Bob,
   I like the gentle way you start this. I tend to think of Lakoff and
Johnson's work as something most people on the list would be familiar
with and I don't want to replace it with my own compressed version. But
here's how the first chapter opens:
   "Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and of
the rhetorical flourish--a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary
language. Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of
language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. For
this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well
without metaphor. We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is
persavive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and
action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think
and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature."
   The book is very, very rich with examples, and I think it would be
worthwhile even for people who might fall short of embracing the views
expressed in this opening. If nothing else, I think you have to admit
that metaphor goes under the radar most of the time, is deeply
pervasive, and often is very revealing of the orientation of the
speaker. If an argument is being thought of as a "building", for
example, (with "a foundation", with elements of "construction", as
something that might be "shaky" or "fall apart" or need "shoring up"),
that contrasts sharply with someone else who thinks of it as an
"attack" that you need to "defend against" or a position that might
need to be "defended". Similarly, we often miss the reality that our
sensory motor experience of the world gives us concepts like up/down,
in/out, under/over, before/behind that undergird so much of our more
abstract thought. "I put you above me."  "She looks down." "I have your
back". "Hopes are rising." "Don't stick your neck out." "Give me a
hand." Metaphors like that tend to slip by us though they are a
constant part of our everyday language world.
   I have absolutely no idea why your elephant example relates to the
issue. "in my pajamas" is very literal in either of its
interpretations. When we have ambiguity in expression, we normally pick
the one most consistent with our experience of the world. Since
elephants don't fit in our pajamas (and don't wear them, another
possibility), we decide at a subconscious level that it means what it
would normally mean. "I found a spider in my pajamas" would be
interpreted differently. The joke brings the other possibility into
conscious play. I see no problem with accounting for ambiguity as a
cognitive process.
   You and I are likely to disagree on the more fundamental questions, but
would it be fair to say that Lakoff and Johnson are a useful read? Do
you agree that metaphor is often an important conceptual tool, not just
an expressive one?

Craig>

 Sometimes Craig makes assertions that need more support than he provides
> in his posts.
>
>>>> Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> 06/09/09 11:03 AM >>>
> Susan,
>    You should read "Metaphors We Live By" (there are other follow up
> books)if you haven't already. They are a core aspect of language and
> cognition, well documented, well researched.
>    If you find my views pointless, it might be better not to respond.
>
> *****
> I have no idea how "core" metaphors are in language.  They don't seem to
> explain anything about the formal aspects of the tense-aspect system, the
> basic structure of phrases and clauses, the pronominal system, etc.
>
> However, let's consider the following sentence on the bottom of page 1 in
> Metaphors We Live By.
>
> Since communication is based on the same conceptual system that we use in
> thinking and acting, language is an important source of evidence for what
> that system is like.
>
> ***
> Pinker, in the Language Instinct, does a good job of suggesting that
> thinking and the language we use to express those thoughts are necessarily
> different systems.  Consider the problem of syntactic ambiguity: the basis
> of this famous joke by Groucho Marx.
>
> Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas.  How it got there, I have no
> idea.
>
> If we take the statement by Lakoff and Johnson seriously, then whenever a
> person thinks about what they were wearing when they shoot an animal is
> necessarily confusable with where the animal was.  Really? A person can't
> keep those two ideas separate.
>
> Of course, if we have to translate our thoughts to a formal system, the
> ambiguity that is the basis of Marx's joke makes sense.
>
> Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
>
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