Goatly Andrew. Washing the Brain. Metaphor and Hidden Ideology

Amsterdam/Philodelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2007. — 431 p. — (Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 23).Contemporary metaphor theory has recently begun to address the relation between metaphor, culture and ideology. In this wide-ranging book, Andrew Goatly, using lexical data from his database Metalude, investigates how conceptual metaphor themes construct our thinking and social behaviour in fields as diverse as architecture, engineering, education, genetics, ecology, economics, politics, industrial time-management, medicine, immigration, race, and sex. He argues that metaphor themes are created not only through the universal body but also through cultural experience, so that an apparently universal metaphor such as event-structure as realized in English grammar is, in fact, culturally relative, compared with e.g. the construal of 'cause and effect' in the Algonquin language Blackfoot. Moreover, event-structure as a model is both scientifically reactionary and, as the basis for technological mega-projects, has proved environmentally harmful. Furthermore, the ideologies of early capitalism created or exploited a selection of metaphor themes historically traceable through Hobbes, Hume, Smith, Malthus and Darwin. These metaphorical concepts support neo-Darwinian and neo-conservative ideologies apparent at the beginning of the 21st century, ideologies underpinning our social and environmental crises. The conclusion therefore recommends skepticism of metaphor’s reductionist tendencies.Introducing Metaphor
Some terms for analysing metaphors
Inter-relations between metaphors
The theory of conceptual metaphor
Characterising conceptual metaphors and metaphor themes
Literal language, conventional metaphor and original metaphor
Convention, commonsense and latent ideology
Conclusion: Category is divided areaMetaphors of Power
Indroduction
Important is big, power/ Control is above, importance/ Status is high
Important is central
Race is colour, good is pure/ Clean/ White
Disease is invasion
Activity is movement forwards and the Cult of Speed
Time and Space metaphors
Time is money/ Commodity
Education , socialisation and time: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Activity is fightingMetaphors for Humans and the Living WorldHumans as animals, literal or metaphorical?Interactions betweem metaphor themesAre metaphorical themes universal?Grammar, metaphor and ecologyCapitalism and the development of ideological metaphors