Experience is Understanding

          The more I read of Metaphors, the deeper and more confusing my understanding becomes.  It’s not as though Lakoff and Johnson are incoherent with their theories—because they are explained quite well and in full detail—there is just so much information to process.  To continue with the metaphor that language is mathematical, the authors have given us diagrams and sectionalized lists to (attempt to) explain how language works and how metaphors are the basis of verbal and written communication.

            I thought it was interesting how Lakoff and Johnson broke down everyday conversation into six concrete dimensions.  Because a common back-and-forth with a friend, colleague, etc. comes so naturally, I never really thought of this kind of communication in these categorical terms.  I was glad the authors included the example of an argument to show how the six dimensions can be altered in different circumstances (78-80).  I couldn’t quite get on board with the idea conversation is an absolute six-step process.  People talk to one another differently depending upon their relationship and whether or not they share previous experiences.  I feel like the authors’ outline of the typical conversation is only used in times of small talk with people you don’t really know, but recognize because they have inserted themselves into your routine.  Working in the service industry for the past decade plus, you get to know your regulars as it were and employ this sort of conversation.  As you get to know them, the conversation evolves and changes its structure.  I liked the six-steps as a jumping off point, but not much more than that.  We will not be confined! (Melodramatic).

            Lakoff and Johnson talk about the difference between coherence and consistency in chapter sixteen, noting that they are indeed their own entities, but work with one another at once.  The text reads, “[t]he reason we need two metaphors is because there is no one metaphor that will do the job—there is no one metaphor that will allow us to get a handle simultaneously on both the direction of the argument and the content of the argument” (95).  When I read this, I thought about those bubble diagrams that separate some topics, but unite others in the middle where the bubbles overlap.  What would one bubble be without the other?  The same goes for metaphors.  “Bit the hand that fed him” would make no sense if the reasoning behind the biting were excluded from the understanding of the sentence.  It would just be an overly carnivorous man chomping at the bit for more food.  Lakoff and Johnson speak on intersecting metaphors throughout their book, but this is where I really started to understand at least the basic concept.

            Lakoff and Johnson say, “[w]e are concerned primarily with how people understand their experiences.  We view language as providing data that can lead to general principles of understanding.  The general principles involve whole systems of concepts rather than individual words or individual concepts” (116).  If I’m not mistaken, the authors write this based on an idea that our dictionary makers think differently than we do.  I cannot agree with this.  Sure, in preparation of a dictionary, the writers have to consider words for what they alone stand for, but dictionary makers are people living in our contextually-rich culture and are only doing (the somewhat difficult) job of giving the rest of us the building blocks we need to communicate through our experiences—metaphors being reflections of these, built upon words and their primary definitions.  When you really think about it, the dictionary makers’ definitions were probably not formed without context—at no fault of their own.  We cannot escape context, our language’s most fundamental parts equally affected.

          Culture seems to be one of Lakoff and Johnson’s most recurring themes, as it should be.  Even their authorship of this book is through a certain cultural lens.  The text reads, “[w]hat is real for an individual as a member of a culture is a product both of his social reality and of the way in which that shapes his experience of the physical world” (146).  Understanding is truly based on our experience—not only our communicative abilities with one another or reaction to the physical world, but both combined.  My understanding, my perception of reality is completely different than anyone else’s in even just this class.  Put an ocean between myself and someone else, it may be difficult to find any commonalities in which to relate (other than the living and breathing aspect).  Culturally speaking, we live by certain metaphors depending on our physical location, station in life, age, gender, etc., but our divergence is overcome by the idea we all compare and relate in an effort to understand one another, to understand ourselves.