Metaphors We Live By :: George Lakoff Mark Johnson Language Essays

Metaphors We Live ByIn the book Metaphors We Live By, authors George Lakoff and lolly Johnson address the traditional philosophic view denouncing similes influence on our instauration and our selves (ix). Using linguistic and sociological evidence, Lakoff and Johnson claim that figurative language performs meaty functions beyond those found in poetry, clich, and elaborate turns of phrase. Metaphor permeates our daily experiences - non only through systems of language, but also in terms of the port we think and act. The key to understanding a illustrations effect on behavior, relationships, and how we develop sense of our environment, can be found in the way creation use metaphorical language. To appreciate the affects of figurative language over eventide the about mundane details of our daily activity, it is necessary to define the term, metaphor and explain its role in defining the thoughts and actions that structure our conceptual system. agree to Lakoff and Johnson, th e essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another (5). This definition extends to any symbolic type of expressions, wish the concept of hate, the spatial direction up, or the experience of inflation. When our most important life experiences argon often too abstract for elemental understanding, we attempt to capture the nature of the experience by placing it in a relevant and more easily recognizable context. Three basic types of metaphor are used to, conceptualize the less clearly delineated in terms of the more clearly delineated(59). These are the orientational metaphor, the ontological metaphor, and the structural metaphor. Orientational metaphor organizes concepts by giving them a spatial orientation. These metaphoric representations are not random they are based on the structure of our bodies, and how we physically interact in a specific culture or environment. Metaphors the likes of Im falling asleep, he dropped dead, and, You are under my control provide a spatial relationship between the human subject and something found in the world. The authors explain that, while directional oppositions (up-down, in-out, front-back, etc.) are physical in nature, they arent eternally the same for every culture. For example, while some cultures may see the coming(prenominal) as ahead of us, others view it as behind us (14). ontological metaphors involve ways of viewing intangible concepts, such as feelings, activities, and ideas as entities. When we identify these experiences as substances, we can refer to them, categorize them, group them, and specify them - and, by this means, reason about them (25).