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Lakoff and Johnson (1980) Metaphors We Live By.

­Possibilities for dialogue depends on the "conceptual systems" of the people engaged in the dialogue
­Conceptual systems may vary without awareness ­ from person to person... also across cultures

­Two related spheres of variation: Conceptual Metaphors and Folk Theory

1. Introductory remarks:

Central to the different perspective I want to formulate, is this claim by Rorty (1980, p.12), that:

"It is pictures rather than propositions, metaphors rather than statements, which determine most of our
philosophical convictions."

Behind this approach to language is a new image­schematism in terms of which to think about language itself:

­Not representational: i) rather than in terms of words­standing­for­things, of words working in a one­to­one code to
'picture' or represent things
­But formative or constitutive: ii) the main function of language is thought of it as being formative, as the activity of
giving 'instructions' to others about how to give form to an otherwise formless state of affairs ­ see the 'conduit
metaphor' and its 'instructive' alternative below.

2. Metaphor and the further specification of form:

How does metaphor play its part in this form­giving process?

Lakoff and Johnson have a particular approach to this problem which I want to commend to you: They begin by making a
radical claim:

1) "Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish ­ a matter of extraordinary
language rather than ordinary language...
2) We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action.
Our ordinary conceptual system [I would say, our 'common sense knowledge'], in terms of which we both think and act, is
fundamentally metaphorical in nature" (p.3).

For: Metaphors function to give:

­a partially structured circumstance a more well (but, as we shall see, a still not completely) specified structure
­to understand a new and unfamiliar circumstance in terms of an old and familiar one
­to understand the less concrete in terms of the more concrete
­the nonphysical in terms of the physical

Where:

"The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another" (my emphasis, p.5)... we
'carry over' a way of responding in one sphere of our lives into another.

"Metaphor is one of our most important tools for trying to comprehend partially what cannot be comprehended totally: our
feelings, aesthetic experiences, moral practices, and spiritual awareness... Truth is relative to understanding, which means that
there is no absolute objective truths about the world. This does not mean that there are no truths; it means that truth is relative
to our conceptual system [way of talking], which is grounded in, and constantly tested by, our experiences and those of other
members of our culture in our daily interactions with other people and with our physical and cultural environments" (p.193).

3. Initial example:

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To give some idea of what it could mean for one not only to understand, but to experience an otherwise only partially
structured situation in terms of a metaphor, let us start with the concept of ARGUMENT, and the conceptual metaphor
ARGUMENT IS WAR:

ARGUMENT IS WAR

He attacked every weak point in my argument.

Your claims are indefensible.
His criticisms were right on target.
I demolished his argument.
I never won an argument with him.
You disagree? Okay, shoot!
If you use that strategy, he'll wipe you out.
He shot down all my arguments.

We do not just talk or think about arguing in terms of war; the fact is, many of the things we do ­ attacking positions,
defending positions, using strategies, etc ­ can be (partially) structured by the concept of war.

4. Forms of metaphor:

Lakoff and Johnson think of less well specified "domains of experience" as being structured in terms of image schematisms
derived from basic domains of experience.

"Image schematisms": 1) have 'conditions of satisfaction'; 2) small number of elements and relations.

They suggest metaphorical resources can be drawn from a number of basic domains:

i) spatial orientations (e.g., UP­DOWN, IN­OUT, NEAR­FAR, FRONT­BACK);

ii) ontological concepts (things, stuff ­ nouns) (e.g., ENTITY, SUBSTANCE, CONTAINER, PERSON); and
iii) structured experience (activities ­ verbs) (e.g., EATING, MOVING, PUSHING/PULLING OBJECTS, CONVERSATION,
etc.)

i. orientational metaphors: MORE IS UP (The price goes up each year); GOOD IS UP (Things are looking up) ­ in which a
whole system of concepts is organized spatially.

ii. ontological (thing) metaphors: THE MIND IS A CONTAINER (He got nothing in his head); THE MIND IS A MACHINE
(My mind just isn't working today) ­ in which unbounded and unstructured aspects of our experience are structured as if they
were entities or substances.

iii. structural (activity) metaphors: TIME IS MONEY (Save time; don't waste time); UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING (I see what
you're saying; let me point out something to you) ­ in which one structured concept is restructured by another.

5. Metaphors have entailments:

i) Container metaphor (in­out orientation):

­ protection from external forces;
­ limiting of forces within the container;
­ fixity of location 'in' the container;
­ transitivity of containment, i.e., if a is in be, and b is in c, then a is in c.

ii) We do not find money growing on trees; it is a limited resource. This entails that it is a valuable commodity. These
entailments will be transferred to time in the TIME IS MONEY metaphor.

TIME IS A LIMITED RESOURCE (I like to help, but I don't have the time to give you).
TIME IS A VALUABLE COMMODITY (My time is precious right now).

6. Metaphorical definitions: partial, inconsistent, overlapping:

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Many of our most important concepts are abstract, such as TIME, EMOTIONS, COMMUNICATION, THE MIND, IDEAS,
THE SELF, SOCIETY, INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS.

However, no single, concrete, basic domain concept is ever structured in exactly the right way to completely and precisely
define any single abstract concept. Thus we understand abstract concepts in terms of many ­ partial, inconsistent, overlapping
­ metaphorical definitions, each of which captures only a part of the concept. For example, the concept IDEA is defined by a
rich and complex cluster of metaphors:

IDEAS ARE ORGANISMS (people: Cognitive psychology is still in its infancy); (plants: His ideas have finally come to
fruition).
IDEAS ARE PRODUCTS (He produces an idea every second)
IDEAS ARE COMMODITIES (He won't buy that idea)
IDEAS ARE RESOURCES ( He ran out of ideas; let's pool our ideas)
IDEAS ARE MONEY (He has a wealth of ideas)
IDEAS ARE CUTTING INSTRUMENTS (That cuts to the heart of the matter)
IDEAS ARE FOOD (I just can't swallow that idea)
IDEAS ARE FASHION (That idea went out of fashion years ago)

Each of these metaphors defines some aspect of what an idea is, but taken together they do not provide a consistent definition
for the concept of IDEA. Each metaphor highlights certain aspects of a concept but hides others: The IDEAS ARE PEOPLE
metaphor emphasizes DEVELOPMENT, COMING INTO and GOING OUT OF EXISTENCE; but hides the fact that IDEAS
ARE COMMODITIES, and have commercial value.

7. The 'grounding' of metaphors in experience:

Metaphorical concepts of all types arise from physical and cultural experience, but some seem more basic than others.

Lakoff and Johnson claim that a "basic domain of experience" is:

"a structured whole within our experience which is conceptualized as an experiential gestalt" (p.117).

Where, an experiential gestalt is a "multidimensional structured whole" (p.81).

i): Conversation: For instance, such a gestalt is, they say, CONVERSATION. And in using the ARGUMENT IS WAR
metaphor, the gestalt for CONVERSATION is specified/structured further by means of the correspondences with selected
elements of the gestalt for WAR. (But only partially, as was made clear above, for in fact this metaphor hides other, more
cooperative aspects of arguments.)

ARGUMENT AS CONVERSATION

If you let me finish my sentence, then you can have your turn.
Let's define our terms.
He understood my position.
He replied to my point thus...
She totally misunderstood what I was saying.
If you will let me just explain...
So we agree then!?

Structure of conversation gestalt (as argumentation):

Participants (speaker/hearer :: adversaries); turn­taking (two positions; criticism/justification; attack/defense; claim/counter

claim; strategies; maneuvers; victory/silence); stages (initial conditions; beginning; middle; end); linear sequence (retreat after
attack; counter attack; defense after attack); causation (attack results in defense, etc); purpose (to win).

ii): Simple spatial concepts, such as 'up': The prime candidates for concepts that are "understood directly" (they say, p.56) are
simple spatial concepts, such as UP. The structure of our spatial concepts, they say, "emerges from our constant spatial
experience, that is, our interaction with our physical environment" (pp.56­7).

However (problems with this claim):

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"...what we call 'direct physical experience' is never merely a matter of having a body of a certain sort; rather, every experience
takes place within a vast background of cultural presuppositions. It can be misleading, therefore, to speak of direct physical
experience as though there were some core of immediate experience which we then 'interpret' in terms of our conceptual
system. Cultural assumptions, values, and attitudes are not a conceptual overlay which we may or may not place upon
experience as we choose. it would be more correct to say that all experience is cultural through and through, that we
experience our 'world' in such a way that our culture is already present in the very experience itself" P.57).

Thus, what is claimed about 'grounding' is not that it is in any physical absolutes, only that we typically talk about the
nonphysical in terms of the physical, the less clearly specified in terms of the more clearly specified ­ were what is basic for us
lies in who we are, i.e., our social ontology ­ our development as competent participants in developmental, communicative
practices.

8. The 'conduit metaphor' (what it cannot do!) and its 'instructive' alternative:

8.1 The conduit metaphor:

No theory of communication or understanding can be adequate if it can not account for the crucial role of conceptual
metaphors and folk theories in people's understanding and use of language. However, such theories are often themselves
based upon certain folk theories ­ models of some aspect of reality which, for the most part, is taken as constituting common
sense, i.e., what everyone knows and takes for granted ­ which include certain conceptual metaphors.

The conduit metaphor (Reddy, 1979) is made up of the following parts:

i) ­ THE MIND IS A CONTAINER (FOR IDEAS);

ii) ­ IDEAS (OR MEANINGS) ARE OBJECTS;
iii) ­ LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONS ARE CONTAINERS (FOR IDEA­OBJECTS);
iv) ­ COMMUNICATION IS SENDING.

According to the conduit metaphor, a speaker takes ideas out of his mind, puts them into words (an 'insertion' process), and
sends them (as if along a conduit) to a hearer, who takes out the meaning objects from the words.

As Reddy shows, this metaphor accounts for approx. 70% of our talk about language.

Wittgenstein (1953, no.115):

"A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us
inexorably."

The CONDUIT metaphor:

It's hard to put my ideas into words.

Let me try to get across what I have in mind.
You still have not given me any idea of what you mean.

The CONDUIT metaphor seems 'natural' because it fits certain types of situations very well; thus many linguists and
philosophers take it as prototypical. These are the types of situation in which it holds:

i) ­ Speakers equally competent;

ii) ­ Relevant to the subject matter and the context, the participants share:

1. the same cultural assumptions

2. the same relevant knowledge of the world
3. the same relevant background knowledge about the context of the utterance;
4. the same understanding of what the conversation is about;
5. and the same relevant metaphors and folk theories.

These are situations of information exchange, not of the development of an understanding ­ although there is nothing
pernicious in the metaphor itself, our culture offers no other conventional alternative. Thus it is difficult for us to understand
communication across conceptual systems, i.e., communication in which moves from a mistake­full, improvised form of
communication to a smooth, skilful form, e.g., forms of communication in which a language is learnt.
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8.2 An alternative: the 'toolmakers' metaphor and 'instruction':

The 'toolmakers paradigm':

­ Assumption of 'radical subjectivity', i.e., people completely separated from one another except...
­ they can exchange crude sets of 'instructions' with one another.
­ here something is being 'made known' to someone.

Comparison of i) 'conduit metaphor' with ii) 'toolmakers system':

Success: i) not success without effort, but ii) communication will always go wrong unless effort is expended.
What is explained: i) not failure to communicate, but ii) success, i.e., partial communication will be normal; partial
misunderstanding, or divergence in readings of single text are not aberrations, but are to be expected.

3. Order: i) not 'naturally' ordered, as the 'conduit metaphor' would have it, but ii) only gathered together if the people
involved make the effort to do it.

Successful human communication always involves an increase in organization, which can only happen under special, unusual
conditions.

Reddy: "To me, from my vantage point now, it seems that the toolmakers paradigm and radical subjectivism form a coherent,
common­sense view of what happens when we talk ­ a common­sense view which finds support in everything from this
second law of thermodynamics to recent work in artificial intelligence or cognitive psychology... [But] I confess that it took me
nearly five years to come around to radical subjectivism as 'common­sense'. What stood in the way was never a counter­
argument, but rather the simply inability to think clearly about the matter. My mind would seem to go to sleep at crucial
moments, and it was only the mounting weight of more and more evidence that finally forced it to stay awake... [arguments
about the value of the 'toolmakers paradigm'] will fall on deaf ears until the biasing effect of the conduit metaphor has been
dealt with" (pp.296­7).

9. Semantic pathology:

9.1 Its pervasiveness: I. difficulty of devising alternatives.

Not easy to discard the conduit metaphor (cm); it is 'inscribed' in (sic) every aspect of our language use, and thus in all our
communicative practices.

It is not impossible to think (momentarily, and self­consciously) in terms of the 'toolmakers paradigm' (tmp), but such
thinking remains brief, isolated, and fragmentary, in the face of an opposing system of usages.

Counting up expressions: conduit metaphor expressions = 140; others = 30/40. Other expressions long, and 'latinate' (in
English).

­ Communicate your feelings using words (tmp avoids cm).

­ Communicate your feeling in words (uses cm).
­ Did you get anything out of (cm) the articles in the reader?
­ Were you able to construct (tmp) anything of interest on the basis of the assigned texts?

9.2 Its pervasiveness: II. depth.

Consider two uses of the word poem:

1. 'Poem/one': on the page:

­ The poem was almost illegible.
­ The poem has five lines and forty words.
­ The poem is without rhymes.

2. 'Poem/two': in the head:

­ That poem was depressing.

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­ That poem was too obscene for children.

­ Donne's poem is very logical.

If words in language contain (cm) ideas, then 'poem/one' contains 'poem/two', i.e., the more concrete term containing the
more abstract one (metonymy ­ whole/part relation).

As long as we are happy with cm, then this ambiguity is in no way problematic.

In the tmp, 'poem/one' does not automatically contain 'poem/two'. Different people will assemble mental and emotional
materials in different ways to construct within themselves many different 'poem/two's'. Only if they expend a great deal of
time checking and testing, and comparing notes, can they come to an agreed common meaning. They is no automatic
extension of 'poem/one' tp 'poem/two'.

For tmp followers, the ambiguity between 'poem/one' and 'poem/two' is a real and severe linguistic pathology ­ a linguistic
pathology is "whenever two or more incompatible senses capable of figuring meaningfully in the same context develop
around the same textual term."

­ The novel is 112 pages long (no problem).

­ The novel is deeply symbolic (problem ­ which novel?).

9.3 Special case: information theory itself.

Information: the ability to make nonrandom selections from a set of alternatives.

Communication: the transfer of this ability from one place to another.
A set of alternatives ­ the repertoire ­ and a code: possessed by both sender and receiver: the 'a priori shared context'.
Messages (coded signals) = 'instructions' about making selections.

In this model: messages are not 'contained' in the signals: information is the power to make selections.

Ambiguity of term 'message':

­ I got your message (on paper) OK, but I've had no time yet to read it.
­ OK, I get the message (in my head); let's leave him alone.

In information theory, signals do something; they do not contain anything: Yet even now we find commentators on the theory
saying: "The theory [of information] was concerned with the problem of defining the quantity of information contained in a
massage to be transmitted..." (Sereno and Mortensen, 1970, p.62).
 

Social Relations as                        Problem as                         Solution as

Machine                                            Breakdown                         Repair
Organism                                          Pathology                            Cure
Game                                                  Strategy                                New Moves
Drama Script,                                  Plot                                         New Actors, Re­author
Ritual                                                 Rite de Passage                  Separation­in Limbo­Re­entry
Text                                                    Performance                        Re­author

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