Metaphors for Change: Re-Metaphorizing the Metaphors We Live By
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2012
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Abstract
This paper is about languages, cultures, and ideologies-how our languages are
not just an adaptation to communicate ideas, but part of a collective system that
reinforces ideas and ways of thinking. In the vein of critical linguistics, I argue
that ideologies are "pervasively present in language" - that common language
carries cultural norms and ideologies and that when spoken, maintains them
(Fairclough 1989). What is often considered literal language is really structured
by conceptual metaphors, which are culturally variable. For instance, when
talking about time, English speakers will say, I wasted so much time today, I
need to learn to spend my time better, to invest it in important things, I'm
running out of time, I don't have the time for that. These are linguistic
manifestations of the cultural metaphors TIME IS MONEY and TIME IS A
COMMODITY-metaphors we both speak with and think with. In capitalist
culture, language carries and maintains capitalist ideologies.
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson began the discourse about conceptual
metaphors with their book Metaphors We Live By (1980), and since then,
linguists have researched the metaphors of non-Western cultures. Lakoff and
Johnson state that "Much of cultural change arises from the introduction of new
metaphorical concepts and the loss of old ones. For example, the Westernization
of cultures throughout the world is partly a matter of introducing the TIME IS
MONEY metaphor into those cultures" (Lakoff 1980). The loss of languages and
their metaphors accompanies this cultural change. However, many endangered
indigenous languages and cultures, who have not Westernized, still maintain
vastly different conceptual systems. The Inari Saami of Northern Finland, for
example, conceptualize time in a metaphor that could be the antithesis of TIME IS
MONEY: the Saami, who do not traditionally schedule their time based on a
Western work-day but time their actions based on their ecosystem, use the
metaphor TIME IS NATURE. The word for day, beaivi, has the same root as the
word for sun, beaivvas. Work done in the day is beaivvebargu. The concept of 'day' is inseparable from what a 'day' means in nature-the earth is lit by the sun.
Instead of saying that something is a waste of time, an Inari-Saami would say
Tallet maid kal leibi-lase, meaning: 'And this is supposed to get us more bread.'
In this phrase, Time is not mentioned at all, only the outcome of the effort -and
the most important outcome is to find food, not money.
This metaphor, like the language and culture, IS endangered-an
endangered way of conceptualizing and understanding the world. In a time of
expanding mono-culturalism, cultural diversity becomes even more important.
Franz Boaz, an earlier linguist and thinker asked: "How can we recognize the
shackles tradition as lain upon us? For when we recognize them, we are also able
to break them." I think we can use the diversity of metaphors (and the ways of
understanding the world that metaphors express) to recognize and become more
conscious of our own metaphors-and then question them. Must we
conceptualize time in terms of money? By speaking of time in terms of money,
are we unconsciously supporting and perpetuating the capitalist system that
created that metaphor?
These are questions worth (see the metaphor?) asking. By identifying
conceptual metaphors that inform the way we think and speak, speakers become
more conscious of them. And we can identify metaphors in American English by
comparing them to non-Western metaphors, such as those of the Saami-which
supports language revitalization processes and reaffirms the importance of
diversity in the cultural ecosystem of the world. Conscious recognition can lead to
'breaking the shackles,' updating and re-metaphorizing the "Metaphors We Live
By", and propelling active language and social change.