On metaphor: a book review of Metaphors we live by
Transcript of On metaphor: a book review of Metaphors we live by
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On metaphor:A review of Metaphors we live by
Kai Li2016/03/08
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The authors
• George Lakoff (1941-) is an American cognitive linguist.
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The authors
• Mark Johnson (1949-) is a professor in embodied philosophy, cognitive science, and cognitive linguistics.
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Metaphor and simile
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An example
TIME IS MONEY• You are wasting my time.• I’ve invested a lot of time in her.
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The book in a nutshell• Metaphor is both omnipresent and important.
– Metaphor helps us understand one thing in terms of another by highlighting (and at the same time hiding) certain aspects of the things.
– Metaphor is the basic structure of our conceptual system. – Metaphor can also create new realities.
• Three sources of metaphors: – direction, physical objects, and human being
• There are relationships between metaphors:– Metaphors can be consistent or contradictory with each other. – Metaphors can be built upon/divided from one another.
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More examples
TIME IS MONEY• You are wasting my time.• I’ve invested a lot of
time in her.
MONEY IS LIQUID• Money has been
flooding into the country.
TIME IS A MOVING OBJECT• The time will come when…• The time for action has
arrived...
TIME IS A STATIONARY OBJECT• We are approaching the
end of the year.• As we go further into the
1980s.
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Gareth Morgan’s organization metaphors
http://bogost.com/writing/the-cathedral-of-computation/
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More examples: Love
LOVE IS A JOURNEY• LOVE IS A CAR TRIP– This relationship is a dead-end street.
• LOVE IS A TRAIN TRIP– We’ve gotten off the track.
• LOVE IS A SEA VOYAGE– Our marriage is on the rocks.
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The book in a nutshell (again)• Metaphor is both omnipresent and important.
– Metaphor helps us understand one thing in terms of another by highlighting (and at the same time hiding) certain aspects of the things.
– Metaphor is the basic structure of our conceptual system. – Metaphor can also create new realities.
• Three sources of metaphors: – direction, physical objects, and human body
• There are relationships between metaphors:– Metaphors can be consistent or contradictory with each other. – Metaphors can be built upon/divided from one another.
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My review of the book
• Pros:– The authors talked about the concepts and reasoning
very in a very comprehensive and detailed way. – This book provided a important theoretical
contribution to the theory of social science in general.
• Cons:– The authors limited their discussions on the levels of
language and thought.
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Why metaphor theory matters to us (PhD students/scholars)?
• Two arguments about the relationships between science and metaphor:– Scientific communication needs to resort to metaphors.
• “DNA as computer program” or “DNA as blueprint” (Fogle, 1995)
• “Illness as metaphor”– Science is metaphorical in nature.
• Theories try to explain (and predict) a phenomenon by highlighting and hiding certain aspects of it.
• Theological foundation of modern social science
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Illness as metaphor
• Sontag (1977) analyzed the public discourse systems (metaphors) around the two diseases, cancer and tuberculosis, where both diseases are connected with personal psychological traits, in two very different ways.
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Metaphor and scientific discoveries
• Scientific discoveries made possible through dreams:– Barrat (1993) listed 12
major scientific discoveries that were claimed to be achieved in the dreams. At least one of them, Kekulé’s discovery of benzene molecules is highly metaphorical.
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Theological foundation of modern social science
• Marshall Sahlins (1996), an American anthropologist, argued that modern economics and anthropology are based upon a notion in Augustine theology. – Augustine argued that “man was destined to wear out
his body in the vain attempt to satisfy it, because in obeying his own desires he had disobeyed God.”
– Adam Smith’s economics tried to explore “how we make the best of our eternal insufficiencies, the most possible satisfaction from means that are always less than our wants.”
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Why metaphor theory matters to us (information professionals)?
• The family of information-related metaphors:– Information-as-thing – Information-as-process– Information-as-
knowledge– Information-as-service– Information-as-system– Information-as-person
• Exercise: can you relate these terms with the metaphors on the left side?– Information object– Information overload– Information consumption– Information lifecycle– Information wants to be
free– Information seeking
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Summary
• Theory (especially, of higher level) matters. • Reflexivity:– What does “INFORMATION IS A METAPHOR”
mean? How good can it explain information?
• Questions?
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ReferenceBarrett, D. (1993). The“ committee of sleep”: A study of dream
incubation for problem solving. Dreaming, 3(2), 115.Fogle, T. (1995). Information metaphors and the human genome
project. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 38(4), 535–547.Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (2008). Metaphors we live by. University of
Chicago press. Sahlins, M., Bargatzky, T., Bird-David, N., Clammer, J., Hamel, J.,
Maegawa, K., & Siikala, J. (1996). The Sadness of Sweetness: The Native Anthropology of Western Cosmology [and Comments and Reply]. Current Anthropology, 37(3), 395–428.
Sontag, S., & Broun, H. H. (1977). Illness as metaphor. Center for Cassette Studies.
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Thank you!