A major part of our normal unconscious thought is metaphorical. There is, in our conceptual systems, a fixed system of conceptual metaphors that governs how we conceptualize abstract concepts - time, events, purpose, causation, the self, morality, emotions, the mind and memory. The unconscious modes of metaphorical thought that we use to comprehend such concepts is reflected in our everyday language, and we can study metaphorical thought precisely by a careful study of language.

Each conceptual metaphor is a precisely statable, systematic correspondence across conceptual domains, which allows us to think and talk about one conceptual domain using concepts and language from other domains.

Within linguistics itself, conceptual metaphors show up in phenomena as diverse as sound symbolism, the meanings of prepositions and of idioms, word order, etymology, and even grammatical constructions.

Outside of linguistics proper, conceptual metaphor to a significant extent governs not only the poetic use of metaphor, but also phenomena as diverse as politics, the nature of dreams, images in artwork, psychosomatic symptoms, social practices, forms of discourse and of history, cultural worldviews, legal doctrines, the metaphysical commitments of philosophical systems, and even basic mathematic concepts.

This course is a survey of the basic findings in the field of conceptual metaphor research. The primary purpose is to train students to notice, and to analyze, metaphors that we think in terms of, but that we are normally unaware of.