Central Metaphor Examples

Lecture’s Central Argument: Metaphor is used in all kinds of aspect, including daily conversation, film, literature, music etc. to show what the author feels, see and experiences. It is important because it helps readers understand a more abstract concept.

Lecture’s Supporting Evidence/Examples: Metaphor is widely used in many forms and ways. For example, one may say, “I feel so down today”. In this context, that individual doesn’t mean it literally but metaphorically meaning that he or she doesn’t feel good or feels depress. This example shows that emotions are often time associated with orientation or spatial metaphors which was mentioned in the reading, “Metaphors We Live By” by Lakoff and Johnson. Happy is being associated with up, sadness is associated with down and anger is associated with

Another example is metaphor is used in literature and poems. Author often time uses metaphor to personify non human objects or abstract concept like “Time flies by when we are having fun”. Moreover, in english idioms, metaphor is often being used as well. An example is the idioms “Spill the beans”. If a non english speaker or a person who is not familiar with idioms, he or she might not understand the meaning of this idiom which means reveal the information or secret. Furthermore, in a cognitive science research shows that our brains are wired to generate to understand metaphorical statement before we even speak. According to the “father” of metaphor, George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley retired professor, he stated, metaphor uses source domain which is our daily directly experience to help us understand a more abstract new concept which is the target domain, something that we cannot hear , see, touch etc. Even in different language like Chinese and Hungarian, emotion is also being associated with spatial orientation. Lastly, at the Q & A section, Professor Tennie Matlock said, something when there’s too many metaphors in one sentence it makes it