Why We Cant Think Straight An Essay On Straightness As Metaphor And Symbol Andrew Goatly by Andrew Goatly instant download after payment.

Literal straightness involves and symbolises human domination and technology -- urbanization, map-making with borders, monoculture and irrigation, commodification of nature, printing, standardization of manufactures, and communication and energy networks and grids. But we have varying attitudes to it, for example, to landscape, hairstyles and norms of beauty.
Metaphorical straightness may be impossible or undesirable in language and discourse, given the "distortions" of perception through diverse classifications of languages and media representations, and the need for indirectness in politeness, inference and text structure. Though metaphorically we might wish to freely pursue happiness in a straight line we are often diverted by persuasion, emotion and solidarity. While honesty and morality are metaphorically straight, so is law, but what is legal and what is moral often conflict, especially under authoritarian governments.
This entertaining, short, but wide-ranging book in popular linguistics targets an educated lay readership. But it could appeal to older secondary school students or undergraduates, as a pathway into critical metaphor analysis.
Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
www.appliedlinguisticspress.org/home/catalog/goatly_2024