Metaphors We Live By

So, I picked up this book awhile ago thinking that it would be a good survey of one part of linguistics. Yes, it is that. BUT, after reading several chapters, I discovered an unintended consequence, or perhaps an unexpected consequence. Since of the several reviews I read, no one addressed this isse, I thought I would. Simply put: This book has improved my writing and the impact of my writing. Now, I might normally hit upon the perfectly crafted sentence eventually, but this book highlights so many issues in language that I believe it will help sooner and more effectively. Not like a style manual or how-to-write book, but in the context of the metaphor, the subtle implications of the sentence and the inferences readers might make from its construction. This is pretty exciting. Many reviewers evaluate the book from a far more intellectual perspective than I, but for the more pragmatic of you that think it can have this unintended consequence, it might be just right for you. At the same time, your grasp of this concept will have a much stronger framework and structure bringng happiness to the linguistic engineers in the crowd. And your language will improve with cool words or phrases like "homonymy", "metonymies", or "experiential gestalt". So I am not that literate. So enjoy, it is a very nice, informative read!

After hearing nearly every anthropology professor I've ever had reference the work of Lakoff and Johnson in some way, I decided to try reading this book for myself. I'm very glad I did, because it completely changed my view of language, thought, and truth. Starting with the (deceptively) simple premise that the way we talk about certain things shapes the way we think about them, Lakoff and Johnson launch into a stimulating deconstruction of what they term "conceptual metaphors", and the complex way in which they interact to structure our experience of reality. These aren't just metaphors in the rhetorical sense though; the authors examine how common ways of speaking and thinking actually reflect a relatively coherent metaphorical system. For example, you might not think that the statement "He strayed from the line of argument" is metaphorical is any significant way, but it is grounded in the metaphor that AN ARGUMENT IS A JOURNEY, and the assumption that A JOURNEY DEFINES A PATH. Put them together, and you get AN ARGUMENT DEFINES A PATH; a path which can be strayed from. Lakoff and Johnson explore these interactions in great detail, and suggest some fascinating philosophical and political implications. This book is very readable (nice short chapters) and I highly recommend it if you are at all interested in anthropology, linguistics, or philosophy.

If we talk about relationships we might say: "She was in the driver's seat" but we "reached a fork in the road" and now we're "on the rocks" and we may "go our separate ways." Lakoff and Johnson point out that each of these expression uses some version of a metaphor that "Love is a Journey" -- where the journey may be by boat, by car, or walking. Metaphors like these are not special poetic creations, but are part of the day to day way we talk and think about relationships. In the same way, prices "go up", people "get close", the future is "down the road" and cognitive scientists "defend" their "positions." Metaphors like these are not simply a playful use of words. They are part of the way that we think. This is some of Lakoff and Johnson's fascinating description of the pervasive role of metaphor in human cognition. To this reader, it has all the hallmarks of a great scientific discovery: it is original, profound, simple, and obviously true. For this reason alone, the book deserves five stars. However, the book fails to give it's marvelous subject the treatment it deserves. The writing, while clear and full of common sense, is often uneven. The organization is lopsided -- much of the book is devoted to attacking straw men and and hand waving attempts to expand their discovery into some kind of murky philosphical revolution. This is confusing, easy to criticize, and a waste of time. Worst of all, they blunt the greatest weapon of any truly great idea: its simplicity.