Death is sleep – thoughts about the longevity, effectiveness, and great structuring power of the metaphor in various languages and cultures
Death is sleep – thoughts about the longevity, effectiveness, and great structuring power of the metaphor in various languages and cultures

Summary/Abstract: This article centres on the death is sleep metaphor in various (often unrelated)cultures around the world and on the linguistic manifestations of the metaphor in variousnatural languages. It discusses the physiological and cultural basis for the metaphor and showshow metaphoric thinking shields people around the world from the fear of death. This articlealso stresses the great power of the death is sleep metaphor and the very real effects it has onhuman cognition and decision-making – the power which sometimes challenges the suppos-edly incomplete and inaccurate nature of metaphorical structuring. Finally the article high-lights the somewhat unusual synchronic universality and diachronic consistency of the deathis sleep metaphor. Namely, as was noted by Kövecses and Radden (1998: 53) and earlier byTurner (1973), Quine (1987), and Pinker (1994), the metaphors and metonymies which areused to hide threatening or unpleasant concepts are often culture specific and the effect theyproduce is often short-lived. The death is sleep is different in these respects. Probably dueto its strong biological and cultural basis the metaphor (and its numerous offshoots and cog-nates) has survived for centuries and is still very effective in alleviating the negative emotionsrelated to death and dying.

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