Both articles discuss the notion of the fundamental unit of language. Lévi-Strauss’ article argues that myths should not be analyzed as a series of sentences with a definite chronological order; the important part of a myth lies in its story, not its syntax. So long as the story is not lost, myths can be told in all kinds of different ways. To Lakoff and Johnson, the fundamental units of literature (or at least of metaphors) are words and sentences. They argue that words and sentences have meaning independent of their context or speaker(s) and believe that different people having different interpretations of a word/sentence does not present a tremendous problem.
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The Lakoff/Johnson piece was more interesting to me because it gave so many specific examples of metaphors and tried to interpret the logic behind them (i.e. physical space). What I wonder is how Cleanth Brooks’ article (”Metaphor, Paradox, and Stereotype”) ties into Lakoff and Johnson’s ideas. Brooks talked about how metaphors can become outdated and therefore no longer useful. We all understand the metaphors in Lakoff and Johnson’s article; we use those expressions routinely in everyday life. However, if our human thought processes are indeed “largely metaphorical” as Lakoff and Johnson argue, what will happen to our thought processes or the literature that gets created if the metaphors we take for granted in everyday life become outdated?
6 responses so far ↓
spotofbother // 28 September 2008 at 4.32 pm
I think Lakoff and Johnson are looking at metaphors from a far different perspective. Instead of looking at metaphor at the heart of a text, they are looking at metaphor at the heart of a culture. While Brooks might consider “hot as hell” to be a contrived statement, and therefore outdated, Lakoff and Johnson would look at the same metaphor in relation to its cultural implications. Brooks’ definition of outdated is “not interesting in poetry because it is overused,” while Lakoff and Johnson might see outdated metaphor as “no longer in use because the object of comparison is dated.”
mercurylanes // 28 September 2008 at 8.04 pm
Another important distinction between the two essays:
Brooks’ essay is mainly focused on differentiating between “metaphor” and “cliche.” While he acknowledges that the two are inherently related, he presents one as vastly more interesting than the other in terms of poetic worthiness/critical significance–hence, a cliche is reduced to the status of “dead metaphor.”
L and J, on the other hand, are very interested in cliches, precisely because they are “pervasive in everyday life.” On an imaginary continuity of metaphor to cliche, they’re definitely looking from the cliche end of things. Almost all the examples L and J use to illustrate their points are familiar, “stock” phrases. These phrases are all, L and J argue, metaphorical. So are they cliche? Maybe, but they are ubiquitous because they reflect, and are reflected in, our fundamental cultural values and conceptual systems–hence, they are worthy of critical attention.
So anyway, to address your question, throughout L and J’s piece it’s never entirely clear (to paraphrase a cliche) which came first, the construct or the metaphor? Metaphor creates culture and culture creates metaphor–you can totally disentangle one from the other. If a metaphor (in the sense the L and J use the term) were to become outdated, it would have to be because the culture surrounding it had fundamentally changed somehow, and the change would be virtually undetectable except over a very long period of time. It’s not as though we’ll wake up one day and no longer be able to say “wake up.” (though a couple hundred years ago, “awoke” would have been the standard expression…)
zzzzz // 28 September 2008 at 9.59 pm
I don’t know what exactly it was about Lankoff and Johnson’s argument that made it seem very weak to me, but I found the comparisons he made to metaphors in real conscious thinking to be almost illogical stretches. Also, I had a difficult time figuring out how the phrases he gave were even metaphorical at all. I definitely see the construction coming before any type of meaning, and in truth, I don’t really find meaning in those expressions at all. They are more or less arbitrary, and to me cannot be considered either metaphors or cliches.
campusm79 // 29 September 2008 at 12.17 am
In response to the original post, I, like a couple of people have also said, don’t see really see that strong of a connection between Brooks and Lakoff & Johnson. Although both essays speak to “metaphorâ€, I don’t think B and L&J are referring to the same thing. B’s essay speaks on the effectiveness of metaphor proper—the rhetorical device used in language to draw a comparison between two unlike things. He emphasizes what qualities make a metaphor effective in conveying certain truths. L&J, on the other hand, speak to how what they call metaphor shapes thought. L&J make the distinction that when they speak of metaphor they really mean “metaphorical conceptâ€, which refers to the human conception of one idea as it has been largely structured by an understanding of another idea.
In response to the question posed, the distinction between metaphor proper and metaphorical concept needs to be recognized. For B, metaphor definitely can become outdated. L&J, however, do not address clichés or outdated metaphors, as they are not speaking of the same thing when they talk about “metaphorsâ€. The point of L&J’s essay is that human thoughts on one subject are structured by what is associated with another, although not necessarily dissimilar, subject—that conceptualization of something such as an idea is shaped by human conceptualization of other things such as buildings, food, people, plants, whatever. Thoughts are partially structured by the conceptualization of these things, with some concepts providing more structure than others. Thus thought processes and how thoughts are formed will not change. They will still be metaphorically structured. The only thing that changes is the degree to which one concept structures another. As values in society change, the degree to which understanding of buildings, for example, shapes understanding of an idea also changes. Instead of understanding an idea through the structure of a building, one may come to understand it through the structure of food.
david // 29 September 2008 at 12.41 am
Expanding metaphor to mythology, as Levi-Strauss seemingly does in his anthropological essay, we can see how Lakoff and Johnson refer us to a structuralist origin of thought. But the referent, as expressed by the reception of the cliche or dead metaphor, is either lost or insignificant. Rather, meaning lies in the use of metaphor itself… and how that expresses who we are and how we think.
But as we excavate the chthonic (not sure if this is the proper use of the word, but isn’t it cool that it starts with “chth”?) fossils of the cliche, don’t we in turn lose the life of a poem? To me, there seems to be a resignation in both essays that reduces individuality of thought (or difference) to a conceptual sameness. It’s like we are reading the works of hyper-intellectual pollsters; instead of learning about a person through dialogue, they ask the same, static question to thousands in order to paint an orderly pie chart that is representative of the world. Correction, a pie chart that doesn’t represent the world but reveals the basis on which all representations are built. Some pie chart, man, some pie chart.
sparkling_bears47 // 29 September 2008 at 1.41 am
I was absolutely intrigued by the idea of metaphor conforming to (or forming) thought. Culturally, we use metaphor to explain/define our lives.
In response to the question posed, I don’t think you could ever have that sort of problem. It seems to me that if a metaphor becomes outdated, then it’s not being culturally used. I would even argue that outdated/overused metaphors seem that because they aren’t culturally significant any long. I don’t have any sort of proof to back this up, but it seems to follow that overused or old metaphors seem to be that way because they have no cultural value.
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