metaphor

Popular conceptions of metaphor are largely belletristic and ornamental. Moving beyond a notion of this trope as rhetorical embellishment reveals the ways in which metaphor can “structure how we perceive, how we think, and what we do” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 4). They dictate possibility in that they define all sorts of problems and their solutions (see Barnes, 1992 for an explanation of metaphor's role in economic landscapes; see Cohen & Blavin, 2002 for a discussion of metaphor's legal ramifications; see Hesse, 1966 for an example of metaphor's effect on scientific discovery). Even dead metaphors are powerful constructions that confer privilege on certain people (Cresswell, 1997), places (Clifford, 1997), things (Selfe & Selfe, 1994), and ideas (Black, 1962). If, as Kenneth Burke (1969) suggested, metaphor largely dictates perceptions of truth, then the prevalence and variety of metaphors surrounding writing students, instructors, and classrooms have, at least in part, prescribed the course of the discipline.