[Part – 1]
Lakoff & Mark | Metaphors We Live By
The current covid
crisis that’s erupted from Wuhan to the world over, has also quite charged up an intrigued academia to
read and to research on stacks and stacks of covid-related literature!
One word that so
spontaneously connects with the covid would be the word – Metaphor!
[Guess why?] ;-) And yes! if you’ve gotten the clue, do mail it across to me without further delay, and get rewarded rightaway with a cash prize of Rs. 1000/-, on a first-come-first-served basis!]
Well, this was
again, a sheer delightful trope of, oops stroke of coincidence too! Call it this
blogger’s ‘eureka moment’ of sorts!
And yup! to start at the very beginning, my foray
into the domain and the spherule of the Metaphor
proper was prompted much-o-much by my gleanings from the legendary Nietzsche, Friedrich
Nietzsche!
That good ol’
line from Nietzsche that’s proved to be the flagship to all ‘post’-related theories,
which says, ‘What is truth? A Mobile army of metaphors’, has proved such a
powerhouse for the emancipation and the celebration of -
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Such has been the
charm and such the aura of the metaphor!
Truth is, says
Nietzsche -
A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and
anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced,
transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long
use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions
about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are
worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now
matter only as metal, no longer as coins.
And that has continued
to ‘faithfully remain’ theory’s trump
card ever since! Ain’t it?
Well, the word ‘metaphor’
has always been such a rage and a rave – amongst the scholar, the thinker, the preacher,
the politician, the physician, the philosopher and the poet alike! To each their salt, to each their sugar!
 |
| Lakoff and Mark |
After Nietzsche, it was Lakoff and Mark’s epical and insightful study on Metaphor titled, Metaphors We Live By published exactly four decades back, in the year 1980, that real caught my attention! And howww!
Lakoff and Mark, in this, their insightful tryst with Metaphor, have striven much-o-much
in giving their readers a clear indication of the power of metaphor and how it
conditions our everyday thought, habit, identity, culture and language as well!
Points to the
fact that, we as human beings are quite efficient in our use of metaphors in
our day-to-day talk! Ain’t it?
Well, again, Lakoff
and Mark’s study on the Metaphor, is suchmuch in high renown, not only
because of its scope, but also because of its simple diction that catches your
attention with such grace and dignity, through each passing page and chapter!
Indeed, Lakoff,
George Lakoff admits right at the outset, that they both were ‘brought together
by a joint interest in metaphor’.
Burke’s delightful take on the metaphor is added bonus! And what pray, is that?
Well, to Burke, Kenneth Burke, it is the thisness of a that, and a thatness of a this’.
How cute!
Conceding to the
fact that the dominant views on meaning in Western philosophy and linguistics
are inadequate, he concurs with his co-author and friend Mark, – Mark Johnson - who had found
that most traditional philosophical views permit metaphor little, if any, role
in understanding our world and ourselves!
That’s a shocker
of sorts by all means, ain’t it!!?
That’s hence the
book, through which-means, George with
his able partner-in-scholarship Mark has put forward linguistic evidence that
they had discovered, showing the reader, that metaphor is pervasive in its
appeal, in our everyday language and thought!
Anyone foraying
into the domain of language in general, or ELT in particular, literature in
general, or tropes in particular, would sure find this book an intense treat,
an insightful study and an impactful revelation of sorts!
A random compare
would then be proper to put things in perspective for the diligent reader on
Metaphor! Here goes –
As Coals to
Newcastle and Astrid Erll to Memory, are Lakoff & Mark to Metaphor!!!
Appealing, and
amazing as well!
Acknowledging the
legacies of Edward Sapir, Benjamin Lee Whorf, and others who have worked in
that tradition – on how a language can reflect the conceptual system of its
speakers – Lakoff and Mark have also given hints to the sensational connects
they’ve made between metaphor and ritual that derive it sustenance from
the anthropological tradition of Bronislaw! [Remember Bronislaw? Crystal, David
Crystalji’s favourite hunting ground! ;-) ] For more on Crystal ji, you may
read here on our past post!
‘Well begun is
half done’, goes the age-old maxim! Lakoff and Mark have maximized on this
maxim by giving us such a sweet, engaging opening chappy of sorts!
Just giving y’all
a teaser to the first chapter, titled, ‘Concepts We Live By’
Lakoff & Mark
speaking -
Metaphor is for
most people a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish - a matter
of extraordinary rather than ordinary language.
Moreover, metaphor is typically
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.
Well, there have
been a host of other engaging musings on metaphor proper, as there have been muchsuch musings on memory proper!
One such
scholarly take on ‘metaphor’ is the book titled, Where Metaphors Come From: Reconsidering Context in Metaphor, by Zoltan
Kovecses, which, as I’d said just now, is a such a scholarly take on the subject!
;-)
One is sure bound
to get the bumps, goosebumps of all, when one gets into the world of Metaphor
through each of their thematic units! The only part of the book that I found
quite easy to read from this scholarly treatise by Kovecses, Zoltan Kovecses, I
must kinda candid-a admit, is his Preface!
;-)
The subsequent thematic
units that follow, are a climb, an adventurous mountainous climb, albeit quite
rewarding at the end!
And yes! Quite
rewarding, if you ask - much akin to Ruskin, ‘Am I inclined to work as an
Australian miner would? Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order, and am I in
good trim myself, my sleeves well up to the elbow, and my breath good, and my
temper?’
Again, there are a
host of other well-deserving, real meritorious reads on the metaphor, per se!
And that’s quite meet
for another post!
Suchmuch unto the
day! Suchmuch unto this post! ;-)
To be continued…
[PS: Prizes are at the sole discretion of the blogger. Open only for Indians, who reside within the territorial jurisdiction of India. Emails received at rufusonline@gmail.com, on or before midnight of 04 April 2020 alone are eligible].
image: philosophyinpubliclifedotorg