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featured – Page 3 – Metaphor Hacker
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Extended writing Framing Language Linguistics Scholarship

How to read ‘Women, Fire and Dangerous Things’: Guide to essential reading on human cognition

Note: These are rough notes for a metaphor reading group, not a continuous narrative. Any comments, corrections or elaborations are welcome. Why should you read WFDT? Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind is still a significantly underappreciated and (despite its high citation count) not-enough-read book that has a lot to […]

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Extended writing Language Linguistics Metaphor

What language looks like: Dictionary and grammar are to language what standing on one foot is to running

Background Sometimes a rather obscure and complex analogy just clicks into place in one’s mind and allows a slightly altered way of thinking that just makes so much sense it hurts. Like putting glasses on in the morning and the world suddenly snapping into shape. This happened to me this morning when reading the Notes […]

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Extended writing Knowledge Linguistics Metaphor Scholarship

Anthropologists’ metaphorical shenanigans: Or how (not) to research metaphor

Over on the excellent ‘Genealogy of Religion’, Cris Campbell waved a friendly red rag in front of my eyes to make me incensed over exaggerated claims (some) anthropologists make about metaphors. I had expressed some doubts in previous comments but felt that perhaps this particular one deserves its own post. The book Cris refers to […]

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Education Extended writing Framing Gender Language Linguistics

What does it mean when words ‘really’ mean something: Dismiss the Miss

A few days ago, I tweeted a link to an article in TES: What Miss really means < It’s always worthwhile re-examining ingrained inequalities http://t.co/GKhjc4VgUP #edchat #ukedchat #feminism — Dominik Lukes (@techczech) May 17, 2014 Today, I got the following response back: @techczech ‘really means’ talks about origins. It doesn’t mean that to me now. […]

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Blending Extended writing Framing Knowledge Metaphor Philosophy of Science

What is not a metaphor: Modelling the world through language, thought, science, or action

The role of metaphor in science debate (Background) Recently, the LSE podcast an interesting panel on the subject of “Metaphors and Science”. It featured three speakers talking about the interface between metaphor and various ‘scientific’ disciplines (economics, physics and surgery). Unlike many such occasions, all speakers were actually very knowledgeable and thoughtful on the subject. […]

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Extended writing Framing Language Linguistics Scholarship

Linguistics according to Fillmore

While people keep banging on about Chomsky as being the be all and end all of linguistics (I’m looking at you philosophers of language), there have been many linguists who have had a much more substantial impact on how we actually think about language in a way that matters. In my post on why Chomsky is […]

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Education Extended writing Language Linguistics

5 things everybody should know about language: Outline of linguistics’ contribution to the liberal arts curriculum

Drafty This was written in some haste and needs further refinement. Maybe one day that will come. For now, it will be left as it stands. Background This post outlines what I think are the key learnings from the output of the research of the field of linguistics that should be reflected in the general […]

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Extended writing Framing Linguistics

Binders full of women with mighty pens: What is metonymy

Metonymy in the wild Things were not going well for Mitt Romney in early autumn of last year. And then he responded to a query about gender equality with this sentence: “I had the chance to pull together a cabinet, and all the applicants seemed to be men… I went to a number of women’s […]

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Education Extended writing History Language

Three books of the year 2013 and some books of the century 1900-2013

I have been asked (as every year) to nominate three books of the year for Lidové Noviny (a Czech paper I contribute to occasionally). This is always a tough choice for me and some years I don’t even bother responding. This is because I don’t tend to read books ‘of the moment’ and range widely […]

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Extended writing Framing Language Metaphor Philosophy of Science

Pervasiveness of Obliging Metaphors in Thought and Deed

“when history is at its most obliging, the history-writer needs be at his most wary.” (China by John Keay) I came across this nugget of wisdom when I was re-reading the Introduction to John Keay’s history of China. And it struck me that in some way this quote could be a part of the motto […]