Encouraging readers to reflect upon language and the role metaphor plays
in patterning ideas and thought, this book first offers a critical
introduction to metaphor theory as it has emerged over the past thirty
years in the States. James W. Underhill then widens the scope of
metaphor theory by investigating not only the worldview our language
offers us, but also the worldviews which we adapt in our own ideological
and personal interpretations of the world.This book explores new avenues
in metaphor theory in the work of contemporary French, German and Czech
scholars. Detailed case studies marry metaphor theory with discourse
analysis in order to investigate the ways the Czech language was
reshaped by communist discourse, and the way fascism emerged in the
German language. The third case study turns metaphor theory on its head:
instead of looking for metaphors in language, it describes the way
language systems (French & English) are understood in terms of
metaphorically-framed
concepts evolving over t