Creating Worldviews

APPROVED BY THE AUTHOR "Underhill's book is simultaneously a breath of fresh air and a rich source of stimulating insights, advancing and giving emphasis to new perspectives in critical metaphor analysis." Professor Andrew Goatly, Lingnan University, Hong Kong 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 United 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 time. Including a multilingual glossary of key terms and concepts, this is an ideal volume for anyone new to the topic, as well as those already interested in metaphor theory and the analysis of worldviews. James W. Underhill lectures on Translation Studies at Stendhal University, Grenoble, France. He has worked as a professional translator of both French and Czech and has published widely on metaphor theory and poetics, translation and discourse analysis, including Humboldt, Worldview and Language (EUP, 2009).

James Underhill is Head of English at the Université Stendhal Grenoble 3 France

Acknowledgements Part I Metaphor 1 Metaphor and World-Conceiving Worldviews Patterning This Book 2 A Concern for Metaphor 3 Metaphors We Live By 4 Other Developments in Metaphor Theory Philosophical Investigations Linguistic Approaches The Poetic Tradition The Rhetorical Tradition 5 Further cognitive contributions to metaphor theory Crtitical Discourse Analysis Turner's Contribution Blending Universalism 6 Diversity on the Periphery An Early Contribution The Website Journal, Embodiment The Slavic Contribution Sweetser's Contribution Reaching beyond a languageless linguistics Part II Case Studies in Metaphor Part II Three Case Studies 7 The Language of Czechoslovak Communist Power Does it make any sense? Conceptual Cluster Historie Lide Strana Stat Historie and Doba Boj An ABC of Czechoslovak Communist Terminology Conclusions 8 Hitlerdeutsch: Klemperer and the Language of the Third Reich Mindset and Personal World Hitlerdeutsch Seven Perversions Conceptuel Clusters Purification Binary Definition Essentialisation and Exclusion Adoption and Inversion Instability Contradiction Absurdity Two Goebbels Conclusions 9 Language in Metaphors The French language is so beautiful, we hardly dare touch her The Aesthetics of Order New defences Hagege's garden Global English Ecolinguistics Sprachsinn A final Word Glossary Bibliography Index