Metaphor in religious and other discourse

Click to access SZTAJER.pdf

Excerpt:

For example, in the metaphor “Time is money” we deal with abstract notion of the time concept using more specific concept from the field of finance and the practice of everyday life. As a rule, target domains are more abstract in comparison to source domains. Thanks to that, abstract conceptual domains are anchored in empirical experience, becoming more comprehensible and understandable. In other words, a metaphor can have a cognitive function as well: “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another”.
However, the process of creating metaphors is not limited to understanding or explaining some fields of experience. Metaphor can transform experience, totally changing the nature of its character. It is a tool used for creating some aspects of the reality, especially those which are dependant on language and thoughts, as it takes place in the social and cultural world.
The ubiquity of metaphors is due to the fact that they are unavoidable. Some very abstract domains may be described only metaphorically.

The fundamental role of metaphor in religious discourse is visible when we realize that religious language function is not only description of reality that is the subject of religion. Religious language has a range of psychological and social functions.
Using religious language is an important medium of religious commitment. Furthermore, religious man acts with a language. The linguistic action is not limited to communication only but comprises “creating” certain things – social phenomena – and regulating human behavior, maintaining a reality of religious world view, construction of some definitions of situations, induction of emotional states, the sense of community, etc.
We have to admit that religious language basically does not function separately from the context of religious life, especially the ritual, but it is a form of religious action itself. It can be seen clearly in the case of symbol, metaphor, and myth that are interrelated with a system of ritual actions, and only in this context can be fully understandable.
Not all metaphors occurring in religious discourse can be described using the wellknown term of “live metaphors”. This is because metaphors are subjected to conventionalization, which often happens through reduction of ambiguity to one of meanings. As a result of this process, a metaphorical character of religious expressions is partially erased, and this can be changed only with renewal of religious language, which introduces new metaphors or enables us to understand the old ones in a different way. Without the renewal, religious language may become a relict that ceases to mean anything at all. Metaphors are not understood beyond a social and cultural context – in fact it is quite the opposite – their meaning is shaped in relation to cultural models; thus it is limited to some community sharing similar experience.13
The Christian metaphor “God is our Father” would not be comprehensible in a matriarchal society.