Agafonova A.

ФНЯ 0-20-41

27.09.21.

Metaphorically speaking

The video deals with metaphors in use. James Geary is a moderator; he gives the definition of metaphor.
It’s a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate
another, thus making an implicit comparison. He highlights that metaphor is a way of thought before it is
a way with words. 

To clearly show how the metaphor works, the presenter refers to the works of famous people as Elvis
Presley, Aristotle and Shakespeare.

The next issue that concerns the moderator is how people create and understand metaphors. There are
several steps for recognizing metaphors. The first step is pattern recognition. Metaphor is not just the
detection of patterns; it is the creation of patterns. Second step is conceptual synesthesia. It’s a metaphor that
exploits a similarity between experiences in different sense modalities. Third step is cognitive dissonance.
This is the Stroop test. This test requires you to recognize as quickly as possible the color of the ink in which
these words are printed.

In conclusion, I would like to say that that the metaphor wins every time. Metaphors can help us begin to
understand unfamiliar concepts by relating them to more-familiar ones

No metaphor is the complete definition of the Thing it references

If we forget where metaphor leaves off and reality begins, we risk focusing on the wrong things. For
metaphor is the spice of language. It also activates the reader's or listener's inner eye to produce images
which are just as vivid as visual ones. Without its color, wit and concreteness would disappear.

Well done!

Rendering

Many people are convinced that metaphors are used only in literary works, and not in everyday speech.
But this turned out to be a mistake; metaphors penetrate not only into our language, but also into our
thoughts and activities.

The author introduces several examples that prove that metaphors still have an impact on our perception.
One such example is the difference between the concept of argument / спор and the conceptual metaphor
argument is war/спор – это война. This example shows that this is a metaphorical meaning of argument
is war/спор –это война structures the action in the dispute.

Summing it all up, it can be argued that the metaphor belongs not only to the language, it means not only
to words. It is remarkable that the processes of human thinking are largely metaphorical. Metaphors as
expressions of natural language are possible because they are metaphors of the human conceptual system.

Ex