Larsson, Stefan

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Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITYPO Box 117221 00 Lund+46 46-222 00 00Law, metaphors and underlying conceptionsLarsson, Stefan2012Link to publicationCitation for published version (APA):Larsson, S. (2012). Law, metaphors and underlying conceptions. Abstract from 2nd International Conference onLaw, Language and Professional Practice.Total number of authors:1General rightsUnless other specific re-use rights are stated the following general rights apply:Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authorsand/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by thelegal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private studyor research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portalRead more about Creative commons licenses: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/Take down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will removeaccess to the work immediately and investigate your claim.2nd International Conference  Law, Language and Professional Practice University of Naples, 10-12 May, 2012.    Cover sheet  Title: PhD in Sociology of Law, LLM.  Author: Stefan Larsson Affiliation: Department for Sociology of Law, Lund University, Sweden. Address: Box 42, 221 00, Lund, Sweden E-mail: Stefan.Larsson@soclaw.lu.se Telephone number: + 46 46 222 71582nd International Conference  Law, Language and Professional Practice University of Naples, 10-12 May, 2012.   Law, metaphors and underlying conceptions  Stefan Larsson  Department of Sociology of Law Lund University, Sweden  Abstract This article relates to the relationship between law and language by focusing findings in cognitive linguistics on the commonness and utter importance of metaphors for most abstract thinking. Inspired by cognitive theorists as Lakoff and Johnson (1980, 1999) and legal scholars as Steven L. Winter (2001; 2007), I argue that our language is fundamentally metaphoric in nature and that the framing aspects as well as how categories are created in the view of our perhaps surprisingly metaphoric language is of great relevance to not only lingual and philosophical analysis but also legal. And this is in general not acknowledged in the legal domain.   The analysis of metaphoric patterns is a way to outline what the underlying and ruling conceptions are, and to clarify how other norms operate as well, for instance unlocking false dichotomies; revealing how legal language often is embodied, in the sense that it lends its conceptualisations from a spatial and physical context, a fact at the same time not acknowledged. For instance, Mark Johnson argues that legal reasoning and legal concepts are based on a sort of self-image of objectivity. Johnson's main point for entering cognitive science in the study of law is that this legal “objectivist view”, he claims, is based on an incorrect understanding of how thinking and language work (Johnson, 2007, p. 847) – a point that is sophisticatedly elaborated in Stephen L. Winter’s A Clearing in the Forest from 2001.  In short, this article will in general and from a theoretical perspective analyse and discuss the implications of conceptual metaphor theory and other findings in cognitive linguistics for law and legal analysis, including the embodiment of metaphors. For example, there is a general implication of fundamental importance relating to the often-expressed “objectivist” view in law that is challenged in this perspective. There is a second but still important and empirical observation relating to how law deals with regulating an increasingly digitalised society – when digitalisation alone means a strong and inevitable need of metaphors and embodied labels of the “bodiless” digital artefacts, to be thought and talked about. This point is in the article exemplified with the case of copyright in a digital society, for instance relating to file sharing as well as by the Swedish case against the BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay.   Keywords: Metaphors, law, conceptions, embodiment, categorisation, digital society, copyright.  The paper likely falls under analytical area 12.   References Johnson, Mark L. (2007) Mind, Metaphor, Law, Mercer Law Review. Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark (1980) Metaphors we live by, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George & Johnson, Mark (1999) Philosophy in the flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought, New York: Basic Books. Winter, Steven L. (2001) A clearing in the forest: Law, Life, and Mind, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Winter, Steven L. (2007) Re-embodying Law, 58 Mercer Law Review.  

Law, metaphors and underlying conceptions

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Law, metaphors and underlying conceptions

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