Metaphors We Live By

Reading the first three chapters of Metaphors We Live By written by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson was interesting. The first chapter told us that metaphor is a language that everyone uses. We think and act, yet we are not aware of it. Lakoff and Johnson gave the example of “Argument is War”, through this example they explained that metaphors are structured and our language of argument is “not poetic, fanciful, or rhetorical; it is literal.” They further explained that our human thought process is metaphorical and when we speak of metaphor, it really means that it’s a metaphorical concept.

As I continued to read on I started understand more about metaphorical concepts. Lakoff and Johnson gave another example in which I think everyone has heard of it and can agree, time is money. They explained what that saying meant and I agree with it 100% even though we can never get back our time we spent do whatever it was that we were doing. I’ve heard this phrase being thrown from left to right as I was growing up. Perhaps its because we live in the most expensive city or that it is true that time is money. They explained that time is the most valuable commodity we have in our culture. They broke it down to exactly how time is money. All though most people have heard, time is money, it was explained that this commodity is mostly used in the Western culture. We are convinced and act that time is a limited resource as they explained and we either choose to spend it wisely or poorly. Time is money is a metaphorical concept. They explained that its metaphorical because “we are using our everyday experience with money…to conceptualize time.” It goes back to our culture on how we conceptualize time and how metaphors are characterizing our system. In my opinion it depends if someone chooses if time is a valuable commodity. The authors explained that in many other cultures and places time isn’t what humans want to conceptualize.

The last chapter Lakoff and Johnson retold us that metaphors are used in our everyday language and we don’t know it, in fact they quoted Michael Reddys documents, that 70% of the English language metaphors are hidden and we use metaphorical concepts to understand one another. Overall, this reading made me realize that in fact, we do use a lot of metaphors everyday.

2 thoughts on “Metaphors We Live By

  1. I totally agree! I never realized that I have been using metaphors on a daily basis. This reading had opened my mind up. You gave me a new perspective when you mention that it depends if someone chooses time to be a valuable commodity or not. I always thought time is money because we live in New York and everyone is usually rushing to go somewhere. Most people look at their watches a few times a day. However, now I think about it, just sitting down and have coffee with someone you love is worth the time. Time is not always associated with money. Time can be happiness. Thank you for your response.

  2. I think we are all amazed by the fact that we have been using metaphors on our daily language without even wanting to.That’s the beauty of language. i definitely agree with the comment above. We live in a world filled with materialistic people, and empty words. Time doesn’t always have to be associated with money. yes it makes sense, but spending time with family or as the comment above said, with someone you love, is more than priceless. That is life.

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