Primary metaphor is a term named by Joseph Grady for the basic connection that exist between subjective or abstract experiences such as good and concrete experiences such as up. These two concepts usually correlate in experience, and form the primary metaphor good is up. Likewise there is a correlation between seeing and knowing forming the primary metaphor seeing is knowing. Two such primary metaphors are used when understanding an expression such as glass ceiling.
An example of a primary metaphor could be that of Shakespeare's 'As You Like It', where life is depicted as being similar to a theater. Therefore, 'LIFE' relates to a conceptual experience, and 'THEATER' represents a concrete experience. Thus forming the primary metaphor; LIFE IS THEATER.
Famous quotes containing the words primary and/or metaphor:
“At the heart of the educational process lies the child. No advances in policy, no acquisition of new equipment have their desired effect unless they are in harmony with the child, unless they are fundamentally acceptable to him.”
—Central Advisory Council for Education. Children and Their Primary Schools (Plowden Report)
“The world is emblematic. Parts of speech are metaphors, because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)