A cognitive study of metaphor and metonymy. Plan: I. Introduction II. Main part

Metaphors We Live By
(1980). For 
example, take the commonly used conceptual metaphor, 
ARGUMENT IS 
WAR
.
[19]
 This metaphor shapes our language in the way we view argument as 
a battle to be won. It is not uncommon to hear someone say "He won that 
argument" or "I attacked every weak point in his argument". The very way 
argument is conceptualized is shaped by this metaphor of arguments being a 
war. Argument can be seen in other ways than a battle, but we use this 
concept to shape the way we think of argument and the way we go about 
arguing. The same applies for the other conceptual metaphors. 
Lakoff and Johnson focus on English, and cognitive scholars writing in 
English have tended not to investigate the discourse of foreign languages in 
any great detail to determine the creative ways in which individuals 
negotiate, resist, and consolidate conceptual metaphors. Andrew Goatly in his 
book 
Washing 
the 
Brain
(2007)
[20]
 considers 
ideological 
conceptual 
metaphors as well as Chinese conceptual metaphors. 
James W. Underhill, a modern Humboldtian scholar, attempts to 
reestablish Wilhelm von Humboldt's concern for the different ways 
languages frame reality, and the strategies individuals adopt in creatively 

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resisting and modifying existing patterns of thought. Taking on board the 
Lakoff-Johnson paradigm of conceptual metaphor, he investigates the way in 
which Czech communists appropriated the concept of the people, the state 
and struggle, and the way German Communists harnessed concepts of 
eternity and purity. He also reminds us that, as Klemperer demonstrates, 
resisting patterns of thought means engaging in conceptual metaphors and 
refusing the logic that ideologies impose upon them. In multilingual studies 
(based on Czech, German, French & English), Underhill considers how 
different cultures reformulate key concepts such as truth, love, hate and 
war.
[21]
 
Family roles and ethics 
George Lakoff makes similar claims on the overlap of conceptual 
metaphors, culture, and society in his book 
Moral Politics
 and his later book 
on framing, 
Don't Think of an Elephant!.
Lakoff claims that the public 
political arena in America reflects a basic conceptual metaphor of 'the 
family.' Accordingly, people understand political leaders in terms of 'strict 
father' and 'nurturant mother' roles. Two basic views of political 
economy arise from this desire to see the nation-state act 'more like a father' 
or 'more like a mother.' He further amplified these views in his latest 
book, 
The Political Mind.
Urban theorist and ethicist Jane Jacobs made this distinction in less 
gender-driven terms by differentiating between a 'Guardian Ethic' and a 
'Trader Ethic'.
[22]
 She states that guarding and trading are two concrete 
activities that human beings must learn to apply metaphorically to all choices 
in later life. In a society where guarding children is the primary female duty 
and trading in a market economy is the primary male duty, Lakoff posits that 
children assign the 'guardian' and 'trader' roles to their mothers and fathers, 
respectively. 

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Linguistics and politics 
Lakoff, Johnson, and Pinker are among the many cognitive scientists 
that devote a significant amount of time to current events and political theory, 
suggesting that respected linguists and theorists of conceptual metaphor may 
tend to channel their theories into political realms. 
Critics of this ethics-driven approach to language tend to accept 
that idioms reflect underlying conceptual metaphors, but that actual grammar, 
and 
the 
more 
basic 
cross-cultural 
concepts 
of scientific 
method and mathematical practice tend to minimize the impact of metaphors. 
Such critics tend to see Lakoff and Jacobs as 'left-wing figures,' and would 
not accept their politics as any kind of crusade against an ontology embedded 
in language and culture, but rather, as an idiosyncratic pastime, not part of the 
science of linguistics nor of much use. And others further, such 
as Deleuze and Guattari, Michel Foucault and, more recently, Manuel de 
Landa would criticize both of these two positions for mutually constituting 
the same old ontological ideology that would try to separate two parts of a 
whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. 
Lakoff's 1987 work,