Metaphors In Figurative Language

Metaphors are part of technology simply because language is a part of technology and metaphors are “characteristics of language,” as Lakoff and Johnson explain that make up this “extraordinary language” that people use on a daily basis (3). Many people simply consider metaphors as “just words,” not thoughts or ideas, when actually they are heavily involved with the “conceptual system” and the way people think, interact, explain, and perceive the world based on ideas and objects. This is translated into the virtual world because communication and language is a huge part of the technological culture, and without it, technology would be nonexistent because it enhances the ways in which people express their thoughts to one another. One separate
For example, the phrase “technology is the future,” implies that technology is more advanced and complex than any other creation man has ever made. Even this explanation itself is a metaphor because it pairs the idea of complexity with advancement, a directional or “orientational metaphor,” which “organizes a whole system of concepts with respect to one another,” through spatial alignments (15). This is when objects are connected to ideas, generally where up is related to all things considered “good” and down is those that are “bad.” The future, in this example, is idealized in a vertical narrative, and compared to advancement, whereas advancement is usually idealized positively. This example does not mean that technology is literally the future, but merely means that technology is a symbol of society’s progression (another orientational metaphor) towards the future, because tomorrow is also, usually idealized as “better” than today. A metaphor to describe the process of understanding metaphors in language is “conduct metaphors” in which words contain