View article

In the current climate, it is taken for granted that metaphor is important and ubiquitous in language. Metaphor is no longer discussed as a ‘violation’ of normal verbal meaning (e.g., Levin, 1977), but rather as one form of normal verbal meaning. But of course if metaphor were all that ‘normal’, it would not stimulate the interest that it does. This interest is not only academic: it is not only philosophers, linguists, and psychologists who show a considerable interest in metaphor: ‘real’ people going about their everyday business of discussing events, possibilities, and problems, seem to find metaphors striking as well. As the chapters in this book illustrate, entire discourses circle around the negotiation of a metaphorical understanding. Metaphors in discourse summarize a possible stance, and such summary attracts further debate.