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The concepts that govern our thought are not just matters of the intellect. They also govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane details. Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other. Thus, our conceptual system, in terms of which we think and act, plays a central role in defining our everyday realities, and is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. Obviously, as Lakoof and Johnson (1980) demonstrate, 鈥渢he essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.鈥�

A metaphor is a rhetorical trope defined as a direct comparison between two or more seemingly unrelated subjects, and is thus an important tool to carry emotions and associations from one context associated with objects and entities in a different context. Metaphor is thus generally considered to be a direct equation of terms in a forceful and assertive manner. The assertiveness of a metaphor calls into question the underlying category structure. Metaphor, therefore, assume significant position of a tool of cognition and cognitive process.

Metaphor and figurative language are common in everyday life. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) suggest conceptually that we live by metaphors, that much of rational thought involves the use of metaphors models. They affirm that metaphor is not only pervasive in language, but also cannot be separate from language or from the cognitive processes that create language.

Metaphors rely on an apparent similarity of some aspect of meaning to transfer or displace a familiar concept to an unfamiliar one. Such transfers are dependent upon the inherent 鈥榝uzziness鈥� of category boundaries, allowing humans to extend a category label or a word in its meaning range. In other words, metaphor is as a process of denoting one concept (the tenor) with a sign conventionally tied to another (the vehicle), aiming at the following three objectives (see Kess 1992; Gupta 2002).

(i) Emphasis:

Certain associations of the tenor over others are emphasized and this is accomplished by means of matching attribute. For example, attributes John and a wolf in (12), and my dentist and a barbarian in (13) are matched:

(12) John is a wolf.
(13) My dentist is a barbarian. (Gupta 2002: 182)

(ii) Enrichment of the Conceptual Structure:

The conceptual structure of the tenor can be enriched and enhanced by analogy with another domain through analogical reasoning relied on user鈥檚 recognition of the parallel in metaphors, for example:

(14) The eye is the window of soul.
(15) Abraham Lincoln is a lion among presidents. (Kess 1992: 231)

(iii) Conveying Some Aspect of the Tenor:

Some aspects of the tenor which defies conventional lexicalization can be conveyed through metaphor by transferring perceptual characteristics into novel applications, for example:

(16) He is the head of the class
(17) I have reached the foot of Himalaya

Metaphor is a dynamic, as opposed to stable sign. In everyday speech, one鈥檚 linguistic utterances are full of metaphors based on polar oppositions he encounters everyday in the external world, such as up / down, front / back, straight / crook, in / out, and so on. Universally, across all languages, human beings associate moral and aesthetic judgements to these polars, up is indicated to good, down is bad, straight is good, crook is bad and so on so forth, though one can also naturally:

(18) Oh, dear! Don鈥檛 let me down

Emotional closeness is often described in terms of physical closeness, or strong emotions. Gupta (2002: 22) points out that 鈥渢he senses map onto emotions and knowledge. Sight is linked to perception, hearing to understanding, touching to knowing. Locomotion is important. Physical well-being is mapped onto emotional, social, and moral well being, and is always up. (The economy is healthy and growing.)鈥� A particularly complex term might be metaphorically constructed in several different ways. for instance, time is money; health is gold, and so on. Recognition of metaphors rests on identification of the appropriateness of an incompatibility of sensory description, the juxtaposition of images, imposing a visualisation onto an abstract, unseeable quality.

In the nature of metaphor, its role and scope in the language process can be highlighted on two camps: (i) metaphor is credited with a fundamental role in the organization of our conceptual systems, thus serving a cognitively central purpose; and (ii) metaphor is marginalized as a deviant and aberrant rhetorical effect, serving an ornate and emotive (but ultimately, cognitively empty) role in language comprehension. With its vast potential to play a fundamental structural role in organizing our conceptual systems, metaphor is an important tool of cognition, rather than being merely a deviant rhetorical effect. Since metaphors lose their emotive tension due to commonplace use, and subsequent accommodation in one鈥檚 conceptual structures, metaphors die and become literal truths (MacCormac 1985). The phenomenon of metaphor is one of starling cognitive wealth and richness, permeating as it does the way humans speak, think, and structure the world around them. As a basic constructor of semantic memory, it lies at the root of the human creative faculty, an excellent theory means of knowledge representation.