Author: modryna (Page 2 of 2)

Metaphors are used in every day context to help people better understand a variety of things. Metaphors are used in all applications of life to help people better understand what they are trying to grasp. By comparing two things that may seem like they have nothing in common, you could find your way to understanding something. Making little mistakes by comparing things that have nothing to do with each other, it could lead you to what you are looking for in the first place. Metaphors bring out ideas that would not otherwise be explored by the average person. Comparing a paintbrush to a pump may make no sense off the start, but if you look deeper into it, they both are used to disperse liquids, or pump out liquids. If you make these little comparisons, it could lead you to the truth you were looking for in the first place.

Being able to see things from your own perspective is important in viewing different issues. If you see from the perspective of the person who is telling you, you will see a bias opinion. Metaphors help people to better understand things in their own way. By comparing things together, they isn’t always a finite meaning behind it. There are often times many ways to interpret what is going on. Why does language effect us in this way? Humans tend to see things in the way that they are told in the first place, if someone cant grasp a concept, it is explained to them in a view of another person. Metaphors help to think individually and understand things in the way that we want to. If we just take everything we are told and live by it, we would be living false lives with many false ideas in our heads. The goal is to find a way that people can think individually and better understand certain aspects of life.

In “The Trouble With Medicines Metaphors”, he starts off by talking a lot about military metaphors when talking about illness. He told a lady that they will fight the illness together and she has a team to help her out. It reminds him of his aunt and how she “fought” her lymphoma. Are military references in this case doing more harm than good? Thinking of it as a fight can make people thing more negatively about it. The words that are used to talk about an illness are very important and can change someones entire outlook on what they are going through.

I believe that this is a major part of medicine. The mindset of the patient is one of the most important aspects of treating them. Language can effect someones overall view on everything. If the doctors are uncertain and nervous, it will make the patient nervous. Telling them that they will have no issues and that the issue isn’t as bad as they think is the way to go about it. Describing it as a “fight” can come across as negative. People think that they are in war fighting against this illness. It would be better to refer to it as a cake walk rather than a fight to keep people assurance up.

Metaphorically Speaking: “We utter about 6 metaphors a minute” this quote really stuck out to me because you don’t really think about how much you speak metaphorically until someone points it out to you.

See Through Words: “Metaphor designers create pseudo-mistakes deliberately” saying something that originally makes no sense can lead you to the correct answer eventually.

Medicines Metaphors: “By describing a treatment as a battle and a patient as a combatant, we set an inherently adversarial tone, and dichotomize outcomes into victory and defeat.” People need to look at things in a positive way, not think of things as a battle that they could become hurt or lose the battle.

To be completely honest, I did not notice much of a change in my interpretation of the text on the second read through. I was seeing things the same way and agreed with the same things I did the first time through. With that being said, I was able to dive deeper into my original analysis of the text. It made me realize more clearly that metaphors can be used effectively to help someone better understand an idea, but at the same time, they do not always work. People have to be able to understand all aspects of what you are trying to explain. If I try to make a joke and compare something to a Toyota Prius, which I do quite often because that car is a big joke to my friends and I, and someone does not know what a Prius is, they would have no idea what I am talking about. Therefor, they would not understand what I was trying to say in the first place because they will not be able to understand the metaphor.

One thing that did stick out to me though is the term Psycholinguistics. Psycholinguistics is the study of language and how people interpret language and react to it. Metaphors are a great way of exploring this. They can be seen from many angles, and often times do not only have one way of looking at it. Metaphors help people better understand the unknown and help people be able to break down language that they may not have understood beforehand.

One of the spots in the text that really   stood out for me was right at the beginning. In the second paragraph he talks about how metaphors can be used to make people realize that they are only looking at one side of things. By comparing two things together in a metaphor, it can open up someones mind to something that they wouldn’t have even given an ounce of thought in the past. People often times only see things through a bias or solely one sided view. The metaphors that he has created are specifically built for different purposes, mostly to help people understand things that they may not have previously understood.

The second place that really stood out to me was the quote about how arguments are wars and how you have to pick sides. People will pick their own side in an argument, not the other persons side. The point of an argument is that you are set on your point, and you do not want to admit that the other person is right. He also mentions that evidence is a weapon. The evidence in an argument is like the gun in a war, it is just helping out the cause on your side, but harming the other. If you continue to shoot too much evidence in an argument, there will be nowhere else to go with the argument. There will be a winner at the end of the day whether it is earned or reluctant.

I believe that the website is a great idea. It is a way to put all of our personal information into one place and show off our potential to future employers or other people that may want to see it. It is a way to show off my writing, creativity, and organizational skills.