race. There are no intrinsic borders among these concepts” 46. Hodge, by contrast, writes that “while ethnicity and kinship are flexible constructs, they are not infinitely malleable” 47. I fail to see, however, that Hodge any- where addresses the question of how to locate the boundaries of the concept of ethnicity. Both Buell and Hodge seem persistently to focus on the fluid, flexible, discursive and dynamic aspects of ethnicity. Another way to put this would be to say that Buell and Hodge fail 44 P. Ricoeur was a pioneer in articulating a theory of metaphors based on the interaction between conceptual domains, and his classic study from 1975 remains an influential point of departure for a theoretical discussion of metaphors today. P. RICoEuR, The Rule of Metaphor. The Creation of Meaning in language (london – New York 2006). 45 In other words, to claim that languages have conceptual realms with certain “borders” does not entail the claim that one is able, at any given moment, to iden- tify precisely where those borders are. Note how Stowers criticizes what he calls “the positivistic assumption that clear distinction between concepts could not be made unless all borderline cases had been adjudicated” (review of BuEll, 730). 46 BuEll, Why this New Race?, 168. 47 HoDGE, If Sons, endnote 96 on page 162.