Metaphorical Shifts: Moving from Concrete Objects to Abstract Ideas

Have you ever described a complicated idea as “hard to grasp” or said that someone’s argument “fell apart”? These everyday phrases reveal something remarkable about how language works. We constantly use concrete, physical terms to talk about abstract concepts. This linguistic pattern, where tangible objects and experiences help us understand intangible ideas, is a fundamental feature of human communication.

When we say that knowledge has become “rusty” or that a conversation “drifted,” we’re engaging in a metaphorical shift from the concrete to the abstract. This process allows us to make sense of complex, invisible concepts by anchoring them in the familiar, physical world we experience every day.

How concrete terms make abstract ideas tangible 🔗

Abstract concepts like time, love, and knowledge don’t have physical form. We can’t see or touch them. This creates a challenge for communication. How do we talk about things that exist only in our minds?

Research in cognitive linguistics shows that metaphors allow us to draw on concrete, familiar domains to acquire and reason about abstract concepts. When we describe forgotten knowledge as “rusty,” we’re borrowing from our physical experience with metal objects that deteriorate over time. The word “rusty” originally refers to the reddish-brown coating that forms on iron when it oxidizes. By applying this concrete image to knowledge, we create an immediate, visceral understanding of how skills or information can deteriorate from lack of use.

This process of concretizing the abstract happens constantly in language. According to conceptual metaphor theory, developed by linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, we understand one conceptual domain in terms of another. The concrete domain serves as the source, while the abstract concept is the target.

Consider these examples:

“Time is money” frames the abstract concept of time using the concrete framework of financial transactions. We “spend” time, “save” time, “waste” time, and “invest” time. Each of these expressions treats time as if it were a tangible resource we can handle and exchange.

“Ideas are food” lets us talk about mental concepts using digestive language. We “chew on” an idea, find thoughts “hard to swallow,” or describe concepts as “half-baked.” These metaphors make the invisible process of thinking feel concrete and understandable.

Visualizing abstract concepts through metaphor 🔗

Metaphors don’t just make abstract ideas understandable. They help us visualize them. Language creates vivid imagery that allows us to feel and experience concepts that would otherwise remain nebulous.

Think about the phrase “a storm of emotions.” When we use this metaphor, we’re not simply describing feelings in clinical terms. We evoke chaos, intensity, and unpredictability. Studies show that such metaphorical language can activate similar brain regions to those involved in processing the literal, concrete experiences they describe.

The metaphor works because most people have experienced a storm. They know the feeling of wind whipping around them, dark clouds gathering overhead, the sense that something powerful and uncontrollable is happening. When we apply this imagery to emotions, listeners immediately grasp the turbulent, overwhelming quality of the feelings being described.

Creating mental pictures 🔗

This visualization process extends our conceptual reach. Research demonstrates that metaphors preserve the cognitive structure of the source domain when mapping onto the target domain. When we say “the conversation drifted,” we preserve spatial movement patterns in how we think about dialogue.

The drift metaphor brings to mind a boat slowly moving with the current, perhaps without a clear destination. This creates a mental image of a conversation that’s lost its focus, moving aimlessly from topic to topic. The spatial quality of drifting maps onto the temporal and topical structure of conversation, making an abstract communicative pattern feel concrete and observable.

Common examples in everyday language 🔗

Our daily speech is saturated with metaphorical shifts from concrete to abstract. Most of these metaphors are so common we barely notice them. They’ve become what linguists call “dead metaphors” or conventionalized expressions.

Spatial metaphors for abstract relationships 🔗

“She’s feeling down” uses vertical space to describe emotional states. According to conceptual metaphor research, the mapping “good is up, bad is down” appears across many languages and reflects our bodily experience. When we’re healthy and energetic, we stand upright. When we’re sick or sad, we tend to slump or lie down.

“They’ve hit a rough patch” maps the physical texture and quality of terrain onto the abstract journey of a relationship. Just as rough ground makes walking difficult, challenging periods in relationships require more effort to navigate.

Journey metaphors for processes 🔗

“We’re at a crossroads” treats decision-making as a physical journey where paths diverge. This metaphor makes the abstract concept of choice feel immediate and spatial.

“The project is moving forward” uses physical motion to describe progress on an abstract task. We can’t literally see a project move, but by mapping it onto spatial movement, we create a shared understanding of advancement.

Container metaphors for mental states 🔗

“I’m full of ideas” treats the mind as a container that can hold contents. This metaphor appears in phrases like “an empty-headed person” or “packed with information.”

“She’s in love” treats love as a location or container that one can enter. We can be “deeply in love” or “fall out of love,” maintaining the spatial-container metaphor throughout.

Temperature and texture metaphors 🔗

“A warm welcome” applies physical temperature to describe emotional reception. Similarly, we speak of “cold shoulders” or “heated arguments,” using thermal experiences to communicate interpersonal dynamics.

“A sticky situation” borrows from the physical quality of adhesiveness to describe predicaments that are difficult to escape or resolve.

Why this linguistic shift matters 🔗

The shift from concrete objects to abstract ideas through metaphor isn’t just a linguistic curiosity. It’s fundamental to how we think and communicate. Cognitive research suggests that repeated metaphoric use drawing on particular aspects of concrete experience can result in the development of new abstract representations.

Without metaphors, we would struggle to discuss complex emotions, invisible social relationships, or intangible concepts like justice, freedom, and knowledge. Metaphors provide the cognitive scaffolding that allows us to extend our thinking beyond the immediately physical.

They also shape how we reason about abstract domains. When we consistently use war metaphors to discuss argument (“she attacked my position,” “he defended his point”), we may approach disagreements more combatively than if we used different metaphors. The concrete images we choose influence our abstract thinking patterns.

The bridge between known and unknown 🔗

Metaphorical language serves as a bridge. On one side sits the tangible world we can see, touch, and directly experience. On the other side lie abstract concepts that exist only in thought. Metaphors create connections between these domains, allowing us to import our concrete knowledge into abstract territory.

This bridge-building happens unconsciously, embedded in the very structure of language. We don’t typically pause to think “I’m now using a spatial metaphor to discuss time.” Instead, these metaphorical patterns have become so ingrained that they feel like natural ways of speaking.

Yet this naturalness reveals something profound about human cognition. Our minds appear designed to understand new, complex, or abstract information by relating it to familiar, concrete experiences. This cognitive strategy extends far beyond language into how we learn, reason, and make sense of the world.

What do you think? Can you identify metaphors you use regularly without noticing them? How might different metaphorical choices change how you think about abstract concepts in your own life?

References

1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5033247/
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_metaphor
3. https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-015-0861-0
4. https://terpconnect.umd.edu/~israel/lakoff-ConTheorMetaphor.pdf