How Linguistic Metaphor Scaffolds Reasoning

Linguistic Discussion In The Context Of The Soviet Journalese Discourse

“…Some academic specialists describe the language means of influence and manipulation in the political and scientific discourse (Karasik, 2015;Koshkarova, 2017;Kupina, 2014;Romanova, Malafeev, Morozova, Klimova (Fokina), 2017;Nau & Stewart, 2014;Weinmann, Roth, Schneider, Kramer, Hopp, Bindl, Vorderer, 2017). The theory of conceptual metaphor is dwelt upon in a lot of publications (Budaev, Chudinov, Tsygankova, 2017;Kushneruk, Afanasyeva, Kurochkina, Mineeva, 2017;Thibodeau, Hendricks, Boroditsky, 2017). The outstanding feature of the present research consists in the attempt to reveal the linguistic and pragmatic specifics of the discussion on the issues of linguistics and justify its dependence on the ideologically-biased scientific and journalese discourse of the USSR in the middle of the XX century.…”

The role of metaphor in communication and thought

“…A related, but distinct, claim is that the metaphors we encounter actually shape how we reason about the world, a possibility George Lakoff has written about in his popular work on the language of politics (Lakoff, , ). This is more of a process‐oriented view of metaphor that explores how people use metaphors to learn about novel concepts, make decisions about complicated issues, and influence others (Thibodeau, Hendricks, & Boroditsky, ).…”

“…Metaphors shape thought by tapping into structured knowledge of a source domain to help people organize and draw inferences about a target domain (Lakoff & Johnson, ; Thibodeau, Hendricks, & Boroditsky, ). For example, a target domain like the “U.S.…”

“…This is because people process language in real time, generating a dynamic representation of the content of the message as the conversation unfolds (Bever, ; Bransford & Johnson, ). When a metaphor appears early on, it activates the relevant source domain knowledge so that downstream information about the target domain can be assimilated into the familiar source domain structure (Thibodeau, Hendricks, & Boroditsky, ). When the metaphor only appears later on in conversation, the listener may have already come to construe the target domain in a particular way, attenuating any effect of the metaphorical comparison.…”

“…These ideas—that metaphors reflect and shape cognitive processing and that metaphorical meaning is grounded in embodied experience—have been examined using linguistic methods like critical discourse analysis (Charteris‐Black, ; Fairclough, ; Musolff, ) and psychological methods like observational and experimental studies (Boroditsky, ; Flusberg, Matlock, & Thibodeau, ; Gibbs, ; Thibodeau, Hendricks, & Boroditsky, ). We discuss evidence for and critiques of this view below.…”