Metaphors We Live By

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George Lakoff is professor emeritus of cognitive science and linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is best known for his discovery of the detailed workings of metaphorical thought and how it structures our understanding of the world. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books, including Metaphors We Live By, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

The now-classic Metaphors We Live By changed our understanding of metaphor and its role in language and the mind. Metaphor, the authors explain, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are "metaphors we live by"-metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them. In this updated edition of Lakoff and Johnson's influential book, the authors supply an afterword surveying how their theory of metaphor has developed within the cognitive sciences to become central to the contemporary understanding of how we think and how we express our thoughts in language.

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