Larkoff and Johnson

In their influential book Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson suggest that metaphor is something many of us
associate solely with language and the written word. They challenge this limited outlook: “We have found, on the
contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary
conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature” (1980, p. 3). They
argue that we are often unaware of our conceptual system despite its central role in making sense of the world around
us. Lakoff and Johnson use the term metaphor, then, largely to encompass the view that we make sense of new things
by the use of association or similarity.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson. M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago IL: The University of Chicago Press.