Rhetorical Analysis

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“Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 1984) have described how much of our use of language and our corresponding thinking about the world is organized metaphorically — that we think and talk about many things as if they were actually other things.” — Seth Katz, “The King of France Is Bald: An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics” After I read this quote, I was surprised to learn that I’d unknowingly used metaphors for years, and that these metaphors had influenced my actions and language. To me, metaphors were those figures of speech I learned about in high school, and that I’d try to cleverly incorporate into my own writing, but I never thought to look beyond this basic application of the metaphor. I’d heard Love is War (though, I’m more familiar…show more content…
I wonder, then, if individuals have their own unique metaphors that they use to talk about their experiences. If so, does this mean that their metaphors should be accepted as truth? By this I mean a personal truth rather than a universal truth, of course. For example, and one that I’ll describe in more detail in section II, I have a friend who likes to say, “Pleasure is destructive.” This personal metaphor was based on her experiences with pleasures such as alcohol and drugs. I’ve recently noticed that there are certain well-known descriptions and phrases that would support this metaphor. It’s interesting to discover the different metaphors people use to explain and understand their experiences, for, I believe, you can learn much about a person and their way of thinking through their distinct figures of…show more content…
They write that our conceptual system “structure[s] what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people,” and have found that, “most of our ordinary conceptual system is metaphorical in nature” (454). They give the example Argument is War to illustrate how a concept can be metaphorical. Using sentences such as, “Your claims are indefensible,” “I demolished his argument,” and “He shot down all my arguments,” Lakoff and Johnson show how the Argument is War metaphor is reflected in everyday language. The theory that our language is organized metaphorically can, I believe, be applied to my friend’s, Kelsi’s, metaphor, Pleasure is

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