Roger Pérez Brufau (rperezbr@uoc.edu)
Secondary School Teacher at the El Carme School (Sant Sadurní d'Anoia)

Abstract

We propose analysing the principal metaphors that we as users use to refer to the internet and to the activities, tools and people related to the web within the framework of the theory upheld by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. The first part of the work analyses these authors' conceptual metaphor theory, while the second examines the various metaphors that we as users use to refer to the conceptual world of the web on the basis of what has been set out in the first part.


This work should not only serve for us to take note of the ontological-structural-orientational continuum represented by the use of metaphors that relate the web, progressively, with a space, with a space that is above, with a space where there are things, with a space that takes the form, normally, of the sea, home or text, but that should also serve for us to take note that the reasons why we use these metaphors and not others are rooted, successively-as Lakoff and Johnson state in their texts-in our body, our interaction with the things of the world and with others in a culturally defined context.

Keywords

Submission date: January 2007
Published in: May 2007