Reading 5.4-Metaphor

The information in this unit that I found interesting is about how metaphor can make sense in our world. In this chapter, Lee was focuses on explaining the relation between the writer’s choices of metaphor and how these choices may influence the reader. As Lee makes clear, metaphor plays a key role in enabling us to talk about and construct the world, and allows language users the flexibility to cope with rapidly changing circumstances. It is not merely a device occasionally employed by poets but facilitates communication throughout the language. According to study guide, the framework Lee develops includes the role of metaphor in language, the effect of metaphor on the reader and interest s and motivations, which lead to the use of certain metaphors. His points are illustrated using a range of texts, including a detail analysis of the role of metaphor in the discourses associated with nuclear weapons or ‘nukespeak’. According to Lee, the meanings of words are not necessarily fixed. Their meanings are dependent on how people use and understand them in particular context. Lee illustrates his observation that the metaphors we use reflect our perspective and ideology, by examining the metaphor of ‘argument in war’. Here the language of war such as ‘indefensible’, ‘strategy’ and ‘on target’, is used to describe the process of argument. In this reading, Lee argues that by using metaphor in our daily discourse we are able to make sense of our world, and communicate that sense to other. He claims that ‘our world is structured through the relationships that we establish between different situations. The metaphors we choose, however, are reflections of both our personal and cultural perspective. Thus, the choice of metaphorical language in a text can help us understand the writer’s perspective and ideology.