Role in Metaphor
Michael J. Reddy (1979) discovered and has demonstrated that much of the language we use to talk about language is conceptualized and structured by what he refers to as the conduit metaphor. This paradigm operates through two distinct, related frameworks.
The major framework views language as a sealed pipeline between people:
1. Language transfers people's thoughts and feelings (mental content) to others
2. Speakers and writers insert their mental content into words
ex: You have to put each concept into words more carefully.3. Words are containers
ex: That sentence was filled with emotion.4. Listeners and writers extract mental content from words
ex: Let me know if you find any new sensations in the poem.The minor framework views language as an open pipe spilling mental content into the void:
1. Speakers and writers eject mental content into an external space
2. Mental content is reified (viewed as concrete) in this space
ex: That concept has been floating around for decades.3. Listeners and writers extract mental content from this space
ex: Let me know if you find any good concepts in the essay.Read more about this topic: Metalanguage
Famous quotes containing the words role and/or metaphor:
“In today’s world parents find themselves at the mercy of a society which imposes pressures and priorities that allow neither time nor place for meaningful activities and relations between children and adults, which downgrade the role of parents and the functions of parenthood, and which prevent the parent from doing things he wants to do as a guide, friend, and companion to his children.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)
“Without metaphor the handling of general concepts such as culture and civilization becomes impossible, and that of disease and disorder is the obvious one for the case in point. Is not crisis itself a concept we owe to Hippocrates? In the social and cultural domain no metaphor is more apt than the pathological one.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)