What is a conceptual metaphor? In a nutshell, those are cognitive tools (see Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, Metaphors we live by) that consist of two domains: a source and a target domain. The source domain is usually concrete and familiar, connected with our direct perceptual experience, while the target domain is typically abstract. In this way, abstract concepts such as COUNTRY, STATE, or NATION become perceptually based and thus meaningful. Metaphor mediates between consciousness and unconsciousness, between cognition and emotion - therefore it should be seen as a very important (verbal) performance.

Fantasy can take many forms – and one of them is indeed metaphor usage – through which we single out fiction as a form of imaginative activity worthy of attention. Imagination, or metaphorization can be seen as a process essential to the construction of our realities. Metaphorization, as a part of fantasizing, relies largely on long-term memory, on a reliving of the past, on the experience. Communication creates realities, but it also creates fantasies (Nimmo and Combs, 1990: 9). That is why, by using metaphors, we are singling out experience + fantasy as a form of imaginative activity, worthy of attention indeed.

Now I have invented my own fantasy. And I named it: UNITY IS AN UTOPIAN FOG.

My fantasy is suggesting that the language has the ability to allocate political power, persuasive efforts for all of us as a society. It is also a means of connecting with people, or alienating them, a force for social separation or cohesion (UNITY). It is definitely the means by which we both understand and construct ourselves as individuals. As coherent creatures, in a UTOPIAN unit. Why utopian? - someone would ask. Robin Lakoff (2000: 43) gives an interesting metaphor that I can use here: “In the metaphorical melting pot, you and I might eventually merge. In the newer metaphorical “mosaic” or “salad,” the boundary between I and you remains distinct. Once it becomes clear that the cohesive “we” is a fictive construction, I can no longer allow you to speak for me.” Further on, language does not have a power on its own – that’s why I metaphorically mapped it with FOG. A metaphor for the unknown of what lies ahead. As language can change reality. It can grab us by our emotions (or even less dignified parts of ourselves). I will also mention here one coincidence. I read somewhere that Japanese verb omou – to think or believe, etymologically may have come from a word meaning FOG (among other suggestions). If we take this into account, UNITY IS AN UTOPIAN FOG can still make perfect sense.

Language can be used to change minds, which means it can change brains-permanently, for good or bad. It does not merely express emotions, it can change them; not merely arouse or quell them but change the role of emotion in one's life and the life of a nation. „Language does not merely express identity; it can change identity. Narratives and melodramas are not mere words and images; they can enter our brains and provide models that we not merely live by; but that define who we are” (Lakoff, 2008: 231).

In my research, I was only interested in conceptual mappings between source and target domains that are representing the notion of UNITY – constituting the nation/country/state and its parts for unity, a unified whole. This is based on a basic mapping of the metaphor image schema: the unity of the people/country and its parts constitute the nation. I further treat metaphor not as our only linguistic evidence, but rather as one of the ways that help us identify the representations of power that appear in the political discourse. I see those metaphors as further connected to the everyday banal nationalism: the emotional power of what is called here banal nationalism might be explained as arising from the claim of nationalism to offer a community within which individuals can find the sense of identity, security, and authority which is associated with further extracted domains.

I will now change a bit Shuntaro Tanikawa’s verse (written in completely different context), and make my own:

By exploring conceptual metaphors, we explore the cosmos, or our own world in or from the space (SPACE IS A CONTAINER). By researching words, we can invent new ways to propel our own space vehicles farther and faster (LIFE IS A JOURNEY). We can find better ways to navigate or to be navigated through space (LIFE IS A JOURNEY). It can make us more powerful or more significant.