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Book cover of Metaphors We Live By

Metaphors We Live By

by George Lakoff, Mark Johnson · 2008

ISBN: 0226470997 9780226470993

Category: Philosophy / Language

Page count: 308

<b>From two renowned scholars, an “enjoyable and intellectually stimulating” look at how metaphors shape our perceptions and actions (<i>Language</i>).</b><br><br> The now-classic <i>Metaphors We Live By</i> changed our understanding of metaphor and its role in language and the mind. Metaphor, the authors explain, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are “metaphors we live by”—metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them.<br><br> In this updated edition of Lakoff and Johnson’s influential book, the authors supply an afterword surveying how their theory of metaphor has developed within the cognitive sciences to become central to the contemporary understanding of how we think and how we express our thoughts in language.<br><br> “The most original and valuable thing I’ve seen on the much-discussed topic of metaphor.” —James D. McCawley, author of <i>Grammar and Meaning</i>