Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 568):
There is thus a range of variation from our everyday folk models to scientific models, with expert models somewhere coming in between (Linde, 1987). Such models vary considerably in the degree to which we are consciously aware of them as models (cf. Whorf s, 1956, notion of critical consciousness). We are more aware of models that 'stand out' as belonging a particular subculture than of those that are pan of our everyday repertoire; and we are more aware of scientific models than of folk models.
Whatever the scope and sophistication of a model, however, we are likely to be more aware of a model as a cultural construct than as a linguistic construct, since language is typically further from our conscious attention.