Metaphors We Live By is an influential book by linguists and philosophers George Lakoff and Mark Johnson published in 1980. It has since revolutionised the way we understand language and how we relate our experiences to the world around us.

But what exactly are metaphors?

Lakoff and Johnson argue that metaphors aren’t just poetry, but a fundamental part of our brains’ conceptual systems. That is, they’re central to the way we perceive ourselves, others, and the world.

Lakoff and Johnson write that the ‘essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another’.

One of the most common examples is all the world’s a stage – an example that draws similarities between acting for an audience and human life in general.

Are metaphors simply poetic? Or is there something else going.

Lakoff and Johnson argue that, actually, metaphors aren’t just poetic but a fundamental way we understand ourselves.

They write, ‘the concepts that govern our thought are not just matters of the intellect. They also govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane details. Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people’. Furthermore, ‘our conceptual system is largely metaphorical’.

Take the metaphor ‘argument is war’.

An argument is a concept – it’s abstract, a product of human minds.

Now look at how we describe it:

• Your claims are indefensible.
• There’s a weak point in my argument.
• His criticisms were on target.
• She shot down and destroyed my arguments.
• He attacked the argument.

Much of how we describe arguing is structured, at least partially, by the concept of war. But not only that, how we describe arguing goes on to affect how we argue.

That is, it’s not just poetic – the structure of the metaphor determines thought itself.

So, why do we do this?

Both war and argument are systematic. Both are structured in a recognisable way that has sides, positions, wins and losses. There are similarities and so we can describe something in a way that other people can easily understand. We borrow from something pre-existing to describe something conceptual.

Let’s take another example: ‘time is money’.

You’re wasting my time.
This gadget will save you hours.
I don’t have the time to give you.
How do you spend your time these days?
That flat tire cost me an hour.
I’ve invested a lot of time in her.
I don’t have enough time to spare for that.
You’re running out of time.

Again there are structural similarities between time and money.

We also have orientational metaphors.

Orientational metaphors are spatial.

For example, happy is often up while sad is down.
That boosted by spirits.
I’m feeling high.
I’m depressed.
His mood sank.

Or we use orientational metaphors to describe how we relate to a concept.

I have control over her.
I am on top of the situation.
He’s in a superior position.
He’s at the height of his power.

Lakoff and Johnson argue that most of our experience is organised spatially, and again, as with structural metaphors, there is a shared systemicity between the two that is coherent.

They note that, ‘since there are systematic correlates between our emotions (like happiness) and our sensory-motor experiences (like erect posture), these form the basis of orientational metaphorical concepts (such as happy is up). Such metaphors allow us to conceptualize our emotions in more sharply define terms and also to relate them to other concepts having to do with general well-being (e.g. health, life, control, etc.)’.

When ideas or concepts are abstract we sometimes have to imagine them as physical objects so as to give them a form.

Take inflation.

We imagine it as an object with physical characteristics.

We must combat it.
It’s out of control.

Or take the mind is a machine metaphor.

My mind isn’t operating.
We’re trying to grind out the solution.
I’m a little rusty.
My mind is fragile.
He broke down.
She snapped.
She went to pieces.

We give the concept a physical form and borrow meaning from the physical world to help describe it.

Furthermore, most of the time we describe concepts as if they are physical containers.

We, as humans, are physical objects – we have an inside and an outside – like other entities in the world, and the world and universe itself.

Containers are a structural part of our being – they are universal.

We organise human concepts, ideas and plans as if they too were containers.

Are you in the race? – A race as a container.
Are you going to the race? – Watching the container.
Did you see the finish? – End of the container.

Jobs too are thought of containers:

Did you get out of doing it?
How did you get into that?

And take some others:

He’s in love.
We’re out of trouble now.
He’s coming out of the coma.
I’m slowly getting into shape.
He entered a state of euphoria.
He fell into a depression.

Container metaphors help us think about how we relate to a concept. Whether we’re part of it, in it, experiencing it, or not.

But all of these types of metaphor can be mixed together – they’re not mutually exclusive.

Take love is a journey:

Look how far we’ve come.
We’re at a crossroads.
We’ll just have to go our separate ways.
We can’t turn back now.
I don’t think this relationship is going anywhere.
Where are we?
We’re stuck.
It’s been a long, bumpy road.
This relationship is a dead-end street.
Our marriage is on the rocks.
We’ve gotten off the track.
This relationship is foundering.

These are structural, orientational, and ontological.

Importantly, for Lakoff and Johnson, metaphors are culturally conditioned.

Take the concepts of labour and time.

They argue that both labour and time as resources are culturally grounded in a particular way that draws on a western relationship to material resources.

Material resources can be quantified, have a value, a purpose, get used up.

In the same way, labour is a kind of activity that

can be quantified fairly precisely (in terms of time)
can be assigned a value per unit
serves a purposeful end
is used up progressively as it serves it purpose

Time too:

can be quantified fairly precisely
can be assigned a value per unit
serves a purposeful end
is used up progressively as it serves its purpose

Lakoff and Johnson write, ‘LABOR IS A RESOURCE and TIME AS A RESOURCE are by no means universal. They emerged naturally in our culture because of the way we view work, our passion for quantification, and our obsession with purposeful ends’.

They continue: ‘The RESOURCE metaphors for labor and time hide all sorts of possible conceptions of labor and time that exist in other cultures and in some subcultures of our own society: the idea that work can be play, that inactivity can be productive’.

So Lakoff and Johnson have a progressive understanding about how metaphors can change over time.

New metaphors are creative and imaginative and can change the very way we think.

They take the idea of love being a collaborative work of art:

Love is work. Love is active. Love requires cooperation. Love requires dedication. Love requires compromise. Love requires discipline. Love involves shared responsibility. Love requires patience. Love requires shared values and goals. Love demands sacrifice. Love regularly brings frustration. Love requires instinctive communication. Love is an aesthetic experience. Love is primarily valued for its own sake. Love involves creativity. Love requires a shared aesthetic. Love cannot be achieved by a formula. Love is unique in each instance. Love is an expression of who you are. Love creates a reality. Love reflects how you see the world. Love requires the greatest honesty. Love may be transient or permanent.

Thinking like this might change the way we approach love itself.

In a 2002 study Carola Skott looks at the metaphors cancer patients use. This can help us understand how we can ‘gain a richer understanding of how we structure abstract, emotional, or other experiences that are not clearly Delineated’.

Cancer is often described as an ‘other’, ‘eating’ and ‘invading’ the body. Combatting cancer is a common metaphor. Is this helpful for the patient’s mental health? Christopher Hitchens said it doesn’t so much feel that I’m fighting cancer as cancer is fighting me.

In another essay, Sarah Higinbotham looks at metaphors of violence.

She cites a psychology study that gave a fictional newspaper article to readers that reported that the city of Addison saw a 19% rise in crime and a 52% rise in the murder rate in 2004. They gave out two articles that were identical except for one difference: in one, crime was described as a beast ravaging the city, while in the other, crime was described as a virus ravaging the city.

71% that read that crime was a beast opted for enforcement strategies in a conversation after, while only 54% did who read crime was a virus.

Beasts are evil, with agency, big and attackable. Viruses have a very different connotation.

Metaphors We Live By is a powerful book and has revolutionary consequences that are only just being understood. Metaphor studies are becoming a larger area of research, having an increasing influence on the other humanities.

I’d go into more detail but rather than say that time is running out I’ll borrow from Christopher Morley.

‘Time is a flowing river. Happy those who allow themselves to be carried, unresisting, with the current. They float through easy days. They live, unquestioning, in the moment’.

Sources

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By

Carola Skott, Expressive Metaphors in Cancer Narratives

Sarah Higinbotham, Bloodletting and Beasts: Metaphors of Legal Violence