Metaphors we live by 连晓刚读书笔记

Overall comment

This book provides a strong tool for explaining the way human cognition functions. By extending the semantic scope of the word "metaphor", the author successfully incorporate cognition of various experiences into his theoretical structure. The triad theoretical category of metaphors reminds me of Henri Lefebvre's discourse on triad model of space: perceived, conceived and lived space (or spatial practice, representations of space and space of representation) Lefebvre's theoretical triad is a structural model for spatial cognition. I would like to try making some comparison between these two triads, though I know probably they wound't fit perfectly with each other. In general I found that recent theoretical discourses in many disciplines tempts to use triad instead of dualistic models. As I have not yet reach the end of this book on Metaphor, I am not clear about the necessity of triad structure instead of dualism. I would like to explore further.

20151025

第一章

metaphor is not just a matter of language,on the contrary, human thought processes are largely metaphorical.

concept-language

argument-war

第二章

p9

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.

第三章

p10

In allowing us to focus on one aspect of a concept (e.g., the battling aspects of arguing), a metaphorical concept can keep us from focusing on other aspects of the concept that are inconsistent with that metaphor.

第四章

（define structural metaphors, orientational metaphors)

p15

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 concept in terms of another but instead organizes a whole system of concepts with respect to 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.

第五章

不用看

第六章

解释ontological metaphor个人认为没有解释的很好，和前面的两种比喻有些混淆。在下面p51的笔记比较清楚

p26

Understanding our experiences in terms of objects and substances allows us to pick out parts of our experience and treat them as discrete entities or substances of a uniform kind.

第八章

p37

Metaphor and. metonymy are different kinds of processes. Metaphor is principally a way of conceiving of one thing in terms of another, and its primary function is understanding. Metonymy, on the other hand, has primarily a referential function, that is, it allows us to use one entity to stand. for another.

第十一章

重要

p56

Examples like the foot of the mountain are idiosyncratic, unsystematic, and isolated. They do not interact with other metaphors, play no particularly interesting role in our conceptual system, and hence are not metaphors that we live by. The only signs of life they have is that they can be extended in subcultures and that their unused portions serve as the basis for (relatively uninteresting) novel metaphors. If any metaphorical expressions deserve to be called "dead," it is these, though they do have a bare spark of life, in that they are understood partly in terms of marginal metaphorical concepts like A MOUNTAIN IS A PERSON.

It is important to distinguish these isolated and un-systematic cases from the systematic metaphorical expressions we have been discussing. Expressions like wasting time, attacking positions, going our separate ways, etc., are reflections of systematic metaphorical concepts that structure our actions and thoughts. They are "alive" in the most fundamental sense: they are metaphors we live by. The fact that they are conventionally fixed within the lexicon of English makes them no less alive.

第十二章

p58

In other words, the structure of our spatial concepts emerges from our constant spatial experience, that is, our interaction with the physical environment. Concepts that emerge in this way are concepts that we live by in the most fundamental way.

p60

We are not claiming that physical experience is in any way more basic than other kinds of experience, whether emotional, mental, cultural, or what-ever. All of these experiences may be just as basic as physical experiences. Rather, what we are claiming about grounding is that we typically conceptualize the nonphysical in terms of the physical—that is, we conceptualize the less clearly delineated in terms of the more clearly delineated.

第十三章

p67

These two complex structural metaphors both employ simple ontological metaphors. LABOR IS A RESOURCE uses AN ACTIVITY IS A SUBSTANCE. TIME IS A RESOURCE uses TIME IS A SUBSTANCE.

p68

关于工作和休闲的精彩分析

The quantification of labor in terms of time, together with the view of time as serving a purposeful end, induces a notion of LEISURE TIME, which is parallel to the concept LABOR TIME. In a society like ours, where inactivity is not considered a purposeful end, a whole industry devoted to leisure activity has evolved. As a result, LEISURE TIME becomes a RESOURCE too—to be spent productively, used wisely, saved up, budgeted, wasted, lost, etc. What is hidden by the RESOURCE metaphors for labor and time is the way our concepts of LABOR and -LIME affect our concept of LEISURE, turning it into some-thing remarkably like LABOR.

第十四章

谈及causation，有些难

p73

Simple instances of making an object (e.g., a paper airplane, a snowball, a sand castle) are all special cases of direct causation. They all involve prototypical direct manipulation, with all of the properties listed above. But they have one additional characteristic that sets them apart as instances of making: As a result of the manipulation, we view the object as a different kind of thing. What was a sheet of paper is now a paper airplane. We categorize it differently—it has a different form and function. It is essentially this that sets instances of tnakin, g apart from other kinds of direct manipulation. Even a simple change of state, like the change from water to ice, can be viewed as an instance of making, since ice has a different form and function than water. Thus we get examples like:

You can make ice out of water by freezing it. This parallels examples like:

I made a paper airplane out of a sheet of newspaper. I made a statue out of clay.

We conceptualize changes of this kind—from one state into another, having a new form and function—in terms of the metaphor THE OBJECT COMES OUT OF THE SUBSTANCE.

p74

关于making的讨论，creating与making与birth在metaphor上的关联

Thus the concept MAKING iS partly, but not totally, metaphorical. That is, MAKING is an instance of a directly emergent concept, namely, DIRECT MANIPULATION, which is further elaborated by the metaphor THE OBJECT COMES OUT OF THE SUBSTANCE. Another way we can conceptualize making