Blackwell Reference Online

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Metaphor is widely regarded as a basic linguistic form in nearly all types of →  Discourse (→  Linguistics ). In contrast to early thinking about metaphor, which emphasized its role as a stylistic embellishment used for rhetorical effect, modern theories consider metaphor to be an essential feature of thinking itself. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980) identified a variety of metaphor types that interconnect to structure how people conceptualize their experiences with their physical and social environments. This cognitive perspective on metaphor has stimulated scholarship on metaphor phenomena in a great many disciplines, including communication, organizational theory, political science, art, philosophy, computer science, and law. The role of metaphor in →  Persuasion is of particular interest to communication scholars. Research findings suggest, for example, that →  advertising containing metaphors receives greater →  attention from readers and evokes more positive affect toward the ad ( McQuarrie & Mick 1999 ; →  Advertising as Persuasion ). Metaphors present two ideas or terms in relationship to one another such that one is used to organize or conceptualize the other. For example, the statement “encyclopedias are gold mines” uses the idea of gold mines to clarify or modify the reader's conception of encyclopedias. Various names have been given to the two terms that ... log in or subscribe to read full text