Review of Metaphors We Live by

劉丹娜

【Abstract】Metaphors We Live by was written by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in 1980 and published by The university of Chicago press. In this book， the authors come up with three categories of metaphor and conceptual metaphor， which are totally different with peoples common opinion that metaphor is just a kind of figures of speech. This concept has made great distribution on academic research. It not only supply a new perspective to the study of metaphor， but also broaden a new research method to other disciplines.

【Key words】Metaphor We Live by； conceptual metaphor； contribution

1. Introduction

Metaphors We Live by was written by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in 1980 and published by The university of Chicago press.

In Western world， the research of metaphor has long history. Aristotle has studied not only the rhetorical function but cognition function of metaphor. In peoples ordinary concept， metaphor is one of figures of speech and it is a problem of expression. However， George Lakoff and Mark Johnson put forward a new concept—conceptual metaphor or metaphorical concept， which supplies a new perspective to understand human language and the world. In their work Metaphors We Live by， Lakoff and Johnson think that most of our ordinary conceptual system is metaphorical in nature， metaphor exists in our language， thinking and action and the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. This concepts has made great contribution in many fields as well. It is necessary to make a review to the content of this book and the research on its contribution in order to get a comprehensive understanding to conceptual metaphor.

2. Content Review

2.1 Content Structure

This book has 30 chapters and they can be separates to three parts. Chapter 1 to chapter 10 is the first part which introduces the fund mental opinions of metaphorical concept and three kinds of metaphor. Chapter 11 to chapter 19 is the second part， the features of conceptual metaphor are discussed in this part. Chapter 20 to chapter 30 is the third part， in this part， the effects of conceptual metaphor are introduced.

2.2 Three categories on metaphor

According to Lakoff & Johnson， metaphor is pervasive in human daily life and it is divided into three kind in their book.

2.2.1 Structural Metaphors

Structural metaphor cases where one concept is metaphorically structured in terms of another， such as “time is money”， which has developed in modern Western culture. In modern culture， time can be precisely quantified by work because people will recall time when work is mentioned. Time in our culture is a valuable commodity. When people doing something， time is regarded as a precious commodity， a limited resources even money， so time can be spent， wasted， budgeted， saved or invested just like money. Some expressions appear under this concept， for example， “You are wasting my time.”， “ Ive invested a lot of time in her.”. In these sentences， time is defined and understood by moneys characters.

2.2.2 Orientational Metaphors

Orientational metaphors does not structure one concept in terms of another but instead organizes a whole system of concepts with respect to one another. Most of them have to do spatial orientation： up-down， in-out， front-back， on-off. Orientational metaphors give a concept a spatial orientation； for example， “happy is up.” Here， the concept “happy” is oriented “up”， so that English expressions like “Im feeling up today.” can be got. Such metaphorical orientations are not arbitrary. They have a basis in our physical and cultural experience. Further more， for the metaphors “more is up， less is down”， we can get expressions like “My income rose last year.” ； for “good is up， bad is down”， we have expressions like “Things are looking up.” All of these metaphors can not be understood without experiential bases， but the bases are different in above metaphors.

2.2.3 Ontological metaphors

For ontological metaphors， our experiences with physical objects provide the ways of viewing events， activities， emotions， ideas， etc.， as entities and substances. It includes two kinds： entity and substance metaphors and container metaphors. In the first kind， for example， “inflation is entity.”， so we have “Inflation is lowering our standard of living.”， in this example， the inflation can be quantified and identified. For the second kind， both land area and visual field can be regarded as a container， so we say “in some place” or “The ship is coming into view. ”

2.3 Features of conceptual metaphors

2.3.1 Systematicity

Because the metaphorical concept is systematic， the language we use to talk about that aspect of the concept is systematic. Take “argument is war” as example， people will use words like attack a position， indefensible， strategy， form a systematic way of talking about the battling aspects of arguing. On the other hand， different conceptual metaphors are systematicity even though the same tenor has different metaphor expressions. Love is journey， in addition， love is also magic， war， madness or patient. These metaphors show different aspects of a tenor， but they will help people achieve a better understanding about it.

2.3.2 Partial

The systematicity of metaphor allow people understand one concept by another and provide us a partial understanding of what was talk about， but it will also hide the other aspects of this concept. Peoples attention will focus on this aspect and ignore the other. In “Love is war.”， only the terrible aspect or fighting of love can be displayed rather the warmness of love， in other words， the warmness of love is hidden in this metaphor. In another example “theory is building”， the foundation of building is used to form the concept of “theory” but the room and stairs are not used.

2.3.3 Coherence

Coherence is not only exist within a single metaphor but also in two different concept. The combination of “an argument is a journey ” and “a journey defines a path ” can form a new metaphor “an argument defines a path ”， and we get expressions like “Do you follow my argument？” or “Youre going around in circles. ” However， people usually partially form a single concept in many metaphors. For example， “So far we have constructed the core of our argument.” Here “so far” is from the Journey metaphor， “construct” is from the Building metaphor， and “core” is from the container metaphor.

Moreover， the most fundamental values in a culture will be coherent with the metaphorical structure of the most fundamental concepts in the culture. In our culture， we think that “More is better”， which is coherent with “more is up” and “good is up”.

2.3.4 Experiential

Our spatial concepts come from our constant spatial experience， that is， our interaction with the physical environment. Concepts that emerge in this way are concepts that we live by in the most fundamental way. There are systematic correlates between our emotions （like happiness） and our sensory-motor experiences （like erect posture）， these form the basis of orientational metaphorical concepts （such as “Happy is up”）. In orientation metaphor， the fundamental metaphor is based on the systematic correlates in our experience. “Time is a moving object” is based on one moving object toward us and the time it spend. Like orientational and ontological metaphors， structural metaphors are based on systematic correlations within our experience as well.

3. Contribution of Conceptual Metaphor

3.1 Contribution to language philosophy

There are two completely different opinions from philosophy： objectivism and subjectivism The former one thinks that world is subject and its language opinion is that natural language has independent and object meaning with peoples thinking. The latter one thinks that peoples awareness and perception are the important method to understand the world， so its language opinion is that imaginative language is very important. Because these two opinions are radical， Lakoff and Johnson advocate the usage of an experientialist approach to bridge the gap between the objectivist and subjectivist myths about impartiality and the possibility of being fair and objective.（Lakoff & Johnson， 1980）

3.2 Application in literature

It is a new trend that study literature through conceptual metaphor. In China， many scholars combine the analysis of literature and conceptual metaphor. Xiao Jiayan（2010） studies the translation of metaphors in literature in the perspective of conceptual metaphor. She claims that the translators choose translation strategies according to the context of culture， literature and text， so that the results of metaphors translation are always under-tranlation.

In addition， the conceptual metaphor is also be studied from the perspective of cognitive linguistics， conceptual metaphorical theory and discourse coherence.

4. Conclusion

In Metaphors We Live by， Lakoff and Johnson prove that language has close relationship with cognitive competence by lots of language examples. Peoples conceptual system is based on conceptual metaphor， which will help people get a better and deep understanding toward language and human world. This theory broaden the range of metaphorical study with high utility value.

References：

[1]Lakoff & Johnson（1980），Metaphors We Live by，London，the University of Chicago press.

[2]Peter Norvig（1985），Review of Metaphors We Live by，Book Review，357-361.

[3]Edward Mendelson，Review of Metaphors We Live by，Review，134-136.

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