Mark Turner (1) (1954–)

I think I was expecting something more, knowing George Lakoff. But I was severely disappointed. Both authors seem to have a gift for expressing the obvious and ignoring the obvious questions. It shows how metaphors common in our Western culture are commonly used not only in ordinary speech but also in poetry. I particularly enjoyed the poetic analysis: it is the strongest part of the book. In the course of the book the authors attempt to come up with a taxonomy of metaphor as seen in Western literature. They show how one concept is "mapped" on to another, which is the only clear methodological point they make. They group metaphors into complexes that use the same metaphor in different mappings, and then proceed (wrongly) to use a general term covering all those mappings and call *that* metaphor, in a hierarchy of ever more abstract "metaphors." By their very nature, metaphors are concrete or, better, specific. Otherwise, their purpose fails. I would also quibble with a few of their supposed metaphors, e.g., TIME AS MOVEMENT. Duh. Time *is* movement, as Einstein showed. That is its literal nature, and when used in literature it is as its literal reality. I've only begun reading in the literature of metaphor, so its hard to evaluate this book in context of the academic conversation. But I wasn't impressed.… (más)