Extended conceptual metaphor theory A brief outline of standard conceptual metaphor theory and some outstanding issues The abstract understood figuratively the concrete understood literally but the concrete understood figuratively Direct or indirect emergence Domain schema frame or space Conceptual or contextual Offline or online The shape of an extended view of conceptual metaphor theory By way of conclusion : responses to the five questions. Conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) started with George Lakoff and Mark Johnsons book Metaphors We Live By (1980). The theory goes back a long way and builds on centuries of scholarship that takes metaphor not simply as an ornamental device in language but as a conceptual tool for structuring restructuring and even creating reality. Notable philosophers in this history include for instance Friedrich Nietzsche and and more recently Max Black. A recent overview of theories of metaphor can be found in Gibbs ed. 2008 and that of CMT in particular in Kövecses 2002 2010