1. Metaphors: A Figure of Speech or a Fundamental Category of Human Language and Thought?

2. Metaphors are Widespread Lakoff and Johnson have found that metaphors are basic building blocks of human language and thought. Not just figures of speech to make language more colourful. No difference between metaphors and similes in anthropology. Definition of metaphor: a comparison of domains of experience. Synecdoches: the part stands for the whole.

3. Metaphors are a Universal Way of Thinking, but their Content Varies from Culture to Culture Our worldviews are grounded in key metaphors, e.g. Time is (like) Money. Metaphors are Grounded in Bodily Orientations: Up/Down, Front/Back, Left/Right, Inside/Outside. Example: Happiness is up, High Status is up, High Income is up, Mind is Up, High Morality is Up, Penthouses are Up, Productivity is UP. Therefore, the phrase ‘smart high income earners are moral, productive, and live happily ever after in penthouses’ appears to make sense, i.e. it has coherence. Conversely, the phrase ‘stupid low-income earners are lazy, live in basement suites and are depressed,’ also has coherence and appears to make sense. (Mind you, I am NOT saying that these connections are necessarily true, just that in Euro-North American culture, we might be surprised if someone who lived in poverty also lived in a penthouse, had a high status, and was happy. I’m saying that in a general way, these metaphors reflect our societal values). The Coherence of Key Metaphors is Due to the Orientations of our Bodies.

4. Universal Ways of Thinking and Cultural Differences Different cultures attach different values to domains of experience. Examples: –‘Twins are birds’ a key metaphor of Azande religion. What does it mean? –the role of hunting metaphors in various foraging societies: in !Kung society hunters and their prey as ‘namesakes’: reflecting a dual creation of humans and animals who are paired. –Nayaka of South India and the Batek of Malaysia, ‘nature’ and the forest are referred to as parents. The relationship between ‘parents’ and ‘children’ is seen as custodial. Believe that the forests will provide for them, while they will also take care of the forest.

5. Metaphors Often Change as Societies Change Conventional and Key Metaphors Compared. –Examples of conventional metaphors: ‘hen-pecked’, or ‘randy as a goat’, or ‘horse-sense’ derive from an agricultural history. They do not possess the same vividness today. The Difficulty of Translating Key Metaphors Across Cultures: due to the fact that different cultures place different values on domains of experience. New Metaphors in the Industrial and post-industrial age. Exercise: Think of Some of the Ways in Which Computer Terminology is applied today to different Domains of Meaning, e.g. the term ‘user-friendly’. A study of metaphors can provide indications of how cultural values are changing. –For example, ecological anthropologists involved in the whaling controversy in Iceland or the seal controversy in Canada studied the ways that certain animals—whales and seals---were portrayed by Greenpeace. Whales=sea-born mammals and nearly human, baby seals were presented as being baby-like.