Metaphors We Live By

The now-classic Metaphors We Live By changed our understanding of metaphor and its role in language and the mind. Metaphor, authors George Lakoff and Mark Johnson explain, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are "metaphors we live by"—metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them.

In this updated edition of Lakoff and Johnson's influential book, the authors supply an afterword surveying how their theory of metaphor has developed within the cognitive sciences to become central to the contemporary understanding of how we think and how we express our thoughts in language.

This audiobook is masterfully read by Sean Pratt, and was produced and published by Echo Point Books & Media, an independent bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont. Audio engineering by Matt Kulewicz, MPSE.

© 2025 Echo Point Books & Media, LLC (Audiobook): 9798349128073

Release date

Audiobook: 12 November 2025