No More Learning

Our observations about how a language can reflect the conceptual system of its speakers derive in great part from the work of Edward Sapir, Benjamin Lee Whorf, and others who have worked in that tradition.
Our ideas about the relationship between metaphor and ritual derive from the anthropological tradition of Bronislaw
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Concepts We Liv. :eBy
Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagina- tion and the rhetorical flaurish-a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. Moreover, metaphor is typi- cally viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. For this reason, most people think they can get along -perfectly well without metaphor. We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.
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. Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities. If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we think, what we experience, and what we /do every day is very much a matter of metaphor.
But our conceptual system is not something we are nor- mally aware of. In most of the little things we do every day, we simply think and act more or less automatically along certain lines. Just what these lines are is by no means obvi- ous. One way to find out is by looking at language. Since communication is based on the same conceptual system that we use in thinking and acting, language is an important source of evidence fot what that system is like. .
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CHAPTER ONE
CONCEPTS WE LIVE BY 5
Primarily on the basis of linguistic evidence, we have found that most of our ordinary conceptual system is metaphorical in nature. And we have found a way to begin to identify in detail just what the metaphors are that struc- ture how we perceive, how we think, and what we do.
To give some idea of what it could mean for a concept to be metaphorical and for such a concept to structure an everyday activity, let us start with the concept ARGUMENT and the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENTIS WAR. This metaphor is reflected in our everyday language by a wide variety of expressions:
ARGUMENT IS WAR
Your claims are indefensible.
He attacked every weak point in my argument. His criticisms were right on target.
I demolished his argument.
I've never won an argument with him.
You disagree? Okay, shoot!
If you use that strategy, he'll wipe you out. He shot down all of my arguments.
It is important to see that we don't just talk about argu-
ments in terms of war. We can actually win or lose argu-
ments. We see the person we are arguing with as an oppo-
nent. We attack his positions and we defend our own. We
gain and lose ground. We plan and use strategies. If we find
a position indefensible, we can abandon it and take a new
line of attack. Many of the things we do in arguing are
partially structured by the concept of war. Though there is
no physical battle, there is a verbal battle, and the structure
of an argument-attack, defense, counterattack, etc. - reflects this. It is in this sense that the ARGUMENTIS WAR
metaphor is one that we live by in this culture; it structures the actions we perform in arguing.
Try to imagine a culture where arguments are not viewed in terms of war, where no one wins or loses, where there is no sense of attacking or" defending, gaining or losing
ground. Imagine a culture where an argument is viewed as a dance, the participants are seen as performers, and the goal is to perform in a balanced and aesthetically pleasing way. In such a culture, people would view arguments dif- ferently, experience them differently, carry them out differ- ently, and talk about them differently. But we would prob- ably not view them as arguing at all: they would simply be doing something different. It would seem strange even to call what they were doing" arguing. " Perhaps the most neutral way of describing this difference between their cul-
ture and ours would be to say that we have a discourse form
structured in terms of battle and they have one structured in terms of dance.
This is an example of what it means for a metaphorical concept, Qamely, ARGUMENTISWAR,to structure (at least
in part) what we do and how we understand what we are. . doing when we argue:>The essence of metavhor is I1nd. i:J:: standin ex erienc1ng one kind 0 thin in terms 0 another. It is not t at arguments are a subspecies of war.
Argume~nts and wars are different kinds of things-verbal discourse and armed conflict-and the actions performed are different kinds of actions. But ARGUMENTis partially structured, understood, performed, and talked about in terms of WAR>The concept is metaphorically structured, the activity is metaphorically structured, and, con- sequently, the language is metaphorically structured.
Moreover, this is the ordinary way of having an argument and talking about one. The normal way for us to talk about attacking a position is to use the words "attack a position. " Our conventional ways of talking about arg~ments pre- suppose a metaphor we are hardly ever conscious of. The metaphor is not merely in the words we use---:it is in our very concept of an argument. The language of argument is not poetic, fanciful, or rhetorical; it is literal. We talk about arguments that way because we conceive of them that
way-and we act according to the way we conceive of things . '
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means metaphorical
concept.
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CHAPTER ONE
2
The Systematicity
of Metaphorical Concepts
Arguments usually follow patterns; thatis, there are. certain things we typically do and do not do in arguing. The fact that we in part conceptualize arguments in terms of battle systematically influences the shape arguments take and the way we talk about what we do in arguing. Because the metaphorical concept is. systematic:, the language we use to talk about that aspect of the concept is systematic.
We saw in the ARGUMENTIS WARmetaphor that expres- sions from the vocabulary' of war, e'. g;, attack a position, indefensible, strategy, new line of attack, win, gain ground, etc. , form a systematic way of talking about the battling aspects of arguing. It is no accident that these expressions mean what they mean when we use them to talk about arguments. A portion of the conceptual network of battle partially characterizes the concept of an argumentt and the language follows, suit. Since metaphorical expressions in our language are tied to metaphorical concepts:in a system- atic way, Wecan use metaphorical linguistic expressions to study the nature of metaphorical concepts and' to) gain an
understanding of the metaphorical nature of our activities. I To get an idea of how metaphorical expressions in every- ~
day language can give us insight into the metaphorical na- ture of the concepts that structure our everyday activities, let us consider the metaphorical concept TIMEIS MONEYas it is reflected in contemporary English.
TIME IS MONEY
You're wasting my time.
This gadget will save you hours.
The most important claim we have made so far is that metaphor is not just a matter of language, that is, of mere words. We shall argue that, on the contrary, human thought
processes are largely meti4pb. Qri&f! . L. . ~Tihsiswhat we mean when 'we say that the human conceptual system is metaphorically structured and defined. Metaphors as lin- guistic expressions are possible precisely because there are metaphors in a person's conceptual system. Therefore, whenever in this book we speak of metaphors. , such as AR- GUMENTIS WAR, it should be understood that metaphor
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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.
You need to budget your time.
Put aside some time for ping-pong.
Is that worth your while?
Do you have much time left?
He's living on borrowed time.
You don't use your time profitably.
I lost a lot of time when I got sick.
Thank you for your time.
commodities to conceptualize time. This isn't a necessary
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RESOURCE, and TIME IS A VALUABLE COMMODITY form a
single system based on subcategorization, since in our soci-
ety money is a limited resource and limited resources are
valuable commodities. These subcategorization relation-
sl1ips characterize entailment relationships between the
metaphors. TIME IS MONEY entails that TIME IS A LIMITED
RESOURCE, which entails that TIME IS A VALUABLE COM-
MODITY.
Weare adopting the practice of using the most specific metaphorical concept, in this case TIME IS MONEY, to characterize the entire system. Of the expressions listed under the TIME IS MONEYmetaphor, some refer specifically to money (spend, invest, budget, profitably, cost), others to limited resources (use, use up, have enough of, run out of), and still others to valuable commodities (have, give, lose, thank you for). This is an example of the way in which metaphorical entailments can characterize a coherent sys- tem of metaphorical concepts and a corresponding coherent system of metaphorical expressions for those concepts.
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of the way that the concept of work has developed in mod-
ern Western culture, where work is typically associated
with the time it takes and time is precisely quantified, it has become customary to pay people by the hour, week, or
year. In our culture TIME IS MONEYin many ways: tele-
phone message units, hourly wages, hotel rpom rates,
yearly budgets, interest on loans, and paying your debt to I
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CHAPTER TWO
SYSTEMATICITY 9
Time in our culture is a valuable commodity. It is a lim-
ited resource that we use'to accomplish our goals. Because
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society by "serving time. " These practices are relatively new in the history of the human race, and by no means do they exist in all cultures. They have arisen in modern in- dustrialized societies and structure our basic everyday ac- tivities in a very profound way. Corresponding to the fact that we act as if time is a valuable commodity-a limited resource, even money--'-we conceive of time that way. Thus we understand and experience time as the kind of thing that can be spent, wasted, budgeted, invested wisely or poorly, saved, or squandered.
TIMEISMONEY,TIMEISALItvlITEDRESOURCE,and TIME IS A VALUABLECOMMODITYare all metaphorical concepts. They are metaphorical since we are using our everyday experiences with money, limited resources, and valuable
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The metaphorical
concepts
TIME IS MONEY, TIME IS A
way for human beings to conceptualize
culture. There are cultures where time is none of these things.
time; it is tied to our
? 3
Metaphorical Systematicity: Highlighting and Hiding
HIGHLIGHTING AND HIDING 11
The very systematicity that allows us to comprehend one aspect of a concept in terms of another (e. g. , comprehend- ing an aspect of arguing in terms of battle) will necessarily
-i'- hide other aspects of the concept. In allowing us to focus on
one aspect of a concept (e. g. , the battling aspects of argu-
ing), a metaphorical concept can keep us from focusing on
other aspects of the concept that are inconsistent with that
metaphor. For example, in the midst of a heated argument,
when we are intent on attacking our opponent's position
and defending our own, we may lose sight of the coopera-
tive aspects of arguing. Someone who is arguing with you can be viewed as giving you his time, a valuable commod-
ity, in an effort at mutual understanding. But when we are preoccupied with the battle aspects, we often lose sight of the cooperative aspects.
A far more subtle case of how a metaphorical concept can hide an aspect of our experience can be seen in what Michael Reddy has called the "conduit metaphor. " Reddy observes that our language about language is structured roughly by the following complex metaphor:
IDEAS (or MEANINGS) ARE OBJECTS. \ LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONSARE CONTAINERS.
COMMUNICATION IS SENDING.
The speaker puts ideas (objects) into words (containers) and sends them (along a conduit) to a hearer who takes the idea/objects out of the word/containers. Reddy documents this with more than a hundred types of expressions in En- glish, which he estimates account for at least 70 percent of'
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the expressions we use for talking about language. Here are some examples:
The CONDUITMetaphor
It's hard to get that idea across to him.
I gave you that idea.
Your reasons came through to us.
It's difficult to put my ideas into words.
When you have a good idea, try to capture it immediately in words.
Try to pack more thought into fewer words.
You can't simply stuff ideas into a sentence any old way. The meaning is right there in the words.
Don'tforce your meanings into the wrong words.
His words carry little meaning.
The introduction has a great deal of thought content.
Your words seem hollow.
The sentence is without meaning.
The idea is buried in terribly dense paragraphs.
In examples like these it is far more difficult to see that there is anything hidden by the metaphor or even to see that there is a metaphor here at all. This is so much the con- ventional way of thinking about language that it is some- times hard to imagine that it might not fit reality. But if we look at what the CONDUITmetaphor entails, we can see some of the ways in which it masks aspects of the com- municative process.
First, the LINGUISTIC EXPRESSIONSARE CONTAINERSFOR MEANINGSaspect of the CONDUITmetaphor entails that words and sentences have meanings in themselves, in- dependent of any context or speaker. The MEANINGSARE OBJECTSpart of the metaphor, for example, entails that meanings have an existence independent of people and con- texts. The part of the metaphor that says LINGUISTICEX- PRESSIONS' ARE CONTAINERS FOR MEANING entails that words (and sentences) have meanings, again independent of contexts and speakers. These metaphors';are:appropriate in many situations-those where context differences don't
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HIGHLIGHTING AND HIDING 13
matter and where all th~ participants in the conversation' understand the sentences in the same way. These two en-
tailments are exemplified by sentences like The meaning is right there in the words,
which, according to the CONDUITmetaphor, can correctly be said of any sentence. But there are many cases where context does matter. Here is a celebrated one recor~d in actual conversation by Pamela Downing:
Please sit in the apple-juice seat.
In isolation this sentence has no meaning at all, since the
expression "apple-juice seat" is not a conventional way of referring to any kind of object. But the sentence makes perfect sense in the context in which it was uttered. An overnight guest came down to breakfast. There were four place settings, three with orange juice and one with apple juice. It was clear what the apple-juice seat was. And even the next morning, when there was no apple juice, it was still clear which seat was the apple-juice seat. "'-
important to see that the metaphorical structuring involved
here is partial, not total. If it were total, one concept would C actually be the other, not merely be understood in terms of it. For example, time isn't really money. If you spend your time trying to do something and it doesn't work, you can't get your time back. There are no time banks. I can give you a lot of time, but you can't give me back the same time,
though you can give me back the same amount of time. And so on. Thus, part of a metaphorical concept does not and cannot fit.
On the other hand, metaphorical concepts can be ex- tended beyond the range of ordinary literal ways of thinking and talking into the range of what is c~lled figurative, po- etic, colorful, or fanciful thought and language. 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.
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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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Orientational Metaphors
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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. ~-() ~~~
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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
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-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.
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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-
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Experiential basis 1
Experiential basis 2
UP
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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.