Literature Review

Metaphors We Live By

For most of the people, metaphor is comparing one thing with another by saying that something is something different, for example, Time is a thief. Metaphors are viewed as special devices for creating fiction; they even considered to be absolutely unnecessary in everyday life, as it said in the book Metaphors We Live by George Lakoff and Mark Jonson.

There is a traditional view on metaphor. It is a linguistic phenomenon and only capable authors can create them masterfully. We can also live without metaphors because they add expression but don`t play the most important role in everyday human communication. But conceptual system we live by is metaphorical in nature. Metaphorical concepts cover our everyday life. But people usually are not well-informed about the system so metaphor is still considered as a poetic device.

1. Types of metaphors

There are two types of metaphor: concеptual or linguistic.  A concеptual metaphor is a representation of two notional areas where one is understood with the help of another. A linguistic metaphor represents the linguistic expression of a concеptual metaphor. Fields of understanding a conceptual metaphor are called source and target domains. We try to understand the latter one through the former one. There are many kinds of these domains. They often help to express people`s emotions such as happiness and joy.

There is also one more dimension of metaphors - primary and complex. The later are created from the combinations the former.

There is a special procedure used to identify metaphors in a real discourse. It is called metaphor identification procedure.

2. Realization of metaphors

According to Zoltan Covecses, authors in their works usually use the same metaphors as people in their ordinary life do so it is usually easy to follow. There are some metaphors which are used through many texts so they are unanimously recognizable.

Metaphors can be realized not only linguistically but also through media, drama, movies, cartoons, politics, different signs and symbols, and through many other things. Metaphors penetrate our life in linguistic and non-linguistic spheres.

3. Metaphors and culture peculiarities

According to George Lakoff and Mark Jonson, metaphors can serve as a useful instrument for understanding the nature of any culture. For example, if people in a society use metaphors about their future which is bound to be better, it is understandable that people in this society value optimistic attitude to life. All values which matter most in a society are shown in their conceptual system, thus, in metaphors.

4. Metonymy

Metonymy is a conceptual in nature device which is used in cases when one word is used to call another because they have a connection based on an entity which they are related by. Metonymy involves only one domain which is the main difference between metonymies and metaphors. Metaphors and metonymies often cooperate in linguistics, some cases of it can even be considered as a mixture of these two devices.

To sum up, despite the fact that metaphors sometimes viewed as a separated from everyday life phenomenon, we often forget to look deeper into the work of our mind which works conceptually with the help of metaphors. There are different types of the subject, which are realized through one another, and metonymies, which are closely connected with metaphors but viewed as a separate thing.

Sources:

1. Lakoff George, Johnson Mark. Metaphors we live by, University of Chicago Press, 2003 

2. Minds, Machines and Metaphors. John C. Marshall. Social Studies of Science, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Nov., 1977), pp. 475-488

3. Zoltan Kovecses. Metaphor, A Practical Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2010