Lakoff, George. 1987. Image metaphors. Journal Article. pp. 219-222
Abstract
To date, this column has concentrated on conceptual metaphors - metaphors that map complex conceptual strructures in a source domain onto conceptual structures in a target domain. Take, for example, the common metaphorical understanding of life and death given by the mapping "LIFE IS PRESENCE HERE," in which birth corresponds to arrival and death to departure; it is exemplified by common expressions like "He passed away,""There's a baby on the way,""He'sstill with us," and many others. In addition to these, there is another major type of metaphor that maps conventional mental images onto other conventional mental images by virtue of their internal structure. I will refer to these as image metaphors. When Andre Breton (1931/1984) in 'Free Union' (translation by David Antin) writes, "My wife . . . whose waist is an hourglass," (p. 183), we understand this as an image mapping in which the mental image of an hourglass is mapped onto the mental image of the wife, with the central narrow portion of the hourglass corresponding to the wife's waist. Image metaphors of this sort are very common, and it is important to understand their nature and the ways in which they differ from conceptual metaphors.(George Lakoff)