Language is ... a bullet, a box, a key ... - On metaphors for language

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(thanks for what you said in the rest of your post)

There may be nothing metaphorical when analyzing it or looking at it from the outside, but as experienced 'in process' I think looking at each communication as a tool or the wielding of several tools is metaphorical.

It highlights a disidentification with language. Language is something I use. (rather than something I am - thoughts. I always know I am not my hammer, though I must admit many people seem to think they are their cars)
It highlights goal oriented languaging - sorry, I hate that word, but I am trying to avoid 'language use'. (rather than expressive languaging)
It creates a change or is part of an attempt to change something else and isn't anything in and of itself. (rather than seen as a container or object at the same time in a discussion. As one example we can feel very defensive about a certain definition we have, even those of us who are good tool users. We defend the words. They are right. They should be left alone and agreed with. This can be seen as sillier behavior if one thinks of words not as containers but as tools. I suppose the container metaphor for language is a subset of the tool metaphor, but right there, I think we hit on something interesting. If it is true that the container metaphor is rather common, this could show a bias in the way we view language that leads to problems. If we were more flexible in the kinds of tools we thought an act of communication was we might be better, more flexible communicators. Rather than people who keep telling people that the truth was 'in' those words I said or wrote.)
It focuses on proactive or intentional languaging rather than responsive languaging - again speaking in terms of experience. A responder probably is less likely to experience their verbal reaction as tool use. Someone starting the ball rolling is much more likely to. They have a goal.

I think highlighting language as a tool in a way pushes one to have a more distanced relationship with the words. What am I trying to do? What tool fits this situation? It didn't work, it was the wrong tool, I need a metric wrench? (of course we all do this to some degree, but for me, speaking literally, if I think of an act of communication as a tool, it does change my attitude and, if I kept at it, I think it would affect the way I communicated.)
I think it would also combat some problems associated with reification, for example.

I also think looking at specific tools and coming back to language could be helpful.

 

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Perhaps this forum could be broadened/renamed to "Language and communication". It's more descriptive and I find it also more inviting.
"Linguistics", albeit perhaps an accurate term, strikes me as a bit off-putting.

 

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This leads me to think that an accompanying phenomeon with the tool metaphor is meta-communication, meta-thinking, thinking about the communication, thinking about what one is saying or has said.
The knowledge of which tool to use and how to use it.
The knowledge of one's intentions and goals within a particular communication.

These meta-aspects can be pretty difficult to work out sometimes, so perhaps hence the difficulty to use the "language is a tool" metaphor, or any other metaphor for language.

 

Actually while I was working on the communicative act as tool metaphor I found it reminded me of Buddhism (and Wittgenstein). Essence is taken out of words and one must not confuse them with things to the same degree.

I agree. But given that we have metaphors in place I think it is useful.