Conceptual metaphor

A conceptual metaphor or cognitive metaphor is a metaphor which refers to one domain (group of ideas) in terms of another. For example, treating quantity in terms of direction:

1. Prices are rising.
2. I attacked every weak point in his argument. (Argument as war rather than enquiry or search for truth).
3. Life is a journey.
4. Love talked about as if it were war or competition.
5. Time talked about as if it were a path through space, or a quantity that can be saved or spent or wasted.

However, conceptual metaphor is more an investigation into how metaphors work than a particular kind of metaphor:

"The most recent linguistic approach to literature is that of cognitive metaphor, which claims that metaphor is not a mode of language, but a mode of thought". Donald Freeman.

• Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago.