Response to Of Writers and Purgers Q 3

This entry is in response to Roman Christiaens third question based on the Lackoff and Johnson reading.

The first question raised by Roman is in how Lakhoff and Johnson point out the important aspect of the metaphor in language and the limitations that can be encountered when the metaphor in language fails. I also believe this is a very interesting point that both authors present. The use of metaphor in speech is not something that is typically thought of unless it is specifically used in the “poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish.” Unless it is obvious that metaphors are being used they can be very hard to recognize in common language even though metaphors seem to be existent in all language for Lakoff and Johnson. I don’t think it is a main concern for the authors that metaphors can make a point that they didn’t want to be made. The authors point out the fact that metaphors can at times hide other important meanings, not necessarily totally oppose what was trying to be said. Hiding points and having opposing purposes are two different things, a person coming up with a metaphor would make sure that it fit the situation, but the mistake could be made that the metaphor made could hide important other aspects. I believe this is what makes metaphors so hard to understand at times. How can you really know that the meaning you get from the metaphor is the meaning the creator wanted? The answer is you can’t, people see things differently and metaphors can take on various meanings.

So does this point out a caveat in the use of language overall? I agree with Roman on this point that this does create a limitation in language. People can always be confused on the meanings of language; this is why we study communication. The authors of these chapters focus on the idea of why context is important in these instances for misunderstanding. A concept can be structured by the metaphor but the true meaning has the ability to extend it in many different directions. So we may think we know the meaning but in fact it can be much deeper than the ideas that we come up with. Roman gives a great real life example of this too in philosophy. A whole room full of people can examine the language of Philosophy and you can have a whole room full of different translations of the metaphors. This does create a problem for people trying to understand the overall meaning of the writings. Philosophers are very poetic and are some of the fore fathers of rhetoric, so finding meaning in these can be hidden and difficult to pinpoint, which creates a problem.

Is this a correct assumption made by Roman? Roman does make a valid point about how metaphors can complicate the use of languages and I do agree with him on his view of this article. Yes metaphors may be used in everyday life, but when we take the time to look at them and examine them they can also create varying views on there meaning. We will continue to use metaphors as part of our conceptual systems and human thought processes because they are such a big part of our understandings and realities that we make, understanding them is when we can reach problems.