“Conceptual Metaphor in Everyday Language” by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson: Summary and Critique

🔹 Core Argument: Metaphor is Fundamental to Thought and Language

• Metaphor is not just poetic or rhetorical; it is central to everyday thinking and language.

“We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language, but in thought and action” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 454).

• Our conceptual system is metaphorical, shaping perception, behavior, and reasoning.

“If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor” (p. 454).

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🔹 Key Conceptual Metaphors

• ARGUMENT IS WAR: We structure arguments as battles.

“He attacked every weak point in my argument… I demolished his argument” (p. 454–455).
“Many of the things we do in arguing are partially structured by the concept of war” (p. 455).

• TIME IS MONEY: Time is treated as a finite, valuable commodity.

“You’re wasting my time… That flat tire cost me an hour” (p. 456).
“Because of the way that the concept of work has developed… time is precisely quantified” (p. 456).

• IDEAS ARE FOOD / THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS / LOVE IS A JOURNEY: Metaphors define abstract domains.

“Now there’s a theory you can really sink your teeth into” (p. 470).
“We need to construct a strong argument for that” (p. 470).
“Look how far we’ve come… Our marriage is on the rocks” (p. 470).

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🔹 Systematicity of Metaphors

• Metaphorical concepts form coherent systems, not isolated expressions.

“Metaphorical expressions in our language are tied to metaphorical concepts in a systematic way” (p. 456).

• One metaphor (e.g., TIME IS MONEY) entails others (e.g., TIME IS A LIMITED RESOURCE) through entailment hierarchies.

“TIME IS MONEY entails that TIME IS A LIMITED RESOURCE, which entails that TIME IS A VALUABLE COMMODITY” (p. 457).

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🔹 Highlighting vs. Hiding

• Metaphors highlight certain aspects of a concept while hiding others.

“A metaphorical concept can keep us from focusing on other aspects of the concept which are not coherent with that metaphor” (p. 458).

• Example: ARGUMENT IS WAR hides cooperative aspects of argument.

“We lose sight of the more cooperative aspects involved in an argument” (p. 458).

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🔹 Orientational and Ontological Metaphors

• Orientational metaphors give concepts spatial direction:
  • HAPPY IS UP, SAD IS DOWN → “My spirits rose… I fell into a depression” (p. 462).
  • MORE IS UP, LESS IS DOWN → “My income rose last year” (p. 463).
• Ontological metaphors allow us to view activities or emotions as entities or substances:

“The brutality of war dehumanizes us all… His theory has thousands of little rooms” (p. 461–472).

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🔹 Cultural and Experiential Grounding

• Metaphors reflect cultural values:

“The most fundamental values in a culture will be coherent with the metaphorical structure of the most fundamental concepts” (p. 465).

• They are grounded in bodily experience (embodiment):

“Our constant physical activity… makes UP-DOWN orientation… centrally relevant” (p. 476).

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🔹 Novel Metaphor and Meaning

• Novel metaphors can create new ways of understanding and guide future actions.

“Metaphors have entailments through which they highlight and make coherent certain aspects of our experience” (p. 481).

• Example: LOVE IS A COLLABORATIVE WORK OF ART

“LOVE IS WORK… LOVE REQUIRES COMPROMISE… LOVE IS CREATIVE” (p. 482).

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🔹 Critique of Literalist Theories

• The authors challenge traditional views that restrict metaphor to non-literal language.

“We have tried to show that most of our everyday, ordinary conceptual system… is metaphorically structured” (p. 485).

• They propose an experientialist theory of meaning and truth, where truth is “dependent on understanding” and metaphor plays a central role.

“A sentence is true in a situation when our understanding of the sentence fits our understanding of the situation” (p. 486).

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🔹 Philosophical Implications

• Metaphor challenges objectivist theories of language and knowledge.
• Understanding is embodied, metaphorical, and shaped by cultural coherence, not universal logic.

🔍 ❗ Partial Structuring Problem

🔸 “The metaphorical structuring of concepts is necessarily partial…” (p. 455)
🔹 Critique: Since metaphors highlight some aspects while hiding others, the theory may oversimplify or mislead if metaphorically “hidden” dimensions are ignored.

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🧠 ⚠️ Dependence on Subjectivity

🔸 “Which values are given priority is partly a matter of the subculture you live in…” (p. 467)
🔹 Critique: The subjective, culturally biased nature of metaphor makes generalizing cognitive structures difficult across societies.

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🔗 🔄 Overgeneralization of Metaphors

🔸 “Most of our ordinary conceptual system is metaphorical in nature.” (p. 454)
🔹 Critique: Critics argue this claim lacks empirical precision and tends to uncritically universalize metaphor as a dominant mode of cognition.

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🧱 🏗️ Structural Rigidity in Metaphor Pairs

🔸 “We talk about attacking a position… defend our own.” (p. 455)
🔹 Critique: Binary metaphor mappings (e.g., ARGUMENT IS WAR) may impose an overly dualist and combative worldview, ignoring more fluid or cooperative interpretations.

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📚 🧪 Philosophical Incompatibility with Traditional Semantics

🔸 “No account of meaning and truth can pretend to be complete… if it cannot account for metaphor.” (p. 486)
🔹 Critique: This challenges established truth-conditional theories of meaning, but critics argue that metaphor lacks logical precision and may not suit formal semantics.

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🔀 🌀 Vague Boundaries Between Literal & Metaphorical

🔸 “Literal expressions… and imaginative expressions… can be instances of the same general metaphor.” (p. 471)
🔹 Critique: The blurred line between literal and metaphorical language complicates linguistic clarity, making analysis messy or indeterminate.

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🚧 ⚙️ Operational Issues in Application

🔸 “Our account… may seem similar to Goodman’s… but we are at odds with Goodman…” (p. 458)
🔹 Critique: The authors reject rival theories but don’t fully develop alternative frameworks or offer rigorous methodologies for identifying metaphors in practice.

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🎭 🎨 Inadequate Treatment of Poetic or Creative Language

🔸 “Literal expressions… and imaginative expressions… can be instances of the same general metaphor.” (p. 472)
🔹 Critique: Literary scholars argue that the nuanced, polysemous nature of literary metaphor is not adequately addressed, being reduced to cognitive templates.

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🧩 💬 Fragmentation in Understanding Emotion or Abstract Domains

🔸 “No sharply defined conceptual structure for the emotions emerges from emotional functioning alone…” (p. 476)
🔹 Critique: Emotional metaphors (e.g., “LOVE IS A JOURNEY”) are reductionist, potentially ignoring multi-layered emotional realities.