More House School English Department METAPHOR

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More House School English DepartmentMETAPHOR

• LITB4 AQA Critical Anthology
• pp.8-10 13-14.

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What is a metaphor?

• using language to refer to something other
  than what it was originally applied to, or what
  it literally means, in order to suggest some
  resemblance, or make a connection between two
  things.
• From Knowles Moon (2006) Introducing Metaphor,
  (pp 2-6), Abingdon Routledge.

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What is meant by conventional metaphors?

• Conventional metaphors are all the metaphors that
  we use, every day, without even realising.

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Examples of conventional metaphors

• I cant digest this much information.
• Im a night owl.
• Ive got a pile of marking to plough through
  before I leave.
• Oh stop fishing for compliments and go home.
• Would you like a hand carrying that enormous
  pile of exercise books?

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So what?
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What do the conventional metaphors below have in
common?

• House prices are on the rise.
• My income has gone down.
• Unemployment is up on this time last year.
• Exports are down.
• The number of homeless people is currently at an
  all-time high.

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Exactly. Well done. They all suggest that MORE is
UP.

• The more of something there is, the higher up it
  is.
• The less of something there is, the lower down
  is.
• To gain is to climb.
• To lose is to fall.

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What about these?

• The baby arrived at 6 oclock this morning!
• I dont know where Im heading. My life has no
  direction at the moment.
• You cant just go through life with your eyes
  closed!
• I set out to be a doctor, but I liked English so
  much that I became an English teacher!
• After university I was at a crossroads, and I
  didnt know which way to go.
• You have to move on and forget about what has
  happened.
• His life took an unexpected direction after he
  met her.
• My father passed away last night. He went in his
  sleep.

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Exactly. Well done. They all suggest LIFE is a
JOURNEY.

• Were all on a road.
• Were going somewhere.
• Are we?
• How accurate are these metaphors?
• What do they do to the way we perceive the world?
• How did they come about?
• WHY?

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"There are other languages in which MORE IS UP
and LESS IS DOWN, but none in which the reverse
is true, where MORE IS DOWN and LESS IS UP. Why
not? Contemporary theory postulates that the MORE
IS UP metaphor is grounded in experience--in the
common experiences of pouring more fluid into a
container and seeing the level go up, or adding
more things to a pile and seeing the pile get
higher. These are thoroughly pervasive
experiences we encounter them every day in our
lives."(George Lakoff, "The Contemporary Theory
of Metaphor," Metaphor and Thought, ed. by A.
Ortony. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993)
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Metaphors are important.

• They structure what we think, what we say, what
  we do.
• Imagine a culture in which arguments were viewed
  as dances, instead of battles.
• Imagine a society in which life wasnt viewed as
  a journey. It just was.
• Imagine a world where the right way was down,
  instead of up.
• Everything would be upside down. Everything would
  be different.

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Watch and make notes on this TED talk

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v2cU56SWXHFw
• More House School English Department