What is a conscious-as-up metaphor?

What is a conscious-as-up metaphor?

Definition
	A conventional metaphor in which a conscious state is represented as high in relation to an unconscious state, based perhaps on the standing posture of wakefulness and the prone posture of sleep.

Generic
	A conscious-as-up metaphor is a kind of
	What is a metaphor for mind?

Source
	Lakoff, G. and Johnson 1980

Context for this page:

Concept module: conscious-as-up metaphor
In modular book: Metaphors in English, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H. Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
In bookshelf: Lexicon

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 18 September 1998