Abstract

This paper suggests a way to understand and analyze the working of metaphors from the point of view of argumentative practice. For this purpose, it discusses not only the main contributions made by cognitive linguistics to the analysis of metaphors, but also Stephen Toulmin's (1958) perspective for argumentative reconstruction, known as factual logic. The parallel between the metaphorical descriptive design and working logic model shows that the conceptual metaphors work as 'backing' when they are manifested as social assumptions, experience or general evidence, as well as 'warrants' when one of the correspondences is manifested as a passage-law between the premises and the conclusion of the argument.