January 13, 2003

Everyday Metaphor

From the online edition of the Wall Street Journal:

MICROPAYMENT SYSTEMS are enjoying renewed interest thanks to the slump in online advertising, but they face hurdles in winning acceptance from consumers and Web merchants.

Metaphor is completely pervasive in ordinary language; many conceptual domains (especially abstract or recent ones) can only be talked about metaphorically.

Example: "Time is a road we travel down" (source: journey, target: time)
· I look forward to seeing you again this weekend
· We can expect bigger profits down the road
· Looking back, she felt her life had been well spent

Example: "Computer storage devices are containers" (source: container, target: computer storage)
· My hard disk is full
· I can't open this file
· How do you get out of this program?

All speakers of a language share a set of conventional metaphors; most linguists feel that these metaphors reflect general aspects of our culture, and reflect and inform our cognitive processes (thoughts). This is not a new idea, but the most vocal recent proponent is George Lakoff.

This idea is reminiscent of the "linguistic relativity hypothesis" (also known as the "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis"): "Language determines thought".

Some metaphors are so basic and fundamental as to be universal; these are metaphors that map our sensorimotor experiences onto more abstract domains.

"Abstractions are physical objects" (reification)
· Jane has a cold; Jill gave it to her; now she can't seem to get rid of it
"Abstract relations are spatial relations"
· The train gradually came into view and kept going until it was out of sight
· I feel down today; can you cheer me up?

The human body is central
· The rescuers received the survivors' heartfelt thanks
· With a heavy heart she walke out the door
· They whistled lightheartedly
(But what body part is associated with what emotion varies from culture to culture; in Southeast Asia it's usually the liver; in Polynesia and Japan, the stomach)

Some domains have more than one associated metaphor. Example: "Time is money"
· Let's spend some time together
· This way will save us some time
· Don't waste any more time on that guy!

Metaphor is used persuasively when a speaker chooses a positive or negative source domain to influence a hearer's feelings about a target domain.