Metaphors We Live by [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

George Lakoff und Mark Johnson präsentieren mit "Metaphors we live by" ein spannend und unterhaltsam geschriebenes Buch, das trotzdem wissenschaftlichen Anforderungen entspricht. Deshalb ist es sicher auch zu einem Klassiker geworden, an dem kein kognitionswissenschaftlicher Beitrag zur Metaphernforschung mehr vorbeikommt.

Lakoff und Johnson räumen (Alltags-)Metaphern einen wichtigen Platz in unserem Denken ein. Sie seien nicht allein schmückendes Beiwerk der Sprache, sondern sie strukturierten in gewisser Weise mentale Konzepte. So beginnen Lakoff und Johnson mit einem Beispiel, das sie als die ARGUMENT IS WAR-Metapher bezeichnen. Sie behaupten, dass unser Konzept von "Streit" im wesentlichen durch die Übertragung unseres Konzepts von "Krieg" strukturiert würde. Evidenzen dafür sehen sie in einer Vielzahl sprachlicher Ausdrücke wie "I attacked his argument", "he was defending his point" u.ä. Diese Übertragung eines Konzepts auf ein anderes ist nach Lakoff und Johnson eine Strategie unseres Geistes, besonders abstrakte Dinge durch den Rückgriff auf etwas Erfahrungsnäheres beschreibbar zu machen, wie etwa, wenn man über "Theorie" in den Begriffen von "Gebäuden" spricht. (Gerade bei der oben genannten ARGUMENT IS WAR-Metapher scheint jedoch diese Erklärung etwas fragwürdig.)

Weiterhin gehen Lakoff und Johnson davon aus, dass die meisten Metaphern in ein System von anderen Metaphern einzuordnen sind: So gibt es zum Beispiel sehr viele sprachliche Bilder, die etwas Gutes als in irgendeiner Weise "oben-Seiendes" beschreiben (I feel high), etwas Schlechtes dagegen als "unten" (entsprechend: I feel down).

Lakoff und Johnson meinen, dass diese Metaphernsysteme einerseits auf grundlegenden physikalischen Erfahrungen basieren, andererseits aber auch in einer Kultur tradiert sein können. So sei es etwa vorstellbar, dass in einer Kultur, in der man "Streit" nicht in den Begriffen von "Krieg", sondern zum Beispiel als eine Form von "Tanz" strukturieren würde, auch eine andere Streitkultur herrschte.

Hier liegt allerdings auch das größte Problem von Lakoffs und Johnsons Methode: Sie postulieren einen Einfluss des Denkens auf die Sprache und umgekehrt, ihr empirisches Material beschränkt sich jedoch auf sprachliche Ausdrücke. Damit rücken sie in die Nähe einer Tautologie: Sie behaupten, Menschen würden in einer bestimmten Art und Weise sprechen, weil sie so denken, wie sie denken, könne man ja an ihrer Sprache erkennen. Hier wäre ein stärkere Bezugnahme auch auf psychologisches oder psycholinguistisches, experimentell überprüfbares empirisches Material nützlich gewesen. Überhaupt verzichten Lakoff und Johnson völlig darauf, ihre Thesen zu problematisieren, Gegenbeispiele zu finden oder andere Autoren zu zitieren. So wirkt ihre Ausführungen auf den ersten Blick sehr überzeugend, sind wahrscheinlich deshalb auch sehr gut und schnell zu lesen. Trotzdem sollte man bei aller Begeisterung über dieses wunderbar geschriebene Buch nicht die kritische Infragestellung einiger Aspekte der Darstellung vergessen. (Dies ist eine Amazon.de an der Uni-Studentenrezension.)

Many of the examples oversimplify. The authors provide no formal empirical basis for their claims. However, upon reading this book, a sense of recognition sets in. They have succeeded in illuminating as much as one can through discourse alone, the cognitive underpinnings of our language and the way we think. Very little if anything in the way of ideological bias clouds the mirror through which the reader can recognize the authors' thesis. Although not explicitly written for purposes of self-development or consciousness raising, the very act of consciously recognizing these metaphorical cognitive mechanisms may give the reader a greater sensitivity to and command of the language. It certainly has for me.

The authors later went on to write ''Philosophy in the Flesh.'' If you are a stickler for more formal empirical verification, in that tome you will find good discussions about, and references to some empirical confirmation which followed on the thesis developed in this book. In ''Philosophy in the Flesh'', however, the authors inevitably allow more play with their ideological leanings (liberal) which may prove a distraction to some readers who would find ''Metaphors We Live By'' much freer from these ideological musings. Clearly the revelations we find in ''Metaphors We Live By'', transcend ideology, including the authors' ideologies.

The implications of widespread cognitive metaphor throughout our language, culture, and even our sciences, presents us with the landmark tip of an iceberg, whose deeper implications spread far beyond and below the more obviously poetical uses that we typically recognize when we think of the metaphorical. This causes us to rethink everything in ways which I am sure even exceed the authors' scope of speculation, though they have done an excellent job in pointing the way. The ideas developed here, cry out for -- even demand -- further elaboration. This book itself only points to the tip of the iceberg and calls it what it is -- an iceberg. In this job, it proves remarkably easy to read, explanatory, to-the-point, and no longer than necessary. Anyone literate can read and understand it, though exploring and understanding all of its ramifications could easily become a whole science yet to be born.

If you have either a professional or an intense lay interest in cognitive science, this book provides an excellent introduction to ''Philosophy in the Flesh'', though ''Philosophy . . .'' certainly does not provide a conclusion to ''Metaphors We Live By.'' If you find ''Philosophy'' a difficult read, you may try this instead. If you find this book intriguing, then more illuminating speculations lie ahead in ''Philosophy'', but don't expect a grand satisfying conclusion. The authors try for too much there, overshooting themselves and thus occasionally slipping into more ideological speculations where the empirical presentation leaves off. I highly recommend both books, but this one first and foremost. I would give it six stars if Amazon permitted.

Published in 1980, George Lakoff's and Mark Johnson's book "Metaphors We Live by" is nothing less than one of the founding documents of the linguistic appoach called Cognitive Linguistics. The premise of Cognitive Linguistics is that language is the result of numerous cognitive processes and not just the output of some transformational rules that are stored in an independant language module somewhere in our mind, as is claimed by Noam Chomsky's formalistic approach called Universal Grammar. Before Lakoff and Johnson metaphors were judged to be a purely linguistic phenomenon that were contrasted to literal language. Literal language was defined as truth-conditional language, meaning that it refers to objects that are objectively given in the external world. Lakoff and Johnson, however, became aware of the fact that not only poetic but also our everyday language is full of metaphorical expressions. Sentences such us "I demolished his argument" or "Our relationship is off track" have entered our everyday discourse and are judged to be literal language by many people even though that is quite evidently not the case.

The thesis of the book is that metaphors are not lingusitic but rather conceptual in nature. That means that so called conceptual metaphors form the basis of our conceptual system and the metaphorical expressions we use every day are motivated by conceptual metaphors.

Let's just clarify that theory by talking about one example in more detail. One conceptual metaphor would be LOVE IS A JOURNEY since LOVE, the target domain, is very often conceptualized in terms of a JOURNEY, the source domain. The conceptual metaphor LOVE IS A JOURNEY motivates the metaphorical expressions we use in an everyday conversations: Our relationship is off track; We are at a crossroads; We have made progress; We are stuck etc. In all cases the target domain is the more abstract concept that needs to be conceptualized by the more concrete source domain. With regard to our example we all are in a position to form mental images about the concept of a journey. Love, however, for us humans is one of the most difficult concepts to come to terms with. That's why we long for conceptualizing it is order to make it more accessible for us in our everyday discourse.

Furthermore Lakoff and Johnson distinguish between primary and compound metaphors. A primary metaphor associates concepts that are equally basic which means that they can be directly perceived. Examples would be "Importance is Size" or "Quantity is vertical elevation". Primary metaphors, in turn, can form compound metaphors. The two primary metaphors "Persisting is remainig upright" and "Organisation is physical structure" make up the compound metaphor "Theories are buildings". The compound metaphor does not have a clear experiental basis as primary metaphors do have. Thus the primary primary metaphor "Persisting is remainig upright" might be motivated by our early childhood experience that standing and walking, i.e. remainig upright, demands effort and disciplin or, in other words, persistence.

Conclusion: Lakoff and Johnson revolutionized our view on metaphors. Their approach, however, has come under criticism lately. Superflous to mention, of course, that Chomsky and his followers have always denied the concept of the non-linguistic nature of metaphors. But also functionalists like Verena Haser, teaching at the University of Freiburg, argue that we do not really need conceptual metaphors in order to account for metaphorical expressions. In her thesis "Metaphor, Metonomy and Experientialist Philosophy: Challenging Cognitive Semantics" published in 2005 she claims that, put in a nutshell, metaphors are motivated by family resemblance, meaning that due to polysemy semantic links are established between various lexical items. This, however, does not diminish the thought-provoking impact Lakoff and Johnson have had on our views on metaphors.