Abstract

The aim of the paper is to determine how metaphors tackle the probable nature of information and uncertainty in the structure of the communication process. Since the cognitive theory of conceptual metaphors holds that metaphoric thinking and doing are unavoidable, they are employed often in explaining the communicating domains. The metaphorical conceptualizing is recognized in Shannon and Weaver’s Mathematical Theory of Communication where such abstract concepts as freedom of choice, choosing probabilities, and uncertainty ware conceived in that way. It is described in accord with Reddy’s conduit metaphor and Ritchie’s toolmakers paradigm. In the paper the issue of both the advantages and disadvantages of metaphors is considered: mainly, how they can explain and predict ways in which people communicate their expectations or uncertainties as well as, more practically, how the probable/informational metaphors enable the management of knowledge in libraries or databases.