Scared to Death (trans. Krzysztof Kłosiński) Cover Image

Śmiertelna groza (przeł. Krzysztof Kłosiński)
Scared to Death (trans. Krzysztof Kłosiński)

Author(s): Mieke Bal
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Instytut Badań Literackich Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: Metaphors; Narrative; Ideology; Traveling Concepts.

Summary/Abstract: Accepting the idea – as expressed by Lakoff and his successors – that metaphors constitute the primary forms of language, the author analyses narrative content concealed in metaphors, whilst in parallel demonstrating a metaphoric(al) status of theoretical notions (both in humanities and natural sciences). An account of profits and losses ensuing from omnipresence of metaphors, which is not infrequently imperceptible, leads one to the conclusion that theory should be treated as a kind of practice which – as a metaphor – is akin, by means of family similarity, to ideology. Theory will always remain a practice being rooted in empiricism, and deprived of objectivism which is otherwise ascribed to it.

  • Issue Year: 2008
  • Issue No: 6
  • Page Range: 95-116
  • Page Count: 22
  • Language: Polish