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George Lakoff: Metaphors we live by (1980, University of Chicago Press) 4 stars

Review of 'Metaphors we live by' on 'Goodreads'

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I possess an incessant interest in organising the cognitive map of the human being according to its relation to the heavens. Not a menial task I know, and neither one that will be resolved within the next few years of my existence, but while I work towards a deeper understanding of this human connection and consequent interpretation of that which surrounds us I have found that emerging myself within the field of linguistics from time to time is of quite the great importance in order to widen my general perspective.

This book wasn’t exactly an extreme eye opener of sorts, as someone who has studied various languages for years I’ve had the privilege of coming to various conclusions present in this book on my own but I cannot ignore the aid that such an approach to metaphor and its mutual relationship with both the human experience and its metamorphosing structure has given me.

I believe that this is a book that many monolinguals should read, cough English speakers cough, in order to understand the true extent in which the language, and consequently the metaphorical concepts culturally ingrained in such a language, that they’ve been nurtured in affects their perspective and conceptualisation of experience.