The opening salvo of the text was the example ARGUMENT IS WAR (see what I did there? The book is, after all, an argument for a theory). This implies that different cultures would have different metaphors.
Key to the theory: metaphors, the handles that help us understand more abstract concepts, emerge from our physical and cultural experience. Two caveats: I did a recreational read, as opposed to a serious academic read and in the 40 years since this book was published, many of the concepts have been refined, expanded, or qualified. This book, or at least excerpts from it, was on several reading lists when I concentrated in linguistics as an undergrad revisiting it now has been incredibly exciting, since all these years later I have come across other facets that fit into the outlined concepts.
Madness and journeys give us handles on the concept of love, and food gives us handle on the concept of an idea.Īny time I read anything about language, whether it’s from a literary or neuroscience or psychosocial point of view, I’m enthralled. We, on the other hand, are concerned with how human beings get a handle on the concept – how they understand it and function in terms of it. …Definitions for a concept are seen as characterizing the things that are inherent in the concept itself. We have found that such principles are often metaphoric in nature and involve understanding one kind of experience in terms of another kind of experience. The general principles involve whole systems of concepts rather than individual words or individual concepts. We view language as providing data that can lead to general principles of understanding. We are concerned primarily with how people understand their experiences.
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