Take, for example, a metaphor like
UNKNOWNIS
UP; KNOWNISDOWN.
Lakoff-Metaphors
Thus, if ideas are objects, we can dress them up in fancy clothes,
" juggle them, line them up nice and neat, etc. So when we say that a concept is structured by a metaphor, we mean that it is partially structured and that it can be extended in some ways but not others.
r
In addition to sentences that have no meaning without context, there are cases where a single sentence will mean different things to different people. Consider:
We need new alternative sources of energy.
This means something very different to the president of Mobil Oil from what it means to the president of Friends of
the Earth. The meaning is not right there in the sentence-it matters a lot who is saying or listening to the sentence and what his social and political attitudes are. The CONDUIT metaphor does not fit cases where context is required to determine whether the sentence has any meaning at all and, if so, what meaning it has.
These examples show that the metaphorical concepts we have looked at provide us with a partial understanding of what communication, argument, and time are and that, in doing this, they hide other aspects of these concepts. It! is
~
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ORIENTATION AL METAPHORS' I
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Orientational Metaphors
15
HAPPY IS UP; SAD IS"DOWN
Dm feeling up. ! . Thatiboosted my spirits. My spirits\rose. You'reinhigh'spmts. Thinkingaboutheralwaysgivesmea lift. I'm feelit1gd@wn. I'm depressed. He's really low these days. Ifell into adepression. My spirits sank.
Physical basis: Drooping posture typically goes along
with sadness and depression, erect posture with a positive emotional state.
CONSCIOUS IS UP; UNCONSCIOUS IS DOWN
Get' up. Wake up. I'm up already. He rises early in the
morning. Hefell asleep. He dropped off to sleep. He's under hypnosis. He sank into a coma.
Physical basis: Humans and most other mammals sleep lying down and stand up when they awaken.
HEALTH AND LIFE ARE' UP; SICKNESS AND DEATH ARE DOWN
He's at the peak of health. Lazarus rose from the dead. He's
in top shape. As to his health, he's way up there. Hefell ill. He's sinking fast. He came down with the flu. His health is declining. He dropped dead.
Physical basis: Serious illness forces us to lie down physically. When you're dead; you are physically down.
HAVING CONTROL or FORCE IS UP; BEING SUBJECT TO CONTROL or FORCE IS DOWN
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. He's in the high command. He's in the upper echelon. His power rose. He ranks above me in strength. He is under my control. He
fell from power. His power is on the decline. He is my social inferior. He is low man on the totem pole.
Physical basis: Physical size typically correlates with
physical strength, and the victor in a fight is typically on top.
MORE IS UP; LESS IS DOWN
The number of books printed each year keeps going up. His
III
'ill
I1I1
So far we have examined what we will call structural metaphors, cases where one concept is metaphorically
structured in terms of another. But there is another kind of
metaphorical concept, one that does not structure one con- cept in terms of another. but instead organizes a whole sys- tem of concepts with:r-e! ? pecto one another. We will call these orientational metaphors, since most of them have to do with spatial orientation: up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow, central-peripheral. These spatial orientations arise from the fact that we have bodies of the
sort we have and that they function as they do in our ph~si- cal environment. Orientational metaphors give a concept a
spatial orientation;! forexample, HAPPYISUP. The fact that the concept HAPPYis oriented UPleads to English expres- sions like "I'm feeling up today. "
Such metaphorical orientations are not arbitrary. They have a basis in. our physical and cultural e~perience. Though the polar oppositions up-down, in~out,rete, ,. ,are physical in nature, the orientational metaphors baseC:lon them,'oan vary from culture to culture. For example, in some cultures the future is in front of us; whereas in others it is in back. We will be looking at up-down. spatialization metaphors, which have been studied intensively by William Nagy (1974), as an illustration. In each case, we will give a brief hint about how each metaphoricakconcept might have arisen from our physical and cultural experience. These accounts are meant to be suggestive and plausible, not de- finitive.
14
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11111
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16 CHAPTER FOUR \
draft number is high. My income rose last year. The amount of artistic activity in this state has gone down in the past year. The number of errors he made is incredibly low. His income
fell last year. He is underage. If you're too hot, turn the heat down.
Physical basis: If you add more of a substance or of physical objects to a container or pile, the level goes up.
FORESEEABLE FUTURE EVENTS ARE UP (and AHEAD)
All upcoming events are listed in the paper. What's coming up this week? I'm afraid of what's up ahead of us. What's up?
Physical basis: Normally our eyes look in the direction in which we typically move (ahead, forward). As an object approaches a person (or the person approaches the object), the object appears larger. Since the ground is perceived as being fixed, the top of the object appears to be moving
ORIENTATIONAL METAPHORS 17
underhanded. I wouldn't stoop to that. That would be be- neath me. He fell into the abyss of depravity. That was a low-down thing to do.
Physical and social basis: GOODISUPfor a person (physi-
cal basis), together with a metaphor that we will discuss
below, SOCIETYIS A PERSON(in the version where you are
not identifying with your society). To be virtuous is to act in
accordance with the standards set by the society/person to
maintain its well-being. VIRTUEIS UP because virtuous ac-
tions correlate with social well-being from the society/
person's point of view. Since socially based metaphors are
part of the culture, it's the society/person's point of view that counts.
RATIONAL IS UP; EMOTIONAL IS DOWN
The discussionfell to the emotional level, but I raised it back up to the rational plane. We put ourfeelings aside and had a high-level intellectual discussion of the matter. He couldn't rise above his emotions.
Physical and cultural basis: In our culture people view themselves as being in control over animals, plants, and their physical environment, and it is their unique ability to reason that places human beings above other animals and gives them this control. CONTROLIS UP thus provides a basis for MANIS UP and therefore for RATIONALIS UP.
Conclusions
! '1
. :1 1.
11:1
HIGH STATUS IS UP; LOW STATUS IS DOWN
He has a lofty position. She'll rise to the top. He's at the peak of his career. He's climbing the ladder. He has little upward mobility. He's at the bottom of the social hierarchy. She fell in status.
Social and physical basis: Status is correlated with (so- cial) power and (physical) power is UP.
GOOD IS UP; BAD IS DOWN
Things are looking up. We hit apeak last year, but it's been downhill ever since. Things are at an all-time low. He does high-quality work.
Physical basis for personal well-being: Happiness, health, life, and control-the things that principally characterize what is good for a person-are all UP.
VIRTUE IS UP; DEPRAVITY IS DOWN
He is high-minded. She has high standards. She is upright. She is an upstanding citizen. That was a low trick. Don't be
On the basis of these examples, we suggest the following ~ conclusions about the experiential grounding, the coher-
ence, and the systematicity of metaphorical concepts:
-Most of our fundamental concepts are organized in terms of one or more spatialization metaphors.
-There is an internal systematicity to each spatialization metaphor. For example, HAPPYISUPdefines acoherent system rather than a number of isolated and random cases. (An exam- ple of an incoherent system would be one where, say, "I'm
III
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upward in the person's field of vision.
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II 1,1
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1
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I~ I I
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scientific
metaphors that have a physical and/or cultural basis. The high in "high-energy particles" is based on MOREIS UP. The high in "high-level functions," as in physiological psychology, is based on RATIONALIS UP. The low in "low-level phonology" (which refers to detailed phonetic aspects of the sound systems of languages) is based on MUNDANEREALITYIS DOWN(as in "down to earth"). The intuitive appeal of a scientific theory has to do with how well its metaphors fit one's experience.
-Our physical and cultural experience provides many possible
bases for spatialization metaphors. Which ones are chosen, and(-yn_~
which ones are major, may vary from culture to culture. ~-() ~~~
18
CHAPTER FOUR
ORIENTATIONAL METAPHORS
19
feeling up" meant "I'm feeling happy," but "My spirits rose" meant "I became sadder. ")
-There is an overall external systematicity among the various
spatialization metaphors, which defines coherence among them. Thus, GOODIS UP gives an UP orientation to general well-being, and this orientation is coherent with special cases like HAPPY IS UP , HEALTH IS UP, ALIVE IS UP, CONTROL IS UP. STATUS IS UP is coherent with CONTROL IS UP.
-Spatialization metaphors are rooted in physical and cultural experience; they are not randomly assigned. A metaphor can serve as a vehicle for understanding a concept only by virtue of
its experiential basis. (Some of the complexities of the expe- riential basis of metaphor are discussed in the following sec- tion. )
theory, are
often-perhaps
always-based on
-There are many
metaphor. Coherence within the overall system seems to be part of the reason why one is chosen and not another. For example, happiness also tends to correlate physically with a smile and a general feeling of expansiveness. This could in principle form the basis for a metaphor HAPPYIS WIDE; SADIS NARROW. And in fact there are minor metaphorical expres- sions, like "I'm feeling expansive," that pick out a different aspect of happiness than' 'I'm feeling up" does. But the major metaphor in our culture is HAPPYIS UP; there is a reason why we speak of the height of ecstasy rather than the breadth of ecstasy. HAPPYIS UP is maximally coherent with GOODIS UP, HEALTHYIS UP, etc.
many possible ones has to do with cultural coherence.
Experiential Bases of Metaphors
We do not know very much about the experiential baseB
possible
physical
and social
bases for
/. . /
\.
-In some cases spatialization is so essential a part of a concept
that it is difficult for us to imagine any alternative metaphor that might structure the concept. In our society "high status" is ~ such a concept. Other cases, like happiness, are less clear. Is
the concept of happiness independent of the HAPPYIS UP metaphor, or is the up-down spatialization of happiness a part of the concept? We believe that it is a part of the concept within a given conceptual system. The HAPPYIS UP metaphor places happiness within a coherent metaphorical system, and part of its meaning comes from its role in that system.
-So-called purely intellectual concepts, e. g. , the concepts in a
of metaphors. Because of our ignorance in this matter, we () \ have described the metaphors separately, only later addin
speculative notes on their possible experiential bases. We are adopting this practice out of ignorance, not out of prin- ciple. In actuality we feel that no metaphor can ever be comprehended or even adequately represented indepen- dently of its experiential basis. For example, MOREIS UP has a very different kind of experiential basis than HAPPY ISUPor RATIONALISUP. Though the concept UPis the same in all these metaphors, the experiences on which these UP metaphors are based are very different. It is not that there
are many different ups; rather, verticality enters our expe- rience in many different ways and so gives rise to many dif- ferent metaphors.
One way of emphasizing the inseparability of metaphors from their experiential bases would be to build the expe- riential basis into the representations themselves. Thus, in- stead of writing MOREISUPand RATIONALISuP, we might have the more complex relationship shown in the diagram.
I I
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-It is hard to distinguish the physical from the cultural basis/of ~ ? {f' metaphor, since the choice of one physical basis from a ~EJ)l~'
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20
CHAPTER FOUR
ORIENTATIONAL METAPHORS
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Such a representation would emphasize that the two parts of each metaphor are linked only via an experiential basis and that it is only by means of these experiential bases that the metaphor can serve the purpose of understanding.
We will not use such representations, but only because we know so little about experiential bases of metaphors. We will continue to use the word" is" in stating metaphors likeMOREISUP,buttheISshouldbeviewedasashorthand for some set of experiences on which the metaphor is based and in terms of which we understand it.
The role of the experiential basis is important in under- standing the workings of metaphors that do not fit together because they are based on different kinds of experience.
Take, for example, a metaphor like UNKNOWNIS UP; KNOWNISDOWN. Examples are "That's up in the air" and "The matter is settled. " This metaphor has an experiential basis very much like that of UNDERSTANDINGIS GRASPING, as in "I couldn't grasp his explanation. " With physical ob-
'111111
~ jects, if you can grasp something and hold it in your hands, I
,
MORE
LESS
RATIONAL
EMOTIONAL
Experiential basis 1
Experiential basis 2
UP
DOWN
UP
DOWN
But UNKNOWNIS UP is not coherent with metaphors like GOODIS UP and FINISHEDIS UP (as in "I'm finishing up"). One would expect FINISHEDto be paired with KNOWNand UNFINISHEDto be paired with UNKNOWN. But, so far as verticality metaphors are concerned, this is not the case.
The reason is that UNKNOWNIS UP has a very different experiential basis than FINISHEDISUP.
you can look it over carefully and get a reasonably good understanding of it. It's easier to grasp something and look at it carefully if it's on the ground in a fixed location than if it's floating through the air (like a leaf or a piece of paper).
Thus UNKNOWN IS UP; KNOWN IS DOWN is coherent with UNDERSTANDING IS GRASPING.
" juggle them, line them up nice and neat, etc. So when we say that a concept is structured by a metaphor, we mean that it is partially structured and that it can be extended in some ways but not others.
r
In addition to sentences that have no meaning without context, there are cases where a single sentence will mean different things to different people. Consider:
We need new alternative sources of energy.
This means something very different to the president of Mobil Oil from what it means to the president of Friends of
the Earth. The meaning is not right there in the sentence-it matters a lot who is saying or listening to the sentence and what his social and political attitudes are. The CONDUIT metaphor does not fit cases where context is required to determine whether the sentence has any meaning at all and, if so, what meaning it has.
These examples show that the metaphorical concepts we have looked at provide us with a partial understanding of what communication, argument, and time are and that, in doing this, they hide other aspects of these concepts. It! is
~
\~
""--
? ~
I. -. . -
II 4 II
ORIENTATION AL METAPHORS' I
11111111
'1111111 II
I
1,11111
1IIIIIIi
Iilill
lil! 111
IIII
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Orientational Metaphors
15
HAPPY IS UP; SAD IS"DOWN
Dm feeling up. ! . Thatiboosted my spirits. My spirits\rose. You'reinhigh'spmts. Thinkingaboutheralwaysgivesmea lift. I'm feelit1gd@wn. I'm depressed. He's really low these days. Ifell into adepression. My spirits sank.
Physical basis: Drooping posture typically goes along
with sadness and depression, erect posture with a positive emotional state.
CONSCIOUS IS UP; UNCONSCIOUS IS DOWN
Get' up. Wake up. I'm up already. He rises early in the
morning. Hefell asleep. He dropped off to sleep. He's under hypnosis. He sank into a coma.
Physical basis: Humans and most other mammals sleep lying down and stand up when they awaken.
HEALTH AND LIFE ARE' UP; SICKNESS AND DEATH ARE DOWN
He's at the peak of health. Lazarus rose from the dead. He's
in top shape. As to his health, he's way up there. Hefell ill. He's sinking fast. He came down with the flu. His health is declining. He dropped dead.
Physical basis: Serious illness forces us to lie down physically. When you're dead; you are physically down.
HAVING CONTROL or FORCE IS UP; BEING SUBJECT TO CONTROL or FORCE IS DOWN
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. He's in the high command. He's in the upper echelon. His power rose. He ranks above me in strength. He is under my control. He
fell from power. His power is on the decline. He is my social inferior. He is low man on the totem pole.
Physical basis: Physical size typically correlates with
physical strength, and the victor in a fight is typically on top.
MORE IS UP; LESS IS DOWN
The number of books printed each year keeps going up. His
III
'ill
I1I1
So far we have examined what we will call structural metaphors, cases where one concept is metaphorically
structured in terms of another. But there is another kind of
metaphorical concept, one that does not structure one con- cept in terms of another. but instead organizes a whole sys- tem of concepts with:r-e! ? pecto one another. We will call these orientational metaphors, since most of them have to do with spatial orientation: up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow, central-peripheral. These spatial orientations arise from the fact that we have bodies of the
sort we have and that they function as they do in our ph~si- cal environment. Orientational metaphors give a concept a
spatial orientation;! forexample, HAPPYISUP. The fact that the concept HAPPYis oriented UPleads to English expres- sions like "I'm feeling up today. "
Such metaphorical orientations are not arbitrary. They have a basis in. our physical and cultural e~perience. Though the polar oppositions up-down, in~out,rete, ,. ,are physical in nature, the orientational metaphors baseC:lon them,'oan vary from culture to culture. For example, in some cultures the future is in front of us; whereas in others it is in back. We will be looking at up-down. spatialization metaphors, which have been studied intensively by William Nagy (1974), as an illustration. In each case, we will give a brief hint about how each metaphoricakconcept might have arisen from our physical and cultural experience. These accounts are meant to be suggestive and plausible, not de- finitive.
14
'\I
\/ \. . .
~
? 111111
11111
I1I 1 I
1
"II III1,
IIII~III
16 CHAPTER FOUR \
draft number is high. My income rose last year. The amount of artistic activity in this state has gone down in the past year. The number of errors he made is incredibly low. His income
fell last year. He is underage. If you're too hot, turn the heat down.
Physical basis: If you add more of a substance or of physical objects to a container or pile, the level goes up.
FORESEEABLE FUTURE EVENTS ARE UP (and AHEAD)
All upcoming events are listed in the paper. What's coming up this week? I'm afraid of what's up ahead of us. What's up?
Physical basis: Normally our eyes look in the direction in which we typically move (ahead, forward). As an object approaches a person (or the person approaches the object), the object appears larger. Since the ground is perceived as being fixed, the top of the object appears to be moving
ORIENTATIONAL METAPHORS 17
underhanded. I wouldn't stoop to that. That would be be- neath me. He fell into the abyss of depravity. That was a low-down thing to do.
Physical and social basis: GOODISUPfor a person (physi-
cal basis), together with a metaphor that we will discuss
below, SOCIETYIS A PERSON(in the version where you are
not identifying with your society). To be virtuous is to act in
accordance with the standards set by the society/person to
maintain its well-being. VIRTUEIS UP because virtuous ac-
tions correlate with social well-being from the society/
person's point of view. Since socially based metaphors are
part of the culture, it's the society/person's point of view that counts.
RATIONAL IS UP; EMOTIONAL IS DOWN
The discussionfell to the emotional level, but I raised it back up to the rational plane. We put ourfeelings aside and had a high-level intellectual discussion of the matter. He couldn't rise above his emotions.
Physical and cultural basis: In our culture people view themselves as being in control over animals, plants, and their physical environment, and it is their unique ability to reason that places human beings above other animals and gives them this control. CONTROLIS UP thus provides a basis for MANIS UP and therefore for RATIONALIS UP.
Conclusions
! '1
. :1 1.
11:1
HIGH STATUS IS UP; LOW STATUS IS DOWN
He has a lofty position. She'll rise to the top. He's at the peak of his career. He's climbing the ladder. He has little upward mobility. He's at the bottom of the social hierarchy. She fell in status.
Social and physical basis: Status is correlated with (so- cial) power and (physical) power is UP.
GOOD IS UP; BAD IS DOWN
Things are looking up. We hit apeak last year, but it's been downhill ever since. Things are at an all-time low. He does high-quality work.
Physical basis for personal well-being: Happiness, health, life, and control-the things that principally characterize what is good for a person-are all UP.
VIRTUE IS UP; DEPRAVITY IS DOWN
He is high-minded. She has high standards. She is upright. She is an upstanding citizen. That was a low trick. Don't be
On the basis of these examples, we suggest the following ~ conclusions about the experiential grounding, the coher-
ence, and the systematicity of metaphorical concepts:
-Most of our fundamental concepts are organized in terms of one or more spatialization metaphors.
-There is an internal systematicity to each spatialization metaphor. For example, HAPPYISUPdefines acoherent system rather than a number of isolated and random cases. (An exam- ple of an incoherent system would be one where, say, "I'm
III
L
upward in the person's field of vision.
I" I
.
? III
II 1,1
I1I1
1
II
Ii Ii I:
I~ I I
11111111
11II
II,
I
I
I "1'1
'II I
scientific
metaphors that have a physical and/or cultural basis. The high in "high-energy particles" is based on MOREIS UP. The high in "high-level functions," as in physiological psychology, is based on RATIONALIS UP. The low in "low-level phonology" (which refers to detailed phonetic aspects of the sound systems of languages) is based on MUNDANEREALITYIS DOWN(as in "down to earth"). The intuitive appeal of a scientific theory has to do with how well its metaphors fit one's experience.
-Our physical and cultural experience provides many possible
bases for spatialization metaphors. Which ones are chosen, and(-yn_~
which ones are major, may vary from culture to culture. ~-() ~~~
18
CHAPTER FOUR
ORIENTATIONAL METAPHORS
19
feeling up" meant "I'm feeling happy," but "My spirits rose" meant "I became sadder. ")
-There is an overall external systematicity among the various
spatialization metaphors, which defines coherence among them. Thus, GOODIS UP gives an UP orientation to general well-being, and this orientation is coherent with special cases like HAPPY IS UP , HEALTH IS UP, ALIVE IS UP, CONTROL IS UP. STATUS IS UP is coherent with CONTROL IS UP.
-Spatialization metaphors are rooted in physical and cultural experience; they are not randomly assigned. A metaphor can serve as a vehicle for understanding a concept only by virtue of
its experiential basis. (Some of the complexities of the expe- riential basis of metaphor are discussed in the following sec- tion. )
theory, are
often-perhaps
always-based on
-There are many
metaphor. Coherence within the overall system seems to be part of the reason why one is chosen and not another. For example, happiness also tends to correlate physically with a smile and a general feeling of expansiveness. This could in principle form the basis for a metaphor HAPPYIS WIDE; SADIS NARROW. And in fact there are minor metaphorical expres- sions, like "I'm feeling expansive," that pick out a different aspect of happiness than' 'I'm feeling up" does. But the major metaphor in our culture is HAPPYIS UP; there is a reason why we speak of the height of ecstasy rather than the breadth of ecstasy. HAPPYIS UP is maximally coherent with GOODIS UP, HEALTHYIS UP, etc.
many possible ones has to do with cultural coherence.
Experiential Bases of Metaphors
We do not know very much about the experiential baseB
possible
physical
and social
bases for
/. . /
\.
-In some cases spatialization is so essential a part of a concept
that it is difficult for us to imagine any alternative metaphor that might structure the concept. In our society "high status" is ~ such a concept. Other cases, like happiness, are less clear. Is
the concept of happiness independent of the HAPPYIS UP metaphor, or is the up-down spatialization of happiness a part of the concept? We believe that it is a part of the concept within a given conceptual system. The HAPPYIS UP metaphor places happiness within a coherent metaphorical system, and part of its meaning comes from its role in that system.
-So-called purely intellectual concepts, e. g. , the concepts in a
of metaphors. Because of our ignorance in this matter, we () \ have described the metaphors separately, only later addin
speculative notes on their possible experiential bases. We are adopting this practice out of ignorance, not out of prin- ciple. In actuality we feel that no metaphor can ever be comprehended or even adequately represented indepen- dently of its experiential basis. For example, MOREIS UP has a very different kind of experiential basis than HAPPY ISUPor RATIONALISUP. Though the concept UPis the same in all these metaphors, the experiences on which these UP metaphors are based are very different. It is not that there
are many different ups; rather, verticality enters our expe- rience in many different ways and so gives rise to many dif- ferent metaphors.
One way of emphasizing the inseparability of metaphors from their experiential bases would be to build the expe- riential basis into the representations themselves. Thus, in- stead of writing MOREISUPand RATIONALISuP, we might have the more complex relationship shown in the diagram.
I I
L
. "
'L
It
~-~
-It is hard to distinguish the physical from the cultural basis/of ~ ? {f' metaphor, since the choice of one physical basis from a ~EJ)l~'
~'- J1/ ,c;:! . .
, .
? I'I~~IIII
~I'I~IIIII
'''I
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20
CHAPTER FOUR
ORIENTATIONAL METAPHORS
jL.
--
I~I! ! I
Such a representation would emphasize that the two parts of each metaphor are linked only via an experiential basis and that it is only by means of these experiential bases that the metaphor can serve the purpose of understanding.
We will not use such representations, but only because we know so little about experiential bases of metaphors. We will continue to use the word" is" in stating metaphors likeMOREISUP,buttheISshouldbeviewedasashorthand for some set of experiences on which the metaphor is based and in terms of which we understand it.
The role of the experiential basis is important in under- standing the workings of metaphors that do not fit together because they are based on different kinds of experience.
Take, for example, a metaphor like UNKNOWNIS UP; KNOWNISDOWN. Examples are "That's up in the air" and "The matter is settled. " This metaphor has an experiential basis very much like that of UNDERSTANDINGIS GRASPING, as in "I couldn't grasp his explanation. " With physical ob-
'111111
~ jects, if you can grasp something and hold it in your hands, I
,
MORE
LESS
RATIONAL
EMOTIONAL
Experiential basis 1
Experiential basis 2
UP
DOWN
UP
DOWN
But UNKNOWNIS UP is not coherent with metaphors like GOODIS UP and FINISHEDIS UP (as in "I'm finishing up"). One would expect FINISHEDto be paired with KNOWNand UNFINISHEDto be paired with UNKNOWN. But, so far as verticality metaphors are concerned, this is not the case.
The reason is that UNKNOWNIS UP has a very different experiential basis than FINISHEDISUP.
you can look it over carefully and get a reasonably good understanding of it. It's easier to grasp something and look at it carefully if it's on the ground in a fixed location than if it's floating through the air (like a leaf or a piece of paper).
Thus UNKNOWN IS UP; KNOWN IS DOWN is coherent with UNDERSTANDING IS GRASPING.
