Karin Anderson
Metaphors We Live By
by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
As humans, our everyday
interaction with those around us consists of communicating by means of
metaphors. Metaphors are a way of
expression, of understanding, and of reciprocation. Metaphors are not only spoken, but are also
thought and performed.
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
spoke not only of metaphors as a means of language, but also as a means of
understanding and obtaining truth. Language
is complicated when communicating because it requires a common understanding in
order to accomplish a basis of truth. When communicating with others, mutual understanding
of the concept you are trying to convey is critical in determining truth. If experience does not allow for understanding
in what is being presented then how can one determine if what you are saying
contains truth?
Metaphors
serve as a bridge to connect across culture and experience. Using
metaphors allows one to take a situation that is familiar and transfer that
familiarity to the unknown, thus providing understanding. Lakoff and Johnson state that truth exists, but
truth is based on individual experiences, feelings, and values. Based on this idea, truth is not “absolute”,
as they put it, but is individual. When
communication with another is based on experiential truth, one speaks using metaphors.
Attempting
to gap the theories of objectivism and subjectivism, one will find an area of
discovery in which truth and reality can be brought together with imagination
and individualism through the means of metaphors. Metaphors are used to take objects and things
that one knows to be true and combine them with things that are more
imaginative and abstract in a way that creates understanding and helps to bring
new meaning to common, everyday concepts and make that new meaning and
understanding more real and personal.
Metaphors
are used to emphasize concepts we need to get across to others. Metaphors are also a tool which can be used
to diminish those truths we don’t want focused on. We use metaphors to communicate with those
around us based upon our own perceptions.
In the end, metaphors become a means of manipulation of language that
allow us to bring meaning and understanding to others in accordance with what
we believe to be truth. Thus, metaphors
become a very powerful tool.
I'd like to follow up on your last comment that metaphors are powerful tools. That's exactly the point of the book. Why are we able to think the way we do (as opposed to other animals, who think but who haven't developed such complex thought processes)? Because of metaphors.
ReplyDeleteOther theories argue that the best language/thought is the purest, the most abstract, the least metaphorical. Not so, our authors argue. All our thinking is through metaphor. It's a powerful tool.
It's also important for the book that metaphors come from our bodies and their relationships to what is around them. You can't separate bodies from minds. They're important to each other (thus the objective/subjective bridging you note).