Metaphor and Communication

Elisabetta Gola
University of Cagliari

Francesca Ervas
University of Cagliari

doi: 10.1075/milcc.5

ISBN: 978 90 272 6758 0 (ebook)

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LCCN 2015039235

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 Table of contents

Metaphors we live twice: A communicative approach beyond the

conceptual view? 1

Elisabetta Gola and Francesca Ervas

Part I. The cognitive and linguistic dimension of metaphor

Metaphor and simile: Categorizing and comparing categorization and

comparison 25

John Barnden

Taste synaesthesias: Linguistic features and neurophysiological bases

47

Irene Ronga

Selling and buying, killing and wounding: (Un)conventional metaphors

from two different semantic fields 61

Sandra Handl

Time is money – everywhere? Analysing time metaphors across varieties of

English 79

Simone Mueller

Metaphors, bilingual mental lexicon and distributional models 105

Marianna Bolognesi

Towards a model of metaphorical understanding 123

Bipin Indurkhya

On the role of perceptual features in metaphor comprehension 147

 Amitash Ojha and Bipin Indurkhya

Part II. The communicative dimension of metaphor

Adventures of a metaphor: Apian imagery in the history of political though

173

Giovanni Damele

Moral disgust at its best: The important role of low-level mappings and
structural parallelism in political disgust and disease metaphors 189

Elisabeth Wehling

“The Ultimate Spinner”: Metaphors of evil in Hillary R. Clinton’s media

coverage 201

Michela Giordano

Blending metaphors and arguments in advertising 217

Sabrina Mazzali-Lurati and Chiara Pollaroli

Metaphors and online learning 235

M. Beatrice Ligorio, Marianna Iodice and Stefania Manca

Metaphor in sign language poetry 249

Rachel Sutton-Spence

Metaphor and the concept of sound in contemporary music 265

Ewa Schreiber

Index 285
 Metaphors we live twice
A communicative approach
beyond the conceptual view?
Elisabetta Gola & Francesca Ervas
University of Cagliari

This chapter aims to introduce metaphors from two different perspectives: cognitive-

linguistic and communicative. In presenting these views, we refer to Lakoff and Johnson’s

theory of conceptual metaphors (1980) which influencedthe evolving field of metaphor

studies and its applications to related disciplines,including linguistics, psychology,

cognitive science, politics, education, arts,and media. We argue that the theory of

conceptual metaphors conflated thecommunicative dimension of metaphor with its

linguistic and cognitive layers.Other trends in metaphor studies have emerged since and

suggested that thecommunicative dimension of metaphor cannot be reduced to its

conceptualand/or linguistic component (e.g. Sperber & Wilson 1986; Cameron & Low

1999; Carston 2010; Steen 2011a).

Our work aims at making metaphors ‘live twice’, by answering two mainquestions:

does the communicative dimension of metaphor have specific featuresthat disallows

complete reduction to its linguistic and cognitive dimensions?If indeed that is the case then

how could these specific properties ofcommunication change our view regarding the

linguistic and cognitive dimensionsof metaphor? All papers collected in this volume seek

to answers thesequestions, offering new research perspectives, irreducible to the points of

viewprevailing in the conceptual theory of metaphor.

Key words

metaphor; communication; conceptual theory of metaphor

1. Introduction

Metaphor is a cognitive and linguistic phenomenon that has fascinated

scholars since the beginning of philosophy. In the past three decades, the
Conceptual Theory of Metaphor (CTM) has undoubtedly been the major
novelty in the field of metaphor theories. In their pioneering work,
Metaphors We Live By (1980), George Lakoff and Mark Johnson presented
a new approach that became a reference point for scholars involved in the
study of metaphors. Departing from the previous tradition, that looked at
metaphor as a purely linguistic phenomenon, Lakoff and Johnson point out
that metaphor is instead a process that has its roots in our conceptual
schemes and is therefore a matter of thought.

This radical change of perspective had a significant impact on the

landscape of metaphor studies. Lakoff and Johnson’s theory prevailed over
other movements and trends, particularly those involved in developing
models analysing and explaining the effects, the role, and the mechanisms
of metaphors in communication. However, Lakoff and Johnson’s theory
conflated communication with both language and cognition: despite
according great importance to the communicative dimension of metaphor,
they did not provide any specific features to distinguish it from other
dimensions, and rather seemed to maintain that it could be fully explained
by the linguistic and cognitive dimensions of metaphor.

During the same decades, an alternative approach emerged that

contributed to strengthen the idea that metaphors are a cognitive
phenomenon and hence not deviant from ordinary literal language. This
alternative approach called Relevance Theory was proposed by Dan
Sperber and Deirdre Wilson (1986). Relevance theory is a pragmatic view
of language and communication that fits particularly well with the features
of the process of metaphor understanding. According to this approach,
metaphor processing is not different in any way from other processes
involved in language understanding: Sperber and Wilson, indeed, maintain
that figurative language is merely a loose usage of language and a common
way indeed to achieve optimal relevance in conversational contexts
(Sperber & Wilson 2006).

An alternative view to both Lakoff & Johnson (1980) and Sperber &
Wilson (1986) has been proposed by a plethora of, all-too-often neglected,
studies on metaphor from the field of applied linguistics (Cameron & Low
1999; Low & Cameron 2002; Cameron 2003; Deignan 2005, 2010;
Charteris-Black 2004; Caballero Rodriguez 2006; Koller 2004), cognitive
linguistics (Cienki, Luka, & Smith 2001; Cienki & Müller 2008; Müller
2008; Grady 2000; Kövecses 2005), conversation and discourse analysis
(Musolff 2004; Semino 2008), interactional sociolinguistics (Drew & Holt
1998), artificial intelligence (Barnden 2008), psycholinguistics (Katz et al.
1998; Giora 2003; Glucksberg 2001, 2008; Gibbs 1994, 1999, 2006), and
psychology of discourse (Kintsch 1998; Steen 2004, 2006; Van Dijk 2008;
Macnamara & Magliano 2009; Graesser & Millis 2011). From these
perspectives, understanding metaphor in communication requires “an
independent dimension of metaphor in discourse next to the ones of
metaphor in thought and metaphor in language” (Steen 2011b, 86; cf. Steen
2008, 2011a) which cannot be reduced to the linguistic and conceptual
aspects of metaphor.

This volume aims to investigate the communicative side of metaphors

by answering two questions, as a guide for the reader. The first question
concerns the possibility of actually conflating‒ or even reducing‒ the
communicative dimension of metaphor to the linguistic and cognitive ones:
does the communicative dimension of metaphor have specific features that
distinguish it or disallows complete explanation through the linguistic and
cognitive levels of metaphor? By raising this question, we do not mean to
suggest in any way that communication is completely separate and
independent from thought and language. We just aim to understand whether
it is possible to identify a communicative dimension that has its own
properties, and is not reducible to linguistic and/or cognitive aspects of
metaphor. The papers in this volume show that such properties do indeed
exist; it does so by stating that communication adds specific functions,
structures, situated meanings, and social cues, to metaphor.

The second question concerns the relationship between the linguistic,

cognitive and communicative aspects of metaphors and, in particular, the
way in which the specific properties of each dimension are interrelated: do
specific properties of communication influence the linguistic and cognitive
aspects of metaphor? By asking this question, we aim to understand
whether the communicative aspects of metaphor are merely added to the
linguistic-cognitive processes involved in it‒ and therefore leave them
untouched and unchanged – or whether they do indeed have some influence
on the linguistic and cognitive aspects of the metaphor.

To summarize, the objective of this volume is to not only clarify

whether all the dimensions mentioned above are collated or added all
together in metaphors, but also to shed light on the ways they mutually
influence each other. We should advise the reader at the outset that they
will not find a final answer to the relationship between metaphor in
language, thought and communication, rather they can expect certain
answers to these two questions. Our main purpose, in this volume, is to
bring the authors in a dialogue, and to suggest a research approach that is
not completely reducible to the cognitive-linguistic or relevance-theoretic
points of view. This alternative perspective requires a multidisciplinary
approach and experimental research. Towards that aim, we have compiled
fifteen papers, which consist of a selection of works presented at the
‘Metaphor and Communication’ conference, an international colloquium
organized by the Italian Association for Metaphor Studies, held at the
University of Cagliari on May 12–14, 2011. The papers present different
views on metaphor in communication and adopt divergent perspectives on
the meaning of ’communication’, based on the background of specific
scholarly traditions. The authors go over metaphors twice, as we suggest in
the title of this introduction, by discussing them from two perspectives: the
cognitive-linguistic and the communicative.

The papers in this volume are organized in two sections, according to

the author’s major area of focus. In the first part of the volume, the chapters
examine the linguistic and cognitive dimensions of metaphor, introducing
the communicative dimension in contexts of social interaction (spoken,
written or mediated). In the second part, the chapters examine the
communicative dimension of metaphor, thus showing a variety of functions
(persuasion, instruction, entertainment, etc.) and considering a variety of
domains of discourse (politics, education, arts, media, etc.) in
communication. The volume thus makes the reader live metaphors twice by
going through both its cognitive-linguistic and communicative dimensions,
aiming at showing in each chapter some answers to the specificity of
metaphor in communication as well as its relationship with language and
thought.

2. The cognitive and linguistic dimension of metaphor

The first section of the volume focuses on the cognitive and linguistic
aspects of metaphor, paying attention to the ways messages are encoded in
communication via metaphors. The papers in this section look into how
aspects of metaphor in language and cognition can be geared towards
communication as a social situation of interaction (whether spoken, written
or mediated in other ways).

The opening chapter, ’Metaphor and simile: Categorizing and

comparing categorization and comparison’ by John Barnden, proposes a
theoretical approach to metaphor processing. It focuses on the core
linguistic and cognitive dimensions of metaphor. Barnden takes
’communication’ as a form of an interactive behaviour between complex
agents, where an agent causes changes in the information that other agents
entertain.

From this perspective, Barnden reconsiders the distinction between

metaphor and simile, one of the most heated debates in metaphor theories.
He points out that metaphor and simile have been interpreted in terms of
cognitive processes of categorization and/or comparison. For him this
opposition is misleading because of both a neglected overlap between the
two concepts and a mischaracterization of metaphor as an elliptical form of
simile. In a theoretical framework arising from an artificial intelligence
project (Barnden & Lee 2001; Barnden 2008), Barnden points out that,
from a communicative perspective, there are other aspects to consider that
have to do with the specific relation between the target and the source: the
Target/Source Contribution Disparity, the Target/Source Mediator-
Preservation Degree, and the Target/Source Mediator-Carefulness.
Barnden concludes that metaphor interpretation is greatly influenced by the
particular communicative context, more than the stable linguistic features –
of either a simile or a metaphor – or private cognitive processes.

2.1 Corpus data

The following three chapters look at the corpus data as evidence for some
basic cognitive-linguistic assumptions about metaphors and their relation to
communication. In the chapter ’Taste synaesthesias: Linguistic features and
neurophysiological bases’, Irene Ronga adopts a cognitive-linguistic
perspective and focuses on synaesthesia, a specific kind of metaphor
combining two different sensory domains, which represents a special
example of the connection between language and perception. Ronga
investigates the role of perceptual features in metaphor comprehension by
focusing on the experience of tasting food. Examples of taste synaesthesias
are ’delicate taste’ (touch-taste), or ‘bright taste’ (vision-taste).

She analyses various cases of taste synaesthesia in a corpus of food

and drink-related marketing texts, to question whether the communicative
power of metaphors is indeed based on ‘lower’ cognitive mechanisms such
as gustatory perception. Since Ronga’s study focuses on a corpus-based
analysis of taste synaesthetic metaphors employed in food and beverage
advertising, marketing texts, and food product descriptions, all the
expressions considered in the research have been phrased with a clear
communicative purpose and were directed at a large audience. The analysis
of marketing texts and product descriptions highlights the extraordinary
communicative potential of synaesthetic metaphors. Describing the taste or
the flavour of a product can be extremely difficult: synaesthetic metaphors,
which pair words referring to different sensory domains, may be considered
very effective tools to express taste-related properties by grounding their
descriptions in richer sensory lexicons and common perceptual
experiences.

In the chapter ‘Selling and buying, killing and wounding:

(Un)conventional metaphors from two different semantic fields’, Sandra
Handl offers a cognitive-linguistic account of the relationship between
creativity and conventionality, novel and established structures in metaphor
use. Corpus data are used to examine the occurrence of metaphors in
natural discourse, in order to identify the features of metaphor in language
usage and to understand whether metaphor in communication has specific
characteristics that make it not completely reducible to its linguistic and
cognitive features.

Regarding the linguistic dimension of metaphor, the frequency of use

is usually taken as an indicator of its degree of entrenchment and
conventionality. However, as Handl explains, a metaphor’s conventionality
does not only depend on its frequency, but also on the kind of mapping that
underlies it. The latter aspect already pertains to the cognitive dimension of
metaphor, where conventionality is related to the mapping direction as well
as to the invariance principle (cf. Lakoff 1990). Metaphors which map
elements from a concrete source onto an abstract target are particularly apt
to serve an explanatory function and thus also more ikely to become
conventional than metaphors which have the opposite direction of mapping
On the basis of these assumptions, the chapter empirically examines
metaphors from the fields of COMMERCIAL EVENTS and BODILY HARM in
the British National Corpus (BNC). Examples of metaphors in the former
field could be buying (i.e. ‘accepting’) and selling (i.e. ‘making
acceptable’) of ideas, construed as OBJECTS . Examples from the latter field
could be metaphorically wounding or killing someone in a COMPETITION ,
construed as a WAR . Handl demonstrates that these lower-level metaphors
(e.g. buy, kill) are used in British English, though not too frequently,
although the higher-level mappings they hinge upon are very frequent and
conventional. This poses problems for their modelling in the two leading
cognitive-linguistic paradigms in metaphor studies, i.e. conceptual
metaphor theory and conceptual blending theory. Therefore, Handl
proposes to take up Verhagen’s (2005) notion of intersubjectivity, which
holds that in communication meaning can be grasped if and only if we
engage in a deep coordination of what we have in mind with what others
have in mind: “the first conceptualizer invites the second to jointly attend to
an object of conceptualization in some specific way, and to update the
common ground by doing so” (Verhagen 2005, 7). By stressing that
common ground is not only a necessary prerequisite, but also an intended
outcome of communicative events, Verhagen’s notion is able to bridge the
gap between what the conventional patterns conceptual metaphor theory
typically focuses on and the more creative cases of meaning construction
which take centre stage in blending theory.

In the chapter ‘Time is money‒ everywhere? Analysing time

metaphors across varieties of English’, Simone Mueller uses data from
different linguistic corpora to get at the variation of a particular set of
metaphorical expressions between languages and check whether that
variation influences the communicative dimension of metaphor. Here
‘communication’ is taken to be either a written or spoken use of language
with the purpose of transmitting ideas, feelings, attitudes, establishing
relationships, etc., along the lines of Karl Bühler (1934) and Roman
Jakobson’s (1959) model. The chapter presents a survey of the potential
communicative effects of metaphors in different cultures by considering the
conceptual metaphor time is money as a case study. Conceptual metaphor
theory forms the basis for her research question: whether the claims
concerning the pervasiveness of the metaphor TIME IS MONEY and its
culture-dependence can be corroborated by using real life linguistic
materials from different cultures. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) wrote that the
introduction of this conceptual metaphor in other cultures should reflect a
‘Westernization of cultures.’
 Mueller investigates the linguistic realizations of the conceptual
metaphor TIME IS MONEY in a variety of English-speaking countries, giving
particular attention to the associations with ‘spending’, ‘wasting’, and
‘saving money.’ She shows that the linguistic differences are far subtler
than expected: in communicative contexts the cultural differences leave
their mark on the linguistic realization of the metaphor TIME IS MONEY ,
which raises questions about the universality of the related conceptual
metaphor and the Westernization of cultures as well. Therefore the
communicative dimension of the metaphor TIME IS MONEY cannot be
reduced to its linguistic realizations, nor to its conceptualizations, because
it is deeply influenced by the cultural context in which it occurs.

2.2 Speakers’ behaviour

The following three chapters analyse speakers’ behaviour and the ways it
can provide a basis for communication (from learning to online processing
while reading a text or listening to a speech). Marianna Bolognesi’s chapter
on ‘Metaphors, bilingual mental lexicon and distributional models’
compares the problem of metaphor representations across native and
foreign speakers. She thus addresses the question of whether the
communicative dimension of metaphor acquires different and specific
features when the cognitive-linguistic dimensions of metaphor vary
according to speakers’ level of linguistic knowledge. Her analysis bears on
the idea that processing of concepts and processing of word meanings are
two distinct mental processes that interact in complex ways during
language comprehension and contribute in different ways to
communication (Evans 2009).
 Bolognesi considers verbs coming from two different semantic
classes: a wide selection of motion verbs, which tend to appear often in
metaphorical expressions (such as run, fall, come, or follow), and a
selection of mental verbs (such as believe, understand, forgive or decide).
She compares the semantic representations obtained from psychological
data collected from native speakers and foreign learners, to the lexical
representations of the same verbs obtained from a sophisticated
computational procedure based on an extensive corpus of texts. In a
correlation study the author shows that foreign learners, who learn a foreign
language in an institutional setting, tend to rely on the superficial linguistic
structure of the foreign language, and to create semantic representations
that better resemble those obtained from the computational analysis; native
speakers’ semantic representations, by contrast, also include pragmatic and
perceptual aspects of meaning, which are not captured by the
computational model. However, when metaphorical meanings come into
play, these correlations drop dramatically. The author’s explanation
emphasised that, in case of metaphorical expressions, the pragmatic
dimension plays a crucial role in the construction of word meaning,
because such a process is strongly influenced by both linguistic and
extralinguistic contexts and requires information coming from different
sources (perceptual experience, for example, among the non linguistic
ones). Such components of meaning cannot be fully understood on an
exclusively linguistic dimension, but need to be integrated with aspects
retrieved from the communicative settings in which they are embedded,
which are often not available to foreign learners.

Most communicative theories of metaphor aim at articulating and

elaborating the underlying mechanisms of comprehension of the speaker’s
intentions (Grice 1957, 1989; Searle 1969; Sperber & Wilson 1986;
Carston 2002). The Interaction theory of metaphor (Richards 1936; Black
1954) adopted in Bipin Indurkhya’s chapter ‘Towards a model of
metaphorical understanding’, focuses instead on the reader’s interaction
with the text. Indurkhya investigates whether‒ in communicative cases
such as the poem Seascape by Stephen Spender (1986)‒ the linguistic and
cognitive dimensions of metaphor have specific features and whether the
communicative dimension of metaphor influences them. From the reader’s
point of view, the speaker’s or creator’s intentions can just be another
contextual factor that can be incorporated in the interaction model. In this
sense, the interaction theory approach is compatible with the Gricean and
Relevance theoretic model, but is also broader because it allows us to
model the understanding of metaphor even when we have no clue about the
speaker’s or creator’s intentions (Indurkhya 2007). In the poem Seascape,
instead, we have no clue how to interpret the metaphor of the ocean as an
‘unfingered harp’: a harp and an ocean belong to conceptual domains that
are too different to borrow some properties from one domain to understand
the other. In the case of live metaphors such as the ‘unfingered harp’, an
imaginative route has to be walked through (Davidson 1978, Carston
2010). Literal meaning plays a fundamental role in this type of live
metaphor understanding, claims Indurkhya: it is maintained in a more
global process resulting in a range of communicative affective and
imagistic effects, which in turn would be the proper characteristic of the
communicative dimension of live metaphors.

In their chapter ‘On the Role of Perceptual Features in Metaphor’,

Amitash Ojha and Bipin Indurkhya analyse the role of images in metaphor
processing. More specifically, they aim to show that metaphor is not just a
verbal phenomenon but is a conceptual process that can occur in different
modes of communication. To demonstrate this, they analyse the specific
case of multimodal metaphors, where concepts are presented in text and
images. Both these modalities differ fundamentally at a perceptual level:
text allows greater imagination while images restrict imagination with the
presence of their perceptual features. We encounter multimodal
communication in our everyday life in the form of advertisements,
billboards, etc. In light of the Interaction theory of metaphor (Richards
1936; Black 1954; Indurkhya 2007), the authors address the questions how
the two modalities (text/ image) interact and what the nature of this
interaction is. In order to answer these questions, they focus their attention
on the ways in which text/image interaction first influences metaphor
comprehension and then the entire communication process, through three
different experiments, using the priming paradigm.

They primed verbal metaphors, such as ‘elephant is chair’, with

explicit, perceptual ‘visual images’, corresponding to (i) the source concept
(image of an elephant), (ii) the target concept (image of a chair), (iii) both
the source and the target concepts (both images of an elephant and a chair),
to investigate the effect on metaphor comprehension. The three
experiments differ in the way texts and images are presented to
participants. The authors aim at stimulating the cognitive processes related
to the association between perceptual features (of stimulated concepts) and
metaphors, to measure the effect of perceptual features in metaphor
comprehension. Their study showed that associated images facilitate
metaphorical comprehension. In particular they found that when both – the
source and the target – are stimulated with images, the perceptual features
of the source are more closely related to the metaphor features compared to
the perceptual features of the target. This suggests that the perceptual
features of the source are more strongly associated with the metaphor
features. The authors conclude that these results support the idea that the
multifaceted cognitive dimension of metaphor is the key to understanding
its communicative dimension.
 Overall, the papers compiled in the first section of the volume show
that metaphor has specific linguistic and cognitive aspects, as well as
distinctive communicative aspects that cannot be conflated with them. As
to the linguistic and cognitive dimension of metaphor, metaphor
understanding seems to be heavily dependent on the process of
categorization in both language and thought (see Barnden, Handl, and
Mueller in this volume). However the key role of perceptual features in
metaphor processing clearly emerges in some chapters (see Ronga,
Bolognesi, Indurkhya & Ojiha and Indurkhya in this volume), making
metaphor understanding deeply rooted in embodied cognition. As to the
communicative dimension of metaphor, the chapters included in the first
section suggest that interpersonal exchanges as well as speakers’ cultural
background give metaphor other characteristics, such as intersubjectivity,
imagination and creativity, persuasive force, etc. which cannot be explained
simply by referring to its linguistic and cognitive features.

3. The communicative dimension of metaphor

The second section of the volume focuses on communicative aspects of

metaphor, considering different communicative functions, mainly
persuasion, instruction and entertainment, in different domains of
discourse: politics, media, advertising, education, signed poetry, and music.
The papers collected in this section look at how aspects of metaphor in
communication have a ‘rebound effect’ on its cognitive and linguistic
aspects. In particular, they aim to show whether and how these functions
and domains add or alter specific details of more general conceptions of
metaphor in language and thought as researched in Lakoff and Johnson’s
conceptual theory of metaphor.
3.1 Persuasion in politics

Over the past two decades there has been a visible increase of interest in
political communication as a research domain in metaphor studies. Works
that have been influential in this research field include George Lakoff ’s
‘Metaphor and war: The metaphor system used to justify war in the Gulf
(1991), Moral Politics (1996), Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your
Values and Frame the Debate (2004), and The Political Mind (2008).
Beginning with Lakoff ’s work, there is a considerable number of case
studies, analyses and examples in this area conducted by various scholars
who have explored several different methods. The cognitive semantics
approach à la Lakoff aims at describing the conceptual metaphors involved
in political communication, in the process explicating the implied system of
values. Scholars working in corpus linguistics, however, identify these
values through the quantitative and qualitative analysis of a sizeable
number of texts. This approach is rather useful in bringing about some fine
grained phenomena that are reflected in word frequency, such as
stereotypes, degrees of novelty or creativity in metaphors, etc.

The first two chapters of the second section consider the

communicative function of persuasion in political communication. In
‘Adventures of a metaphor: Apian imagery in the history of political
thought’, Giovanni Damele handles the theme from a historical point of
view and demonstrates that in the past conceptual metaphors, imagination,
and emotions played a significant role in political communication. This is
Damele’s answer to the question how the cognitive and the communicative
dimension of metaphor interact, influencing one another. Combining
Lakoff and Johnson’s cognitive approach (1980) with a rhetorical one,
Damele argues that, in analysing political metaphors, the cognitive
dimension of metaphor should be connected with its persuasive force in a
political, social, or cultural context. Focusing on political metaphors as
persuasive devices, the chapter analyses the peculiar example of the so-
called ‘beehive metaphor’. In this metaphor, the source domain of the king
of bees as a ruler is mapped onto the target domain of the society and its
political organisations. The results of this mapping have been different
according to the historical contexts (classical age, ‘ancien régime’, etc.).
Damele points out that the ‘beehive metaphor’ highlights different
properties of a society and its political organisations in different historical
contexts‒ while its meaning remains ambiguous‒ because it depends on
the main purpose of the metaphor, i.e. persuasion.

Following Robin Lakoff (1982, 28), Damele defines persuasive

discourse as the “attempt or intention of one party to change the behaviour,
feelings, intentions or viewpoint of another by communicative means”,
where communication is instead intended as a reciprocal activity primarily
based on the exchange of information (Shannon & Weaver 1949). As
Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958) pointed out, persuasion can be
defined as a communicative skill used by human beings in order to make
their peers perform certain actions or collaborate in various activities. From
this point of view, the main difference between communication and
persuasion is related to the goal: since communication is related to the
exchange of information, in persuasive discourse any exchange of
information is affected by the persuasive strategy of the speaker. In the case
of the ‘beehive metaphor’, the success of the analogy does not depend on
the novelty or on the mapping of the metaphor, but on the strategic way it
has been used by many different parties in different periods to highlight
different frames, with the common ground of the ‘naturalistic argument’.
Therefore the powerful idea that nature has a normative force is the key to
understand the persuasive force of the ‘beehive metaphor’ in different
communicative contexts.

The chapter ‘Moral disgust at its best: The important role of low-level
mappings and structural parallelism in political disgust and disease
metaphors’, by Elisabeth Wehling, is in line with the research on metaphor
in politics (e.g. Lakoff 1996; Landau, Sullivan, & Greenberg 2009;
Thibodeau & Boroditsky 2011). These metaphoric structures are powerful
means of expressing political beliefs, because they evolve along the
experience of physical and emotional wellbeing: what fosters human well-
being is good and thus moral, what threatens it is bad and thus immoral
(Lakoff & Johnson 1996). Moreover, metaphors that stem from purity
concerns commonly take centre stage in conservative reasoning and
communication (Lakoff 1996).

The analysis targets the role of metaphors that stem from purity
concerns, such as, IMMORALITY AS IMPURITY and IMMORALITY AS disease,
and draws on Italian public discourse under Silvio Berlusconi as a case
study. The author shows that in fact moral threats to Berlusconi’s persona
and conservative leadership in Italy were framed via the IMMORALITY IS
IMPURITY and IMMORALITY IS DISEASE metaphors. However instead of
using those higher-level mappings, the discourse implements low-level
mappings, that is, mappings that are semantically highly specified:
IMMORALITY IS CANCER and IMMORALITY IS BODILY FILTHINESS . Such
low-level mapping, Wehling argues, can afford a high degree of structural
parallelism between the source and the target domain, which, in turn,
enhances their potency as a tool of political communication. In the case of
Berlusconi’s communication, for instance, the implemented low-level
mappings allow for many productive inferences about specific kinds of
moral threats, originating from physical threats. This process is reflected,
for example, in all those expressions in which magistrates and judges are
seen as diseases or cancer, as in “The judiciary is a disease of our
democracy” (Matrix, Canale 5, 3/10/2006) or in “This is a cancer that can
no longer be tolerated, that has to be cut out” (La Repubblica.it, 3/9/2003).

3.2 Persuasion in media and advertising

Political communication is also an emerging field in communication

science and concerns the relationship between the political system and the
media. Crucial communicative phenomena include the way political actors
gain visibility, as well as how political campaigns are developed and
citizens are informed of political events. Nowadays, as many political
scholars have noted, traditional and new media have assumed an essential
role in political communication, affording the ‘space’ in which every form
of political communication takes place and expresses itself. The two
following papers consider persuasion as an effect of metaphor in the
domain of media and advertising.

In ‘“The ultimate spinner”: Metaphors of evil in Hillary Clinton’s

media coverage’, Michela Giordano deals with the questions whether and
to what extent stereotyping mechanisms operating in communication
influence the linguistic and cognitive dimensions of metaphors. In order to
answer these questions, Giordano takes, as a case study, the evolution of
linguistic variations concerning the figure of Hillary Clinton as the target of
political and media discourse. Giordano considers the coverage Clinton has
received throughout her twenty-year-long political career, and focuses in
particular on the negative and gendered treatment she received during the
campaign for the Democratic primaries in the months immediately
preceding the presidential election in 2008 (Lawrence & Rose 2010). The
analysis shows that the many representations of ‘evil’ the media draws
upon come from epic and myth, history, religion, politics, animal world,
fiction and television. The media attributed to Hillary Clinton negative
facets that Giordano clusters into templates. They reveal two main
stereotypes: on the one hand, the President’s wife has been depicted as a
‘White Housekeeper’, mashing up the private status of wife with the public
role of First Lady; on the other hand, gendered metaphors have depicted
Hillary Clinton as a leader with an unfeminine quality and consolidated the
view of women’s inferior position in power relations.

Giordano’s investigation in media is based on a large corpus of texts

and shows that not only the conceptual dimension of metaphors but also the
linguistic one can be useful in understanding communication strategies and
framing. Giordano examines how Hillary Clinton had been metaphorically
described, by analysing media texts (mass media articles, online sources
and political blogs) and focusing on metaphors being attributed to the first
lady. Starting with the image of First Lady Macbeth, which personifies the
conflict between femininity and masculinity, at the beginning of nineties,
media framed Hillary Clinton by resorting to evil metaphors. ‘A political
weapon’, ‘high octane Hillary’, ‘a political animal’, ‘power monger’, ‘the
political equivalent of nitroglycerin’, ‘war goddess’, ‘her Amazonian
aggressiveness’: these are just some of the words framing the idea of a ‘bad
woman’. Interestingly, even positive metaphors, like the conceptual
metaphor PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS , become negative because of the words
selected to elicit negative images: ‘leaving an insidious poison in her wake
that may irreparably harm America’ and ‘patriarchy in sheep’s clothing’ are
just some of the negative traits elicited through animal metaphors.
Giordano’s chapter hence shows that persuasion in the media is often
achieved by metaphors that implicitly contain sly judgments so powerful
that they can be used to evoke emotional responses and to add force to the
negative evaluations. In the specific case study of Hillary Clinton, it clearly
appears that metaphors have been used to reproduce and consolidate
dominant power relationships, which perpetuate women’s inferior position
within society.

The chapter ‘Blending metaphors and arguments in advertising’ by

Sabrina Mazzali-Lurati and Chiara Pollaroli aims to understand the specific
features of the communicative dimension of metaphor in advertising. They
specifically analyse advertising messages in an attempt to understand how
visual manifestations of metaphor and hyperbole are effective in verbal and
visual argumentation in advertisements. The authors aim at showing that it
is useful to approach visual metaphors (together with hyperbole) from
different perspectives in order to understand their communicative (and,
especially, argumentative) value. Therefore the authors combine three
different theoretical approaches: the first one concerns creativity in
advertisements (Goldenberg et al. 1999), the second is an application of the
interaction theory (Black 1977) to pictorial metaphor analysis (Forceville
1996), and the third involves the Blending Theory (Fauconnier & Turner
2002; Grady et al. 1999). These three approaches enter into figurative
advertisement analysis as three different steps highlighting the varying
aspects of message effectiveness.

Mazzali-Lurati and Pollaroli examine in detail the interaction among

the three approaches by providing two examples. They maintain that the
creativity process can be traced back to a few simple and well-defined
structures (Goldenberg et al. 1999), such as the six creativity templates
(pictorial analogy, extreme situation, consequence, competition, interactive
dimensionality alteration). When these templates are well applied, the
whole meaning converges into one image and requires minimal explanatory
text. However, Goldenberg et al.’s approach is for Mazzali-Lurati and
Pollaroli a very interesting starting point, but is only the first step in their
search for an adequately powerful tool and framework for the analysis of
metaphor in advertising, capable of highlighting the communicative and
argumentative role of visual metaphor and hyperbole, which is the aim of
their paper.

The more fusion of languages and capture of customers’ interest the

image will be able to generate, the more the advertisement will be effective
and successful. Shared beliefs and argumentative schemes in the creativity
templates make the advertisements reasonable and persuasive from an
argumentative point of view. Blending Theory, in particular, enables the
explication of the cognitive components of metaphor that are necessary to
infer the arguments advanced in order to persuade the audience. In this
perspective, the authors conclude that inference, a crucial mechanism of
metaphor, plays a central role in understanding both verbal and visual
argumentation, which is the proper communicative dimension of metaphor
in advertising.

3.3 Instruction and entertainment in education and arts

The last three chapters in the volume focus on the communicative functions
of instruction in the domain of education and of entertainment in the
domain of the arts, such as poetry and music. The domain of education is
considered in the chapter on ‘Metaphors and online learning’. Beatrice
Ligorio, Marianna Iodice, and Stefania Manca conceive of communication
as a provision supporting peer interaction. The authors aim at answering the
question on the specific features of the communicative dimension of
metaphor in online learning. They adopt the concept of knowledge building
to replace the traditional idea of learning as mere transmission of
information. Whilst learning is more an individual process, knowledge
building is unavoidably social. It concerns two additional aspects when
compared to traditional learning: it occurs through social confrontation,
discussion, and interaction between peers, and implies an advancement of
knowledge, not to be taken as defined and hence fixed, but rather
something that can always be improved upon. To achieve both these
aspects, communication is essential not as casual communication among
individuals, but rather as communication especially designed for
knowledge building purposes.

Contrary to traditional learning, where communication is mainly

unidirectional, i.e. from the teachers to the students, and only rarely the
reverse, knowledge building mainly relies on student-student
communication, structured and supported online by the teacher and by the
tutor. Thus, in this perspective, communication sites such as online forums
are suitable learning environments for many reasons: on the one hand
written communication supports reflection and allows a better distribution
of turn taking, thus facilitating peer-interaction; on the other hand many
devices are available to structure communication towards knowledge
building, i.e. thinking type labels to be assigned to the notes, graphical
visualization of the replies, etc. In this context, there is an interest to deepen
the role of metaphors in relation to online learning and to information and
communication technology use.

From the very beginning, most of the terms related to both areas have
been expressed through metaphorical language. For example the fear of
using an unknown virtual environment has been represented through the
expression: “For now my boat has not suffered too many hitches” (Delfino
& Manca 2005, 36). During the online activities the student faces a
paradoxical situation, because while on one hand she sails on the paper
boat of her naïve computer skills, but on the other she feels safe and
interested in surfing the Web. The chapter demonstrates certain aspects of
this kind of metaphor usage in a virtual environment. By presenting
findings from an empirical study this chapter focuses on the role metaphors
may play in creating a collaboration for knowledge building in online
learning experiences. The authors show that, even though metaphors are
not simply rhetorical terms but rather work as cognitive schemas (Manca &
Delfino 2007), it is their communicative power that makes them central to
education.

‘Metaphor in sign language poetry’, by Rachel Sutton-Spence,

addresses the relationship between the visual modality of sign languages
and metaphor in signed poetry in British Sign Language (BSL). It also
addresses the relationship between metaphor and gesture. The
communicative and linguistic dimensions may be less easily
distinguishable in signed languages than in spoken ones. Speakers usually
have a clear idea that speech produces ‘language’, and visual elements such
as manual, corporeal or facial gestures are outside language and can be
treated as ‘gestural communication. In sign languages, all communicative
gestures are visual. Established lexical vocabulary signs lie at one end of a
linguistic and communicative continuum. At the other end of the
continuum lie highly visual, illustrative, analogous gestures. Signers draw
on all parts of the continuum in their communication, although poets may
make greater use of the analogous end of the continuum.

The chapter explores the ways in which metaphors appear embodied

in signers or, in other words, how the use of gestures, performed through
the hands and other specific body parts, impact the choice and form of
metaphors in BSL, and in signed poetry specifically. Sutton-Spence claims
that many conceptual metaphors are similar in both sign and spoken
languages. However, in sign languages, there is a distinction between
conceptual metaphors that can be embodied by linguistically expressed
signs and those which cannot be and thus can only be represented ‘purely’
by a metaphorical operation. For example, signs with ‘good’ and ‘bad’
connotations may be placed higher or lower in signing space, directly
embodying the conceptual metaphor of GOOD IS UP or BAD IS DOWN .
However, GOOD IS LIGHT is a visual metaphor that cannot be directly
embodied in sign language because a signer cannot light up. The author
therefore considers some metaphors in BSL poetry that rely upon the use of
the body, for instance selecting handshapes that carry semantic
connotations to represent GOOD IS LIGHT . All signs in BSL necessarily have
a handshape, drawn upon specific parameters – semantic connotations
included, but in the poetic context they can gain additional meaning,
making metaphors such as GOOD IS LIGHT possible. The author’s
conclusion in examining BSL gestures in poetry is that conceptual
metaphor can be directly embedded in gestures, exactly as it happens for
hearing people. In addition, the purpose of communication generates
powerful emotions in the audience that allows the creation of metaphors
more abstract than those mediated by the visual modality of signs.

Ewa Schreiber, in her chapter ‘Metaphor and the concept of sound in

contemporary music’, considers the communicative function of
entertainment metaphors in music, in order to understand whether it
influences the conceptualization of sound. She analyses some metaphors
that three composers (Pierre Schaeffer, Raymond Murray Schafer and
Gérard Grisey) used to describe sound and its properties. Schaeffer (1910–
1995) focuses on the metaphor of sound as a sonic object, Schafer (1933–)
as a soundscape, and Grisey (1946–1998) as an organism. These three
different views entail not only three different concepts of sound, but also
three different semantic areas, having their own vocabulary and implied
meanings. Schaeffer’s metaphor of sound as an object, having different
shapes and texture, implies that any sound has a mass, internal structure
and complexity. This basic idea constitutes the starting point of Schaeffer’s
classification work: an isolated impulse corresponds to a harmonic
structure, while a continuous sound to a cohesive structure. Moreover, in
Schafer’s view, sound is not isolated but interpreted within its specific
context, i.e. the human environment and perception, as well as its socio-
historical background, constituting the soundscape.

The metaphor of sound as an object (and, consequently, music as

material substance) has been highly popular in the twentieth century and
has influenced many composers. For example Iannis Xenakis used the
images of clouds and grain, mass and molecules, whereas György Ligeti
was especially interested in the idea of instrumental texture. Gérard Grisey
was interested in the acoustic nature of sound, adopting living entities as a
source domain: sounds are not well-defined objects, but they are living
organisms, having birth, life, death and a never-ending transformation of
their own energy. His music is indeed unstable, continuously evolving and
multi-layered. Different conceptualizations of sound through metaphors
entail different music, musicology theories and communication
perspectives (Spitzer 2004).

Schreiber wonders whether there is a communicative dimension of

sound metaphors related to the verbal descriptions of auditory experience.
In the description of complex and heterogeneous auditory experiences in
contemporary music, traditional categories prove to be inadequate, hence
the search for a new vocabulary to present sound in all its richness.
However, Schreiber points out that composers share their ideas on sound
not only through written texts, such as treatises or manifestos, but also
through their musical compositions. In this perspective, the metaphors of
sound influence their work and elicit the use of special compositional
techniques and genres.

The papers compiled in the second section of the volume overall show
that metaphor acquires specific communicative aspects or yields certain
communicative effects according to the function it assumes in a specific
domain. In politics where metaphor is used to persuade citizens, it aims at
leading people to perform certain actions (see Damele in this volume) or to
reason in a certain way (see Wehling in this volume). Metaphor employed
in media to persuade the audience or the customers enhances social
stereotypes (see Giordano in this volume) or captures the interests of the
customers by strengthening shared beliefs and argumentative schemes (see
Mazzali-Lurati & Pollaroli in this volume). In the field of education the
applicability of metaphor for the purpose of instruction drives the
knowledge building in the learning environment (see Ligorio, Iodice, &
Manca in this volume). Artistically created metaphor for the purpose of
entertainment, aids in the expression of human feelings or experiences, i.e.
their ‘inner world’ (see Sutton-Spence and Schreiber in this volume). These
communicative effects, even though not reducible to the linguistic-
cognitive dimension of metaphor, influence in meaningful ways the whys
and hows we linguistically encode metaphors and think through them.

4. Conclusions

In the chapters of this volume the authors focus on communicative aspects

of metaphor, connecting them to their linguistic and cognitive facets.
Communicative aspects had been overshadowed by the predominance of
analysing the conceptual characteristics of metaphors, even though they are
inextricably linked. From the perspective of Lakoff and Johnson (1980,
1999), the fact that metaphors play a role in the process of knowledge
construction cannot be ignored, as metaphors contribute to modelling our
way of thinking and building a bridge between the domain of abstraction
and the domain of perception. Their work has demonstrated that metaphors
are fundamental to the development of thought. However, thirty years after
the publication of Metaphors We Live By (1980), there is a risk of forgetting
that metaphors do not merely reside in verbal languages, but also in our
daily communicative exchanges, affecting many aspects of our everyday
social life.

The overall purpose of the volume is to show that the communicative

dimension of metaphor cannot be conflated with its cognitive and linguistic
dimensions, because it has specific features, functions, contextual cues,
situated meanings, etc. that makes it non-reducible to other explanatory
level of metaphor. At the same time, the volume does not aim to argue in
favour of a complete detachment of the communicative dimension of
metaphor from its cognitive and linguistic components. It instead aims at
showing that they mutually shape and influence each other in a variety of
ways, according to the communicative functions of metaphor (such as
persuasion, instruction, entertainment) and its application to specific
domains of discourse (such as politics, media, advertising, education,
poetry, music). In this respect, each author provides an answer to both the
problem of identifying the communicative dimension of metaphor and the
problem of its mutual influence with the cognitive and linguistic
dimensions. The way the reader could live metaphors twice is by going
through both of these dimensions, the linguistic and/ or cognitive and the
communicative, by wondering about their contribution to our
comprehension of metaphor and their mutual influences.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the authors of the papers collected in this volume for their willingness to
cooperate during the double-blind review process and the discussion on the meaning of
‘communication’, as reported by Francesca Ervas in the second section and Elisabetta Gola in the
third section. We also thank all the participants at the conference ‘Metaphor and Communication,’
the members of the Italian Association for Metaphor Studies (Carla Bazzanella, Claudia Casadio,
Marco Casonato, Lia Formigari, Elena Gagliasso, Pietro Storari, Daniela Veronesi), the Organizing
Committee (Ines Adornetti, Valentina Favrin, Giulia Piredda), and the graduate students of the
School of Communication Science of the University of Cagliari. We are grateful to the Department
of Pedagogical and Philosophical Science and the Faculty of Education of the University of Cagliari
for having held the conference. We are grateful to the Scientific Committee of the conference on
‘Metaphor and Communication’ (Carla Bazzanella, Claudia Casadio, Marco Casonato, Lia
Formigari, Elena Gagliasso, Sam Guttenplan, Albert Katz, Graham Low, Ira Noveck, Andrew
Ortony, Esther Romero González, Belén Soria, Pietro Storari, Alan Wallington) for a first selection
of the abstracts of the papers presented at the conference.

We profoundly appreciate the efforts of the referees in reviewing the full papers and for all the
support given to the publication of this volume: Mihailo Antovic, Grazia Basile, Carla Bazzanella,
Valentina Bambini, Claudia Bianchi, Eric Blanchard, Per Aage Brandt, Claudia Casadio, Hernan
Casakin, Alan Cienki, Jonathan Charteris-Black, Alice Deignan, Maria Giulia Dondero, Charles
Forceville, Lia Formigari, Davide Simone Giannoni, Elena Gagliasso, Tiziana Giudice, Bethanie
Gouldthorp, Alison Hall, Shelley Hannigan, Laura Hidalgo-Downing, Anna Idström, Mikhail
Kissine, Robert Knippen, Francesca La Rocca, Raoul Magallon Rosa, Carmela Morabito, Ralph
Mueller, Giulia Petitta, Barbara Phillips, Roberto Pujia, Julia Salzinger, Marina Sbisà, Federica
Scarpa King, Joost Schilperoord, Corrado Sinigaglia, Belén Soria, Gerard Steen, Pietro Storari,
Daniel Carl Strack, Antonio Trudu, Stefano Vaselli, Tony Veale, Slobodanka Vladiv-Glover, Virginia
Volterra, Ian Wallington, Phyllis Wilcox. Without their help, this volume would not exist.

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PART I

The cognitive and linguistic

dimension of metaphor
 Metaphor and simile
Categorizing and comparing
categorization and comparison
John Barnden
University of Birmingham

Do understanders use comparison or categorization in understanding simile and/or

metaphor? I claim that the intense debate about this has been misguided, partly because of

the obscurity of the distinction between comparison and categorization, and partly because

of a frequent, misleading characterization of comparison theory as casting (a type of)

metaphor as elliptical simile. Instead, it is more fruitful to consider a theoretical space

defined by various processing dimensions that cut across comparison and categorization. I

propose three dimensions here: Target/Source Contribution Disparity, Target/Source

Mediator-Preservation Degree, and Target/Source Mediator-Carefulness. Experimental

results adduced in the debate are not necessarily resolving whether categorization or

comparison is being used but rather where the understanding process is positioned on the

dimensions. Comparison and categorization can both supply whatever positioning is

required. In addition, where a particular act of metaphor/simile understanding is placed on

the dimensions is not purely a matter of linguistic form and general cognitive

considerations, but can also be importantly affected by the communicative context and

matters such as familiarity that depend on communication history.

Key words

categorization; comparison; simile; metaphor

1. Introduction
In recent years there has been a debate about whether understanders use
processes of comparison on the one hand or categorization on the other for
the purpose of understanding simile and/or metaphor (see, e.g., Bowdle &
Gentner 2005; Glucksberg 2001, 2008). In this article I will call this debate
‘the C/C debate’ or just ‘the debate’ for short. It has centred on similes of
the form ‘T is/are like S’ and corresponding metaphors of the form ‘T is/are
S,’ which we will call be-form metaphors in this chapter. T is the target
term and S is the source term. (They will always be noun phrases in our
discussion.) One purpose of this article is to claim that the debate has been
severely corrupted by three main factors:

1. neglect of some slipperiness in the notions of ‘categorization’ and

‘comparison’, and hence in the distinction between them;

2. unwarranted assumptions about categorization and comparison;

3. an ellipsis-based mischaracterization of the general notion of

comparison theory: basically, mischaracterizing comparison theory as
necessarily saying that a be-form metaphor is an elliptical form of the
corresponding simile.

A second purpose is to go on from the analysis of those factors to make a

particular conjecture about the C/C debate. Put in its starkest form this
conjecture is that what is actually revealed by experiments involved in the
debate is not whether a process of comparison or categorization is involved
in understanding, but, rather, other processing differences: namely,
differences between positions on various underlying dimensions. These
dimensions include the following three:

1. Target/Source Contribution Disparity: qualitative and quantitative

differences in the way that the source and target sides (S and T) in
cases of simile or metaphor contribute to the understanding process.
 2. Target/Source Mediator-Preservation Degree: roughly speaking, the
extent to which the relationship between source and target remains
activated in the understander’s mind along with the information
gleaned about the target item itself, rather than merely serving as a
stepping stone towards that information.

3. Target/Source Mediator-Carefulness: the amount of care taken by the

understanding process to establish the relationship between source and
target.

Movement along these dimensions is possible both within a given theory of

simile/metaphor understanding and between theories. Within a theory: a
given theory can propose that the degree of contribution disparity, mediator
preservation or mediator carefulness depends on the particular T and S
involved in the simile or metaphor, on the form of the utterance (e.g., simile
form versus be-form metaphor), and/or on contextual factors including the
communicative purpose of the utterance and surrounding ones. Between
theories: for a given T and S, a given utterance form and a given context,
different theories can propose different degrees of contribution disparity,
mediator preservation or mediator carefulness.

Crucially, I will suggest that it is different positions along the above

dimensions that can account for at least some salient experimental results in
the debate, irrespective of whether comparison or categorization is
involved. The dimensions cut across comparison and categorization: i.e.,
both comparison and categorization accounts can fall on many, and perhaps
any, positions on each of the dimensions, depending on the details of the
account. Thus, in seeking to explain experimental results, the distinction
between categorization and comparison is relatively powerless, compared
to distinctions between positions on the above dimensions. Instead of trying
to account for results directly in terms of comparison and categorization, it
would be more fruitful to account for them in terms of the above
dimensions, and then, if one wishes, try to frame detailed comparison or
categorization theories (or hybrid theories) that provide the desirable
positioning along the dimensions. But the suspicion is that it will always be
possible to find some comparison theory and some categorization theory to
explain the result if one tries hard enough. My observations add to the
points by Kennedy & Chiappe (1999) and Chiappe & Kennedy (2001) that
the ultimate issue within the Debate may not be comparison versus
categorization.

Section 2 outlines the nature of the C/C debate, and points out that the
distinction between categorization and comparison is murky and ill-
defined. Section 3 addresses a different type of obfuscation that has
occurred in the debate, concerned with the notion that metaphor is elliptical
simile. Section 4 discusses the three dimensions listed above, indicating
briefly how they relate to experimental effects studied in the debate, and
showing that this relationship may be a more fruitful thing to study than the
relationship of the comparison/categorization distinction to the
experiments. Section 5 sketches how the proposed dimensions provide a
useful analysis of comparison and categorization processes that have been
proposed in a particular cognitive modeling framework (Utsumi 2011).
Section 6 concludes, and in particular summarizes how the article engages
with the communicative dimension highlighted in this volume’s
Introduction.

The ideas in this article came indirectly out of an artificial intelligence

project on metaphor understanding (see, e.g., Barnden 2001, 2008, 2015).

2. The Comparison/Categorization debate

The C/C debate is basically about how similes such as ‘Businesses are like
dictatorships’ and corresponding be-form metaphors such as ‘Businesses
are dictatorships’ are interpreted by ordinary understanders. The main
battle is about be-form metaphor rather than simile, and concerns the
question of whether categorization or comparison is the mental processing
mechanism involved in understanding be-form metaphor (or particular
subclasses of it, such as conventional cases or novel cases). For simile, on
the other hand, there appears to be general agreement that comparison is
the mechanism in play.

Many psychological experiments have been done to provide evidence

for one account or another (see, e.g., Bowdle & Gentner 2005; Chiappe &
Kennedy 2001; Chiappe, Kennedy & Smykowski 2003; Gokcesu 2009;
Jones & Estes 2006; Glucksberg 2008; Glucksberg & Haught 2006;
Johnson 1996; Pierce & Chiappe 2009; Utsumi 2007; Xu 2010). The
experimental landscape is complex, both because of the number of different
experimental measures used and because there are several major theory
variants, including hybrids of theories. The measures and the ways of
forming hybrid theories are outlined below.

It does not matter for the purposes of this chapter whether or not
simile should be viewed as a form of metaphor. The contrast at issue in this
chapter can be framed either as a contrast between two different forms of
metaphor (be-form form and simile form) or as a contrast between one
figure of speech – (be-form) metaphor – and another figure, namely simile.
Notice that the C/C debate does overwhelmingly address just be-form
metaphor as opposed to other syntactic manifestations of metaphor,
although debaters do sometimes address the latter (e.g., Glucksberg 2001,
48–49).
 Also, in common with most discussion within the debate I will not
address any possible systematic differences between variants of simile form
or between variants of be-form. For instance, I will assume that, as far as
the debate is concerned, the three sentences ‘A business is a dictatorship’,
‘Mike’s business is a dictatorship’ and ‘Businesses are dictatorships’ are
understood using the same main processes as each other; and the same goes
for the simile versions of those be-form metaphors.

I now summarize the nature of categorization and comparison

accounts. According to a categorization account of the understanding of ‘T
is/are S,’ a suitable superordinate category S* of the category literally
meant by S is accessed/ constructed such that the literal S category is
included in S*, and the sentence is understood as asserting that the item or
category meant by T is included in S*. For example, for ‘Businesses are
dictatorships”, the understander might take dictatorship* to be the category
S* of organizations/communities that are managed non-consensually and
punitively by one person. This is superordinate to (i.e., a super-category of)
the category of literal, political dictatorships denoted by S; and the
metaphor is taken by the understander as asserting that businesses are
within S* as opposed to being within the literal S category.

From now on I will use the symbol S for the literal S category as well
as for the expression S itself, to save on notation. Similarly for T, though in
this case T may be an individual entity such as a particular person’s
business rather than a category such as businesses in general.

Various names other than ‘categorization account’ have been used for
this type of theory, both by their proponents and others. Alternative names
are ‘classinclusion account’ and ‘interactive property-attribution account’
(see Glucksberg 2001 for the last). We can also approximately include
Relevance Theory accounts (Sperber & Wilson 2008) because of their
appeal to ‘broadening’ of S to a broader category S*, but some RT accounts
also involve ‘narrowing’ of S* to get a final category S** in which to place
T (Carston 2011; Sperber & Wilson 2008).

In comparison accounts of ‘T is/are S,’ the concepts literally meant by

the expressions T and S are compared. I will use the symbols T and S for
those concepts as well as for the expressions. As a result of the comparison
particular similarities (and possibly differences) are focussed upon. It is
typically proposed that this is done through structural analogy finding, as in
Structure Matching Theory (SMT: Gentner 1983) or in ACME (Holyoak &
Thagard 1989). It is also typical to propose that some of the excess
information about S – i.e., information about S that is not found by the
matching process to correspond to something about T – is under certain
conditions provisionally stipulated to apply to T (perhaps in modified
form). These stipulations are for instance the ‘candidate inferences’
provided by the Structure Matching Engine (SME: Falkenhainer, Forbus &
Gentner 1989) based on SMT.

Also, similarities found between T and S may instigate the mental

construction of a common abstraction S* covering both T and S. Indeed, an
important, hybrid, variant of the comparison approach that is salient in the
debate is the Career of Metaphor theory (Bowdle & Gentner 2005), CoM.
This says that as the use of expression S as a metaphor source item
becomes entrenched, one or more remembered common abstractions S*
arising from such uses of S (possibly with different Ts) become standardly
associated with S as superordinate categories/ concepts, and become
conventional metaphorical meanings of S. These can then be used much as
S* categories in a categorization account are, even with new Ts.

Thus, in essence, the Career of Metaphor account supplements

comparison with categorization. But, dually, categorization theory has
elsewhere been supplemented with comparison. For example, Glucksberg
(2008) has stated that it is possible that, under some conditions, comparison
between the literal T and S in a be-form metaphor is done. It is plausible to
suggest that this happens when no S* relevant to T is yet available or
readily abstractable from S. So, both some comparison theorists and some
categorization theorists now allow that either process might happen in be-
form metaphor interpretation: the real argument is then about the conditions
under which they occur (Glucksberg 2008).

Surprisingly, however, the mental processes of comparison and

categorization have been poorly distinguished within the debate.
Comparison theorists, notably those adhering to a particular detailed theory
of analogy-finding such as SMT or ACME, often do a good job of
describing comparison. However, typically neither categorization nor
comparison theorists are specific about what categorization or categories
are. Usually, in the debate, categorization is just presented as being
obviously different from comparison.

And, there is a major problem in the fact that under certain important
views of categorization, much of it just boils down to comparison anyway.
Bowdle & Gentner (2005) pointed out, within the debate literature itself,
the importance of prototype-based and exemplar-based psychological
theories of categorization. For presentation or discussion of such theories,
see Connolly et al. (2007), Hampton (2007), Rein et al. (2010), Rosch
(1975), Verbeemen et al. (2007) and Wills et al. (2006). Such theories
inherently involve comparison, because, for instance, to determine whether
a particular item is in the category it must be compared to the prototype of
the category or to exemplars of it; and indeed we can add that the process
of comparison here could be much as it is in comparison theories of
simile/metaphor. However, categorization theorists have largely not taken
on board the disruptive consequences of these points.

Finally, experimental researchers within the debate have studied what

I will call ‘effects’ on experimental participants such as:

1. Form preference: whether participants show a preference for be-form-

metaphor form over simile form or vice versa, for a particular T and S

2. Relative ease and/or speed of understanding of the two forms, for a

given T and S.

3. Relative accuracy of understanding of the two forms, for a given T

and S.

4. Differences between the features of a given T and/or S that are

accessed by participants, according to which form is used.

5. The relative diversity of interpretations that participants produce for

the two forms.

6. What happens to the above effects when the metaphor or simile is

‘reversed’ (i.e., T and S are interchanged).

Some of these will play a role below.

3. Ellipsis-based mischaracterization of Comparison

theory

The difficulty we have noted of adequately describing comparison and

categorization and distinguishing between them is itself enough to make
one want to look elsewhere in seeking to account for experimental results
adduced in the C/C debate. Before I consider what that elsewhere might be,
I turn to another way in which the debate has been obfuscated.
 A commonly held view – which is, however, sometimes only tacitly or
vaguely conveyed – is that a comparison theory necessarily treats be-form
metaphors as if they were the corresponding similes. Under such a view of
comparison theories, a theory treats ‘Businesses are dictatorships’ as if it
were the corresponding simile ‘Businesses are like dictatorships’ (or at
least this happens under suitable conditions, such as ‘dictatorship’ not
having a relevant entrenched metaphorical meaning). That is, intuitively,
the comparison theory treats the metaphor as an elliptical form of the
simile. Miller (1979, 381) says that ‘understanding [a be-form] metaphor
requires the reinsertion of ‘is like…’ Glucksberg (2001) says that according
to comparison theory metaphors are essentially ‘implicit similes‘. Chiappe,
Kennedy and Smykowski (2003) assume that comparison theory treats
metaphor as elliptical simile. Fogelin (2011) puts forward an elliptical-
simile view of metaphor, though he is cautious in that he feels that instead
of thinking explicitly of metaphor as elliptical simile it is clearer and more
productive to claim that a be-form metaphor means figuratively what the
corresponding simile means figuratively.

Now, an ellipsis-based view of comparison theory naturally leads to

assuming that when a comparison process is involved in understanding ‘T
is/are S,’ the process is the same as the comparison process involved in
understanding ‘T is/are like S.’ This assumption has been used in the C/C
debate as a weapon against comparison theories of be-form metaphor. This
is because some experimental results show that a be-form metaphor can
have different effects from the corresponding simile (with ‘effect’ being as
at the end of Section 2): so, the argument goes, the metaphor cannot
involve comparison.

However, the debate has appeared to overlook a simple but crucial

observation, viz: the mere fact that two different linguistic forms are both
understood through comparison in no way implies that the two comparison
processes are the same or even particularly similar to each other. Thus, it is
perfectly open to a comparison theory to propose that a simile and its
corresponding be-form metaphor lead to markedly different forms of
comparison in the understander’s mind. I call such a theory a Different-
Comparison theory. It is notable that the debate is sparse on discussion of
this possibility. What seems to have happened is that because people (on
both sides of the debate) have intuitively viewed comparison theories as
saying that be-form metaphor is elliptical simile, they have been tacitly led
to the erroneous conclusion that in a comparison theory the two forms must
obviously involve the same comparison process. I will call this type of
theory a Same-Comparison theory.

It is not my task to support or attack either of these two forms of

comparison theory. Rather, the point is that ellipsis-based presumptions
about comparison theory have led to certain unfortunate consequences in
the C/C debate.

The first unfortunate consequence is that, through neglect of the

Different-Comparison possibility, psychological experiments have been
given unwarranted interpretations as favouring categorization accounts or
as favouring comparison accounts. For example, some experiments have
indicated that somewhat different sets of features of T and/or S are
mentally activated by a be-form metaphor as opposed to its corresponding
simile. As an illustration, when the source term is ‘a shark’ as in ‘My dog is
[like] a shark,’ a simile is more likely than metaphor to activate lower-level
(e.g., more physical) features of sharks such as swimming, instead of
activating, or as well as activating, higher-level (e.g., more abstract)
features such as aggressiveness. This result has been used as evidence that
the be-form metaphor is not understood by comparison (Glucksberg 2001).
But, of course, the result in no way provides such evidence unless it is
shown that if a comparison process were to be used for the be-form
metaphor it would be the same process as for the simile; or unless it is
shown that, even if different comparison processes are involved, their
particular differences are not adequate to explain the particular feature-
activation differences found. So, clearly, while the experimental results are
indeed a challenge to Same-Comparison theories, they are much less of a
challenge to Different-Comparison theories.

As another example, some experiments have unearthed form

preferences (see the list of ‘effects’ above). These have been adduced as
evidence that people prefer categorization to comparison in understanding
be-form metaphor under certain conditions (see, e.g., Chiappe, Kennedy, &
Smykowski 2003; Glucksberg & Haught 2006; Jones & Estes 2006). But, it
could be that under those conditions people prefer a particular comparison
process to another, rather than preferring a categorization process to a
comparison process.

There are further unfortunate consequences of ellipsis-based

assumptions about comparison theory. Even under a Same-Comparison
theory, an elliptical view of metaphor cannot seriously mean that
understanders actually convert the metaphor into the corresponding simile,
i.e., convert between surface forms in their minds. For one thing,
considerable linguistic processing, involving at least syntactic analysis and
possibly more, might well be needed to see where to place the word ‘like’
into the sequence of words making up the surface form of a be-form
metaphor in order to convert it into the corresponding simile. This can
easily be seen if the T and S terms are themselves syntactically complex –
for example, the metaphor might be ‘The lawyer who is dealing with
David’s divorce is in my opinion a marauding shark, or worse.’ Finding
where to insert ‘like’ here is a syntactically complex task. Thus, in reality,
the intended equivalence between the be-form metaphor and its
corresponding simile must surely be at a deeper level of
representation/processing of the utterances. Despite this point itself being
rather obvious, the following simple consequences of it appear not actually
to have been seen in the debate.

Under a Same-Comparison theory, there is by definition a comparison

process Comp(T,S) such that both ‘T is/are like S’ and ‘T is/are S’ (when
taken as possibly being a be-form metaphor rather than a literal statement)
lead by certain utter-ance-processing routes to Comp(T,S). Let us call these
routes the ‘pre-processing’ routes. Now, because both routes both lead to
Comp(T,S), they must first converge either at Comp(T,S) itself or at some
earlier common representation or process. And, importantly, this point must
be deeper than surface form if we are to avoid supposing that the
understander converts between surface forms. (See Figure 1.) So, the
portions of the pre-processing routes up to the convergence point are
necessarily non-empty and necessarily different. Moreover, there may be
different ‘side-processing’ hanging off those route portions (see the
Figure): i.e., the side-processing does not of itself form part of the
processing leading up to the convergence point, but is just additional
processing arising in some way from the original utterance, or from some
interim processing result later in the pre-processing route. For example, one
major possibility for side-processing in the be-form metaphor case is that
the understander might be investigating, also, whether a categorization of T
within the literal S category is possible or useful.
Figure 1.

Processing in a Same-Comparison theory

Now, the debate has been largely blind to the question of where the
convergence point of the two pre-processing routes is, because of naively
thinking of the metaphor being processed via the simile form – i.e. as if the
convergence point were the simile form itself. So, the point about the simile
and its corresponding metaphor leading to necessarily different pre-
processing, and possibly different side-processing also, has been missed.
But these differences could in principle seriously compromise the
interpretation of experiments that allegedly pit comparison against
categorization theory. For example, processing time differences could be
affected by differences in the pre- and side-processing. So processing time
differences between a simile and its corresponding metaphor do not show
that they are not both using comparison (or not both using categorization).

Equally, the question of exactly where the convergence point of the

two processing routes in a Same-Comparison theory is – is it at Comp(T,S)
itself, or earlier? – and the question how that location could effect the
interpretation of experiments, have not been considered.

4. Towards an alternative battlefield

Partly as a result of the above analyses, I suggest that there are various
dimensions of potential variation between and within accounts of the
understanding of simile and metaphor that should be considered – at least
as an addition to, but quite possibly a replacement for, the
categorization/comparison distinction (C/C distinction). Amongst the new
dimensions are Target/Source Contribution Disparity, Target/Source
Mediator-Preservation Degree, and Target/Source Mediator-Carefulness.
These new dimensions are, I suggest, more sharply definable than the C/C
distinction is, though they themselves remain to be sharpened further, in
future work. Also, I suggest that they are often more directly and clearly
related to the experimental results than the C/C distinction is. This is both
because the dimensions intrinsically cut across the C/C distinction and
because there are reasons to think that the experimental effects can often be
explained by where an account lies on the dimensions, irrespective of
whether it uses comparison or categorization. The suspicion is that for a
particular point in the space of possibilities that is defined by the
dimensions, either a suitably framed comparison theory or a suitably
framed categorization theory could lie at that point.

4.1 Target/Source contribution disparity

In either a simile ‘T is/are like S’ or its corresponding be-form metaphor ‘T

is/are S,’ the understanding process is obviously affected both by T and by
S. The question in this subsection is about the particular ways in which T
and S contribute to parts of the process of understanding, according to
comparison and categorization theories. I will focus on what is involved in
working out what I will call the ‘mediator.’ The mediator in the case of
comparison is the similarity or analogy that is found, and in the case of
categorization it is the superordinate category found. In this subsection I
will not be addressing the remaining parts of the understanding process,
notably what happens as a result of finding the mediator, such as proposing
new conjectures about T.

The intuition beyond the word ‘mediator’ is that it mediates between

the relevant literal meaning of T and the relevant literal meaning of S. But
be careful to note that the word ‘mediator’ does not embody an assumption
that the literal meaning of S is actually accessed in understanding: it may or
may not be, according to the particular theory at hand and to the particular
circumstances. For instance, in the case of an expression S that is
frequently used in a particular metaphorical way, it may be that only a
superordinate category S* or other sort of entrenched metaphorical
meaning is accessed from memory when understanding a metaphor T is S,
the literal meaning being bypassed entirely. But I still call S* a mediator
because it is superordinate to the literal meanings of both S and T.

Our specific question about the contributions of T and S to the

mediator-finding will be about the possible quantitative and qualitative
similarities or disparities between those contributions. That is, do T and S
affect the process to roughly the same degree, or is the process markedly
more dependent on S, say? Do T and S affect the process in qualitatively
the same way or in markedly different ways? It will be important to keep in
mind that the nature of the contribution of T or S to mediator-finding in a
particular case could depend (under a particular theory) on the particular T
and S involved, on the grammatical form (simile or be-form), and on
contextual factors.

Now, there is a highly salient contrast between existing comparison

and categorization accounts as regards the contributions of T and S to
mediator-finding. Comparison theories have assumed much more equality
between T and S than categorization theories have. Notably, in accounts
based on SMT or something like it, and therefore in the Career of Metaphor
theory as a salient example, the finding of a partial structured analogy
between the T concept and the literal S concept is completely symmetrical:
the same mappings (in reversed form) would be found if T and S were
interchanged. In this sense, T and S contribute equally to the mediator-
finding (i.e., the computation of the mappings), both quantitatively and
qualitatively. Wolff & Gentner (2011) use this symmetry to account for
their experimental findings that forward and reversed versions of highly
directional metaphors are rated equally comprehensible at an early stage of
processing, but unequally later. The later inequality arises from the strong
asymmetry in the stage of their model that follows mediator-finding,
namely the stage of positing candidate inferences about the target, based on
unmapped parts of the source. In contrast, in existing categorization
theories, the finding of the mediator, i.e. the superordinate category S*,
uses S and T very differently: it basically proceeds by modification of the
literal S category or by accessing some existing superordinate of S, under
some guidance from T and context. For example, Glucksberg (2001)
proposes that ‘topic dimensions’ arising from T and context guide the S*
access/ construction. T has a less detailed and more filter-like influence
than S has. If T and S were interchanged, a very different superordinate
might be found. This consequence could indeed, as has been claimed, help
to explain what happens when metaphors or similes are reversed
(Glucksberg 2001). A comparison theory whose comparison process is
symmetrical needs to appeal to other aspects of understanding to explain
reversal effects, aspects such as the transfer of unmapped information from
S to T (cf. the candidate inferences mentioned above).

But this contrast between comparison and categorization theories is

not a necessary one. It is just a feature of particular theories that happen to
have been proposed. There’s no reason in principle why an analogy-finding
process cannot treat T and S very differently. For example, analogy-finding
might have more tolerance for leaving out information on one side than on
the other, given that usually only a partial analogy will be found in any
case. As another suggestion, what specific analogy is found may depend on
whether the process is guided by looking first at target features or looking
first at source features (or looking at them in parallel). These two
possibilities for asymmetry in analogy-finding are just in-principle ones,
amongst many others, and I do not claim that there is evidence that they
apply: the point is rather that an experimental effect (such as a change in
what T and S features are activated occurring when a simile or be-form
metaphor is reversed) does not show that comparison is not the process
being used, but at most that a symmetrical form of comparison is not the
process being used – and it may not even show that.

Conversely, there’s no reason in principle why a categorization

process that finds a common superordinate for two categories T and S, such
as businesses and dictatorships, cannot be completely symmetrical. There is
nothing about categorization in itself that dictates that T and S should be
treated disparately. It is merely a special assumption of existing
categorization theories that they are. It could be this assumed disparity,
rather than categorization as such, that is responsible for certain
experimental results. This would apply most obviously to the results of
experiments about changes in meaning or understandability when be-form
metaphors are reversed (see, e.g., Campbell & Katz 2006; Chiappe,
Kennedy & Smykowski 2003; Glucksberg 2001). And similar effects could
potentially be predicted by an asymmetrical comparison theory.

People’s form preferences could also be affected by the extent/type of

T/S contribution disparity involved in a comparison or categorization
process. For example, suppose both simile and be-form metaphor are
handled by comparison, but by using different versions of comparison.
Suppose one of the comparison processes treats T and S equally, but the
other treats them very disparately in some way. Let us call these the ‘equal’
and ‘disparate’ comparison processes respectively. The disparate process
will be differently appropriate according to which way round a simile or
be-form metaphor is, whereas the equal version will be less affected by
this. Hence, if, say, the disparate process is used by the understander for be-
form metaphor but the equal version for simile, then his/her preferences
will be more affected by reversals in the metaphor case than in the simile
case.

In sum, the extent and type of Target/Source Contribution Disparity is

itself a central feature of a theory of simile and/or metaphor, and can
contribute to the effects studied in experiments in the C/C debate. It can
contribute in ways independent of whether the underlying process is one of
comparison or categorization.

4.2 Target/Source mediator-preservation degree

Does the main information that an understander gleans from a T/S simile or
be-form metaphor consist only of some information about T in its own righ
(e.g. that businesses are non-consensually run, in the
businesses/dictatorship case), or does it also include the mediator itself, e.g
the analogy found between businesses and dictatorships, or a superordinate
category S* covering them both? To put it another way, is the mediator
merely a stepping-stone towards information about T in its own right, or is
it itself preserved as part of the meaning of the utterance?

We can put the issue a little more precisely and usefully as follows.
When understanders have understood a T/S simile or be-form metaphor,
they presumably have derived some information about T from the
utterance, and/or have cognitively highlighted some already known aspects
of T. I will call either of these cases the ‘comment’ on T that they have
derived from the utterance via the mediator. For some period (which may
or may not extend for an appreciable time beyond the time of
understanding the utterance) this T-comment will be active in the
understander’s mind. The question now is whether the understanding
process preserves the mediator itself in the sense of making it keep a
comparably high level of activity during that period, or whether it allows
the mediator activation to drop away once the comment on T is determined

I thus identify the extent of ‘[target/source] mediator preservation’ as

another dimension of variation between and within theories of simile and
be-form metaphor (and indeed other types of metaphor). Main issues about
the dimension include that of

1. whether simile and be-form metaphor generally differ as regards

mediator-preservation, or under what conditions they differ if ever;

2. whether similes differ amongst themselves on the extent of mediator-

preservation;

3. similarly, whether be-form metaphors do; and

4. whether comparison or categorization accounts have anything

helpfully different from each other to say about mediator-preservation
 (in simile and/or be-form metaphor).

Now, if the answers to (i), (ii) and (iii) were No – i.e., the extent of
mediator-preservation were constant both between simile and be-form
metaphor and between different similes/metaphors – then there would be
little virtue in considering the dimension. But there are reasons to think that
the three answers are all Yes, as I will show in the following. As for (iv), I
will suggest a No answer in the course of the discussion.

Taking (i) first, simile arguably can be expected in most discourse

contexts to have a stronger mediator-preservation tendency than (be-form)
metaphor has, for a given T and S. More precisely, there is good reason to
think that simile normally preserves the mediator, whereas there is no
particular reason to think that be-form metaphor normally does so. This
conjecture arises from considering what the simile and corresponding
metaphor apparently mean. This apparently-meaning is related to
something that has been a major factor in the C/C debate, with various
theorists putting weight on the idea that a be-form metaphor appears by its
very form to assert a categorization. Some authors then appeal to a
principle of ‘grammatical concordance’ (the name used by Bowdle &
Gentner 2005) to suggest that the apparent assertion of a categorization
should be taken seriously to suggest that a process of categorization is
actually used in understanding.

My own view, however, is as follows. A simile apparently means that

T and S, taken literally, are alike, in some contextually relevant sense that
the understander is meant to uncover. The corresponding metaphor
apparently means that T is categorized under S, taken literally. But,
crucially, it is only in the simile case that reality matches appearance: the
understander does indeed normally take the simile to mean that T and
literal S are in fact alike in certain respects. But, by contrast, in the case of
the corresponding metaphor the understander does not, of course, normally
take the utterance to mean that T is in fact categorized under the literal S. 1
Certainly, under a categorization account, a crucial intuition is that the
understander does take the utterance to claim that T is to be categorized
under some category, namely the chosen superordinate S*. So there is a real
categorization – but still it is not the particular categorization apparently
stated by the sentence. And of course under a comparison account the
utterance is not taken actually to assert a categorization at all.

Thus, in the case of be-form metaphor, under either a categorization

account or a comparison account the understander takes the utterance
actually to mean something markedly different from what it apparently
means – so the mediator, which is a contribution to determining the actual
meaning, is part of a departure from the apparent meaning. But in the case
of the corresponding simile the understander takes the utterance actually to
mean what it apparently means, and the mediator merely elaborates the
idea that the target and source are alike, an idea that is actually meant by
the utterance.

We see from this that the mediator plays very different roles in be-
form metaphor and in simile. Since a simile really does mean that there is a
likeness between source and target, and the mediator portrays in detail what
this likeness is (as far as the understander can see), there seems to be no
good reason for the understander not to take the mediator to be part of the
meaning. On the other hand, in the case of the corresponding metaphor,
there is no particular reason for the understander to take the mediator itself
to be part of the meaning as opposed to being merely a way of getting to
the meaning – the derived comment about T.

Note carefully that this argument does not show that the mediator
cannot be or should not be part of the meaning in the metaphor case, but
merely that there is (normally) no pressure for it to be so. However, I argue
elsewhere (Barnden 2010) that the mediator can be part of the meaning in
some cases, and indeed that sometimes it is very difficult to see how the
understander could intuitively understand the utterance without including
the mediator in the meaning. So the claims above are about defaults: the
default in the simile case is plausibly that the mediator is part of the
meaning, the default in the be-form metaphor case is plausibly that it is not.

Our argumentation has been about meaning rather than directly about
the extent to which the cognitive activation of the mediator is preserved.
But it at least suggests that with a simile there will be more of a tendency
for the activation of the mediator to be maintained than in the
corresponding metaphor.

A further word about the statement above that a simile means that the
literal T and S are in fact alike. The metaphor/simile literature is full of
claims that simile only states a figurative comparison, as opposed to a
literal one such as a comparison between apples and pears (see, e.g.,
Glucksberg 2001). But this can only be taken as a comment on the
particular sort of likeness that is at issue: in either case a likeness is in fact
being claimed. In simile, whatever likeness is at issue and irrespective of
whether this makes the comparison ‘figurative’ or ‘literal,’ there is literally
a likeness, according to the utterance. The utterance is literal insofar as it
claims S and T are alike: the use of ‘alike’ here is literal, not figurative!

As for questions (ii) and (iii), I will take them together and consider
novel T/S pairings versus familiar ones, irrespective of whether T and S are
in a simile or in a be-form metaphor. The more familiar the pairing, the less
reason the understander has to suppose that the utterance is pointing out a
comparison or categorization for its own sake rather than just using the
comparison or categorization to comment on T; hence the less useful it is to
keep the mediator (comparison result or superordinate category) in mind
along with the comment on T. Going in the other direction, the more novel
the pairing, the more natural it is to suppose that the utterance is not only
commenting on T but also pointing out an unfamiliar linkage between T
and the literal S.

As for question (iv), the comparison/categorization distinction appears

tangential to the mediator-preservation dimension and therefore misses an
important issue. There does not appear to be anything about comparison or
categorization that would differently affect the extent to which a mediator
is preserved. Yet the extent of mediator-preservation could strongly
influence some of the types of effect studied in experiments within the C/C
debate. But if mediator-preservation degree is itself affecting experimental
results, the difference between comparison and categorization as such is
beside the point. There are several respects in which mediator-preservation
might contribute to the experimental effects, but I will concentrate on some
that are bound up with the third dimension to be considered, in the next
subsection. Other, independent, contributions will be set out elsewhere.

4.3 Mediator carefulness

The dimension discussed here is the extent to which the understanding

process is careful in working out the mediator. Carefulness could cover the
amount of effort put in, the exactitude versus approximativeness of the
processing, the extent to which different alternatives are tried out, the
fullness of an analogy found in a comparison process, the basis on which
the process determines that it has adequately succeeded, and so forth.

It is reasonable to suppose that the degree of mediator-preservation

correlates positively with the degree of mediator-carefulness. In particular,
if the mediator is preserved because it is taken to be part of the meaning as
opposed to being just a stepping-stone to meaning, then the understander
can be expected to be more careful in working it out. Equally, the more care
that goes into working out the mediator, the more it can be expected to stay
activated along with the T-comment.

Therefore, in the case of a metaphor in which there is little or no

inclination to include the mediator in the meaning, as Section 4.2 hinted
will often be the case, the understanding process is more easily satisfiable
just by finding any mediator that works well enough: i.e., is good enough
for the discourse purposes at hand concerning finding some relevant
comment on T.

Thus, we would expect, as a broad generalization, that vague, loose,

quickly-derived mediators are more acceptable in be-form metaphor than in
simile. This could help to explain why be-form metaphor sometimes
involves less attention than simile does to the literal S (Glucksberg 2001),
in that less careful processing is likely to concentrate on more generally
applicable features than on investigating peculiarities of the literal S.

Higher mediator-carefulness in understanding a simile or be-form

metaphor could lead to a new attempt to find a mediator between T and S,
even if a known one is already available – e.g., even if there is a known S*
within which T can readily be put. This could easily help to explain why a
simile can lead to different interpretations from its corresponding metaphor
even for a conventional T/S pairing (Glucksberg & Haught 2006). (Recall
here from Section 3 the claim that simile tends to appeal to lower-level
features – such as swimming in the ‘My dog is [like] a shark’ example –
more than metaphor does, with metaphor tending to focus on higher-level
features such as aggressiveness). That is, to the extent that the simile
encourages mediator preservation and therefore mediator carefulness, it
will encourage a fuller attempt to find a mediator.

Given such links to experimental effects studied in the C/C debate, I

propose that a central feature of simile/metaphor theories should be the
particular way that the amount of care taken over finding a mediator is
influenced by the particular T and S, by the form of the utterance (simile
form versus be-form) and by context. But again, the dimension cuts across
the comparison/categorization distinction. Either type of process can be
arbitrarily careless or careful. So, the C/C distinction misses the point.

5. An example of the application of the dimensions

Here I illustrate the usefulness of our three dimensions by showing how

they illuminate the nature of a particular cognitive-modelling framework
for simile/ metaphor understanding. The framework is that of Utsumi
(2011). It includes precise, simple, algorithms Compa and Categ that he
proposes as a way of modelling the comparison and categorization
approaches to metaphor respectively, as a contribution to the C/C debate.
Owing to space limitations I can only summarize my observations here. I
spell them out in detail in Barnden (2012).

As Barnden (2012) makes clear, the two algorithms are in essence

very similar, differing only in the precise details of how they select features
that are considered to be related to target and source and how they use
those features to construct a metaphorical meaning.

In the framework within which the algorithms operate, utterance

meanings and concepts known to the system are represented as high-
dimensional numerical vectors. So the target and source concepts T and S
are represented as such vectors. Also, a collection of vectors can be
regarded as providing a new concept, by averaging their vectors to form a
new vector. There is a notion of closeness of concepts, based on the angle
between their vectors. The Categ and Compa algorithms proceed as
follows. The processing in each case can be regarded as first finding a
mediator and then applying the mediator to construct a metaphorical
meaning.

Categ finds the m known concepts closest to S (m being a parameter

set by the researcher). Amongst those concepts, it finds the k that are
closest to T (k being another parameter). The average of these k concepts
can be taken as encoding the superordinate category S* in the
categorization approach. That category is the mediator in our terms. Notice
that the finding of the mediator is highly asymmetrical with respect to S
and T – the result would normally be very different if they were
interchanged. The k vectors are then used to provide a metaphorical
meaning by averaging them together with the S and T vectors. But note that
this can be reframed as finding a suitably weighted average of the mediator
vector and the S and T vectors. This application of the mediator to find a
metaphorical meaning is completely symmetrical in S and T – it would not
matter if they were interchanged. (This symmetry is a questionable feature
of the algorithm, but we will take it as it stands.)

Compa, on the other hand, finds (at least) k ‘common neighbours’ of S

and T. It does this by taking larger and larger ‘neighbourhoods’ of vectors
close to S and T – starting with the closest vectors to S and moving
outwards, similarly for T – until the intersection of the S neighbourhood
and the T neighbourhood has at least k vectors. This process is completely
symmetrical in S and T. The vectors found are deemed to be the common
neighbours, and are regarded as features that S and T have in common. In
our terms, either the vectors collectively or their average can be regarded as
the mediator. A metaphorical meaning is obtained by taking the average of
the vectors with T (but not S). This application of the mediator is highly
asymmetrical in S and T.

Despite Utsumi’s own view of the algorithms, it is a highly subjective

and disputable act to construe one of them as doing categorization and the
other as doing comparison. Why shouldn’t the k vectors found by Compa
be taken to define a superordinate category, just as the k vectors found by
Categ are? Conversely, why shouldn’t the k vectors found by Categ be
regarded as encoding the result of a comparison of S and T, just as the k
vectors found by Compa are? The alleged contrast depends largely on
construing the features that Compa selects as being common neighbours of
target and source but refraining from adopting this construal in the case of
Categ. However, Barnden (2012) throws considerable doubt on the validity
of this divergence of construal. What can be established much more clearly
and objectively than whether the algorithms achieve comparison or
categorization is the positioning of the two algorithms on the three
dimensions above. In brief, Compa has zero contribution disparity in the
calculation of the mediator (because of the symmetry noted above) but a
high degree of disparity in the way the mediator is applied to construct the
metaphorical meaning (because of the asymmetry noted above). Categ is
the other way round: it has a high degree of disparity in mediator
calculation but no disparity in the use of the mediator to construct a
metaphorical meaning. Compa is considerably more careful in finding the
mediator than Categ is, partly through Compa’s use of a relatively
elaborate, incremental process of finding common neighbours of target and
source. On the other hand, both algorithms have a moderately high degree
of mediator-preservation. This is because the metaphorical meaning in each
case is in fact a distorted version of the mediator.
 A further observation is that many detailed variations of the Compa
and Categ algorithms could be proposed that would vary their amounts of
contribution disparity, mediator preservation and carefulness in many
different ways and to different extents. In particular, mixtures of or
compromises between the algorithms can easily be imagined, and would
make it even more difficult to usefully and uncontentiously label a resulting
algorithm as doing either comparison or categorization. Indeed, the
algorithms actually lie on a rich continuum of possible algorithms. For
example, Compa averages the mediator vectors together with the vector
describing the target, whereas Categ averages the mediator vectors together
with both the target vector and the vector describing the source. But in
principle there could be any weighting of the target and source in doing
such averaging.

This point contributes to casting doubt on the usefulness of the notions

of comparison and categorization for distinguishing between algorithms on
the continuum. By contrast, the amounts and types of disparity, mediator
preservation and carefulness of any algorithm on the continuum would
remain precisely describable, and the dimensions would therefore be better
placed to act as independent variables in experimental cognitive modeling
based on the continuum.

6. Conclusion

The comparison/categorization battle, as currently framed, is misguided.

There is an alternative to the battle, or at least there is a more pressing,
immediately relevant battle: one to be waged within a theoretical space
defined by various dimensions that cut across comparison and
categorization. This article has proposed three particular dimensions:
Target/Source Contribution Disparity, Target/Source Mediator Preservation
Degree, and Target/Source Mediator Carefulness. But there could be others
The nature of the three dimensions discussed requires further work – the
claim is not that they are yet as sharply defined as they need to be, but
rather that they are the start of a better basis for systematic investigation of
the relevant understanding processes than the notions of comparison and
categorization are.

Moreover, I do not claim that theories should not be framed in terms

of comparison and/or categorization. Rather, if they are, then they need to
be more careful about the detailed nature of the proposed comparison and
categorization. And the theories may most fruitfully be able to account for
experimental results not in a direct way but instead indirectly: via the way
in which the specific proposed comparison and categorization processes
range along the dimensions under the influence of utterance form, the
particular source and target, and context.

The influences just mentioned are in part a function of the particular

communicative context and background as opposed to stable linguistic
features of the simile or metaphor at hand or cognitive matters private to
the understander. Notably, the degree of Mediator Preservation can be
expected to be influenced by the understander’s perception of whether the
speaker herself is intending to point out a target/source similarity or merely
to say something about the target. This matter is in part to do with how
novel the understander takes the particular target/source pairing to be,
which is itself a matter of a peculiarly communicative matter (the history of
the use of that target and source in past communications the understander
has been involved in). But there could be other types of clue in the specific
current discourse as to what the speaker’s intentions are. Also,
independently of these influences, the degree of Mediator Carefulness can
be expected to be affected by how carefully the understander perceives the
speaker herself to be thinking about the mediator, notably through the
extent of detail she gives as to why she has paired the particular target and
source.

Acknowledgments
The research in this article was supported in part by Research Project Grant F/00 094/BE from the
Leverhulme Trust in the UK. It derived from work supported by grant EP/C538943/1 from the
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in the UK. I have benefitted from discussion
with Mihaela Popa, Robyn Carston and Dedre Gentner.

Notes

1. Insofar as the understander might take the utterance to assert a categorization under the literal S,
as in the special case of a “twice-true” metaphor, that categorization would be a separate
interpretation, not an aspect of the metaphorical interpretation.

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 Taste synaesthesias
Linguistic features and
neurophysiological bases
Irene Ronga
University of Turin

Taste synaesthesias are metaphorical expressions composed of a taste-related head and a

modifier related to a different sensory modality (e.g. ‘delicate taste’). By employing an

interdisciplinary approach, combining corpus linguistics with neurophysiology, it is shown

that taste synaesthesias are grounded in the actual experience of tasting food. As indicated

by several neurophysiological studies, the sensation of flavour is deeply influenced by

olfactory and somatosensory inputs (i.e. stimuli related to touch and to the perception of

temperature and pain). The analysis of an original corpus of food and drink-related

marketing texts highlighted that synaesthetic pairings parallel gustatory perception in a

specific fashion, showing different associative patterns in association with the referents

described.

Key words

synaesthesia; corpus linguistics; gustatory perception; metaphor

1. Introduction

1.1 Linguistic synaesthesia

Synaesthesia is the pairing of words referring to different sensory

modalities (cf. Cacciari 1999, 2005), such as ‘bright sound’. They are
considered to be metaphors, since they extend the meaning of an utterance
from one sensory modality to another, through an analogy (cf. Williams
1976; Taylor 1995). Importantly, synaesthesias are common in everyday
language and they are widespread in advertising and marketing related texts
(cf., e.g., Holz 2007). Effectively describing a scent or a flavour would be
extremely difficult without employing synaesthesias, which allow the
speaker to characterize a specific sensory experience, metaphorically, by
means of another one. Therefore, a subjective perception may be
communicated in a more effective way, enriched by a stronger explicative
power thanks to the connection to different sensory domains. In a way, the
communicative properties of synaesthesias appear to be based directly on
their cognitive dimension. Thus highlighting a mutual relationship between
cognitive mechanisms, such as gustatory perception, and the
communicative aim of these metaphorical expressions (§3.2–3.3).
Linguistic synaesthesia has to be distinguished from perceptual
synaesthesia, a condition experienced by a minority of individuals (i.e.
synaesthetes), where a stimulus in a given sensory modality automatically
triggers a perception in a different modality (cf. e.g. Ramachandran &
Hubbard 2003; Ramachandran et al. 2004; Cytowic 2002; Cytowic &
Eagleman 2009, 5 and ff.; Simner 2011). In fact the two synaesthetic
phenomena are very different. Perceptual synaesthesia is genetically
inherited (cf. Galton 1880 and Hancock 2006 for research on twins; Asher
et al. 2009) and automatic (synaesthetic perceptions are triggered by
sensory stimulation and usually cannot be controlled by the synaesthete).
Linguistic synaesthesia, which is the focus of the present study, is instead a
voluntary association of words, referring to different sensory domains (see
also Cytowic & Eagleman 2009, 172).

In most cases, synaesthetic expressions are composed of a head

(usually a noun) and a modifier (an adjective). Taste synaesthesias are
composed of a taste-related head (such as ‘taste’, ‘flavour’, etc.) and a
modifier related to a different sensory modality (adjectives such as ‘cool’,
‘soft’, ‘bright’, etc.). Examples of taste synaesthesias are ‘delicate taste’
(touch-taste), ‘cool flavour’ (perception of temper-ature-taste), ‘soft taste’
(touch-taste) and ‘bright taste’ (vision-taste).

Cognitive linguistics grounds conceptual structure in interactions

between our body and the environment (cf. e.g. Hampe 2005; Gibbs 2005;
Evans et al. 2007; Barsalou 2008). Within this perspective, metaphors are
considered to be experience-based (cf. e.g. Lakoff & Johnson 1980;
Johnson 1987; Indurkhiya 1992; Bazzanella 1999, 2009). This theoretical
framework accords a major role to synaesthesias, which highlight the close
connection between language and perception.

The aim of the present study is to verify whether linguistic taste

synaesthesias are arbitrary, casual pairings, or whether, instead, they
represent an instance of embodied metaphors, grounded on actual gustatory
experiences. The latter is plausible since an interdisciplinary approach that
combines corpus linguistics with a neurophysiological perspective has
shown that most taste synaesthesias originate from the semantic extension
of taste-related heads from the taste sensory domain to the set of
perceptions that may happen in the mouth. The more crucial certain sensory
inputs are in affecting gustatory perceptions, the more their lexical
realizations are associated with taste-related words. This finding is relevant
since it indicates that taste synaesthetic pairings are embodied 1 (Gibbs
2005). In other words, heads and modifiers composing synaesthetic
expressions are not randomly associated, but parallel the experience of
tasting food. Importantly, taste synaesthesias are not associated with a
generic common model of gustatory experience. Instead, they seem to be
grounded in different specific patterns, according to the referents they
describe (see Section 3.2 below)
 With regard to the universality of synaesthesia, several linguistic
studies (e.g. Ullmann 1957; Williams 1976; Day 1996; Shen & Cohen
1998; Yu 2003; Shen & Gil 2008) have pointed out that not all synaesthetic
pairings have the same probability of occurring. In fact, some synaesthetic
pairings are common and widespread across languages, such as the ones
between auditory heads and visual modifiers (e.g. ‘bright sound’), whereas
others are rare (for example, pairings between a taste head and a colour
modifier, e.g. ‘yellow taste’). Yet, in spite of the difficulty to demonstrate
the universality of a linguistic phenomenon (for a critical analysis of
studies presented so far, cf. Ronga et al. 2012), the presence of a
widespread inter-linguistic tendency for preferential synaesthetic pairings
makes the hypothesis of an experiential grounding of synaestestic
metaphors more likely (see also Shibuya et al. 2007, 216–217; Ronga et al.
2012).

1.2 Taste: A few words for a complex experience

Analysing the English sensory lexicon, Ullmann (1957, 266 ff.) noted that,
compared to vision, audition and touch, taste and olfaction appeared to be
poorly lexicalized. This finding has been confirmed by several recent
linguistic studies (cf. e.g. Williams 1976 on the English sensory lexicon;
Shybuya et al. 2007 on olfaction words in English; Monopoli & Cacciari
2009 on sensory words in Italian). However, although from a linguistic
point of view, the taste domain may appear small and less differentiated
than other sensory domains (Ullmann 1957, 266), from the
neurophysiological perspective, taste perception is a complex phenomenon,
involving different sensory modalities (for a review, cf. Verhagen &
Engelen 2006). The sensation of flavour in the mouth results “from a
combination of gustatory, olfactory and somatosensory inputs” (Kandel et
al. 2000, 644).

Odorants play a crucial role in generating taste sensations: for

example, without olfaction, it would be impossible to distinguish between
wine and apple juice (e.g. Elder & Krishna 2010). Furthermore, odours
may increase taste intensities (Frank et al. 1989) and vice versa (cf. e.g.
Bonnans & Noble 1993; Stampanoni 1995). Interestingly, taste-odour
interactions are stronger when the two sensory inputs are congruent (e.g. a
sweet tastant paired with a fruity odorant – Verhagen & Engelen 2006, 618;
Schifferstein & Verlegh 1996).

Similarly, the temperature and the specific texture of the food may
modulate the resulting taste (de Araujo & Rolls 2004). Krishna & Morrin
(2008) demonstrated that the haptic qualities of the glasses from which
beverages were drunk could affect subjects’ taste perception (c.f. also Elder
& Krishna 2010, 749 ff.). Furthermore, substances present in food or
beverages may be able to chemically activate tongue receptors, thus
mimicking the sensation of freshness (as menthol does) or warmth (as
capsaicin – the chilli compound responsible for pungency – does), and
therefore generating a ‘cool’ or ‘hot’ taste (Giovanni Appendino, personal
communication).

By analysing taste-related synaesthesias, it is possible to understand

how speakers describe a complex gustatory experience, which actually
results from inputs related to different sensory modalities. This analysis
will reveal which other lexical domains are involved in linguistic
descriptions of taste, to compensate for the lack of taste-related lexicon. In
this chapter, data from a corpus of food and drink-related marketing texts
will be presented and discussed (§2.2 Results). It will be shown that taste is
mainly described metaphorically and some interpretations of this
phenomenon will be proposed (§3. Metaphors of taste).

2. A corpus-based analysis of taste synaesthesias

2.1 The corpus

The main aim of the research was to find the largest possible number of
taste synaesthetic pairings. For this reason, texts related to gastronomy and
wine were selected and a corpus of around one million tokens was
collected. The texts collected were in Italian. Taste synaesthesias were
gathered from wine magazines, cookery books, and from Internet sites that
advertised or sold tea, wine, and cheese (for the list and the description of
the sources, see Table 1).

Table 1. Corpus sources

Texts sources Description

Cucina&Vini (n. July-August 2009) Food and wine magazine for nonprofessional readers.
La Cucina Italiana Grande dizionario Recipe book for nonprofessional readers.
enciclopedico vol. 1, 2009
Enciclopedia del vino – I vini dolci Wine book for nonprofessional readers.
(Gribaudo Publications, 2009)
La birra (Mondadori Publications) Beer book for nonprofessional readers.
40 Internet sites of tea companies Internet sites which advertise and sell tea.
(e.g.www.teatime.it; www.twinings.it)
www.formaggio.it (and other internet Official advertising site of Italian cheese varieties and
sites advertising and selling cheese) other sites advertising and selling cheese.

The texts collected were generally product descriptions (e.g. the description
of tea tastes and flavours found on the Twinings web site). Special attention
was given to the readers to whom these texts were addressed. Since the
focus of the analysis was ordinary language, technical terms (especially the
specific terminology used by sommeliers) were excluded. Therefore, only
texts addressed to nonprofessional readers and possible purchasers were
considered.

Each pairing of words composed of a taste head and a modifier

referring to a different sensory modality was considered as an occurrence o
a taste synaesthesia. Sensory specific lexica were identified through
dictionary analyses. Furthermore, fifty Italian mother-tongue speakers
conclusively assessed the sensory modality of heads and most modifiers.
Subjects had to fill in a questionnaire where they had to categorize some
sensory words by selecting between different sensory domains. Subjects
were allowed to not answer or to choose more than one domain (for further
details, please refer to Ronga et al. 2012 where a similar methodology was
applied).

Product descriptions and gastronomy-related texts are typically

composed of a multisensory vocabulary, referring to taste, olfaction,
texture, etc. As an example, consider the description of Moet Chandon taste
below (http://www.moet.com/Our-Champagnes/Grand-Vintages/Grand-
Vintage-2004; stand January 2015):

(1) Tasting notes

A refined, pure, precise bouquet: fruity notes of white peach,

lemon, pineapple, green banana and pear; floral, botanical scents
of mock-orange, herbal tea and honeysuckle; spicier, sweeter
nuances of pepper, brown sugar, marzipan and candied melon.

A graceful palate with a light airy structure: straightforward yet

complex, with a sleek, pure savour leading into a long,
 languorously rich finish; a light, lively, supple structure with
mineral overtones; bracing, refreshing notes of rhubarb and
grapefruit with a touch of mint.

In Example (1), words referring to several different sensory modalities are

present. Olfaction (scent), taste (palate), vision (nuances), and touch-
related (touch, structure) terms are observed.

Importantly, a great part of gastronomy vocabulary appears to be

multisensory, i.e. composed of terms referring to more than one sensory
modality. For example, food structure or wine body may be appreciated
either through visual inspection or by touch (in the mouth). Similarly, terms
such as bouquet, flavour may be used to describe scents or tastes, as well as
modifiers such as fruity, lemony, or food names (e.g., candied melon,
banana, marzipan). In any case, it is not possible to disentangle whether
these modifiers selectively refer to taste or olfaction.

In the present study, therefore, special attention was given to sensory

modifiers referring to more than one sensory domain (multisensory words).
Williams’ (1976) categorization of sensory words, which is supposed to
highlight universal trends in the distribution of sensory lexicon and its use
(see Ronga et al. 2012 for a review of the literature on the argument), was
also considered in order to assess the different sets of sensory modalities.

2.2 Results

The collected taste synaesthesias were classified according to the sensory

modality of their modifiers. The classical five sensory domains (vision,
audition, touch, taste and olfaction) were determined, with an additional
dimension set being added following the classification criteria introduced
by Williams (1976, 463). Terms regarding the three-dimensional structure
of objects were included in the dimension set (for a critical discussion of
the dimension set, cf. Ronga et al. 2012 2 ). The dimension domain
contains inherently synaesthetic words, since the shape of objects and their
structure can be perceived either by touch, or vision, and even by audition:
we are able to guess the texture of an object, simply hearing the sounds
produced by the tactile exploration of its surface (cf. Guest & Spence 2003
and also the studies on audio-visual mirror neurons).

A total of 2563 tokens of taste synaesthesias was collected (see Table

2). In the corpus, 68 different synaesthetic types were found in the wine
domain, 66 in the tea domain, and 43 in the cheese domain (e.g. gusto
morbido, ‘soft taste’, gusto profumato ‘fragrant taste’, sapore rotondo
‘round flavour’). 37 modifier types were collected in the wine domain, 40
in the tea domain and 28 in the cheese domain (e.g. morbido, ‘soft’,
vellutato, ‘velvety’, pieno, ‘full’). 6 head types were found in the corpus
(e.g. gusto, ‘taste’, sapore, ‘taste/flavour’, retrogusto, ‘aftertaste’). Corpus
analysis results are summarized in Table 2 (results for modifier types) and
Table 3 (results for modifier tokens).

Table 2. Modifier type distribution across sensory domains, the total number
of types is found in brackets

Sensory domains Wine Tea Cheese

Vision 13.5% (5) 10.6% (5) 3.5% (1)

Audition 2.7% (1) – 3.5% (1)
Touch 35.1% (13) 51.5% (19) 46.5% (13)
Dimension 40.5% (15) 25.7% (12) 28% (8)
Olfaction 8.1% (3) 12.1% (4) 18.5% (5)
Table 3. Modifier token distribution across sensory domains

Sensory domains Wine Tea Cheese

Vision 0.3% 1% 0.3%

Audition 21.4% – 0.6%
Touch 56.3% 66% 61.3%
Dimension 19% 23% 10.6%
Olfaction 3% 10% 27%

As indicated in Table 2, the large majority of the modifiers refer to the

touch set (45 out of 105, 42.8%, e.g. sapore fresco, ‘cool taste’, gusto
vellutato, ‘velvety taste’, sapore setato ‘silky taste’) and to the dimension
set (35 out of 105, 33.3%, e.g. sapore rotondo, ‘round taste’, gusto corposo
‘full-bodied taste’). On the whole, taking into account the wine, tea and
cheese sets, pairings presenting an olfaction-related modifier are more
frequent than pairings involving the visual or the auditory domains. It is
important to note that pairings with auditory modifiers are almost entirely
absent from the corpus.

When we consider the way tokens are distributed (Table 3), the large
majority of tokens refer to the tactile and the dimension domains. For the
wine set, it is important to note that while only 2.7% of modifiers are
auditory-related, auditory-related tokens are over 20%. This finding
indicates that the auditory set is strongly conventionalized, since it is
composed of a small number of types, which are frequently repeated. In
contrast, the visual domain of the wine set is largely productive, since there
are several different types, which either do not occur frequently or occur
only once (in which case they are a hapax). Both the dimension and
olfaction sensory domains are highly productive, since the number of types
is generally larger than the number of tokens. In contrast, the touch domain
appears to be more conventionalized and less productive.
 Another method used to account for set productivity is to consider the
number of hapax items, which at the same time may represent a measure of
the degree of conventionalization of a given expression (see also below). In
Tables 4, 5, and 6 the hapax items found in the corpus are listed, classified
according their sensory modalities and gastronomic domains.

Table 4. Hapax in the wine set

Vision Audition Olfaction Touch Dimension

pulito ‘clean’ profumato cremoso ‘creamy’ di rotondità

solare ‘sunny’ ‘fragrant’ polposo ‘pulpy’ ‘rounded’
pungente ‘sharp’

Table 5. Hapax in the tea set

Vision Audition Olfaction Touch Dimension

brillante ‘bright’ allappante di corpo

cupo ‘gloomy” ‘astringent’ ‘full-bodied’
asciutto ‘dry’ duro‘tough’
pesante ‘heavy’ tondo ‘rounded’
pastoso ‘mellow’
setato ‘silky’
soffice ‘soft’

Table 6. Hapax in the cheese set

Vision Audition Olfaction Touch Dimension

pulito ‘clean’ avvolgente di struttura

‘enveloping’ ‘structured’
asciutto ‘dry’ di finezza
tagliente ‘sharp’ ‘fine (thin)’
vellutato ‘velvety’ sottile ‘subtle (delicate)’
Except for audition, which is the least productive domain, all the other sets
present a number of hapax items. Interestingly, olfaction, which must be
considered a productive set if we take type/token ratio into account, collects
only one hapax (profumato, ‘fragrant’). This dissociation between the
number of hapax and the type/token ratio can be explained when we
consider the small number of olfaction modifiers (cf. among the others
Williams 1976; Ullmann 1957; Monopoli & Cacciari 2009). Since the
olfaction set contains few lexemes, they have to be used repeatedly in order
to express odour-related experiences.

By combining the information obtained from the type/token ratio and

the hapax number, it is possible to better understand the way speakers
employ a given set. For olfaction, it was found that several olfaction-related
modifiers are used in synaesthetic pairings (as demonstrated by the
relatively large number of types and by the number of hapax), but are not
frequently repeated (the number of tokens is very small). For example,
considering the wine domain, the most used olfaction-related modifier is
aromatico ‘aromatic’, which is repated 44 times in the domain. The most
used touch-related modifier (asciutto, ‘dry’) is, instead, 10 times more
frequent, collecting 454 occurrences.

By contrast, the touch domain includes several hapax (e.g.,

allappante, ‘astringent’, vellutato, ‘velvety’, polposo, ‘pulpy’), although
the type/token ratio is small.

In understanding all this, it is important to consider that, while the

single hapax in the olfaction domain represents around 2.27% of the tokens
and around the 15% of the types, touch hapax taken together are 2.6% of
the tokens and around 8% of the types. These findings confirm that touch is
a domain composed of many different modifiers (as also found by Ullmann
1957; Popova 2005 and Ronga et al. 2012) and that it is more
conventionalized than the olfaction set (as demonstrated by the ratio
between types and hapax).

Table 7 shows the types common to the three different gastronomic

sets (wine, tea, cheese). It should be noted that the auditory domain has no
shared types, thus further indicating the limited use of this set in taste
synaesthetic pairings. On the contrary, most of the olfaction-related types
are common to different sets. This finding confirms that olfaction-related
modifiers are widely used, even in different contexts. The touch and the
dimension domains are the major sources of taste synaesthetic pairings (see
Table 2) and, not surprisingly, their modifiers are widely shared among the
three groups.

Table 7. Shared types among different gastronomic sets

Vision Audition Olfaction Touch Dimension

pulito ‘clean’ aromatico asciutto ‘dry’ corposo

‘aromatic’ cremoso ‘creamy’ ‘full-bodied’
fragrante delicato ‘delicate’ fine ‘fine (thin)”
‘fragrant’ fresco ‘cool’ pieno ‘full’
profumato leggero ‘light’ robusto ‘robust’
‘scented’ morbido ‘soft’ sottile ‘subtle’
pungente ‘ ‘delicate’
‘pungent (shrap)’
vellutato ‘velvety’

In order to check the reliability of the corpus-based results, they were

compared with data collected from a large-scale corpus, the ItWaC. The
ItWaC corpus is a collection of texts made by the University of Bologna
(Forlì centre), as part of the WaCky project, whose aim is to employ the
web to build linguistic corpora for different languages (Baroni et al. 2009).
ItWaC contains two billion words taken from texts gathered from web
pages whose domain is ‘.it’ (the abbreviation for Italy in internet
addresses). ItWaC comprises many different text types, such as literary
works, blogs, newspapers, advertisements, etc., thus representing many
different aspects of written Italian.

To analyse the synaesthetic pairings present in the ItWaC, taste heads

collected in the first corpus analysis were employed as anchors. For the
research, three blocks of the corpus were used (300 million tokens). Table 8
summarizes ItWaC results.

452 tokens of taste synaesthesias were collected. 63 different

synaesthetic types were found; among them, 41 modifier type were
observed.

Table 8. It WaC results (modifier type distribution across sensory domains).

Total number of modifier types: 41

Sensory domains ItWaC

Vision 11.1%
Audition 3.1%
Touch 46%
Dimension 30.2%
Olfaction 9.6%

Overall, ItWaC results are very similar to the ones obtained from the corpus
composed of food and drink marketing texts. Most of the modifiers refer, as
in the first analysis, to the touch and dimension domains, whereas the
auditory domain is the least involved in synaesthetic pairings. However,
despite the fact that the three blocks of the ItWaC comprise three hundred
times the number of tokens of the other corpus in this study, since the
ItWaC is not specifically gathered to analyse gastronomy-related lexicon,
taste synaesthetic pairing are much less frequent in the ItWaC than in the
corpus composed of food and drink marketing texts.

3. Metaphors of taste

3.1 The semantics of taste: A paradox?

In the corpus consisting of food and drink marketing texts, descriptions of

products generally include two or three different attributes, as shown in
Examples (2) and (3) (Twinings English web page – September 2011,
October 2012).

(2) Want to turn an ordinary day in an extraordinary day? All you

need is a cup of Darjeeling. With a delicate, fresh taste and a
shimmering gold colour, it’s a high class cuppa that’ll make your
everyday mug feel like a China cup.

(3) The rich, juicy flavour of the berries is complemented by the

peppery tang of the nettle. One sip and you’ll be in a sunny
English meadow.

It is important to note that descriptions are highly metaphoric. Indeed,

among the modifiers employed to describe the taste of the products, usually
only few attributes are really taste-related modifier (e.g. “peppery”),
whereas the other ones belong to different domains. Taste is generally
metaphorically described. Thus, paradoxically, from the perspective of
purely distributive semantics, taste appears not to be highly taste-related, as
several other sensory domains are widely used to describe gustatory
experiences.

3.2 Grounded taste metaphors

Metaphors employed in taste descriptions are not randomly distributed. On

the contrary, they appear to reproduce our actual gustatory experience.

When analysing the frequency of occurrence of taste synaesthetic

expressions, it is found that taste heads are paired mainly with touch,
dimension and olfaction-related modifiers. In contrast, on average visual
and auditory modifiers are less involved in taste synaesthesias. Crucially,
from a neurophysiological point of view, gustatory experience seems to be
affected principally by somatosensory inputs (which refers to the
perception of touch, temperature and pain) and odours.

Taste synaesthesias therefore seem to reproduce the complex set of

experiences that happen in the mouth. When we eat, we perceive the taste
of our food and simultaneously its fragrance and texture, but we are not
able to look at the food in our mouth. This may be the reason why
synaesthetic pairings composed of visual modifiers are rare.

However, although we cannot see what we have in our mouth, it is

usually possible to hear the sound produced by chewing, while drinking
wine or tea and eating cheese do not produce any noise. It is possible that
the lack of auditory-related modifiers is related to the sets that have been
chosen for the research. Indeed, if we analyse taste synaesthesias collected
from chocolate descriptions (chewing chocolate does produce a clear and
distinctive noise), auditory modifiers are found (e.g. gusto croccante,
‘crunchy taste’).
 Taste heads are also frequently paired with dimension modifiers. As
explained in Section 1.2, gustatory perceptions are largely influenced by
sensory inputs referring to other sensory modalities (cf. Kandel et al. 2000,
644; Verhagen & Engelen 2006). Thus, taste may be considered as a
multisensory experience. Even from a linguistic point of view, taste heads
are frequently paired with multisensory domains. First, dimension should
be considered a multisensory set, since its modifiers can refer either to
vision, touch or even audition (see also §2.2 Results). Second, the touch set
also should be considered a multisensory domain, since it collects
modifiers referring to different somatosensory sub-modalities, i.e. proper
touch (mechanical inputs), perception of temperature and perception of
pain (for an explanation of the different sub-modalities of somesthesia from
a neurophysiological point of view, cf. Kandel et al. 2000).

Overall, both gustatory perception and taste-related linguistic

expressions appear to be similarly connoted by multimodality (for a
broader discussion on multimodality and the interaction between different
sensory modalities, cf. Ronga 2014).

3.3 Conclusion

The corpus-based analysis of taste synaesthesias reveals that these

expressions are grounded in gustatory experience. In other words,
synaesthesias linguistically reproduce the interactions between taste and
other sensory modalities. Importantly, from a linguistic point of view, the
distribution of the different synaesthetic pairings is not random, but it is
grounded in experience. According to our data, taste heads are more
frequently paired with modifiers referring to the sensory domains that most
strongly affect taste perception.
 Notably, synaesthetic taste associations parallel gustatory experiences
in a very specific way. Synaesthetic associations are not grounded in a
general common pattern of taste experience; in contrast, they seem to vary
according to the specific referent described (as suggested by the presence
of auditory modifiers for chocolate descriptions). This finding highlights
the strong and specific connection between sensory experience and taste
synaesthesias, which result from the actual combination of different
sensory phenomena, occurring at the same time, in the same place. For this
reason, taste synaesthesias should be considered as prototypical experience-
based metaphors.

Furthermore, considering the specific experential grounding of taste

synaesthesias, it is not surprising that these expressions are widespread in
marketing texts and advertising. The strong connection with actual
gustatory perceptions may increase the communicative power of
synaesthetic pairings, anchoring them to everyday life sensory experiences.
Therefore, the communicative employ of synaesthetic metaphors might be
one of the key factors in their cognitive grounding, selecting linguistic
synaesthesias paralleling perception over more arbitrary linguistic pairings.

Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to Carla Bazzanella for precious suggestions and for the revision of previous
versions of this paper. IR is supported by Fondazione Caligara (Turin – Italy).

Notes

1. From a cognitive linguistics perspective, we refer to the notion of embodiment as experiential

grounding of concepts and meaning (cf. Lakoff & Johnson 1999; Casadei 2003; Gibbs 2005).

2. Williams (1976) introduced the dimension set as a part of the visual domain to distinguish
between colour- and brightness-related words and non-chromatic visual terms.
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 Selling and buying, killing and
wounding
(Un)conventional metaphors from
two different semantic fields
Sandra Handl
University of Innsbruck

This article discusses metaphors from the fields of COMMERCIAL TRANSACTION

and BODILY HARM that are conventional as regards the higher-level mappings

motivating them, but unconventional concerning the lower-level mappings. It examines

how the two leading frameworks in cognitive-linguistic metaphor studies, i.e. conceptual

metaphor theory and conceptual blending theory, can account for the different degrees of

conventionality featured by one and the same metaphor on different levels of description.

While both theories have their strengths, neither is able to provide a fully adequate account

of these cases. A coherent explanation is only possible if the two are linked by a level of

intersubjectivity (cf. Verhagen 2005) which emphasizes the inseparability of convention

and creativity in language use and understanding.

Key words

conceptual metaphor; blending theory; convention; creativity; intersubjectivity

1. Introduction

What cognitive linguists usually have in mind when they talk about
metaphors are instances like (1) or (2). These examples, which are taken
from the British National Corpus (BNC), sound familiar because they are
frequent in everyday language and based on deeply entrenched conceptual
mappings. In other words, they are highly conventional on both the
linguistic and conceptual levels.

(1) However, I was wasting my time […] (A0F-267)

(2)
He grasped the […] crux implicit in the captain’s statement.
(A18-1451)

Examples (3) and (4) probably also seem fairly familiar at first glance.
However, as the results of a corpus-based study show, metaphorical uses of
buy and kill occur much less frequently in British English than those of
waste and grasp illustrated in (1) and (2) respectively. 1

(3) I didn’t buy the idea of a Reagan mandate […] (EAY-1396)

(4)
The British government’s decision […] has finally killed off the
idea of putting a tax on the tape [i.e. video tape; S.H.](B75-117)

On a highly abstract level, both (2) and (3) rely on a conceptualization of

IDEAS AS OBJECTS . This construal becomes manifest in many linguistic
expressions such as Sally has an idea, Sally took the idea from Sam, Sally
put the idea aside, etc. (cf. Lakoff, Espenson & Schwartz 1991, 94) and is
therefore highly conventional. While (2) and (3) share this core idea, they
differ regarding the lower-level conceptualizations: (2) is conventional not
only because it is based on IDEAS ARE OBJECTS , but also because the more
specific mapping UNDERSTANDING IS GRASPING is extremely common. The
conventionality of (3), however, is limited to the general mapping IDEAS
ARE OBJECTS , while the lower-level metaphor ACCEPTING AN IDEA IS
BUYING IT is infrequent. 2 Whereas (2) is thus conventional on different
levels of description, (3) is at the same time highly conventional and fairly
unconventional.

In what follows, I will first describe the corpus study which revealed
these differences in the conventionality of metaphorical expressions and
mappings. The next part concentrates on the fields of BODILY HARM and
COMMERCIAL EVENTS which manifest metaphors that seem particularly
resistant to lower-level conventionality. I will discuss reasons for the
infrequent application of the different lower-level mappings and examine if
and how the two leading paradigms in the field of cognitive-linguistic
metaphor studies, conceptual metaphor theory (cf. e.g. Lakoff & Johnson
1980; Kövecses 2002) and conceptual blending theory (cf. e.g. Fauconnier
& Turner 1998, 2002), can account for them. As will be shown, both have
their strengths and weaknesses, but neither is able to give an entirely
coherent explanation of cases whose degrees of higher-level and lower-
level conventionality are substantially different. To arrive at a more
satisfying description of metaphors that are conventional and
unconventional at the same time it will be suggested that the two paradigms
need to be complemented and linked by the notion of intersubjectivity
proposed by Verhagen (2005). The term proves useful in this respect as it
emphasizes that communication, on the one hand, relies on common
ground (which covers, inter alia, conventional metaphors), but, on the other
hand, also updates it (Verhagen 2005, 7), among other things through the
use of less conventional metaphors. The model can thus demonstrate that
the successful communication of metaphorical meaning can be the result of
an intricate interconnection between the stored, conventional structures
conceptual metaphor theory typically concentrates on and the more creative
elaborations that usually form the focus of conceptual blending theory.
Both aspects, convention and creativity, interact and contribute their share
to the overall aim of communication,

2. The corpus study: Identifying more and less

conventional metaphors

2.1 Theoretical considerations: Conventionality and frequency

Conventionality can be defined as “a relation among a linguistic regularity,

a situation of use, and a population that has implicitly agreed to conform to
that regularity in that situation […]” (Nunberg, Sag & Wasow 1994, 492,
Fn. 1). Speakers with very similar communicative intentions who act in
comparable contexts are thus likely to use the same, i.e. conventional,
linguistic form to get the intended meaning across. Less conventional or
even unconventional form-meaning pairings are much less likely to be used
and therefore occur only occasionally.

The notion of conventionality advocated here is closely tied to

frequency. Simply put, with regard to metaphors this means the more
frequently a given metaphorical mapping or meaning is used, the more
conventional it is. This corresponds, even if only implicitly so, to Lakoff
and Turner’s (1989) account of conventional metaphors:

At the conceptual level, a metaphor is conventional to the extent

that it is automatic, effortless, and generally established as a
mode of thought among members of a linguistic community. For
example, DEATH IS A DEPARTURE is deeply conventionalized at
the conceptual level; we probably all have it. […]
 Conventionalization also applies to the connection between
the conceptual and linguistic levels. When […] we speak of the
degree to which a conceptual metaphor is conventionalized in the
language, we mean the extent to which it underlies a range of
everyday linguistic expressions. For example, DEATH IS A
DEPARTURE […] is also widely conventionalized in language,
underlying a wide range of expressions such as ‘pass away,’ be
‘no longer with us,’ ‘gone,’ ‘among the dear departed,’ and so
on.(Lakoff & Turner 1989, 55–56)

Whether a conceptual structure can be automatically and effortlessly

activated and processed is, as many psycholinguistic studies have
demonstrated (cf. e.g. Hogaboam & Perfetti 1975, 271; Simpson 1981, 133
Wiley & Rayner 2001, 1016– 1017), largely a question of its frequency.
Moreover, it can be assumed that generally established structures are more
frequently used than less well-established, less conventional ones. In
addition, as the above quotation indicates, the connection between language
and thought can also be said to be related to frequency, even though the
term frequency takes on a different sense here: the degree of
conventionality of a conceptual metaphor is, as it were, reflected by the
range of linguistic expressions it underlies. A highly conventional
conceptual metaphor motivates more different linguistic metaphors than a
less conventional one.

Relating conventionality to frequency only is evidently a somewhat

simplified account. It is commonly argued that highly conventional
metaphors are so deeply entrenched that we no longer notice their
figurative nature (cf. e.g. Lakoff & Johnson 1980, 3 and 52–55; Lakoff &
Turner 1989, 129). And intuitively, frequency seems ideal to measure
entrenchment. However, the precise relationship between the frequency of
a given structure and its entrenchment is not yet entirely understood. 3
Gilquin (2006), for example, has shown that what is usually thought to be
prototypical and thus deeply entrenched is not necessarily identical with
what is most frequent in corpora. How entrenched a structure is or becomes
does not only depend on its frequency. For conceptual metaphors, for
instance, the direction of mapping is relevant as well, as metaphors that
structure a more abstract concept by way of borrowing elements from a
more concrete domain are particularly apt to serve an explanatory function.
Similarly, only metaphors which uphold the topology of the source domain
i.e. conform to the invariance principle (Lakoff 1990), stand a chance of
becoming established parts of our thinking and speaking. Many different
factors contribute to the conventionalization of conceptual and linguistic
metaphors. 4 Nevertheless frequency is not irrelevant. It may just be one
factor among many, but it still seems plausible that highly frequent
structures are more conventional than extremely infrequent ones.

2.2 Method and results

To measure the conventionality of metaphors, the amount of metaphorical

readings of selected lexemes was examined with material from the British
National Corpus (BNC). The idea underlying the method is that the
conventionality of a metaphorical sense of a lexeme correlates with the
relative frequency of this sense in contrast to the frequencies of other
senses. If a high proportion of all records of a lexeme are metaphors relying
on the same mapping, it seems reasonable to postulate a high degree of
conventionality for this metaphorical meaning. If, however, only a small
number of metaphorical uses can be identified, the metaphorical sense is
arguably not very conventional (cf. Handl 2011, 125–137, 156–167, 251–
274). Although it is not clear how one can interpret the individual
percentages, the results provide a good indicator for different degrees of
conventionality. 5

Not unexpectedly so, many of the meanings and mappings under

consideration proved to be fairly conventional. For example, more than half
of all instances (52.6%) of the verb form grasped were metaphorical uses,
with 80.56% of them relying on IDEAS ARE OBJECTS: UNDERSTANDING IS
GRASPING (cf. Example (2)). Other mappings found with grasped, like
OPPORTUNITIES ARE OBJECTS: SEIZING IS GRASPING (4.06%) or PROPERTIES
ARE OBJECTS: ADOPTING IS GRASPING (0.97%), are much less important
with regard to this verb (cf. Handl 2011, Appendix B).

The higher-level mapping IDEAS ARE OBJECTS also underlies

metaphorical uses of many other word-forms which were part of the study.
Only some of them are given in Table 1. The second column of the table
indicates the total of metaphorical uses found with the individual word-
forms. For example, more than half of all instances of escape (50.7%) are
metaphorical. Not all of them, however, rely on IDEAS ARE OBJECTS and
lower-level mappings related to it. This is shown in the last two columns.
The column dubbed ‘Mapping: total meanings (%)’ specifies how many of
all instances analysed were found to be motivated by ideas are objects and
the last column records how many of all metaphorical instances are based
on it. Regarding escape, this means that 6.5% of all instances analysed and
12.82% of all metaphorical uses found rely on IDEAS ARE OBJECTS.
Table 1. Relative frequencies of selected examples relying on the higher-
level mapping IDEAS ARE OBJECTS 6 (cf. Handl 2011, Appendix B)

Word- Metaphors Mapping: IDEAS ARE Mapping: Mapping: all

form total (%) OBJECTS … total metaphoric
meanings meanings (%)
(%)

escape 50.70 IDEAS ARE PRISONS 6.50 12.82

hollow 45.91 IDEAS ARE 0.94 2.05
CONTAINERS FOR
THEIR MEANINGS
constructed 43.80 IDEAS ARE 2.10 4.79
CONSTRUCTED
OBJECTS
appetite 41.49 IDEAS ARE FOOD: 10.02 24.16
INTEREST IS APPETITE
digest 34.82 IDEAS ARE FOOD: 32.39 93.02
UNDERSTANDING IS
DIGESTION

As can be seen in the last two columns, the mapping IDEAS ARE OBJECTS
does not always determine high proportions of the readings of the different
lexemes; its significance varies immensely. Still it can be said to be quite
conventional because it occurs with so many different words. To assess the
overall conventionality of a mapping it is thus not enough to consider one
linguistic instantiation. As many as possible have to be taken into account.
However, finding different potential linguistic manifestations is apparently
much easier for higher-level mappings. The more specific a mapping, the
harder is it to find alternative expressions, and the more significant are the
relative frequencies of metaphorical meanings of individual lexemes as
regards the mapping’s overall (un)conventionality.
 Table 2 lists the word-forms that featured the smallest totals of
metaphorical uses in the corpus study, i.e. less than 10%. What is striking is
that many words belonging to the fields of COMMERCIAL EVENTS (buy, sell,
shopping) and BODILY HARM (wounded, died, killed) are among those with
the least conventional metaphorical senses. This clustering of verbs related
to COMMERCIAL EVENTS and BODILY HARM among the cases that seem
particularly resistant to giving rise to conventional metaphorical meaning
extensions calls for an explanation. I will discuss the two fields in turn,
beginning with metaphorical commercial events.

Table 2. Word-forms with less than 10% of metaphorical uses (cf. Handl
2011, 263)

wounded Total metaphorical use (%)

wounded 8.18
smaller 7.50
shopping 5.77
died 5.50
sell 4.60
killed 3.90
electricity 1.50
buy 0.80

3. Metaphorical commercial events

In the field of COMMERCIAL EVENTS , I will focus on the two most central
verbs, i.e. buy and sell, and only comment on uses which rely on the
higher-level mapping IDEAS ARE OBJECTS. This concerns 0.5% of all
analysed uses of buy (IDEAS ARE OBJECTS: ACCEPTING AN IDEA IS BUYING
IT ) and 3.0% of sell (IDEAS ARE OBJECTS: ARGUING FOR AN IDEA IS TRYING
TO SELL IT ). Other mappings, which occurred with these words, will be
disregarded.

IDEAS and BELIEFS are often construed as OBJECTS . The general-level

mapping underlying the metaphorical uses of buy and sell illustrated in
Examples (5) and (6) is therefore conventional. Since ideas can be
possessed (cf. the frequent phrase to have an idea), it should also be
possible metaphorically to buy and sell them. And this is indeed an option,
but an uncommon one. 7 How can this be explained?

(5)
[…] I’ve heard him quoted as saying that one of the reasons he
didn’t come was because they didn’t have a venue large enough
[…]. But I don’t quite buy that. (C9L-753–755)

(6) IBM Austin […] is seriously interested in becoming a system

software supplier […] and sees remarketing Mach 3 as the way to
do it […]. Of course it still has to sell the idea to the management
[…].(CTS-141–142)

From the viewpoint of conceptual metaphor theory, one could argue that
the metaphorical selling and buying of mental entities is infrequent in
British English as it does not fully uphold the structure of the respective
source domains and is thus, at least to a limited extent, at odds with the
invariance principle (cf. Lakoff 1990). A literal commercial event includes
a buyer, a seller, goods, and money (cf. Fillmore 1977). In addition, the act
of buying is usually determined by the buyer’s volition. In the metaphorical
conceptualization one element is missing: the money or rather its
metaphorical equivalent. If we accept an idea, we do so without
transferring something to the ‘seller’ in return for the ‘goods’. Given that
metaphorical hiding is a frequent phenomenon (cf. e.g. Kövecses 2002, 80–
81), the absence of this element can, however, be assumed to pose no
problems. It is probably more significant that the metaphorical construal is
not in line with the idea that buyers usually want the goods, often because
they are convinced of their good quality. The metaphorical meaning ‘to
believe something that someone tells you, especially when this is not likely
to be true’ (Summers 2003, s.v. buy 1, 3) is more specific than just
‘adopting an idea/belief ’. It carries the additional element of ‘possible
falsehood’. The ‘goods’ are of a poor or at least questionable quality, so
that the ‘buyer’ may have doubts about whether she/he really wants them. 8
Source and target concept thus differ here – a fact that might have
consequences for the conventionality of the metaphor.

The metaphorical sense of sell ‘to try to make someone accept a new
idea or plan […]’ (Summers 2003, s.v. sell 6) is less specific than the
figurative meaning of buy, but it seems as if ideas which have to be sold are
not necessarily ‘goods’ the buyer wants to have in the first place. If an idea
is not convincing enough to be accepted due to its credibility, in which case
it would simply be taken (e.g. Sally took the idea from Sam; Lakoff,
Espenson & Schwartz 1991, 94), it might be the case that it is not a good
one, i.e. an idea one would have to buy. So, at least the ‘buyer’ has to
carefully check its quality before deciding on whether to adopt it.

In both cases the metaphorical construal brings elements to the fore

which are only minor and optional in literal commercial events. How this is
achieved is a question conceptual metaphor theory cannot answer, because
in this case the target does not inherit the characteristic structure of the
source. Blending theory is better at explaining this. A typical example of
the metaphorical use of sell, where the context shows that the ideas at issue
are difficult to get across, is given in (7).
(7) Stirling himself realized that if he was to stand any chance of
getting his radical ideas accepted, he had to ‘sell the proposal’ to
the Commander-in-Chief. (AR8-116)

Figure 1.

A conceptual blending account of Stirling […] had to ‘sell the proposal’ to

the Commander-in-Chief

In a blending analysis of (7) two related mental spaces would be

constructed, one of them representing the future communicative event
involving the Commanderin-Chief and Stirling, and the other representing
ideas evoked by the verb sell (called ‘commercial transaction’ in Figure 1).
The basic structure of these spaces is borrowed from the COMMUNICATION
and COMMERCIAL EVENT frames stored in hearers’ long-term memories.
Selected information from the two inputs is projected into the Blend. The
action is taken over from Input 2, the action in Input 1 is disregarded. What
counts most for the addressee’s interpretation along the lines of ‘Stirling is
trying to talk the Commander-in-Chief into something which is hard to
accept and profitable mostly for Stirling’ is the integration of the two
different purposes in the inputs into a common purpose in the Blend.
Another factor is that the theme of Input 2 is not as neutral as the lexeme
proposal suggests. The lexeme is likely to be interpreted in the light of
earlier parts of the utterance as ‘radical ideas’, which are difficult to accept.
9 This piece of contextual knowledge also feeds into the Blend and causes a
somewhat negative evaluation of Stirling’s intentions, since it helps to
induce a relevant normative schema for “framing the blend” (Brandt &
Brandt 2005, 234).

By linking the current linguistic input to the context and stored frames
a blending analysis can clarify how the slightly negative meaning of selling
ideas comes into being. However, what is lost with this analysis is that the
conceptualization of COMMUNICATION as COMMERCIAL TRANSACTION is
linked to and sanctioned by the very widespread conceptualization of IDEAS
AS OBJECTS . The Blend seems highly creative – a meaning which is
brought about by an intricate collaboration of stored knowledge and
inferencing processes in a specific context.

So, while both conceptual metaphor theory and conceptual blending

theory can explain certain issues pertaining to these metaphorical meanings
of sell and buy, none of the two is able to shed light on all relevant aspects.
Conceptual metaphor theory would link the fact that the lower-level
conceptualizations do occur, but not very often, to two factors. The not
fully parallel structure of source and target would be seen as having a
negative impact on the conventionalization potential of the lower-level
mappings, which becomes manifest in a not very frequent usage. That the
mappings are nevertheless used at all would be considered a consequence
of the high degree of conventionality of the higher-level mapping involved.
The theory is, however, not too well equipped to clarify the reasons for the
slightly negative connotations of the metaphorical meanings. This
important aspect can be much better illustrated by conceptual blending,
which would focus on the communicative effect and efficiency of the
metaphors in context. Still, a conceptual blending account of the examples
comes at a price: one could lose sight of the bigger picture, since the lower-
level conceptualizations are no longer necessarily regarded as hinging upon
a deeply entrenched higher-level mapping.

4. The field of BODILY HARM

As already mentioned (cf. Section 2.2), three verb-forms belonging to the

field of BODILY HARM were among the targets which proved to be
infrequently employed in metaphorical ways, i.e. wounded, died, and killed
Interestingly, however, beat and attacked, which are also part of this field,
are much more likely to be figuratively used (cf. Table 3).

Table 3. Relative frequencies of metaphorical uses of selected verb-forms

from the field of BODILY HARM

Word-form Total metaphorical uses (%)

beat 71.70
attacked 43.80
wounded 8.18
died 5.50
killed 3.90
All these word-forms can convey a rich variety of more specific
metaphorical meanings as their metaphorical uses can rely on different
mappings. Attacked, for example, was mostly found as an instance of
ARGUMENT IS WAR (35.3%), but occurs as an example of as many as ten
other mappings. Beat appears as an example of COMPETITION IS WAR in the
majority of the cases (67.8%), but also realizes seven other mappings (cf.
Handl 2011, Appendix B). It is therefore not possible to provide a detailed
analysis here which takes the single mappings into account. Suffice it to say
that the most essential higher-level mappings are conceptualizations of
COMPETITION , whether merely verbal or somewhat more concrete as, for
example, in the case of economic competition. Also of significance is
PSYCHOLOGICAL HARM IS PHYSICAL INJURY.

Semantically, die differs from the other verbs in Table 3. While the
other verbs express actions which can be carried out voluntarily, die does
not. Die expresses something that happens to someone rather than
something somebody ‘does’ in the most literal sense. No real AGENT is
implied by this verb: from a semantic point of view, a person who dies is a
PATIENT.

This has consequences for the metaphorical conceptualizations

connected to this verb. The main function of metaphorical uses of die is to
assign whatever is conceptualized as dying the status of a living being.
Thus, traditions, trends and habits can (metaphorically) die, just like
actions, sounds, emotions, machines, fire, etc. (cf. Handl 2011, Appendix
B). Since the metaphorical uses of die therefore differ considerably from
those of the other verbs under consideration, I will leave it aside and
concentrate on the other verbs instead.
 Similar to what has been said regarding the field of COMMERCIAL
EVENTS , the higher-level mappings motivating metaphorical uses of the
verbs attack, beat, kill and wound are firmly grounded in our experiences
and are fairly conventional, but this does not sanction frequent
metaphorical uses for all the verbs. It seems that the differences in the
relative frequencies of metaphorical uses are related to the literal meanings
of the individual verbs: the more specific the literal meaning in terms of
any lasting effects of the action, the less likely is a highly frequent
metaphorical sense. In this respect, kill is much more definite than the other
verbs; it implies the highest possible cost for humans with irreversible
consequences. Wound is strongly associated with cut or broken skin, which
renders some lasting effects probable, if only in the form of small scars.
Attack is less clear-cut. On the one hand, it does not, as the other verbs do,
express accomplishment. On the other hand, however, attacks are
characteristically carried out with weapons. If the action is carried out
successfully, attacking someone is thus more likely to result in lasting
effects than beating someone. This is summarized in Table 4, which
provides the literal meanings of the base forms of the four verbs and
connects them to the effects of the actions as well as to the relative
frequencies of metaphorical uses.
Table 4. Selected verbs from the field of BODILY HARM – literal meanings
and the frequency of metaphorical uses (cf. Handl 2011, 265)

Word- Metaphors Literal meaning of base form (based Implied effects of the action
form total (%) on Pearsall 1998)

beat 71.70 ‘strike repeatedly and violently’ Unspecified with regard to

effects
attacked 43.80 ‘take aggressive action against s.o. or s.t. Use of weapons makes long-
with weapons or armed force’ term effects more likely
wounded 8.18 ‘inflict an injury on s.o., typically one in Probable long-term effects due
which the skin is cut or broken’ to injuries of the skin
killed 3.90 ‘cause death of a person or an animal’ Permanent effect; irreversible

In the framework of conceptual metaphor theory, the low relative frequency

of metaphorical uses of killed can again be explained by the invariance
principle. The cognitive topology of the source is not always fully
preserved by the mapping. The figurative construal often ignores a vital
element of the literal meaning of kill, i.e. that the action results in a
permanent state of the patient. 10 This can be shown with Examples (8) to
(10). The cricket team referred to in (8) is not ‘dead’ forever, but could very
well be alive and kicking in the next game and even win it. The person in
(9) did not permanently lose his confidence, but got it back during the time
he spent as a member of another team. Similarly, considering (10) there is,
from a logical point of view, nothing that prevents Peace Studies from
becoming part of British curricula again one day. This deviation from the
cognitive topology of the source seems to have negative consequences for
the conventionality of the metaphor. What conceptual metaphor theory can
hardly explain, however, is why, then, it is at all possible to use the verb kill
in this unusual way illustrated in the examples.

(8) Stock set a total of 166 for 8, with Taylor’s 52 the key, and
 visitors Danbury were killed with 73 runs to spare. (E9U-651)

(9)
‘I spent nearly three seasons at Oakwell and it was just what I
needed after City had killed my confidence,’ said Beresford.
(CBG-8751)

(10) Even before the National Curriculum swallowed up most

teaching time, ‘Peace Studies’, regarded as ideologically
unsound by the government, was effectively killed off (by the
Education (No. 2) Act 1986 – see below). (AN5-972)

Again, blending theory fares better. I can only illustrate this for one of the
instances, Example (8), here. Only the parts which are useful for
understanding the current meaning are taken over into the Blend (cf. Figure
2). The others are ignored; in this case, among them the very core element
of death: its irreversibility. The purpose of Input 1, winning one game, is
integrated with the action of Input 2, the final termination of the enemies,
so that the action in the Blend results in a non-permanent state of the
Danbury team. This sanctions the otherwise implausible assumption that
opponents one has just killed can easily rise from the dead and be
successful in the next game.
Figure 2.

A blending account of […] visitors Danbury were killed […]

But again a blending analysis comes at a price. By focusing on the

unusualness of the conceptualization, it could easily escape one’s notice
that – no matter how ‘imperfect’ the lower-level mapping may be – it is
still well supported by other, extremely common instances of COMPETITION
IS WAR . What is needed is a model that allows us to profit from the insights
of one theory without at the same time losing the advantages of the other.
As will be demonstrated in the next section, Verhagen’s (2005) notion of
intersubjectivity is a very promising candidate in this respect.
5. Linking low-level creativity and high-level
conventionality: The notion of intersubjectivity

Verhagen sees languages as “shared systems of conventions” (2005, 3)

which allow us to coordinate what we have in mind with what others have
in mind. Language use and understanding is determined by “humans’
ability to engage in deep cognitive coordination with others” (2005, 4).

Figure 3.

Construal and intersubjectivity (based on Verhagen 2005, 7)

In his model (cf. Figure 3), which is partly based on Langacker’s (1987)
work on construal relationships, Verhagen (2005) distinguishes two levels,
the object-level (O-level) and the subject-level (S-level). The participants
of a communicative event, belonging to the S-level, conceptualize objects
or events, i.e. the O-level, in a certain way. How subjects construe an object
is, for the most part, not predetermined. Subjects impose structure on
objects by using language to communicate about them. So, there is a
difference between the O-level and the S-level. Crucially, the subjects share
common ground, and by using language “the first conceptualizer invites the
second to jointly attend to an object of conceptualization in some specific
way, and to update the common ground by doing so” (Verhagen 2005, 7).
The speaker wants to influence the hearer, wants them to see a situation in
the same or in a similar way as the speaker does (2005, 10). 11 This
relationship between speaker and hearer is termed intersubjectivity.

How can this model help in giving a coherent description of

metaphors which are conventional on one level, but unconventional on
another? The essential factor is that the level of intersubjectivity combines
two different elements. On the one hand, it deals with already stored
knowledge shared by the subjects. This embraces all kinds of conceptual
and linguistic conventions, among them simple form-meaning pairings, but
also conventional conceptual metaphors and cognitive models and frames.
On the other hand, it is concerned with updating the common ground, so
that S2 eventually adopts S1’s perspective. To achieve the aim of cognitive
coordination, it can be necessary to modify conventional structures to a
certain extent, for example by using them as a starting point for more
creative construals brought about by way of conceptual blending. The S-
level therefore covers both conventional conceptual high-level metaphors,
such as ideas are objects, and emergent structure that arises through
conceptual blending, such as the idea of ‘possible falsehood’ transported by
metaphorical uses of buy, i.e. the less conventional low-level metaphors.
Importantly, in this model one is seen as the foundation of the other. The
two are treated as two sides of the same coin and not as separate entities
(cf. Figure 4).
Figure 4.

Intersubjectivity between creativity and conventions (based on Verhagen

2005)

For example, when saying I don’t quite buy that, the speaker of (5) chooses
a construal which explicitly focuses on the potential inaccuracy of the
object of conceptualization, i.e. the idea. Pragmatically seen, it is the
speaker’s aim to convince the hearer of this point of view, thereby implying
that whoever it was who tried to ‘sell’ the idea probably did not tell the
truth. To do so, the speaker takes advantage of the highly conventional
mapping IDEAS ARE OBJECTS , and exploits it in a less conventional way by
speaking of ideas in terms of COMMERCIAL TRANSACTIONS . S1 knows that
the high-level mapping IDEAS ARE OBJECTS as well as the commercial
event frame and the COMMUNICATION frame are part of the common
ground. Thus she/he can trust that S2 is able to call up the mental spaces
needed to understand the utterance in the correct way by drawing the right
inferences or, in other words, to work out the intended emergent structure.

The advantages of seeing cognitive coordination as the driving force

behind the way we put things are that, first, both conventionality and
creativity can be accommodated at the same level and that, second, a close
relationship is established between the two. In a way, intersubjectivity thus
provides the missing link between conventional structures and less
conventional ones, with the former sanctioning the latter, and with
pragmatic aims governing our conceptualizations and thus our linguistic
behaviour.

6. Conclusion

This article has discussed some metaphors which use the fields of BODILY
HARM and COMMERCIAL TRANSACTION as source domains. As has been
shown, some of them are infrequently used in British English. The reasons
for the infrequent application of the relevant lower-level mappings could be
traced back to two factors: highly specific and rich literal meanings of the
metaphorically used words and/or emergent structure that enriches the
metaphorical meanings, but is not completely in line with the structure of
the literal source domain. But whereas these low-level mappings are only
occasionally employed, the metaphors are as a rule well motivated by
general-level mappings and thus are conventional and unconventional at
the same time. This leads to problems as far as their theoretical modelling
is concerned. If one describes them exclusively in the framework of
conceptual metaphor theory, one cannot account for emergent structure and
particular pragmatic effects caused by it. If one applies blending theory
only, one runs the risk of losing sight of the conventional parts on which
many blends are built. To allow a more coherent description that relates
conventionality to creativity, the notion of intersubjectivity was proposed.
This notion strikes a balance between the two theories by approaching
linguistic communication from the point of view of the interlocutors’ need
for cognitive coordination, which embraces two vital parts: known and
shared conventions on the one hand and pragmatic aims on the other.
Intersubjectivity thus bridges the gap between the insights of conceptual
metaphor theory with its focus on regularities and conceptual blending
theory with its focus on irregularities. Verhagen (2005) puts common
ground centre stage and sees it not only as a starting point that enables
communication in the first place, but also as an intended outcome of
communication. In this way, his model offers an explanation of how
specific intended functions of a metaphor in discourse can on the one hand
be in line with deeply entrenched patterns of thinking, such as high-level
metaphorical mappings, but at the same time counteract other, otherwise
also very powerful cognitive mechanisms, such as the invariance principle.
It is the communicative function that sanctions a combination of
conventionality and unconventionality, of the common and the less
common, of regularities and deviations in one and the same example.

Acknowledgement
I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers as well as Gerard Steen, the series editor, for their
many very helpful comments and suggestions. All remaining errors are, of course, my own.

Notes

1. Since the frequency data discussed here and in the following rely on the BNC, they are only
valid for British English. Other varieties of English have not been investigated and it could well be
the case that, for example, in American English some of the metaphorical meanings occur more or
less often than indicated here.

2. Note that the levels of specificity described here do not coincide with the differentiation between
generic-level and specific-level metaphors. The structure of generic-level metaphors, such as events
are actions or generic is specific, is extremely schematic and much leaner than the structure of the
higher-level mappings referred to here (cf. Kövecses 2002, 38–39).

3. There are different types of frequency (cf. Hoffmann 2004) and it is not completely clear which
type(s) determine(s) the speed and ease of lexical access and thus the degree of entrenchment (cf.
Schmid 2010).

4. There are different types of frequency (cf. Hoffmann 2004) and it is not completely clear which
type(s) determine(s) the speed and ease of lexical access and thus the degree of entrenchment (cf.
Schmid 2010).
5. Evidently, as in any other corpus study, the results presented here need to be taken with a grain o
salt, since they are only valid with regard to the corpus used and not necessarily representative of the
language as a whole. Since the written component of the BNC is larger than the spoken component,
some of the more informal, colloquial metaphorical senses at issue might be somewhat
underrepresented. One must not forget, however, that most (if not all) corpora are biased in one way
or the other. True representativeness can, in general, hardly be achieved. For a discussion of the
prospects and problems of corpus studies of metaphorical language, which also deals with the issue
of representativeness, cf. Deignan (2005, 75–102).

6. Note that I do not assume a relation of equality, but a hierarchical relationship between ideas are
objects and the other mappings in Table 1. This is in line with Lakoff, Espenson & Schwartz (1991,
96) who treat LEARNING IS EATING as a special case of IDEAS ARE OBJECTS and point out that IDEAS
ARE OBJECTS and IDEAS ARE FOOD are related. The entailments of the lower-level mappings are
always much more specific than those of IDEAS ARE OBJECTS , but IDEAS ARE OBJECTS licenses the
occurrence of the lower-level mappings in the first place, so that the lower-level mappings inherit its
basic schematic structure.

7. Strictly speaking, the relative unconventionality of these metaphorical senses of buy and sell is
not only a matter of their being considerably less frequent than many other conceptualizations of
IDEAS as OBJECTS (e.g. grasp ‘understand’). It is also related to the high frequency with which we
express the same or at least a very similar content by using literal language (e.g. by using believe
instead of buy).

8. This is corroborated by the marked tendency of metaphorical uses of buy to appear in negated
contexts (cf. Examples (3) and (5)).

9. Figure 1 focuses on the on-line processing of the expression sell the proposal. That the proposal
consists of radical ideas is thus not part of Input 2, but becomes only relevant in the Blend where the
mental representations of earlier parts of the discourse are integrated with the current input.

10. Many figurative construals of death can be seen in connection with the finality notions
advocated by Christian theology. Thus one can, for example, kill a plan and resurrect it later.

11. Here, Verhagen’s model bears some important resemblances to Brandt & Brandt’s (2005)
semiotic account of metaphor, which combines conceptual metaphor theory and blending theory, but
also adds some new aspects. Brandt & Brandt (2005) convincingly argue that metaphor
understanding necessarily involves a psychological and a social dimension. The former deals with
evaluative schemas evoked by a metaphor in context. These schemas are said to determine “the
participants’ shared conception of the topic” (2005, 234). The latter dimension describes the
metaphor’s pragmatic effects. Taken together, these two dimensions update the participants’ common
ground and influence their subsequent utterances on the topic.
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 Time is money – everywhere?
Analysing time metaphors across
varieties of English
Simone Mueller
Marburg University

In the Western world, TIME IS MONEY is one of the most well-known conceptual

metaphors, known not only by linguists or cognitivists, but also in business and in

everyday life. Time is a valuable commodity, like money, which we spend, save, waste,

and even try to borrow or lend. With regard to other parts of the world, Lakoff and Johnson

claim that “the Westernization of cultures throughout the world is partly a matter of

introducing the TIME IS MONEY metaphor into those cultures” (2003, 145). Such a

Westernization could reasonably be assumed for instance in countries with English as an

official language. But do people in such countries indeed live by this metaphor? This

chapter presents an investigation into linguistic realizations of TIME IS MONEY in

parallel English-language corpora from a range of Western and non-Western countries and

shows that the answer to the above question is not a straightforward Yes or No.

Keywords

conceptual metaphor; time; money; corpus linguistics; English

1. Introduction

Probably everybody in the Western world is familiar with phrases

such as the following:

You need to spend your time wisely!

I wasted the whole day on this.

 This procedure will save a lot of time.

The family spent three weeks on the coast.

She lost three hours due to the accident.

A manager has to budget her time.

He invested a lot of time in his hobby.

According to Lakoff and Johnson, such expressions are reflections of the

conceptual metaphor time is money (2003 (1980), 7). It seems indeed that
we live by this metaphor. Lakoff and Johnson continue, “In our culture
TIME IS MONEY in many ways: telephone message units, hourly wages,
hotel room rates, yearly budgets, interests on loans, and paying our debt to
society by ‘serving time.’ (2003 (1980), 8). A search on Amazon with the
search term ‘time is money’ supports the view that this metaphor pervades
our life. It yielded 1 game, 9 CDs by different music groups, and over 2500
English books. The books include advice for investors, executives, and
‘normal’ people, as well as caricatures, a comedy as old as 1905, and
working papers from the School of Social Sciences in Cardiff. In his book
European Proverbs in 55 Languages, Paczolay states that the proverb (or a
variant of it, i.e. time is precious) exists in 35 of the 55 European
languages. In English, the sentence Remember that Time is Money is
attributed to Benjamin Franklin (1997, 428f), but even before, the
widespread use of clocks in the developing industry, together with time
sheets and work schedules for employees, supported the conceptual
metaphor TIME IS MONEY (Goatly 2007, 64).

The question arises whether TIME IS MONEY is as pervasive in other

parts of the world. Intuitively, even the culturally informed layperson
would be able to think of stereotypical instances where this does not seem
to be the case, i.e. where being punctual, using time efficiently (for work),
and being well-organised with regard to time schedules does not seem to be
as important. Anecdotes supporting the stereotypes include the following.

Some years ago, a missionary reported on a trip by bus in the

countryside of an African country. The bus was scheduled to come early in
the morning but arrived several hours later; the missionary commented that
this was not unusual. The staff of a Sri Lankan University could not tell a
colleague of mine supposed to be their German guest lecturer when their
next semester would actually start, not even at a time when it should have
officially started. In India, spending time on building or maintaining
relationships is more important than being punctual or than working,
according to an Indian informant. Even in the Republic of Ireland, our
landlord, who had owned a company of about thirty employees, reported
that it often took the whole Monday morning to get all employees back to
work after the weekend. As I said, these are just anecdotes which exemplify
stereotypes, but they nevertheless indicate that there are cultural differences
in the way time is treated. Thus, Edward T. Hall claims that most Western
cultures (European as much as American) live by what he calls a
monochronic time concept:

Monochronic time means paying attention to and doing only one

thing at a time. (…) Monochronic time is perceived as being
almost tangible: people talk about it as though it were money, as
something that can be ‘spent,’ ‘saved,’ ‘wasted,’ and ‘lost.’ It is
also used as a classification system for ordering life and setting
priorities: ‘I don’t have time to see him.’(Hall 1990,13f)

In contrast, polychronic time, which is typical e.g. for Latin Americans and
Mediterranean peoples, is “characterized by the simultaneous occurrence of
many things and by a great involvement with people. There is more
emphasis on completing human transactions than on holding to schedules”
(Hall 1990, 14). This poly-chronic time is also found in the Middle East
and in former British colonies (Hall 1983,50f) 1 and probably in a number
of other regions. In his book on The dance of time, Hall sets up a ‘Time
mandala’ with eight different conceptions of time. Two of his statements
are particularly relevant here since they concern varieties treated in this
chapter: “Awareness of sync time is more developed in Black Africa than in
AE [American and European] cultures” and “One gets the impression that
in the subcontinent of India the metaphysical and the sacred are fused into
one” (Hall 1983, 206). Sync time refers to the fact that people who interact
synchronize their behaviour. This becomes particularly obvious when
people are not in sync with their group, i.e. they “are disruptive and do not
fit in” (Hall 1983, 25). Sacred time refers to time devoted to religious acts
(e.g. ceremonies), during which “normal’, profane time seems to cease to
exist for the participants. Metaphysical time finally refers to personal,
intimate time experiences outside our normal, measurable time (Hall
1983,23ff). Examples are ‘time warps’ and near-death experiences. These
time concepts contrast strongly with the Western concept of time expressed
in the metaphor ‘Time is money’.

If we accept that time concepts differ between cultures, and if we also

accept that culture is communicated via language, then we should also be
able to find such differences in linguistic materials from the respective
countries.

Linguistic indications for variation across cultures concerning time

have been found by a number of scholars. For example, a rather extreme
case (from our Western point of view) has been reported for the Nuer, an
African ethnic group from South Sudan/western Ethiopia. Carol Delaney, in
her book Investigating Culture (2004), cites Evans-Pritchard: “The Nuer
have no expression equivalent to ‘time’ in our language, and they cannot,
therefore, as we can, speak of time as though it were something actual,
which passes, can be wasted, can be saved, and so forth” (Delaney 2004,
84). Another case, not quite as extreme, was reported by Anna Idström,
who investigated Inari Saami idioms. In her study on idioms concerning
time she reports, “The research material includes only one clear example of
the conceptual metaphor TIME IS MONEY ” (2010, 166) and concludes that
“this metaphor is not typical for the Inari Saami” (dto.: 174). Much more
typical for the Inari Saami, who live in the Scandinavian north, is the TIME
IS NATURE metonymy. However, Idström found that “the material provides
a few functional equivalents for the English expression ‘waste of time’,
which, as assumed here, represents the conceptual metaphor TIME IS
MONEY ” (167). These expressions could roughly be translated as ‘This plan
will not bring us any food’.

Kövecses looked at the TIME IS MONEY metaphor in English and

Hungarian, comparing its various linguistic expressions in English (see
above for some examples) with their translations into Hungarian.
According to his study, most expressions do have a one-to-one translation,
but there are also some where the verb cannot be used for money and time
alike in Hungarian. Kövecses therefore concluded that “English has a more
full-blown and coherent version of the metaphor than Hungarian” (2005,
141).

I have found no other research on TIME IS MONEY across cultures,

despite the existence of numerous metaphor studies using a variety of
corpora (cf. for example Deignan 2005; Stefanowitsch & Gries 2006;
Cameron & Maslen 2010). However, there are some relevant cross-cultural
studies on TIME AS AN ENTITY in space showing cultural differences in the
way time is treated linguistically and, presumably, also conceptually. Şeyda
Özçalişkan (2004), for instance, investigated linguistic realizations of TIME
IS A MOVING OBJECT metaphors in English and Turkish. Her target group
were children at the age of three to five years, but she also included a
control group of adults in each language. Linguistic material was elicited
using picture stories and open interviews. One of her results was that the
collocations in these realizations cover a much wider range in English than
in Turkish. In English, ‘time’ was combined with 24 types of motion verbs
in her data, while Turkish speakers (children and adults) used only 7 types.

Another set of studies comes from Boroditsky et al. (e.g. Boroditsky

2001; Boroditsky et al. 2010; etc.), who focus on the differences in time
conception between English and Mandarin speakers, carrying out a number
of (psychological) experiments. Boroditsky et al. (2010, 127) found that
English as well as Mandarin speakers “organize time on the left-to-right
axis with earlier events on the left, a pattern consistent with writing
direction. But, Mandarin speakers also show evidence of vertical
representations of time, with earlier events represented further up. English
speakers showed no evidence of such a representation”. According to
Boroditsky (2001), this difference is also evident in language use.

Now, Kövecses (2005, 47ff) claims that time is almost universally

conceptualized as an entity existing in space, while he agrees with Lakoff
and Johnson’s argumentation that TIME IS MONEY is not universal (Lakoff
& Johnson 2003 (1980), 67) but a basically Western concept. Referring to
“hourly wages, hotel room rates, yearly budgets” and the like they hold the
following view:

These practices are relatively new in the history of the human

race, and by no means do they exist in all cultures. They have
 arisen in modern industrialized societies and structure our basic
everyday activities in a very profound way. Corresponding to the
fact that we act as if time is a valuable commodity – a limited
resource, even money – we conceive of time that way. (…) TIME
IS MONEY, TIME IS A LIMITED RESOURCE , and TIME IS A
VALUABLE COMMODITY are all metaphorical concepts. (…) This
isn’t a necessary way for human beings to conceptualize time; it
is tied to our culture. There are cultures where time is none of
these things.(Lakoff & Johnson 2003 (1980), 8f)

This view is corroborated by Delaney (2004), who gives numerous

examples of other time concepts from an anthropological point of view.

Taking the argument further to apply it to the level of language, we

can state the following:

If an almost universal concept (TIME IS AN ENTITY IN SPACE )

shows differences in linguistic realizations across cultures, it is
reasonable to hypothesize that the non-universal concept TIME IS
MONEY will also show linguistic differences across cultures.

The question is whether we will find such differences not only between
languages, but also between varieties of English spoken in various Western
and Asian or African cultures. As Lakoff and Johnson claim, “the
Westernization of cultures throughout the world is partly a matter of
introducing the TIME IS MONEY metaphor into those cultures” (2003 (1980),
145). If we accept this, to what degree then is this reflected in and
communicated via language? If the Westernization of a culture is not yet
completed, or, in other words, has not yet pervaded the cultural identity of
the people, we would expect the linguistic realizations of the metaphor to
be less frequent in non-Western Englishes than in Western Englishes.
However, if the TIME IS MONEY metaphor has taken root in a non-Western
variety, we would expect culturally specific modifications of the typical
Western expressions. This chapter will try to answer these questions using a
set of comparable corpora.

2. Corpus data

The material analysed in this chapter consists of sub-corpora of the so-

called International Corpus of English (ICE), coming from a wide range of
countries where English is used as a first, national, official, or secondary
language. The data collection for ICE started in 1990 and has been
completed for ten sub-corpora (henceforth called just ‘corpora’ or ‘ICE
corpora’); other corpora are still being compiled. Each of the corpora in
principle follows the same design. The sub-corpus consists of 600,000
spoken and 400,000 written words; each text should be 2,000 words long; a
certain pre-defined number of texts should come from a pre-defined
inventory of sources. These sources range from private conversations to
class lessons to broadcast news and speeches for the spoken component,
and from private letters to student essays to a variety of printed materials
for the written component.

For this study, I chose three countries for comparison where English is
the established, standardized, national language and the first language for at
least the majority of speakers: Great Britain, Canada (where, according to
the Canadian consulate webpage, English is the official language for 59.3%
of the population), and New Zealand. As countries where the
Westernization referred to by Lakoff and Johnson (see above) could
reasonably be assumed, I chose four where English is not the native
language, but an official or much used language: Singapore, Philippines,
India, and Kenya/Tanzania (which are both represented in the ICE East
Africa (ICE-EA) corpus). Let me add some popular information on the
official status of English in these countries taken from The World Factbook
2008:

India: “English enjoys associate status but is the most important

language for national, political, and commercial communication;”

Philippines: “Languages: Filipino (official; based on

Tagalog) and English (official);”

Singapore: “Languages: Mandarin 35%, English 23%;”

Kenya: “Languages: English (official), Kiswahili (official);”

Tanzania: “Languages: Kiswahili or Swahili (official),

Kiunguja (name for Swahili in Zanzibar), English (official,
primary language of commerce, administration, and higher
education)”(The World Factbook 2008)

About India, Schneider comments that “English is deeply rooted in the

country, and bilingualism involving English is widespread, and practically
universal among the educated” (2007,167). In the Philippines, both Filipino
and English are used in government, education, print, broadcast media, and
business (cf. Schneider 2007, 141). For Singapore, the government’s
Census of Population 2011 finds that 83% of the population (aged 15+) is
literate in English; almost half of the population uses English at home.
About Kenya and Tanzania, the team who collected the data for ICE East
Africa (EA) provides the following information:

English is, certainly, a second language variety in Kenya (ESL)

but classification of the position of the language in Tanzania is
not clearcut. In both countries, English is prestigious, being the
language of secondary and tertiary education and the High Court,
but Kiswahili is the language used in Parliament and government
institutions in Tanzania. English serves as a lingua franca
between people of various ethnic groups in Kenya, particularly in
bigger towns, and the capital, Nairobi, but Kiswahili fulfils this
function in Tanzania.(Manual, Introduction to ICE-EA, 1999)

For these and other reasons, ICE-EA departs in many details from the
general ICE design. One of the differences is the size of the corpus, which
contains about 2 million words of text. This kind of deviation is also found
for the New Zealand corpus with about 1.2 million words of text.
Therefore, figures for both countries have been adjusted accordingly.
Another difference lies in the structure of the text files of ICE-EA and also
of ICE GB, which made it impracticable to sort findings of time
expressions according to text type. Therefore, both ICE GB and ICE East
Africa were not used in several of the more detailed analyses.

3. Analyses

The starting points for my analyses were the time expressions which Lakoff
and Johnson (1980(2003), 7f) list in the following or similar form as
linguistic realizations of the conceptual metaphor TIME IS MONEY :
have time left

running out of time

invest time

time to spare

put aside time

lose time / loss of time

borrowed time

budget your time

spare time

worth sb’s while/time

use time profitably

Each of these was searched for with the WordSmith Concordancer in a
form which allowed the system to find different linguistic realizations of
the phrase such as past tense, 3rd person singular, -ing forms, and including
different or more words within the phrase, such as budget my time or put
aside some time. More frequent and therefore more important, however,
were phrases consisting of spend, save, or waste (in any possible verb
form) together with a time expression such as time, a lot of time, an hour,
the whole afternoon, the holidays, years, etc. Since it would not have been
feasible to find all forms of time expressions, the search was conducted
only for variants of the expressions listed above and for instances of spend,
save and waste. The output was then manually divided into tokens of these
verbs with time expressions and those without. This procedure had the
advantage of also showing the non-figurative uses of spend, save and
waste. In the rest of this chapter, I will refer to these verbs in capital letters,
SPEND, SAVE , and WASTE to indicate their use in any of the possible verb
forms.

My analyses start with simple frequency comparisons for the whole

sub-corpora or the corpora divided into the written and the spoken
component. I then look at details of distribution as well as country-specific
variation in the linguistic expressions of the TIME IS MONEY metaphor.

4. TIME IS MONEY expressions at corpus level –

SPEND, SAVE, and WASTE

4.1 Spending time

In contemporary American English, time is most likely spent. If it is not

spent, it is probably wasted. According to Davies and Gardner (2010, 11),
SPEND and WASTE are the most frequent collocates of the noun time.
This first section of the analyses therefore deals with spending time as a
linguistic expression of the time is money metaphor.

Table 1 gives an overview of the number of tokens of SPEND with

time expressions and also with other expressions, which include phrases for
money (e.g. money, amount, percentage of income, individual currencies,
etc.) as well as occasional phrases for other commodities that can be spent,
such as energy, resources, words (ICE India) or cartridges (ICE NZ).

Table 1. SPEND tokens per million words in seven ICE corpora

SPEND tokens

written spoken whole corpus

with time total with time total with time total

ICE GB 60 109 72 123 132 232

ICE Canada 86 134 91 170 177 304
ICE NZ 85 123 79 160 164 283
ICE Singapore 75 118 85 157 160 275
ICE Philippines 63 91 39 95 102 186
ICE India 26 47 52 83 78 130
ICE EastAfrica 43 102
Sum 395 622 418 788 856 1512

The table shows at least two things. First, the amount of tokens – whether
with time expression or without – varies considerably between the corpora.
ICE India contains only 130 tokens of SPEND, while ICE Canada has more
than 300 tokens per million words. And second, more than half of all
SPEND tokens come with a time expression. This actually corresponds
with the findings of Davies & Gardner (2010, 26) that the most frequent
collocate of SPEND is time, followed by year. Money as a collocate comes
third, followed again by five other time expressions. For the ICE corpora,
the prevalence of time expressions over monetary (or other) expressions as
collocates of SPEND can also be seen in Figure 1.

If we look at the spoken and written components separately, we find

this to be true for all except two components, ICE NZ spoken (which,
however, shows at least a percentage of 49.48) and ICE Philippines spoken
(with 41.05%). In all other components, between 54% and 69% of all
SPEND tokens combine with a time expression. However, there are no
obvious differences between countries with established English and
countries with English as a second language. For written and spoken texts
taken together (Figure 2), the results show no differences between the two
sets of countries either, even though the percentage for East Africa is
somewhat lower.

Figure 1.

SPEND + time expressions as percent of total tokens of SPEND in ICE

corpora split into written and spoken components
Figure 2.

SPEND + time expression as percent of total tokens of SPEND in ICE

corpora

The picture gets more interesting when we visualize the number of SPEND
+ time expressions per million words (Figure 3). Canada has the highest
number with 177 tokens. Singapore keeps up with New Zealand and
Canada and accounts for more tokens per million than Great Britain, while
figures for the other three non-native English corpora are considerably
lower. 2 The Philippine corpus contains 102 tokens, and the Indian corpus
has only 78, less than half as many as New Zealand and Singapore. The
lowest figure is found for the East Africa corpus with only 43 tokens per
million words. Thus, it seems that, with the exception of Singapore, the
westernized countries included in this study are less concerned with
spending time, at least as far as communicated linguistically, than the
Western countries – with the admission that they also talk less about
spending money.
Figure 3.

SPEND + time expression as tokens per million words

4.2 Saving time

As we saw above, the ICE corpora under analysis contained 1670 tokens of
SPEND. The number of tokens of SAVE in these corpora reaches 1283.
However, for SAVE the number of time expressions makes up only a small
portion: ICE Great Britain written and ICE India spoken do not contain a
single instance, while ICE New Zealand written features the highest
number with a mere 8 instances of SAVE + time expression. This amounts
to a maximum of 6.8% of the total tokens of SAVE per component. The
people who produced the texts of the ICE corpora did not speak much of
saving time, but predominantly of saving people, lives, and money.

These findings are also reflected in Davies and Gardner’s Frequency

Dictionary (2010, 47), where the only time expression mentioned as a
collocate of SAVE, month, comes in twelfth place. The most frequent
collocates in American English are life, money, and energy, which is simila
to what we find in the ICE corpora. Putting these figures in a graph of
tokens per million words yields the following picture (Figure 4):

Figure 4.

SAVE + time expression as tokens per million words

ICE Canada, New Zealand and Singapore show the highest frequencies of
SAVE + time expression, while the remaining three non-Western corpora
have remarkably lower frequencies. Here, it is the NZ people who talk the
most about saving time, followed by the Canadians and the Singaporeans.
Both the Canadian and the New Zealand corpus contain more than twice as
many tokens as the corpora from the Philippines, India, and East Africa.
Great Britain breaks the ranks in being closer to the Philippines and India
than to Canada and New Zealand, with less than half as many tokens as
NZ. The British do not seem to talk or write a lot about saving time, and
even less so the people in the Philippines, India, and East Africa.
4.3 Wasting time

According to Davies and Gardner, WASTE is the second most frequent

verbal collocate of time in contemporary American English (2010, 11); in
turn, the most frequent collocate of WASTE, both of the noun and the verb,
is time (2010, 120, 177). In the ICE corpora investigated, WASTE + time
expression is about three times as frequent as SAVE + time expression.
However, as Figure 5 shows, the numbers of tokens do not quite follow the
same pattern as SAVE and SPEND. While the Philippine corpus shows a
considerably lower number of tokens than the corpora of the Western
countries and Singapore, the token frequency in ICE India is higher than in
any other corpus. Even ICE East Africa, which had the lowest values for
SAVE and SPEND + time expression, here shows almost as many tokens as
ICE Great Britain.

Figure 5.

WASTE + time expression as tokens per million words

These results are certainly not what we would have expected. Apparently,
while spending time or even saving time does not play a major role in the
Philippines, India and East Africa, wasting time is an issue at least in India
and the two East African countries, Kenya and Tanzania. The question is
whether this is true across all text types or whether especially WASTE +
time expressions occur in certain text types and not so much in others.

4.4 Summary

Before I go into the distribution across text types, let me present Figure 6,
which visualizes the similarities and differences between SAVE + time
expression and WASTE + time expression. For most of the countries,
saving time and wasting time correspond roughly in numbers – except for
India and East Africa. SPEND + time expression cannot well be
represented in the same chart due to the huge difference in total numbers
(with a maximum of 177 tokens), but the overall picture is very similar to
that of SAVE + time expression.

Summarizing, we can say that, in general, wasting time seems to be

more of an issue than saving time in all of these countries. However, while
we see the lowest figures for SAVE + time expressions in the Philippine,
Indian, and East African corpora, the Indian corpus, quite unexpectedly,
shows the highest occurrence of WASTE + time expressions. Similarly, the
East African corpus turns out to have almost as many WASTE + time
expressions as the Western countries. Only in the Philippines is the number
of these expressions as low as we would expect for westernized countries.
Figure 6.

SAVE + time expression and WASTE + time expression as tokens per

million words

5. TIME IS MONEY expressions at text type level –

SPEND and WASTE

A (quantitative) comparison of time is money expressions at text level

makes sense only for SPEND and WASTE + time expressions, since there
are not enough tokens for SAVE + time expression. Unfortunately, I have
not been able to include data from GB and East Africa: GB offers only one
file containing all texts (which means that tokens of SPEND or WASTE +
time expression cannot easily be assigned to a text or text category); for
EA, separate texts are available, but the sum of their word counts
significantly differs from the word count of the one-file text document, as I
mentioned before. Finally, figures in the comparison at text type level have
been presented as tokens per 10,000 words (rather than per million words)
because text type categories consist of between 20,000 and 200,000 words,
i.e. always as multiples of 10,000 words.

5.1 SPEND + time expression at text type level

Are there any areas of life, or perhaps rather of communication in written

or spoken form, with a concentration of time expressions? Are there any
cross-country differences that are noticeable at text type level? These are
the questions leading the following analysis.

Table 2 presents the number of tokens of SPEND + time expression

per 10,000 words according to text type. Due to the small numbers of
tokens, all (oral) text types which appeared on TV or radio programmes
have been summarized in a single category ‘broadcast’. The top three rows
represent spoken text types, while the remaining rows represent written text
types.

If we compare the figures for the different countries, we find the

highest frequencies of SPEND + time expressions almost always on the
left, for Canada and NZ, and the lowest numbers always almost on the
right, for the Philippines and India, with Singapore ranging somewhere in
between. There are only four exceptions:

1. In creative writing, there are no differences between the countries.

2. India features the highest number of tokens in the category ‘class

lessons’.

3. The Philippines contain by far the highest number of tokens in student

essays.

4. The Philippines are second after New Zealand in the category ‘social
letters’, with more than eight times as many instances as in private
 conversations.

Generally, social letters contain by far the highest percentage of SPEND +

time expressions in all countries except India, where the rate (1.7) more or
less equals the rate for private conversations (1.6) and class lessons (1.8).
What I find particularly interesting in this comparison is the fact that the
two non-Western countries show relatively high numbers of tokens in
school settings (class lessons for India, student essays for the Philippines).

Table 2. SPEND + time expression – tokens per 10,000 words according to

text type

Canada NZ Sing. Philipp. India Sum

private conversations 1.9 2.1 2.0 1.0 1.6 8.6

class lessons 1.3 1.3 0.5 0.5 1.8 5.3
broadcast * 1.1 1.4 1.4 0.5 0.3 4.8
student essays 0.8 1.0 0.5 3.5 0.5 6.3
social letters 8.0 16.7 4.0 8.7 1.7 39.0
business letters 3.7 1.0 0.7 0.0 0.0 5.3
learned info 1.0 0.9 0.3 0.1 0.0 2.3
popular info 1.8 2.1 3.6 0.4 0.9 8.8
Reportage 1.5 1.0 3.0 0.0 0.0 5.5
Creative 2.8 2.0 2.3 3.5 2.5 13.0

* broadcast: talks, interviews, comments, speeches

5.2 WASTE + time expression at text type level

For the cross-country comparison of WASTE + time expression at text type

level, only the categories with interesting results are shown here.
Categories with no or only single instances were left out, as well as
categories with rather equal distribution. In Table 3, the four upper rows
represent spoken material, while the lower five rows represent written
material.

Table 3. WASTE + time expression – tokens per million words according to

text type

Canada NZ Sing. Philipp. India Sum

Conversations 14 5 7 3 8 37
class lessons 1 2 1 5 9
broadcast discussions 1 1 1 1 3 7
Speeches 2 1 3 1 6 13
student essays 1 2 3 6
learned info 3 3
Reportage 1 3 2 6
instructional admin 2 2
instructional skills 1 2 3

As can be seen from the table, WASTE + time expression is not as

prominent in the two corpora from Western countries as SPEND + time
expression (see above). For the spoken text categories, we find the highest
frequencies almost always in ICE India, rather than in a corpus from a
Western country. The only exception are Canadian conversations, which
contained about twice as many instances of WASTE + time expression as
conversations in the other corpora.

In the written part of the ICE corpora, we find more than one token of
WASTE + time expression in student essays from India and the Philippines
while Canada has only one and New Zealand none for this category. Also
interesting is the occurrence of two tokens in Indian instructional texts from
administration. In contrast, neither India nor the Philippines contain
WASTE + time expression in informational texts on a learned level, in
reportage, or in texts which give instructions about skills, while we find at
least two instances in these text categories from New Zealand.

Generalizing from these frequencies, we could say that in rather

official contexts in India, it seems to be important not to waste time.
However, this importance does not expand into (written material about)
leisure time activities, as in New Zealand, and not as much into private
conversations as in Canada.

6. WASTE + time expression at text level

So far, I have made no distinction whatsoever concerning the time

expression that comes with the metaphorical use of waste, spend, or save.
However, there is a wide grammatical range of such expressions and their
uses. For WASTE, I have taken a closer look at what (form of) time
expression it combines with in which corpus. 3

The first noticeable observation is that metaphorical WASTE in the

vast majority of cases occurs with time rather than some other time
expression such as minutes, hours, days, etc. In the Philippines, such other
time expressions do not occur at all with WASTE; in East Africa, we find
only one instance, while in the other countries they make up between seven
(NZ) and sixteen percent (GB) of all WASTE + time expression tokens.
They mostly occur in spoken rather than written data. Here are some
examples:

(1)
a.
we wasted the whole morning (ICE GB)

b. But to waste an entire serious holiday (ICE CAN)

 c.
I don’t have to waste months working on data (ICE CAN)

d.
the last thirty years have been wasted (ICE Singapore)

e.
another day I’ll be wasting (ICE India)

When wasting time, we can just waste time, or we can use a quantifier or
evaluate/ modify the time:

(2)
a.
it wastes so much time (ICE GB)

b. you don’t need to waste any time (ICE NZ)

c.
(Players) trying to waste a little time by taking… (ICE
India)

d.
we should not waste more time on fantastic experiments
(ICE EA)

e.
you won’t waste precious time (ICE CAN)

f. The pair have wasted no time (ICE NZ)

Such quantification or qualification occurs at least once in the corpora of al
countries except the Philippines. However, we do find a modification of
time in a passive construction in the Philippine corpus: so much precious
time is wasted.

To waste no time occurs three times in the New Zealand corpus in the
written component, once each in the British and the Singaporean written
component, and twice in the Singaporean spoken component. Thus, it does
not seem to be widespread in spoken language. 4 Two more occurrences in
a similar form, no time to waste, are found in ICE NZ written and ICE EA
written.

Another way to modify time is to specify whose time is wasted – the

waster’s time or somebody else’s time (Examples (3a)–(3d)). Again, both
kinds are found in all of the corpora except for the Philippine corpus, which
does not show any form of ‘wasting somebody else’s time’.

(3)
a.
you wasted your time (ICE Philippines)

b. the grasshopper wastes his time in singing (ICE India)

c.
you just want to waste his time (ICE CAN)

d. I will not waste your time (ICE EA)

Interestingly, the simple to waste time, without any modifications, is neither

found in the Canadian nor in the Philippine corpus.
 There is one more verbal construction to be mentioned, the passive
time is/was/will be wasted. It occurs in all of the non-Western countries and
in New Zealand, but is not found at all in the British or Canadian corpus.
Even though it is unlikely to be unknown in these two countries, there
seems to be a certain preference for the passive construction in the non-
Western countries and New Zealand.

Besides WASTE as a verb, it may also be used as a noun in a range of

linguistic realizations, illustrated in Extracts (4a) to (4g). The simple a
waste of time as in (4a) is the most popular in spoken, but also in written
language. However, both waste and/or time may be modified (cf. (4b) and
(4c)). Also, it frequently is not just time that is wasted, but time along with
money, effort, or resources (Extracts (4d) to (4g)).

(4)
a.
it’s just a waste of time (ICE Philippines)

b.
it’s a complete waste of time (ICE GB spoken)

c.
it’s a waste of travelling time (ICE Singapore spoken)

d.
ceremonies (…) are a waste of money and time (ICE
CAN written)

e.
a total waste of time and money (ICE NZ written)

f. a waste of time and effort (ICE India spoken)

 g.
a waste of resources and time (ICE EA written)

Though none of these constructions appears to be particular to any country

or set of countries, it should be noted that the Philippine corpus only shows
instances of wasting time alone, but never with anything else, such as
money or resources.

Besides the expressions, which occur in several corpora but with

varying frequencies, there are some linguistic realizations which occur only
in one or two of the ICE corpora under analysis. The first two, in Extracts
(5a) and (5b), are found only in ICE EA; the next two (Extract (5c) and
(5d)) are found in ICE EA and ICE India. Again, they are not necessarily
unknown in other countries. A search of the 100 million word corpus BNC,
for example, yields 54 instances of time wasting or time-wasting, (only)
four instances of without wasting time and one instance of without wasting
a moment. Comparing the sizes of BNC and the ICE sub-corpora, however,
the occurrences of these expressions in ICE EA and ICE India stand out
indicating a tendency or even a particularity of East African English and
Indian English, respectively.

(5)
a.
such nefarious and time wasting activities (ICE EA
written)

b.
this is time wasting (ICE EA written)

c. without wasting time (ICE EA written 2x)

 d.
without wasting a moment (ICE India spoken)

Another expression which is obviously peculiar and does not occur at all in
BNC is the wastage of time, found once in the Indian and twice in the East
African corpus. The two African instances come from informational texts
from Tanzania, while the Indian instance comes from a student essay. The
language used in these texts appears to be Standard English in the
Tanzanian texts and Standard or at least very advanced learner English in
the Indian essay; therefore, the use of wastage instead of just waste can
hardly be attributed to a lack of knowledge of English. Rather, it seems that
both forms are possible in these two varieties.

Finally, we find the following sentence (Extract (5e)) in the East

African corpus, from the transcription of a parliamentary debate.

(5)
e.
we only have one hour and I will appeal to Members of
both sides to maintain order because the House is taking
that hour to waste.

Here, the Deputy Speaker of the parliament is trying to cut short a debate
that obviously is becoming heated. The expression taking that hour to
waste evidences a construction that is not found in this form or in any
similar form in any other variety of English, adding to the observation that
the idea of wasting time is communicated in a wide variety of expressions
in corpora from different (Englishspeaking) cultures.

7. Individual expressions of TIME IS MONEY

Let us now take a look at the other expressions of the conceptual metaphor
TIME IS MONEY which were listed in the beginning and are reproduced here
for convenience’ sake:

have time left

running out of time

invest time

time to spare

put aside time

lose time / loss of time

borrowed time

budget your time

spare time

worth sb’s while/time

 use time profitably

As before, all possible forms of these expressions were searched for. Thus,
running out of time was captured as much as we’ve run out of time or runs
out of time. In the expressions budget X time and worth X while/time, all
possible pronouns were included in the search. Likewise, the search
allowed for one or more inserted words in several of the expressions listed,
such as put aside X time or to lose X time. It also included, somewhat
randomly, the possible substitution of hour(s) for time in the following
expressions: to invest time, to lose time, and spare time. Finally, the
expression to buy time was added to the search.

Not all expressions occurred in the ICE corpora analysed. None of

them contained any instance of: 5

to invest time

to put aside time

to budget sb’s time

to use time profitably

Other expressions occurred in all seven corpora. Thus, in every country

people are running out of time:

(6)
a.
I hope it never happens that a team runs out of time (ICE
 CAN)

b.
Okay well thank you very much We’ve run out of time
(ICE Singapore)

c.
We are running out of time Just one more question here uh
… (ICE EA)

Most of the tokens found come from interviews and discussions, including
parliamentary debates, and all but one (see Extract (6f) below) come from
spoken language. There are basically two variants of use. In one variant,
the more common one in the ICE corpora, running out of time is used to cut
somebody short (whether in a friendly or unfriendly manner) in an
interview or discussion. A sub-variant of this is found in a direct
conversation of the British corpus (Extract (6d), simplified), where
speakers A and B talk and A suddenly inquires about a third person,
speaker C, who only occasionally contributes to the conversation.

(6)
d.
A:
here are a number of things

You must be running out of time

I’m sorry it’s gone on so long

C:
No no I’m not I’m not running out of
time <unclear-words>
 A: Are you cold

It’s freezing

Can we go upstairs (ICE GB spoken, S1A-052)

The other variant refers to the course of actions that have a limited time
frame for completion, such as in a (sports) competition (cf. (6a) above), or
in politics (cf. (6e)), or student assignments ((6f)).

(6)
e.
The Government needs […] On present policies it will
run out of time. (ICE GB written, W2E-010 = press
editorial)

f. …matters for the paper. Do not forget those because you

may run out of time.(ICE Philippines spoken, S1B-005)

Two other expressions which occur in all seven corpora are enough time
and spare time. Both expressions show an interesting distribution: spare
time is generally used more often in spoken than in written material in
Canada, NZ, Singapore and the Philippines, while it is more frequent in the
written components of Britain and East Africa. The expression enough time
occurs almost exclusively (with one exception) in spoken language in the
three Western countries (GB, Canada, NZ), while the ratios of occurrence
between spoken and written language are 10:3 for Singapore, 6:4 in the
Philippines, 1:5 in India, and 1:6 in East Africa. Furthermore, there is a
limited range of verbs in these ICE corpora which combine with enough
time. People in all seven countries may or may not have (got) enough time;
enough time is given in all countries but Canada and Singapore, while in
these countries, people find enough time (Canada) or spend (4x), waste , or
even clock in enough time (Singapore). In India and East Africa, however,
people simply get enough time.

Several of the remaining expressions (borrow(ed) time, to buy time,

time left, time to spare) occur in no more than four of the seven corpora,
with no recognizable tendencies. Two others occur in five of the corpora,
or, putting it negatively, do not occur in two corpora: The expression worth
sb’s while/time is neither found in the Indian nor in the East African corpus,
while no form of to lose time (e.g. loss of time, lost/losing some/no time,
lost X hours) is found in the Indian or in the British corpus. Lastly, one
interesting expression showed up, due to a search that allowed for options,
containing a rather unusual verb with time: In the Philippines, ‘time’ can
also be ‘handled’.

8. Summary of results

Let me now summarize the results of the analyses presented, with a view to
the questions posed in the beginning: if it is true that the introduction of the
time is money metaphor is one means of Westernization, to which degree is
this reflected in and communicated via language? Two more concrete
questions result from the first one: (a) Are the linguistic expressions listed
as realizations of the conceptual metaphor TIME IS MONEY as frequent in
non-Western Englishes as they are in Western Englishes? And (b) Do we
find modifications of the typical Western expressions that are specific to a
non-Western variety?
 As to the frequency of TIME IS MONEY expressions, we have found tha
there is a clear difference between Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and
Singapore on the one hand and the Philippines, India, and East Africa on
the other hand for SPEND + time expressions per million words. On
average, the corpora from the Western countries and Singapore contain 158
tokens per million words, while the corpora from the non-Western countries
on average contain less than half as many tokens per million words (74
tokens).

The picture looks similar for SAVE + time expressions. Here, the
countries with the highest occurrences of tokens are Canada, New Zealand
and Singapore, which show a frequency at least twice as high as any of the
other three non-Western countries. Great Britain, however, with only one
token more than the Philippines or India, does not quite fit the picture. For
a Western country, the British do not seem to talk or write a lot about
saving time, judging from the ICE corpora.

For WASTE + time expressions, Britain is more or less on a level

again with Canada, New Zealand and Singapore, but here we see
unexpectedly high figures for India and East Africa. The frequency of
WASTE + time expressions in the Indian corpus is indeed the highest of all
seven, while the East African corpus almost keeps up with the British
corpus.

If we take a look at the distribution of TIME IS MONEY expressions at

text type level, we find that the general result for SPEND + time expression
is reflected there, with only a few exceptions: There are no differences in
creative writing, and there is a relatively high number of instances in
Philippine social letters. More significant is the fact that India and the
Philippines range highest in the text types ‘class lessons’ and ‘student
essays’, respectively.
 The picture is not nearly as clear for the text type distribution of
WASTE + time expression, which may in part be due the overall lower
number of instances. However, it is important to note that India has the
highest frequency of tokens in the following text type categories: class
lessons, broadcast discussions, speeches, student essays, and administrative
instructional texts.

The second question concerned culture-specific modifications of time

is money. First, however, we have to look at the distribution of particular
forms which may show certain tendencies. As regards WASTE + time
expressions at text level, we find that the Philippine corpus is particular in
that it lacks a number of constructions which occur once or more often in
the other corpora: WASTE + time expressions such as hour, morning, or
years; quantified or modified time expressions; wasting time and
something else such as money or effort; and ‘wasting somebody else’s
time’. Instead, it contains two instances of ‘(the) wasted time’ (participle
construction), and two instances of passive constructions. Besides the
Philippine corpus, the participle construction is found only in the
Singaporean corpus (once) and in the Canadian one (three times). The
passive construction generally occurs in the non-Western countries
(including Singapore) and in New Zealand, but not in Britain or Canada.

Other peculiarities are time-wasting as a participle construction in East

Africa, and without wasting time/a moment in East Africa (twice) and India
(once). Neither of these constructions occurs in any of the other corpora,
nor are they frequent in BNC. Finally, we have come across a unique
expression in East Africa: the House is taking that hour to waste.

In terms of other expressions of TIME IS MONEY , we note another

tendency in distribution: While enough time is predominant in spoken
language in the three Western countries, it is predominant in written
language in India and East Africa. The verbs used with enough time also
show an interesting distribution: Canadians find it, Singaporeans spend,
waste, or clock in enough time, Indians and East Africans simply get it,
while all but the Canadians and Singaporeans (do or don’t) give enough
time. Finally, the Philippines handle time, while the expression worth sb’s
while/time is neither found in the Indian nor in the East African corpus.

9. Discussion

The results summarized above are roughly what we would have expected:
The corpora from countries with a Western culture show high frequencies
of realizations which express the TIME IS MONEYS metaphor. In contrast, the
corpora from countries with a non-Western culture, where English is only a
second language and where the TIME IS MONEY metaphor might have been
introduced with the English language (rather than being pre-existent), show
lower frequencies of such realizations. This applies to SPEND and SAVE +
time expressions, and to a certain degree also to WASTE + time
expressions.

The Singaporean corpus constitutes an exception, since it behaves

rather like the Western corpora. Considering that Singapore counts as a
financial metropolis in the East, however, this appears not all too
surprising. Here, the Westernization through the introduction of the TIME IS
MONEY metaphor seems to have been advanced quite successfully.

The question now is whether we can argue from the data presented so
far that the Philippines, India, and East Africa have not experienced the
same degree of Westernization. Though the results for SPEND and SAVE
support this claim, there are two possible arguments against a lesser degree
of Westernization in India and East Africa. The first of these
counterarguments lies in the results for WASTE + time expressions. As we
have seen in Figure 5, the number of tokens of WASTE + time expressions
per million words in the Indian corpus even exceeds the respective number
for all other countries, and for East Africa, this number at least keeps up
with the figure for Great Britain. If we take the frequency of linguistic
realizations of the metaphor as an indicator of the degree of Westernization
these numbers speak for a high degree. Nevertheless, I would argue that
this is not necessarily the case. Rather, these results give room for the
assumption that not all expressions listed by Lakoff and Johnson and other
authors need to be realizations of the Western time is money metaphor but
may be realizations of another metaphor that is perhaps native to the
country. Lakoff and Johnson themselves mention TIME IS A LIMITED
RESOURCE and TIME IS A VALUABLE COMMODITY in the same sentence as
time is money (Lakoff & Johnson (2003 (1980), 8f), even though in my
view we are not dealing here with quite the same conceptual metaphor.
Money can be spent, saved, wasted, collected, etc. A limited resource, in
contrast, is not typically something that is at a person’s own free disposal. I
may be available, for example, to be used or wasted, but not necessarily to
be collected. The conceptual metaphor TIME IS A LIMITED RESOURCE need
not be connected with money, and, as the examples from the Inari Saami
cited in the introduction show, it may exist independently of any
Westernization.

An Indian informant told me that time is typically considered money

in the corporate sector in India, at least in the cities, which is probably due
to the British influence. In other areas of life, however, making good use of
time as a limited resource or valuable commodity may also mean chatting
with somebody (i.e. ‘building a relationship’) rather than fulfilling office
duties, for example. Even where time is not seen as related to money, it is
generally considered a commodity (or resource) not to be wasted, the
informant says. Waiting for a train or bus that is several hours late, for
instance, is usually considered a waste of time.

Obviously, the value of time as a resource not to be wasted is

transmitted in educational settings, but also plays a role in settings of public
influence, such as speeches and broadcast discussions. The same line of
argumentation may hold for the East African corpus. Thus, we could
explain the high number of WASTE + time expressions not as indicators of
a higher degree of Westernization but as due to the fact that these
expressions are realizations of a conceptual metaphor that is more or less
native to the country.

The second counterargument for the claim that the Philippines, India,
and East Africa have been westernized to a lesser degree lies in the use of
country-specific, i.e. adapted, linguistic realizations of the metaphor. If the
concept TIME IS MONEY has been incorporated in the value set of a culture,
in other words, if the population represented in the corpora has already
made the concept their own ‘in the depth of their minds’, we could expect
their language to reflect and communicate it in a culturally specific way.
Such culturally specific expressions are found in Singapore (to clock in
time), the Philippines (to handle time), East Africa (taking that hour to
waste), and India (and East Africa): a wastage of time.

The evidence for Westernization is therefore split: on the one hand,

several expressions that exist or are frequent in the corpora from Western
countries are less frequent or not used at all in three corpora from non-
Western countries. On the other hand, we do find culturally specific
realizations of the conceptual metaphor TIME IS MONEY.

In addition, the results of this investigation challenge the implicit

assumptions made by Lakoff and Johnson: firstly, that the conceptual
metaphor TIME IS MONEY is Western in nature and did not exist in the
colonized countries beforehand (cf. Lakoff & Johnson 2003 (1980), 145);
and secondly, that all of the expressions they list (2003 (1980), 7f) are
realizations of this metaphor, which forms a single system with its
entailments TIME IS A RESOURCE and TIME IS A VALUABLE commodity
(2003 (1980), 9).

10. Conclusion

This chapter started out with the claim by Lakoff and Johnson that we live
by the conceptual metaphor TIME IS MONEY and the question of whether we
can find linguistic evidence for this claim not only in countries with a
Western culture but also in countries with non-Western cultures where
English is a second language. While TIME IS MONEY seems to be pervasive
in business and everyday life in Western societies, non-Western societies
may not include this metaphor in their set of values. Lakoff and Johnson
additionally claim that the Westernization of other cultures happened partly
through introducing the TIME IS MONEY metaphor (2003 (1980), 145).

The main part of the chapter reports on finding evidence for or against
the first claim in seven sub-corpora of the International corpus of English
(ICE), three of them coming from Western countries, three from Asian
countries with English as an official or second language, and one from East
Africa, also with English as official language. The analyses included the
distribution and use of specific expressions of the TIME IS MONEY metaphor
as well as any of its linguistic realizations containing the verb or noun
spend, save, and waste. It turned out that the TIME IS MONEY metaphor does
not seem to be quite as predominant in countries with English as a second
language as in countries with English as first language. In line with Lakoff
and Johnson, this would be taken as an indication that the Westernization
has not been completed yet. However, at least the notion that time is a
commodity not to be wasted is apparently rooted deeply enough to produce
very high figures of WASTE + time expression for India and East Africa.
Moreover, we find some national or regional variants in the linguistic
expressions of the metaphor in all non-Western countries. Whether this is a
result of Westernization or whether this notion of TIME IS MONEY existed
even before the introduction of English is another question that remains to
be investigated.

Notes

1. Including four of the countries from which linguistic material has been used here.

2. For most corpora, this coincides with the actual number of tokens in the corpus; however, figures
have been normalized for ICE New Zealand and ICE East Africa.

3. It does not make much sense to do this kind of analysis for SAVE because of its low number of
tokens in the corpora. SPEND is much more frequent and would therefore lend itself for such an
analysis, but the question is whether SPEND can be considered a clear instance of the TIME IS
MONEY metaphor. In German and Spanish, for example, spend in the context of time is translated
with verbs that are not connected with money (‘verbringen’, ‘pasar’).

4. For comparison: In BNC, which contains 225 times as many written words as an ICE sub-corpus
to waste no time occurs 94 times.

5. This does not mean they are not used in the English language, but obviously they are not
frequently used: to invest time occurs 35 times in the BNC, while the other three expressions occur
only between one and three times in the BNC.

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 Metaphors, bilingual mental
lexicon and distributional
models
Marianna Bolognesi
University of Amsterdam

While native speakers (NS) might process conventional metaphors mainly on a linguistic

level, this is arguably not true for foreign learners (FL). This paper analyses the role that

linguistic information plays in processing a word meaning in relation to NS and FL

judgments. Since FL generally seem to rely heavily on linguistic contexts for

understanding word meanings, the lexical representations emerging from their judgments

should correlate well with those emerging from distributional (DSS) analyses based on

verbal corpora that incorporate purely linguistic information. However, since DSS

representations also encompass metaphorical expressions, the correlation with judgments

of FL should drop dramatically when considering words that are typically used in

metaphorical expressions. These predictions are confirmed through an extensive

quantitative analysis based on experimental data.

Keywords

foreign learners; distributional analyses; corpus linguistics; conventional metaphors

1. Introduction

In cognitive linguistics, metaphor is defined as a cognitive phenomenon

thanks to which we understand one conceptual domain in terms of another
conceptual domain. By doing so, we allow our experience of physical
domains to guide our understanding of abstract domains (Lakoff 1993).
Conceptual metaphors are distinguished from metaphorical linguistic
expressions. The relationship between cognitive metaphors and linguistic
metaphorical expressions represents the perfect field for investigating the
complex dynamics that characterize the interaction between our conceptual
and linguistic processing systems, and the nature of the semantic
representations in our mind.

In this context, a recent debate has opposed perceptual points of view

to symbolic ones (De Vega, Glenberg & Graesser 2008). The two main
positions in the debate are represented by supporters of embodied theories
and supporters of the distributional hypothesis, who successfully model
lexical meaning by analysing linguistic contexts of occurrence. The latter
approach can be summarized by the well-known quote “You shall know a
word by the company it keeps” (Firth 1957, 11). The natural consequence
of the distributional approach is that different contexts shape different
aspects of lexical meaning, and that words that tend to behave similarly, in
terms of their distributions across different linguistic contexts, have similar
meanings. Researchers that support embodied accounts would support this
assertion if it was stated in the opposite direction (similar words tend to
appear in similar contexts). However, they argue, because concepts are
grounded in perceptual experiences, meanings cannot emerge in a model
that is based only on the covariance of abstract symbols, such as linguistic
expressions (Glenberg & Robertson 2000).

In this debate, recent findings have shown that, in fact, we can process
concepts on two levels: by activating deep mental simulations (which
provide perceptual features) or by focusing just on textual occurrences
(which provide linguistic features) (Barsalou et al. 2008). The latter
strategy seems to peak first, and sometimes is considered sufficient for
comprehension. The difference between the two processing strategies may
depend on the cognitive task and the type of input provided. For example,
Just (2008) suggested that perceptual simulations are used in the
comprehension of novel metaphors, while conventional metaphors would
be processed by NS on a linguistic level, and activate the same brain areas
employed in linguistically related tasks, such as reading. However, this is
arguably not the case for FL, for which even conventional metaphors may
represent obscure meanings that elude the lexical equivalence with words
in their first language. The understanding of such metaphors might force
FL to access extralinguistic information in order to attempt an
interpretation and solve the problem derived from the lack of lexical
correspondence.

The objective of this study is to investigate the role of language-

related information in shaping NS and FL lexical representations of words
that are typically used in literal expressions and words that are often used
metaphorically. The outcomes will contribute to shedding light, through
empirical evidence, on the role of the linguistic information required for the
processing of words that are typically used in literal and metaphorical
expressions, in English spoken by NS and English spoken by FL.
Moreover, the results will help us understand whether we also activate
metaphorical senses when we process a word meaning as a whole, in NS
and in FL.

In order to investigate these research questions, two empirical methods

have been employed: on the one hand English NS and FL were asked to
think about the meanings of given verb pairs and rate the degree of
similarity perceived between them; on the other hand a Distributional
Semantic Space (DSS) was implemented, to show the linguistic similarities
between the same verbs gathered from a corpus analysis. In these models,
words are represented as geometrical points in a semantic space
(determined by the words’ covariance in verbal texts): the more two words
are represented as close to one another, the more their meanings are similar
because the two words tend to appear in the same linguistic contexts. The
semantic representations that emerge encompass both literal and
metaphorical usages, merged together.

In the last decade, the implicit parallels between lexical

representations in the mind and lexical representations in the DSSs,
frequently suggested to evaluate computational models, have been
addressed in several ways. These comparisons produced consistent degrees
of correlation between human behaviours and machine outputs in different
cognitive tasks, including lexical priming (Lowe & McDonald 2000; Jones
et al. 2006; Baroni & Lenci 2010), synonym detection (Landauer &
Dumais 1997; Rapp 2003; Bullinaria & Levy 2007; Turney 2008; Baroni &
Lenci 2010), judgments of semantic similarity (McDonald & Ramscar
2001; Padò & Lapata 2007; Baroni & Lenci 2010), and metaphor
comprehension (Kintsch 2000). Strangely, none of these studies seem to
have investigated (yet) the correlations between the distributional data
retrievable from corpora and the bilingual mental lexicon. However, the
evaluation of the pioneer LSA model (Landauer & Dumais 1997) was
performed through a correlation study between the corpus data and the
synonym detection task performed by TOEFL students, who are by
definition non-native speakers.

Among other empirical methods that focus on the role of the context
in shaping a word’s meaning, several studies in second language
acquisition have shown how FL, especially those with basic competences,
rely heavily on the context to retrieve the meaning of new words. These
studies emphasize the key role of reading for vocabulary growth in a
foreign language (Cobb 1997; Fraser 1999; Walters 2004).
 Given the findings mentioned above, the predictions for this study
were the following. In general, I expected the lexical representations in the
DSS to correlate positively with regard to the semantic representations
generated by both, NS and FL, as has been previously found in the
empirical studies mentioned above, conducted to evaluate different
distributional models. However, I expected to observe different degrees of
correlation, depending on the type of words (and therefore depending on
the presence or absence of metaphorical expressions involved) and the type
of speaker (NS or FL). In particular, the distributional representations of
words that are typically used in literal expressions were expected to show a
higher correlation with the FL judgments, rather than with the NS
judgments. On the other hand, words that are often used in metaphorical
expressions, and therefore include metaphorical senses in their
distributional representations, were expected to correlate poorly the FL
judgments, suggesting that FL cannot and do not process metaphorical
meanings on a linguistic level, as they do with literal ones.

The first prediction bears on the idea that in the mental lexicon of NS,
which was constructed in childhood together with the conceptual system,
the clustering of similar words might resemble a structure that is less
directly reproducible by retrieving semantic information simply from
language uses, because it also incorporates extralinguistic information
which has been experienced perceptually, and which contributed to shaping
the conceptual system in NS. The perceptual information that contributes to
building a verb meaning in the NS mind is not fully captured by the
distributional model (which is language-based), and might therefore
determine an overall lower degree of correlation between lexical
representations in NS and lexical representations in the DSS. On the other
hand, when we learn a foreign language as adults, our conceptual system is
already shaped by the categories built through our mothertongue, and we
might prefer to focus on the linguistic contexts of the words in the foreign
language, while understanding and constructing their meaning. This could
lead to the construction of lexical representations, which are more tightly
dependent on the linguistic contexts, and therefore more correlated to those
that emerge in a DSS. The idea that words in a foreign language are
strongly dependent on the linguistic level of analysis, rather than on the
conceptual system, is also supported in Kroll and Stewart’s (1994) well-
known model where it is shown that conceptual links are stronger towards
the lexicon in L1, rather than the lexicon in L2, and that often words in L2
are understood through the mediation that operates on a linguistic level,
stimulating the activation of equivalent words in L1.

When analysing the representations of words that are often used

metaphorically, such as motion verbs, I expected to observe low correlation
coefficients between DSS and FL lexical representations. This would be
explained by the fact that the semantic representations in the DSS
encompass information about metaphorical meanings, processed on a
linguistic level, while the same metaphorical meanings are difficult to grasp
in a foreign language, and therefore might be missing in FL’s lexical
representations: as Littlemore (2001) points out, what is a frozen metaphor
to NS, is a novel metaphor to FL who encounter it for the first time. Being
unable to successfully process the metaphorical expressions by relying just
on linguistic contextual information (as they would do in other situations),
FL are forced to mentally simulate the referents, in an attempt to retrieve
useful extralinguistic information that might help to solve the problem.
This deeper conceptual processing, which involves mental simulations,
might eventually succeed or it might still fail, but in either case it triggers
extralinguistic information that generates a representation which is not
reproducible by the DSS, which is language-based.
 Finally, considering the types of verb involved in the analysis can shed
light on the nature of metaphors. In particular, observing the distributional
semantic representations of those verbs that are often used in metaphorical
expressions (such as run, fall, come, or follow) and their correlation with
the representations emerging from actual cognitive data, and comparing
these coefficients to those that characterize verbs that are not used in
metaphorical expressions, can help us to understand the nature of
metaphors on a deeper level, as a linguistic and as a conceptual
phenomenon. Such exploration bears on the idea that mental simulations of
concepts (derived from perceptual experience) and linguistic processing of
word meanings (derived from distributional information) are two distinct
cognitive processes that interact in complex ways during language
comprehension and contribute in different ways to shape the semantic
representations in our minds (e.g. Evans 2009).

2. Procedure

The verbs chosen for the analyses include two semantic classes: a wide
selection of motion verbs, many of which are often involved in
metaphorical expressions, and a selection of verbs that describe abstract
actions that are done with the mind rather than with the body. All verbs
have medium or high frequency of use (also in the input of the FL). A list
of the verbs used as stimuli is reported in Appendix A.

The domain of motion verbs has been chosen because we often prefer
to manipulate abstract entities with non-literal senses of motion verbs,
rather than with other verbs, and we can demonstrate this tendency by
observing the frequency of their occurrence in different corpora. For
example, considering the word business, the syntagm run a business, where
run has a metaphorical meaning, is much more frequent than the alternative
and more literal manage a business. Moreover, if we consider just the verb
run, a quick check of different corpora reveals that the most frequent direct
objects associated with this verb contribute to build non-literal meanings
(e.g. business, risk, company). Metaphorical expressions featuring motion
verbs are therefore frequent and salient. The second group of verbs includes
epistemic verbs, psychological verbs and verbs that express emotions; all of
these verbs are less likely to be used in metaphorical expressions.

Forty male and female undergraduate students, English NS, and forty
male and female Italian undergraduate students, FL of English, took part in
the experiment. Both groups were asked to rate the semantic similarity
perceived between a target verb and 47 other English verbs on a scale from
1 to 7, ‘1’ being very different and ‘7’ very similar. This procedure was
repeated with each participant with new target verbs for 30–40 minutes.
Each participant filled in 4–5 questionnaires, containing tables of semantic
similarity perceived between a verb and the other 47 verbs from the pool.
All the responses were collected and inserted into a matrix, where the 48
verbs were reported in both rows and columns, and the similarity
judgments in the corresponding cells.

The same verbs were used for the corpus analysis, based on a
concatenated corpus 1 from which the information was extracted according
to the Distributional Memory framework (Baroni & Lenci 2010). For each
verb, the contexts of occurrence were extracted in tuples, or triads,
according to the DepDM method, each of them containing the following
entities: the verb itself, a linking element, and a noun. The measure of
association is Local Mutual Information (Baroni & Lenci 2010). The list of
tuples was organized in a matrix of occurrences, and transformed into a
matrix of similarities by calculating the cosine. In the end, the lexical
representations in the matrices built from NS and FL responses were
compared with the DSS outcomes, through a correlation study.

3. Analysis

Each pair of verbs was administered to four NS participants and four FL

participants. Also, each pair was administered in both, the AB order (where
A and B are respectively the two verbs) as well as in the BA order, because
the distributional model considers the distance between two words as a
commutative property. The average similarity for each word pair was then
calculated, based on the four collected judgements. The standard deviation,
varying from 0 to 3.46, revealed that the four judgments collected for each
word pair covered the whole range of possibilities, from being completely
homogeneous to being completely polarized on the two extreme values (1
and 7). The latter case appeared only for the following pairs: leave-arrive
(in FL); forget-memorize (in FL) and forget-remember (in NS). Other verb
pairs showed a high variance among similarity judgments; many of them
were verbs with opposite meanings, such as the examples above, verbs
expressing movement in opposite directions, or with opposite connotations
(one being positive the other being negative). The verb pairs that fell into
this category were the following: escape-arrive (in NS and in FL), hate-
appreciate (in NS), love-hate (in NS), hate-admire (in NS), come-escape
(in NS), love-protest (in NS), leave-arrive (in FL), love-doubt (in FL). In
general, verb pairs with opposite meanings show a high variance among
similarity judgments, mainly in NS. The same pairs, judged by FL, exhibit
homogeneous ratings, polarized on the highest values of the scale (6 and 7)
Other pairs that presented high variance among judgments included verbs
that build up a collocation or a syntagm frequently used (such as fall-love
or love-travel), if given in a certain order, but not in the opposite order
(love-fall or travel-love). The higher similarity perceived between the two
verbs presented in the first order was observed in FL, for the following verb
pairs: fall-love, appreciate-drive, appreciate-fly, decide-follow, follow-
dream, love-ski, wish-travel, and wish-escape. In NS only a few pairs like
these showed a high standard deviation according to the order in which the
verbs were presented: love-fly, fall-love, love-ski, love-travel. After the
analysis of the variance within the same verb pair, the mean among the four
different judgments was calculated. The average similarity values were
reported in a 48 by 48 matrix, containing all the verbs on the rows as well
as on the columns. On the diagonal of the matrix, representing the out-of-
scale similarity between a verb and itself, the value 8 was reported. Then,
the Likert values were normalized, dividing them by 8, in order to obtain a
matrix with average values expressed on a scale from 0 to 1, comparable
with the distributional matrix of cosines obtained later from the corpus
analysis. 2

The average similarity value between homogeneous and

heterogeneous word pairs showed that there was a marked difference
perceived between two verbs belonging to the same category (both either
motion or psychological verbs) and two verbs belonging to different
categories, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Mean and SD for each verb pair, according to the category
parameter. mot = motion verbs, psy = psychological verbs

Verb pair NS FL

M SD M SD

MOT/MOT (e.g. run/ski, 276 verb pairs) 0.44 0.15 0.50 0.19
PSY/PSY (e.g. love/deny, 276 verb pairs) 0.46 0.17 0.48 0.19
MOT/PSY OR PSY/MOT (576 verb pairs) 0.28 0.12 0.23 0.12
The two conceptual domains appear to be separated in both NS and FL, as
the average similarity values show. This finding is supported visually by
the dendrograms 3 showing the distributions in NS (Figure 1) and in FL
(Figure 2). In these graphs the more two words are similar, the closer they
appear to each other, and the shorter the arch that connects them.

The mean within the whole matrix did not show significant differences
between the NS responses (M = 0.39) and the FL (M = 0.38).

For the implementation of the DSS based on corpora of texts, 920,710

total occurrences of the 48 verbs were extracted from the concatenated
corpus described in Section 2. The occurrences were extracted in strings
composed by 4 elements, which looked like the following one:

fall-v, in-1, love-n, 234 851,

where fall is one of the 48 verbs, in is the link that expresses the syntactic
pattern characterizing the context, and love is the semantic collocate
(noun). The weight of the relation between these elements is expressed by
the value 234,851 (please refer to Baroni & Lenci 2010 for further details
on the technical aspects of this procedure, and for the transformation of the
matrix of occurrences into a matrix of similarities, i.e. of cosines).

The geometrical model represented in Figure 3 shows that the clusters

of psychological verbs (on the left side of the graph) and motion verbs (on
the right side) emerge automatically, in NS and in FL, with the exception of
the verbs dream and protest, which in the DSS appear to be in the cluster of
motion verbs. Interestingly, the verb protest engages in two metonymically
related senses, one more abstract (= complain) and one more concrete
(= take action). This might explain the fact that it appears in the cluster of
motion verbs. The fact that the two classes of verbs emerge automatically
by simply looking at the distribution of the verbs’ occurrences across a
large corpus of texts, in the same way as they emerge from explicit human-
generated judgments, constitutes a strong argument in support of the
distributional hypothesis: meaning manifests in context, “you shall know a
word by the company it keeps’, as Firth said. This non-trivial result
suggests that the structure of the human semantic knowledge can be tackled
by means of distributional semantics techniques, by looking at how words
are used in communication (i.e. in corpora of texts).

Figure 1.

The dendrogram representing the clustering of the verbs according to the

data elicited from NS. Psychological verbs cluster automatically on the left
side of the graph, while motion verbs cluster on the right side
Figure 2.

The dendrogram representing the clustering of the verbs according to the

data elicited from FL. Psychological verbs cluster automatically on the left
side of the graph, while motion verbs cluster on the right side
Figure 3.

The dendrogram representing the clustering of the verbs according to the

occurrences extracted from the corpus (DSS). Psychological verbs cluster
automatically on the left side of the graph, while motion verbs cluster on
the right side

Moreover, the verbs arrive and come, which are often used metaphorically,
appear on the periphery of the motion cluster, on the border with the
psychological verbs, across all three different spaces.

Finally, each lexical representation in the distributional model,

contextually defined by the DSS, was compared with the lexical
representation of the same verb within the semantic space built with NS
similarity judgments and the FL similarity judgments. The Pearson
coefficients for each correlation are reported in Table 2.
Table 2. Pearson correlation coefficients between each lexical representation
emerging from corpus analysis (DSS) and the same representation retrieved
from NS and FL similarity judgments

PSY Correlation Correlation MOT Correlation Correlation

DSS/NS DSS/FL DSS/NS DSS/FL

ADMIRE 0.58 0.53 JUMP 0.59 0.46

APPRECIATE 0.64 0.60 LEAVE 0.49 0.49
HATE 0.62 0.64 MARCH 0.61 0.53
HOPE 0.53 0.60 FALL 0.52 0.38
BELIEVE 0.68 0.63 FLY 0.52 0.43
DECIDE 0.57 0.63 ROLL 0.66 0.49
DENY 0.60 0.55 ROW 0.75 0.55
CONSIDER 0.69 0.68 RUN 0.49 0.35
FORGET 0.40 0.63 SKATE 0.56 0.47
FORGIVE 0.54 0.54 SKI 0.61 0.46
DOUBT 0.69 0.69 SLIP 0.54 0.49
DREAM 0.44 0.45 STROLL 0.64 0.61
IDEALISE 0.53 0.56 SWIM 0.67 0.48
IMAGINE 0.62 0.69 SWING 0.69 0.61
JUDGE 0.61 0.63 TRAVEL 0.54 0.49
LOVE 0.48 0.60 WALK 0.59 0.55
MEAN 0.69 0.69 ARRIVE 0.60 0.53
MEMORISE 0.65 0.73 CLIMB 0.57 0.50
PROTEST 0.54 0.51 COME 0.47 0.40
REMEMBER 0.59 0.66 FOLLOW 0.49 0.42
RESPECT 0.47 0.52 CRAWL 0.57 0.51
SUPPOSE 0.69 0.68 DANCE 0.59 0.48
UNDERSTAND 0.57 0.63 DRIVE 0.67 0.59
WISH 0.59 0.63 ESCAPE 0.45 0.41

All of the lexical representations in the distributional model (DSS) are

positively correlated with the representations in the cognitive spaces (both
in NS and in FL), and the correlation appears to be strong, on average.
Furthermore, in the DSS there seem to be verbs that are more correlated
with the ratings provided in NS and verbs that are more correlated with the
ratings provided in FL. The following verbs show a significantly higher
(p > .05) degree of correlation while comparing the DSS to NS judgments,
rather than to FL: arrive, climb, come, crawl, dance, drive, fall, fly, follow,
jump, march, roll, row, run, skate, ski, slip, swim, swing. On the other hand
the following verbs show a significantly higher (p > .05) degree of
correlation comparing the distributional model to FL judgments: decide,
forget, hope, imagine, love, memorize, remember, and understand.

The different degrees of correlation seem to depend on the semantic

type of the verb: in general all motion verbs are more correlated with NS
similarity judgments, 4 while most of the psychological verbs correlate
better with the FL judgments. Four trends characterizing the average r
distribution are hereby formalized, and verbally summarized.

1. r (psy, DSS/FL) = 0.61 > r (mot, DSS/FL) = 0.49

Significance: t = 6.40; p < .0001

Foreign learners process PSY and MOT verbs in different ways.

2.
r (mot, DSS/NS) = 0.58 > r (mot, DSS/FL) = 0.49

Significance: t = 7.79; p < .0001

Native speakers’ semantic representations of motion verbs are more

language-based than foreign learners’ semantic representations.

3. r (psy, DSS/FL) = 0.61 > r (psy, DSS/NS) = 0.59

 Significance: t = 2.29; p = .03

Foreign learners’ semantic representations of psychological verbs are more

language-based than native speakers’ semantic representations.

4.
r (psy, DSS/NS) = 0.59 > r (mot, DSS/NS) = 0.58

Significance: t = 0.27; p = .79

Native speakers process PSY and MOT verbs in similar ways (the
difference is not statistically significant).

4. Discussion

Observing the average similarity between each two verbs, it appears that if
they belong to the same class, then they are on average perceived by the
speakers as more similar than two verbs that belong to different classes,
even though the two classes were not explicitly pointed out to the
participants. This result by itself is not that surprising, but the same
phenomenon emerges automatically in the distributional model: the
semantic representations from the corpus analysis cluster into the two verb
classes. Hence, the consistency of this empirical method for semantic
information retrieval is supported, and we can distinguish the two verb
classes from a distributional perspective, i.e. the two verb classes are
different with respect to the type of syntactic and semantic correlates they
tend to be used with, in natural language. Also, the graphical impact
suggests a match between the corpus data and the responses given by the
participants (Figure 1, 2, 3). From a statistical point of view, the correlation
study shows that there is a repeated and significant correlation between the
computational and cognitive models, and this is a non-trivial finding, from
a computational semantics perspective.

In the initial first prediction it was stated that the distributional model,
because of the strong reliance on the syntagmatic (linguistic) contexts that
govern its implementation, would reveal semantic representations that
better resemble those provided by FL, rather than those provided by NS.
This would apply for verbs whose meaning does not include metaphorical
expressions (psychological verbs). This prediction bears on the fact that NS
lexical representations also encompass information that is grounded in
experience, in the affordances offered by the referents, and in the cultural
boundaries that induce certain perceptions of salience, also used for
generating metaphors. In other words, the NS lexical representations
encompass pragmatic information retrieved from the communication
dimension, which is not captured in an exclusively linguistic model. On the
other hand, students who formally learn a foreign language as adults might
rely to a larger extent on the linguistic contexts of a word in order to store
and retrieve its meaning, showing a reluctance in building direct links
between words in FL and concepts, as this process would somehow force
them to create new concepts that could clash with those already established
in their mothertongue. Moreover, FL do not have enough pragmatic
experience in the foreign culture, to integrate their semantic representations
with the information retrieved from the communicative dimension of
meaning. This prediction was confirmed for most psychological verbs: the
representations emerging from corpus analysis correlate better with the
mental lexicon of FL.

In the second prediction it was argued that the correlation coefficients

between motion verbs (often used in metaphoric expressions) in the
distributional data and in FL’s judgments would be, on average, lower than
those of psychological verbs. The prediction was also confirmed by the
analysis, suggesting that FLs’s strategy for building and retrieving
meaning, which is mainly based on linguistic contexts, does not work well
when metaphoric expressions come into play. On the other hand, the
difference between the correlation coefficients of motion and psychological
verbs, across NS judgments and the DSS, is not statistically significant.
This suggests that NS might indeed process words that appear in
metaphorical expressions in the same way as words that are used only
literally, and that both types of words are represented in a way that is fairly,
but not fully, captured by the DSS. In particular, the difference between the
FL’s processing of motion and psychological verbs is striking. This is
arguably due to the frequent and salient metaphorical expressions (featuring
motion verbs) retrieved from the corpora and merged in the semantic
representations in the DSS. By looking at the correlation study, we can
observe that the lowest coefficients of correlation between semantic
representations in FL and in the DSS indeed belong to those verbs that are
more often used metaphorically (for example run, fall, follow, come). This
finding supports the idea that metaphorical expressions, processed as
linguistic units in the DSS, are not processed in the same way by FL,
although the language-based strategies are generally preferred by these
speakers.

5. General discussion and conclusions

Constructing a word meaning is a process influenced by our contact with

the linguistic and with the extralinguistic contexts in which the words
occur. For this reason, semantic representations of concepts are multimodal
in nature, and include information acquired from different sources (e.g.
linguistic contexts and perceptual experiences). Such integration makes our
comprehension system fault-tolerant (Taylor & Zwaan 2009), which means
that one type of information could, by some means and to a certain extent,
make up for the lack of another type of information during the
understanding of a message. In other words, because language mirrors
reality with a high degree of fidelity, a DSS which is based exclusively on
linguistic information can be used to model fairly well the human semantic
knowledge. The main question remains: how and to what extent the
different streams of semantic information interact in different
communicative situations, and in fulfilling of different communicative
goals?

In this respect, the distributional account suggests that the conceptual

dimension of meaning can be modeled on the basis of the solely linguistic
expressions in which words are used: concepts emerge from aggregations
of linguistic utterances. However, this powerful bidimensional theory of
meaning leaves aside the third dimension of meaning (Steen 2008), which
is the communicative one, which emerges from extralinguistic (pragmatic)
contexts. Conceptualization and expression are not sufficient to model
meaning, if communication is left aside.

As we saw in this study, adult FL seem to favour linguistic strategies

to build meanings, probably because of the lack of consistent
extralinguistic and pragmatic information, experienced contextually in the
host-culture.

Since FL rely deeply on language in order to retrieve semantic

information on word meanings, the semantic representations of concepts, in
their minds, are more correlated with those that emerge from the
distributional model. But when metaphors are involved, the correlation
between FL representations and DSS drops dramatically. This supports the
idea that for metaphorical expressions the pragmatic dimension plays a
crucial role in shaping their meaning. For the same reason, NS semantic
representations show an overall lower correlation with the linguistic
representations that emerge from the DSS: in NS the pragmatic information
retrieved from communication and extralinguistic contexts is naturally
integrated in the semantic representations, while in FL it is not. For this
reason, teaching metaphorical expressions to FL might constitute an
effective strategy for stimulating the learners to integrate extralinguistic
information in their lexical representations, forcing them to move from a
prevalently linguistic processing, towards a deeper conceptual and
pragmatic processing.

Finally, recent developments have shown that distributional models

are also able to take into account extralinguistic contexts (retrieved, for
example, from corpora of images) including perceptual information
(Andrews, Vigliocco, & Vinson 2009; Feng & Lapata 2010; Bruni, Tran, &
Baroni 2011). These developments appear to be very promising in the field
of metaphor studies, as they overcome the symbol grounding problem
(Glenberg & Robertson 2000), allowing the gathering of semantic
information from perceptual contexts.

Notes

1. The corpus is composed of the Web-derived ukWaC corpus, about 1.915 billion tokens; a mid-
2009 dump of the English Wikipedia, with about 820 million tokens; and the British National
Corpus, with about 95 million tokens. The resulting concatenated corpus was tokenised, POS-tagged
and lemmatised, with the TreeTagger and dependency-parsed with MaltParser, by Marco Baroni and
Alessandro Lenci. It contains about 2.83 billion tokens.

2. Before calculating the mean, in each cell there were 4 values, ranging from 1 to 7. On the
diagonal 8 was reported. By dividing all the values by 8 and not by 7 it would seem that we lost the
scale of numbers between 7/8 and 8, but in fact these values would have been obtained if a
participant was rating at least one similarity between a pair of verbs as close as the similarity
between a verb and itself (with a 8). Even if this value (which was out of scale and therefore not
used) would have been among the possibilities, we consider this judgment highly implausible.

3. The hierarchical clustering tool used is an open source application implemented by Fernández
and Gómez (2008), retrievable at the following link:
http://deim.urv.cat/~sgomez/multidendrograms.php. The clustering algorithm used for all the
representations is “Joint-Between-Within”.

4. With the exception of leave, which correlated equally between DSS/NS and DSS/FL.

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Appendix A
Stimuli: admire, appreciate, arrive, believe, climb, come, consider, crawl, dance, decide, deny,
dream, drive, doubt, escape, fall, follow, forget, forgive, fly, hate, hope, idealize, imagine, judge,
jump, leave, love, march, mean, memorize, protest, remember, respect, roll, row, run, skate, ski, slip,
stroll, suppose, swim, swing, travel, understand, walk, wish.

Appendix B
The first 80 tuples extracted from the corpus, ordered by the LMI value.

1. fall-v, in-l, love-n, 234 851,

2. come-v, into-1, force-n, 186 340,

3. follow-v, obj-1, link-n, 126 218,

4. follow-v, obj-1, instruction-n, 83 780,

5. come-v, into-1, effect-n, 80 998.7,

6. come-v, into-1, contact-n, 79 085,

7. fall-v, into-1, category-n, 71 321.1,

8. walk-v, obj-1, distance-n, 67 816.6,

9. come-v, sbj_intr-1, people-n, 67 688.5,

10. follow-v, in-1, footstep-n, 66 992.2,

11. run-v, obj-1, business-n, 64 085.1,

12. come-v, as-1, surprise-n, 61 286.8,

13. leave-v, obj-1, school-n, 61 013.7,

14. drive-v, obj-1, car-n, 60 393.3,

15. walk-v, sbj_intr-1, minute-n, 59 441.8,

16. run-v, obj-1, course-n, 56 138.9,

17. come-v, sbj_intr-1, time-n, 50 705,

18. leave-v, sbj_intr-1, turn-n, 49 137.2,

19. follow-v, obj-1, path-n, 46 614.3,

20. believe-v, sbj_intr-1, people-n, 46 427.4,

21. consider-v, obj-1, application-n, 46 355.9,

22. come-v, into-1, existence-n, 44 910.6,

23. leave-v, obj-1, band-n, 44 425.1,

24. come-v, at-1, time-n, 44 092.2,

25. follow-v, obj-1, procedure-n, 43 726.8,

26. come-v, with-1, idea-n, 43 152.2,

27. leave-v, obj-1, home-n, 42 574.5,

28. fall-v, into-1, hand-n, 41 392.4,

29. follow-v, obj-1, sign-n, 39 939.3,

30. leave-v, obj-1, room-n, 39 411.5,

31. consider-v, obj-1, issue-n, 38 176.1,

32. leave-v, at-1, end-n, 37 027.9,

33. come-v, from-1, family-n, 33 094.7,

34. run-v, obj-1, program-n, 32 203.9,

35. fall-v, into-1, disrepair-n, 31 249.4,

36. come-v, from-1, background-n, 30 829.6,

37. come-v, in-1, form-n, 30 580.9,

38. fall-v, into-1, disuse-n, 30 124.2,

39. understand-v, obj-1, need-n, 29 982.2,

40. leave-v, obj-1, message-n, 29 204.1,

41. run-v, obj-1, workshop-n, 28 972.1,

42. come-v, into-1, play-n, 28 870.2,

43. follow-v, obj-1, rule-n, 28 770.5,

44. run-v, obj-1, service-n, 28 182.,

45. leave-v, obj-1, house-n, 27 765.3,

46. come-v, under-1, fire-n, 27 633.6,

47. respect-v, obj-1, right-n, 27 031.9,

48. swim-v, obj-1, pool-n, 26 785.5,

49. leave-v, obj-1, country-n, 26 728.4,

50. travel-v, obj-1, distance-n, 26 724.1,

51. deny-v, obj-1, access-n, 26 483.7,

52. fall-v, into-1, trap-n, 26 165.7,

53. run-v, sbj_intr-1, train-n, 26 162.2,

54. come-v, at-1, end-n, 25 426.8,

55. follow-v, obj-1, route-n, 25 230.7,

56. run-v, obj-1, risk-n, 24 613.9,

57. come-v, under-1, attack-n, 24 455.4,

58. decide-v, sbj_intr-1, government-n, 24 307.9,

59. run-v, in-1, election-n, 24 206.4,

60. run-v, obj-1, programme-n, 24 188.4,

61. consider-v, obj-1, option-n, 23 149.6,

62. come-v, into-1, being-n, 22 700.8,

63. forgive-v, obj-1, sin-n, 22 360.9,

64. fall-v, sbj_intr-1, price-n, 22 351.4,

65. leave-v, obj-1, comment-n, 22 327.8,

66. fly-v, obj-1, flag-n, 22 165.8,

67. leave-v, obj-1, mark-n, 22 006.3,

68. follow-v, obj-1, guideline-n, 21 887.1,

69. walk-v, obj-1, street-n, 21 836.6,

70. follow-v, obj-1, lead-n, 21 721.3,

71. follow-v, obj-1, step-n, 21 555.6,

72. come-v, obj-1, home-n, 21 475.,

73. come-v, under-1, pressure-n, 21 353.9,

74. consider-v, for-1, example-n, 20 902.5,

75. come-v, sbj_intr-1, man-n, 20 644.6,

76. run-v, obj-1, race-n, 20 393.5,

77. leave-v, obj-1, club-n, 20 241.7,

78. come-v, as-1, result-n, 20 203.2,

79. fly-v, obj-1, mission-n, 20 151.7,

80. run-v, obj-1, campaign-n, 20 093.2.

 Towards a model of
metaphorical understanding
Bipin Indurkhya
Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland

I elaborate and contrast propositional and imagistic components of the meaning associated

with metaphors. Considering some examples, I argue for a spreading activation model for

representing the propositional component of the meaning. Then, based on recent

behavioral and brain-imaging studies, I elaborate on a sensorimotor account of imagery,

and argue that imagistic meaning is not peculiar to metaphor, but can play a key role in so-

called literal utterances as well. I then propose an image-creating mechanism, which works

in the opposite direction to the abstraction mechanism, to model the comprehension of

certain metaphors. This is followed by some brief comments on how to incorporate the

notion of correctness within this model. Finally, I argue for a unified account of

understanding so that the same process models literal as well as metaphor comprehension.

I argue that it is not the process of understanding that separates the metaphorical from the

literal, but the nature of the activation pattern that results from the process.

Keywords

imagery; abstraction; metaphor; creativity; image-creation; metaphors

1. Introduction

Much of the debate on how we understand metaphors, what they mean, and
whether they can convey any epistemological value has focused either on
their propositional aspects or on their imagistic aspects. Carston (2010)
provides a recent portrayal of this dichotomy, and a thoughtful attempt at
reconciling them. Carston argues, with an array of excellent examples, that
there are two processing modes: one propositional and the other imagistic.
In the propositional mode, one constructs a literal meaning of the text with
some ad hoc tinkering by broadening or narrowing the meanings of some
words or phrases in order to fit the context. This process can explain how
we understand sentences like “The sky is crying,” or “My car drinks
gasoline.” In the imagistic mode, first a coherent image is constructed
based on the literal meanings of the words and phrases, and then this image
is interpreted meaningfully in the context of the target. Carston goes further
in arguing that each of these processes contributes in its own way to the
propositional content and also to the imagistic content of a text.

In this chapter, I take this model developed by Carston as my point of

departure, and elaborate further on the nature of metaphorical
understanding and the role of images therein. Towards the end of this essay
I will also make some observations relating metaphorical understanding to
correctness. I embark on this journey by introducing and discussing some
examples of metaphor and how they might be understood.

2. Metaphorical understanding

Let us take an example discussed in Black (1979): “Nixon is a halo

surrounding the vacuum.” One can think of it in the context of the US
politics in the 1970s, though it is not necessary. What happens when we
understand this utterance or piece of text? The focus is on understanding
here, for the reader may have a high regard for Nixon’s political
achievement, in which case she or he may vehemently disagree with the
statement. But an agreement or a disagreement presupposes understanding.
 Considering how this example might be understood illustrates both the
propositional and imagistic processes discussed by Carston.

The propositional process considers a halo as a bright ring surrounding

an object that attracts attention and might inspire awe. A vacuum is a lack
of substance. With some ad hoc tinkering, we could get the idea that the
utterance is implying that the object (Nixon) lacks any substantial
achievements, but certain hype has been created around it. But for some
readers at least, this utterance may evoke a strong imagistic component:
one may imagine emptiness or blackness surrounded by a bright ring. The
image, however, also might require an interpretation whereby the middle
blackness part may be made to correspond to achievements and the bright
ring to the public or media perception. It should be emphasized that the
creation of the image and its interpretation proceed hand-in-hand and in
parallel so that possible interpretations also constrain what kind of image is
created (Hofstadter 1995). Finally, both the propositional and imagistic
components taken together may constitute one’s understanding of the
utterance, though their relative strengths may vary widely from person to
person.

What is it that we are constructing when we go through this process

described above? What constitutes one’s understanding of the utterance?
This question can be addressed at different levels: we can try to answer it in
terms of neural activation patterns, in terms of conceptual or imagistic
mental states, in terms of behavioural responses of the reader, and so on. I
will dabble in some of these levels a bit later on, but for the time being let
me just say that understanding the utterance requires one to construct a
mental representation of a possible situation to which the utterance can
apply.
 This formulation uses three key concepts, ‘mental representation,’
‘possible situation’ and ‘apply’, so let me elaborate a bit on each. ‘Mental
representation’ means that the construction is internal, and is being
imagined, in conceptual or imagistic terms or both. ‘Possible situation’
means that the situation being imagined does not have to be correct, or even
believed by the reader. Here it would be instructive to look at very
interesting experiments by Pollio and Burns (1977) and Pollio and Smith
(1979), where they asked participants to come up with meaningful contexts
(if they could) for ‘A is B’ sentences that were essentially strung together
by random pairs of nouns. They found that the participants were able to
come up with very creative contexts to render many of the so-called
anomalous sentences meaningful (see also Indurkhya 2007). The main
point here is simply that the reader has to be able to come up with at least
one (imagined) situation to which the utterance can be applied. This brings
me to the concept of ‘apply’, and let me just say for the time being that it
means that the utterance and the imagined situation cohere together in some
way.

Let me consider one more example to consolidate this formulation of

understanding. Take the first verse from the well-known poem Seascape by
Stephen Spender (1986):

There are some days the happy ocean lies

Like an unfingered harp, below the land.

Afternoon gilds all the silent wires

Into a burning music for the eyes.

On mirrors flashing between fine-strung fires

The shore, heaped up with roses, horses, spires

 Wanders on water tall above ribbed sand.

How do we understand this verse? Notice here that the mode of

propositional processing does not take us very far because a harp and an
ocean belong to very different conceptual neighbourhoods that are far apart
in conceptual space. A harp is a musical instrument and activates all sorts
of other music-related concepts. An ocean is a body of water, and is related
to other bodies of water (like rivers, lakes, seas); to vessels that ply bodies
of water; to animals that live in the bodies of water; to waves, to tides and
to other phenomena that can be observed in large bodies of water. Through
ad hoc tinkering, it can be related to large quantities etc. However, none of
these mechanisms bring it any closer to a harp. I am not aware of any
empirical study on this particular verse, but based on our earlier study on
the dynamics of conceptual associations in poetic metaphors (Gineste,
Indurkhya & Scart 2000), I would claim that an ocean and a harp are
conceptually distant.

In order to understand this poem, one may need to generate detailed

imagery for both an ocean and a harp. We may need to imagine what an
ocean looks like on a calm day, and what a harp looks like before it is
strummed. This imagery may draw on our prior perceptual experiences
with the harp, and perhaps other string instruments, and with oceans and
other bodies of water. We may need to imagine how light reflects off the
shiny strings of a harp, and off the surface of water when there is no wind
and only a hint of ripples. Moreover, these two images may need to be
aligned. For this verse at least, the resonance between the two images is so
strong that we may imagine a picture of an ocean and a picture of a harp
put on top of one another so that the lines created by the reflected light line
up. (Indeed, based on this intuition, we have carried out a number of
experiments to examine the role of perceptual similarity in the creation of
conceptual associations (Indurkhya et al. 2008; Ojha & Indurkhya 2009).
Finally, as with the previous example, it should be emphasized that the
processes of creating the images and aligning them may operate in parallel,
aiding and constraining each other. Indeed, contemporary research in
neurolinguistics supports the view that parallel processes, some top-down
and some bottom-up, competing and cooperating with each other, constitute
a basic modus operandi for our brains, and pervade all aspects of language
processing from letter and word recognition to contextual disambiguation
(Dehaene 2009, Ch. 2).

I recapitulate the discussion above by saying that an utterance is

understood if one can construct at least one possible situation to which the
utterance can be coherently attached. The situation may be manifested in
propositional units, in imagistic units, or a combination of both. Let us now
examine in more depth these two components of understanding:
propositional and imagistic.

3. On propositional understanding

What does it mean to understand an utterance or a piece of text proposition-

ally? In the traditional semantic accounts, it is assumed that there are some
literal meanings that are accessed, and based on those meanings and the
grammatical structure of the utterance, some kind of representation is
constructed that amounts to understanding. This representation can then be
loosened or tinkered with in an ad hoc fashion, if needed, to fit the context.
But what are these literal meanings?

Consider a banal utterance: “It is raining.” What is the literal meaning

of ‘raining’? This utterance can be applied to a variety of situations:
drizzle, heavy downpour, a violent hailstorm, and so on. Does one consider
all these situations in understanding the utterance? This seems to put too
much of a cognitive load on the reader. Moreover, there is little empirical
support for this position. The spreading activation model of language
comprehension (Anderson 1983; Kozima & Furugori 1993; Sharifian &
Samani 1997) provides a more plausible account. According to it, the
concept of ‘raining’ is linked to a number of other concepts, and in
understanding the utterance these concepts are activated to a varying
degree. Together with the context effect, which enhances the activation
level of some concepts and suppresses that of others, we are left with an
activation pattern of concepts that amounts to one’s propositional
understanding of the utterance.

If we consider how comprehension is tested in young children, we can

appreciate the plausibility of the spreading activation model. Let us look at
the following comprehension quiz aimed at grade 2–4 children
(http://www.abcteach.com/ accessed on Dec. 15, 2011):

A Rainy, Windy Day

It’s a rainy day at my house. It’s rainy and windy. The pretty
fall leaves are flying in my yard. They are beautiful. They are
orange, red, brown, and gold. They are falling off the trees in my
yard. I like to watch the leaves fly. The rain and wind make the
leaves come off the trees. Soon the leaves will be all on the
ground. I can help my mom and dad rake them up. I like this time
of year.

1. Where do you think the boy is when he is watching the

leaves?

2. What colours of leaves did the boy see?

 3. What season is it?

4. What made the leaves come off the trees?

5. The boy likes to watch the leaves fly. What is making the
leaves fly in his yard?

6. What is the boy going to do when all the leaves are on the
ground?

We can analyse each question, and consider in detail what kind of

propositional information is required to answer it. But for our purpose here,
it is sufficient to make just a few observations. Questions (1) and (4) can be
answered directly by paraphrasing pieces of the given text; they only
require access to basic word meanings. Questions (2) and (3) are, however
a bit more complex. In question (2), the concept ‘colour’ is not explicitly
mentioned in the text, but ‘orange’, ‘red’, ‘brown’ and ‘gold’ are, which are
instances of colour. If the child understands the text, she or he is supposed
to figure out that these are the colours of the leaves that the boy saw. A
child who knows the names of these individual colour terms, can recognize
and name them, but has not yet learnt the general ‘colour’ concept, may not
be able to answer this question. Similarly, for question (3), one needs the
information that fall is a season.

Questions (5) and (6) require more complex processing. For question
(5), concepts ‘windy’ and ‘flying’ are activated, and it is given that the
wind is making the leaves come off the trees, but then general world
knowledge is needed to infer that in this situation wind is making the leaves
fly: this is not explicitly mentioned in the text. For question (6), one needs
the assumption that when a sentence B follows a sentence A in an
utterance, then generally the event described in B temporally follows the
event described in A. Some common-sense knowledge of the autumnal
activity of raking leaves is also helpful. (This may involve an imagistic
component as well, but a discussion of this is deferred till a bit later.)

This simple example shows that understanding an utterance or text is a

matter of integrating the words and concepts mentioned in the text with
other existing concepts, and in a way that is coherent with general world
knowledge and contextual assumptions. Without this general knowledge
and these contextual assumptions, it is not clear at all what the meaning of
the text might be.

Let us consider another example, “The water is boiling,” discussed by

Carston (2010):

[This utterance] could be intended and understood in any of the

following ways: strictly literally, communicating that the water is
BOILING, so at or above boiling point; as an approximation,
communicating that it is close enough to BOILING for the
differences to be inconsequential for current purposes (e.g. for
making a cup of coffee); hyperbolically, so not BOILING but
closer to it than expected or desired (e.g. too hot to wash one’s
hands in comfortably); or metaphorically, suggesting, for
instance, that the water, although not necessarily anywhere near
boiling point, is moving agitatedly, bubbling, emitting vapor, and
so on. In each case, a different concept is communicated, all of
them derived from the literal encoded concept, and on the non-
literal interpretations the concept’s denotation is broader to
varying degrees than that of the lexical concept.(Carston 2010,
303–304, author’s emphasis)
Though I am in full agreement with Carston when she says immediately
after this: “The claim is that all these interpretations are reached in
essentially the same way, namely, by an inferential pragmatic process of
deriving contextual implications which meet particular standards of
cognitive relevance,” I take a stronger position with respect to her
statement that the utterance can be communicated strictly literally, meaning
that the water is at or above boiling point. What is the boiling point of
water? It depends on the atmospheric pressure, whether water has any
additives (like salt) added to it, and so on. Needless to say, it cannot be
‘above’ it because that is the whole point of latent heat: you cannot raise
the temperature of the water above boiling point no matter how much you
heat it. Such technical quibbling aside, the main point I want to raise here is
that it is implausible to assume that some strictly literal meaning is
available, which is then loosened depending on the context.

Considering this example in the spreading activation model, we can

say that the concept of ‘boiling’ is connected to the concepts of ‘hot’ and
‘bubbling’, among others. Without any context, we expect the water to be
hot and bubbling, as these two concepts receive the strongest activation
through ‘boiling’. If the context is such that concepts like ship, ocean,
storm are activated, then the ‘hot’ concept is suppressed, but ‘bubbling’ is
boosted. In the context of a bath, perhaps a Japanese onsn, ‘hot’ is boosted,
but ‘bubbling’ may not get a strong activation level, unless ‘spa’ is
activated as well. In the context where ‘laboratory’, ‘experiment’ and
related concepts are activated, other aspects of ‘boiling’ like ‘boiling point’
‘latent heat’, become active and central. So this so-called strictly speaking
literal is just one of the myriad of activation patterns that may result from
the interaction of the concept and different contexts. One could even
account for irony through this model. If the context is such that the opposite
of what is being said is likely, then ‘hot’ can activate ‘cold’. Opposing
concepts normally inhibit one another, but because they are related
(through opposition), in an appropriate context ‘hot’ will activate ‘cold’
rather than some other unrelated concept like ‘thick’.

To sum up this discussion, I would like to submit that propositional

understanding involves integrating the concepts mentioned in the text with
other related concepts in a way that they all cohere together. The semantic
structure of the language is reflected in how these concepts are related to
each other in terms of how they activate or inhibit each other. Moreover,
the context effect can be modelled as the pre-existing activation pattern of
concepts, which modulates how the activation of the text concept spreads.
(See, for instance, Waltz & Pollack 1985).

4. On imagistic understanding

Let me now elaborate on the imagistic component of understanding. First

of all, notice that in understanding “it is raining”, one may imagine a gentle
drizzle, or a tropical torrent. One may imagine the pitter-patter sound of
raindrops. Similarly, in understanding ‘the water is boiling,’ one may
imagine the water bubbling and frothing over, steam rising from its surface,
the glub-glub sound of bubbles rising to the surface, and so on. However,
these imagistic components seem to be largely optional, and not necessary
for having understood the basic meaning of the utterance. But now consider
the first verse of a beautiful poem by the Nobel Laureate Bengali poet
Rabindranath Tagore:

On the slope of the desolate river among tall grasses I asked her,
‘Maiden, where do you go shading your lamp with your mantle?
My house is all dark and lonesome – lend me your light!’ She
 raised her dark eyes for a moment and looked at my face through
the dusk. ‘I have come to the river,’ she said, ‘to float my lamp
on the stream when the day light wanes in the west.’ I stood alone
among tall grasses and watched the timid flame of her lamp
uselessly drifting in the tide.(Tagore 1913, 46)

In understanding this poem, it invariably invokes imagery of a riverbank,

tall grass, a maiden shielding her lamp, a lamp floating in the tide, and so
on. We cannot easily rule out these imagistic components as optional in this
case. We can even make a comprehension quiz similar to the one for “A
rainy, windy day” above, where the reader needs to be able to refer to these
images in order to demonstrate comprehension. We can even argue that an
imagistic component is required to answer question (5) in the quiz above.

One can say that being able to write vivid, imagery-inducing text is
the hallmark of a great poet or an author. As another example, consider the
first two verses of a hauntingly vivid song Morning Morgantown by Joni
Mitchell:

When morning comes to Morgantown

The merchants roll their awnings down

The Milkjocks make their morning rounds

In morning, Morgantown

We’ll rise up early with the sun

To ride the bus while everyone is yawning

and the day is young

in morning Morgantown
This phenomenon is just so pervasive that we need not look hard for such
text. Here are the first two lines from Lord of the flies by William Golding:

The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of
rock and began to pick his way towards the lagoon. Though he
has taken off his school sweater and trailed it now from one hand
his grey shirt stuck to him and his hair was plastered to his
forehead.(Golding 1954, 1)

Notice that in all these examples, we are looking at literal, or non-

metaphorical, text. Yes, there is an occasional isolated metaphor, like ‘light
wanes’ in Tagore’s poem, but it is not crucial in inducing imagery.

Finally, the following dialogue from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in

Wonderland illustrates perfectly the interplay between the propositional and
the imagistic components of meaning:

‘Ahem!’ said the Mouse with an important air, ‘are you all ready?
This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please!
“William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope,
was soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and
had been of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest.
Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria –”’

‘Ugh!’ said the Lory, with a shiver.

‘I beg your pardon!’ said the Mouse, frowning, but very

politely: ‘Did you speak?’

‘Not I!’ said the Lory hastily.

 ‘I thought you did,’ said the Mouse. ‘– I proceed. “Edwin
and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for
him: and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury,
found it advisable – ”’

‘Found what?’ said the Duck.

‘Found it,’ the Mouse replied rather crossly: ‘of course you
know what ‘it’ means.’

‘I know what ‘it’ means well enough, when I find a thing,’

said the Duck: ‘it’s generally a frog or a worm. The question is,
what did the archbishop find?’

The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went
on, ‘“– found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet
William and offer him the crown. William’s conduct at first was
moderate. But the insolence of his Normans – ” How are you
getting on now, my dear?’ it continued, turning to Alice as it
spoke.

In this example, the short paragraph concerning the earl of Mercia is

dominated by propositional meaning. The duck, however, ignoring the
context, focuses on the phrase ‘found it’ and interprets it in imagistic terms
which provides the humour.

In conclusion, I would like to claim that even literal text can have an
imagistic component, and this imagistic component can play an equally
prominent role in the comprehension of the text as the propositional
component does, if (in some situations) not more.

5. On the sensorimotor aspects of imagery

The next question then is: What exactly is this imagistic component, and
how is it different from the propositional component? In imagery research,
there has been an on-going debate between the view that images are
picture-like and pseudo-perceptual, and the opposing view that images are
just another kind of propositional or symbolic representation. A glimpse of
this debate can be found in the BBS article by Pylyshyn (2002), and the
peer commentary immediately following it (see also Kosslyn, Thompson &
Ganis 2006). I am going to skirt this issue here by adopting a sensorimotor
account (O’Regan & Noë 2001; Thomas 2002; Thomas 2009) for the
imagistic component. According to this view, a component of meaning
representation incorporates sensorimotor contingencies – that is,
information about various ways in which the object can be acted upon, and
how its perceptual properties change in response to those actions – and
various cognitive processes may refer to this representation as needed. This
was articulated by Barsalou (1999) as perceptual symbol simulators. In
fact, the account of the role of imagery in metaphor articulated here is an
elaboration of commentary I had written on the Barsalou’s article
(Indurkhya 1999). In recent years, much more empirical evidence in
support of the sensorimotor representation has emerged both from
behavioural studies and from brain-imaging studies.

For example, Zaidi and Griffiths (2002) use a horizontal white

parallelogram-shaped board attached to a vertical black baseboard to show
how people are unable to predict correctly what it would look like after a
rotation of 180 degrees, even when they are given an explanation of this
perceptual illusion and after they are allowed to examine the object and
look at it from all angles. Using this example, they argue that visual
perception and imagery construction are intertwined processes, and use
some of the same mechanisms.
 As brain-imaging technology has made rapid advances in the last few
years, more and more empirical data has revealed how sensorimotor parts
of our brain are activated during tasks that involve imagery, and also during
language comprehension. Just (2008), Kosslyn, Galin & Thompson (2006),
and Kosslyn & Thompson (2003) present an overview of how visual,
auditory and movement imagery involves corresponding sensory and motor
areas in the brain. As to how one connects the brain activation patterns with
the imagery representation, we present an example taken from Dehaene
(2009) that involves visual and aural representations of letters and
phonemes. There is a small area of the brain in the bottom side of the left
hemisphere, called the left occipito-temporal area, which Dehaene has
dubbed as the brain’s letterbox area. This area is invariably activated when
one is reading text, but not when doing any other visual recognition tasks
like identifying faces or objects. When text is presented orally, so auditory
processing is involved, the letterbox area is not activated at all. However,
when people are asked whether the spoken word contains a descending
letter like ‘p’, ‘q’ or ‘j’ – the strokes of which fall below the line – this area
lights up, presumably because people imagine the written word (Dehaene
2009, 72). This suggests that a level of representation is activated for this
aural task, which is the same as when written letters are being processed.
The participants report that they are imagining the written letters to spell
out the word as they carry this task. So this amounts to the visual imagistic
component of the representation of the aural stimuli during this task.

Let us now look at the interaction between this sensorimotor imagistic

representation and language. Rolf Zwaan and his colleagues did a number
of response-time studies to demonstrate that language comprehension
involves static and dynamic perceptual simulation of the object or event
being described. In their earlier study (Zwaan et al. 2002), they showed the
participants sentences like “the ranger saw the eagle in the sky” or “the
ranger saw the eagle in its nest”, followed by a line drawing of an object
(eagle with folded wings, eagle with its wings spread, or another object),
and the participants had to answer whether the object was mentioned in the
preceding sentence or not. They found that the response time was faster
(for the ‘yes’ case) when the line drawing was coherent with the preceding
sentence than otherwise. In other words, if the sentence was “the ranger
saw the eagle in its nest”, the participants responded faster when the eagle
with folded wings was shown compared to when the eagle with its wings
spread was shown.

In a later study (Zwaan et al. 2004), they used sentences with motion
verbs, like “the shortstop hurled the softball at you” and “you hurled the
softball at the shortstop”, followed by a two-image sequence in which the
ball either got slightly larger (so approaching towards you) or slightly
smaller (so moving away from you), or two unrelated objects. The task for
the participants was to decide whether the objects shown in the two images
were the same or not. Similar to the previous experiment, Zwaan et al.
found that the response time was faster when the sentence was coherent
with the relative size of the two images. In other words, if the sentence was
“you hurled the softball at the shortstop”, the participants responded faster
when the ball in the second image was smaller than the ball in the first
image.

Even more compelling evidence for the activation of sensorimotor

representations in language comprehension comes from brain-imaging
research. In a ground-breaking study, Pulvermüller (2005) showed that
comprehension of action words like ‘lick’, ‘pick’ and ‘kick’ automatically
activates the corresponding area in the pre-motor cortex. In other words,
‘lick’ activates the area corresponding to mouth movement, ‘pick’ activates
the area corresponding to hand/arm movement, and ‘kick’ activates the area
corresponding to leg movement.

At about the same time, Buccino et al. (2005) did a TMS (Transcrania
Magnetic Simulation) study to measure the effect of listening to action-verb
sentences on motor brain areas. They used hand-action-verb sentences (“he
washed the glasses”), foot-action-verb sentences (“he kicked the door”) and
abstract-verb sentences (“he hated the sea”). They provided further support
to the hypothesis that understanding of action-verbs leads to automatic
mental simulation of the corresponding action; that is, understanding action
stimulates motor imagery:

The main finding of the present study was a clear modulation of

the activity of the motor system during listening to sentences
expressing foot/leg and hand/ arm actions. This modulation was
specific for the effector involved in the listened-to action.
Listening to hand-action related sentences induced a decrease of
MEP amplitude recorded from hand muscles. Similarly, listening
to foot-actionrelated sentences induced a decrease of MEP
(Motor Evoked Potential) amplitude recorded from foot muscles.
Listening to abstract content sentences led to results which did
not differ from those obtained during listening to action-related
sentences involving an effector different from the one motorically
represented in the stimulated area.

Coherently with these findings, the behavioural data showed

that RTs were slower when participants responded with the same
effector that was involved in the listened action. Taken together,
these data strongly support the notion that the processing of
language material modulates, at least for sentences expressing a
 motor content, the activity of the motor system and that this
modulation specifically concerns those sectors of the motor
system where the effector involved in the processed sentence is
motorically represented.(Buccino et al. 2005, 360)

Desai et al. (2010) asked their participants to listen to three kinds of

sentences: some involving motor verbs (“I throw the ball”), some involving
visual verbs (“You read the book”), and some involving abstract verbs
(“They consider the risk”), while undergoing fMRI scanning. They found
that “comprehending sentences with hand/arm action verbs activated areas
associated with action planning, visualization, and execution. Processing
sentences with concrete nouns activated areas involved in visualizing
objects” (p. 474).

Even more recently, Cacciari et al. (2011) did a TMS study in which
they presented participants with action-verbs in four different contexts: (1)
literal (“the policeman follows the thief ”); (2) metaphorical (“the girl
follows her instincts”); (3) idiomatic (“Giuseppe follows in the footsteps of
his father”); and (4) fictive (“the railway follows the stream of the river”).
They measured the brain activation patterns in two experimental conditions
for each sentence. One immediately after the verb was presented, so that
the participant did not yet know the context, and the other after presenting
the whole sentence. They found that the corresponding motor area is
activated immediately after the verb is presented, but only if the subject is
animate. In the second experiment, they found that among the
metaphorical, the idiomatic and the fictive categories, the highest level of
motor activation was achieved for the metaphorical sentences.

In summary, we see that more and more evidence is emerging that in

understanding an utterance or a piece of text, the sensorimotor associations
related to the words and concepts occurring in the utterance are
automatically activated. Consequently, this component needs to be
explicitly included in a model of understanding.

6. Modelling imagistic component in metaphor

understanding

Now that I have elaborated on the imagistic component of meaning, I will

try to incorporate it in a model of understanding. Let me start by
considering how to model comprehension of imagistic metaphors such as
‘the ocean as a harp’ in Spender’s poem discussed above in Section 2. For
modelling such examples, we need to posit a mechanism that creates
sensorimotor, imagistic representation of the text or utterance. Perhaps the
best way to introduce this mechanism might be to contrast it with
abstraction.

In a conceptual space, the notion of an abstraction hierarchy is often

used, and is easily modelled. For example, the concept ‘wolf ’ is a
subconcept of the more abstract concept ‘animal’. There have been
numerous accounts of metaphor that model it as a process of abstraction
(see for instance, Glucksberg 2001). In other words, given the source and
the target of a metaphor, they try to find a common concept up the
abstraction hierarchy that subsumes both the source and the target. So,
given “man is a wolf ”, we try to find some concept that is more abstract
than both ‘man’ and ‘wolf ’ but subsumes them. Sometimes, such a concept
is created based on other parts of the abstraction hierarchy and other
properties of the source and the target (see for example, Way 1991). In the
case of “man is a wolf ” we might come up with an abstract category
‘aggressive animal’, which would be considered the meaning of the
metaphor. (We should note here that there are other ways in which
abstraction has been used to model degree of metaphoricity and
metaphorical aptness. See, for instance, Torreano, Cacciari & Glucksberg
2005.)

The process of creating an imagistic representation works in the other

direction, so that instead of going up the abstraction hierarchy, we create a
concrete object or scenario – based on our past experience, of course – with
detailed sensorimotor images to represent the meaning. This process is akin
to what Barsalou has called perceptual or sensorimotor simulation. (See
also the gestalt projection model outlined in Indurkhya 2006). For the
example of Spender’s poem, the success in understanding the poem might
lie in being able to create one single image that could be linked to the
activated concepts of both the harp and the ocean. This linking might
involve intermediate concepts. In this example, ‘harp’ would activate
‘strings’, and ‘ocean’ would activate ‘ripple’. Both ‘strings’ and ‘ripple’
would be connected to a part of the sensorimotor image that has lines with
light reflecting off of it. In this way, ‘strings’ will be seen to correspond to
‘ripple’ because they are rooted in the same imagistic component. This
process, which is exactly the opposite of the abstraction process, is shown
graphically in Figure 1.
Figure 1.

Both source and target evoke imagery: (1) source- and target-related
concepts evoke their respective imagery, (2) a perceptual resonance occurs
between these two images, which, in turn, (3) causes emergence of
conceptual associations between these two concepts

A similar approach can be used to model comprehension in other

metaphors, such as Carl Sandburg’s “The fog comes/ on little cat feet,”
which is also discussed in Carston (2010). In understanding the poem, one
creates a sensorimotor image that can be seen both as a fog and as a cat and
is advancing silently. This is akin to the process of double perception
discussed by Reinhart (1976).

A different role of sensorimotor imagery emerges when we consider

examples like “Nixon was a halo surrounding the vacuum.” Here, the
phrase ‘halo surrounding the vacuum’ can be used to construct an image,
but it is not related to a concrete image of Nixon, at least not to what he
looked like, or other perceptual details of his being. Rather, we consider
various activities in Nixon’s political career in conceptual terms, and this
conceptual representation is reorganized according to the image created by
the source of the metaphor. So the ‘halo’ corresponds to all the ostentious
activities, and (in the conceptual representation) there is nothing in the
middle; no content, no worthwhile actions. Thus, in such metaphors, the
perceptual, sensorimotor imagery created by the source reorganizes the
conceptual representation of the target. This is shown graphically in Figure
2.

Emily Dickinson’s “My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun – In Corners

–” provides another example in this vein, where the source provides the
imagery, and the conceptual knowledge of life is seen in terms of this
imagery. By ‘seen’ we mean that an attempt is made to connect the
elements of the imagery to the conceptual elements coherently (so that their
associated properties are preserved.) In the Nixon example, the image of
‘halo’ has perceptual qualities of shiny, attracting attention, inspiring awe,
and so on. In connecting these elements to our conceptual knowledge about
the political achievements of Nixon’s political career, we need to make
value judgements about those achievements. For example, an ardent
supporter of Nixon may understand the metaphor but would vehemently
disagree with it. This brings us to the problem of estabilishing a shared
reference with a metaphor, and determining their truth or correctness,
which we consider below in the next section.
Figure 2.

(1) Source evokes imagery; (2) conceptual knowledge of the target is

reorganized to fit the imagery

7. Communicating with metaphors: Believing game and

doubting game

If metaphors are to be effective in communication, it is important that they

are able to establish a shared reference between the speaker (writer) and the
listener (reader), and there must be some cognitive mechanisms to establish
their truth or correctness. For example, a political columnist writes that
Nixon was a halo surrounding the vacuum. A reader violently objects. The
reader clearly understands the meaning, for otherwise she or he would not
be upset. Those who do not understand the metaphor would simply shrug
their shoulders and say, “I don’t know what you are talking about.” So what
is going on in the mind of the reader who objects?

On one extreme, we have views such as from Davidson (1978), where

it is denied altogether that metaphors can embody any truth at all. However
many others have sought to provide some account of how metaphorical
statements can express truths (see for example, Hill 1997). Traditional
models, which start with the notion of literal as given, also assume a notion
of literal truth, and then try to account for metaphorical truth as some kind
of loosening or relaxation of truth conditions; or, in mapping-based
approaches, by applying the literal truth conditions to the mapped terms,
instead of directly. In our account, which is based on the spreading
activation model, it is not clear how to characterize the notion of literal
truth, let alone how to extend it to cover metaphors. So let us elaborate on i
a bit here.

For the discussion here, we would like to use the term correct instead
of truth, because the latter is too strong and only applies to propositions. It
seems more natural to consider whether the description of Nixon in the
above utterance is correct or not correct (or, apt or not apt), than to say
whether it is true or not. Moreover, correctness can be applied to actions,
postures, procedures, directions etc. So one can talk about correct ways to
serve in tennis, or correct directions to the town hall, where it would be
quite a stretch and unnatural to use the term true, if at all.

Now consider a simple utterance: “it is raining”. How does one

determine that it is correct? In the discussion above, we have characterized
understanding as being able to imagine a situation to which this utterance
may apply. But the imagined situation is very subjective: one may imagine
a gentle drizzle, a tropical downpour, or a great variety of other scenes that
could be considered as raining. If we are looking out the window and
determining whether the utterance is correct or not, it would not do to
create an imagery and then match it against the perceptual data, for given
the great variety of possible imagined scenes, the chances are small that the
one you imagined would match against the perceptual data that represents
the current situation outside. Moreover, perception and imagination cannot
happen at the same time, for they interfere with each other because of
wanting to use the same brain areas (see also McGinnn 2004). So we need
to run the model in a different way, where the perceptual data is considered
right from the start.

This situation can be handled using the gestalt projection model we

have articulated in our earlier research (Indurkhya 2006). Basically, the
concepts that are activated by the utterance “it is raining” are projected onto
the perceptual data in a coherent way – so that the constraints of conceptual
associations and the perceptual data are both preserved. We should
emphasize that the perceptual information can be indirect, and some
inferences may need to be drawn: for instance, someone just came off the
street and is dripping wet, or you see people on the street with open
umbrellas but do not see the rain directly. The point is that the perceptual
information is integrated into the activated concepts in a coherent way,
either directly or through intermediate percepts or concepts.

The situation is a bit trickier when we do not have any perceptual

information, but still a correctness judgment is called for, as in the Nixon
example we have been discussing. When a Nixon supporter objects to the
statement “Nixon was a halo surrounding the vacuum,” he or she is
objecting to the judgment that connects Nixon’s achievements to the
vacuum. This requires an interaction between one’s background knowledge
and the imagistic or propositional representation that constitutes one’s
understanding of the utterance.

A similar example I recently came across was in the instructions for

using a wine vacuum pump set: “Before removing the aroma stopper, use a
finger to push the stop valve gently to the side in order to allow the vacuum
to escape” (emphasis added). One can understand the instructions, as well
as the metaphor “allow the vacuum to escape” in imagistic terms, but many
may deem the metaphor as not correct, for it is not the vacuum that escapes
but it is the air that rushes in to fill the vacuum.

A key aspect of understanding vs. correctness that I would like to

highlight with this short discussion above is simply this: though
understanding an utterance means coming up with a possible scenario,
which may include an imagery component as well as a propositional
component, to which the utterance can be applied, judging the correctness
of the utterance does not mean that this scenario has to correspond to what
we perceive to be the reality. If a correctness judgment is called for, then a
different process needs to be activated, where perceptual and other
background information constrains imagery construction as well as how
elements of the imagery are applied to the conceptual knowledge.

It may be useful to notice a connection here with the two reading

strategies discussed by Elbow (1973): the believing game and the doubting
game. The believing game corresponds to a sympathetic reading, where the
reader tries to adapt to the writer’s point of view. In the doubting game, the
reader is critical of everything that the writer says, and tries to refute it. In
the view presented here, the process of understanding requires playing the
believing game, and the process of determining correctness requires one to
engage in the doubting game.

8. Towards a unified model of understanding

In this final section, I would like to take a step back and consider what the
difference is between literal and metaphorical understanding, if anything at
all. So far, I have presented examples of literal text above with strong
imagistic components. I have also reviewed research on imagery – both
behavioural and brain-imaging studies – to demonstrate that understanding
literal utterances, when they involve action verbs or vivid sensory
experiences, can induce sensorimotor images. So the question is: what
distinguishes the process of understanding a literal utterance from
understanding a metaphorical utterance? Notice that in the model
articulated in Section 6 above, I posited source and target concepts (or
concept networks) that are linked to the same sensorimotor image.
However, if we look at the text of the Spender poem, there are no explicit
flags for the source and the target: the source concepts are freely
intermingled with the target concepts. So it may be possible that the
meaning emerges from the same process for the literal as well as for the
metaphorical. Indeed, in reading comprehension, the reader is often not
aware whether they are encountering metaphors at all. It almost seems that
to judge whether an utterance is literal or metaphorical is a meta-level task.
One possible way to distinguish them is to look at the brain areas that are
responsible for processing them.

In recent years, there have been several brain-imaging studies to see if

special brain areas are involved in processing metaphorical utterances as
opposed to literal utterances. In Bottini et al. (1994), participants listened to
either literal or metaphorical sentences, including plausible examples (“The
investors were squirrels collecting nuts”) and implausible examples (“The
investors were trams”). They found that sentences containing metaphors
elicited more activation in the right hemisphere. This was the beginning of
the right-hemisphere hypothesis for metaphor processing, for generally
most of the language processing takes place in the left hemisphere.

However, as other studies identified and refined the role of different

regions in right and left hemispheres in literal and metaphor
comprehension, a more complex picture started to emerge. Jung-Beeman
(2005) summarizes some of this research by identifying three different
components of semantic processing: (1) activation, (2) selection, and (3)
integration. He demonstrated that each type of processing occurs in both
hemispheres, albeit in a different way: the right hemisphere (RH) performs
coarser processing and the left hemisphere (LH) performs finer processing:

The LH quickly focuses semantic activation on features related to

the dominant, literal or contextually relevant meaning, while
inhibiting features related to the subordinate or contextually
irrelevant meanings. This strong categorical semantic activation
is conducive to most language comprehension tasks, and
especially to production – speakers must produce a single word,
not a hybrid of several related ones. By contrast, the RH
maintains weak, diffuse semantic activation of a broader semantic
field, including distant and unusual semantic features, features
that seem irrelevant to the context, and secondary word
meanings.(Jung-Beeman 2005, 514)

What Jung-Beeman found more puzzling is that there seems to be a

separate right brain area dedicated to the task of integration: namely the
anterior temporal lobes. When people process the meaning of single words,
we find activity in the posterior temporal cortex. But when people hear
stories without a title (so more cognitive effort is required to integrate
information), or come across information inconsistent with the given
context, there is increased activity in the anterior temporal lobe in the RH.
This area is also active when people draw causal inferences, process novel
metaphors, or engage in creative problem solving.
 Later experiments have further strengthened these findings. For
example, Stringaris et al. (2006) found that the right ventrolateral prefronta
cortex was activated in the metaphoric but not in the literal condition. They
also found an increased activation for the same region when participants
noticed a semantic relation between words and metaphoric sentence primes
but not between words and literal sentence primes. Eviatar and Just (2006)
found that metaphoric utterances led to higher levels of activation in the lef
inferior frontal gyrus and in the bilateral inferior temporal cortex than
literal and ironic utterances; and ironic utterances led to higher activation
levels than literal statements in the right superior and middle temporal gyri,
with metaphoric utterances resulting in intermediate levels in these regions.
Schmidt, Casey & Seger (2007) found an increased RH activation for
unfamiliar sentences containing distant semantic relationships, and an
increased LH activation for familiar sentences containing close semantic
relationships, regardless of whether sentences were metaphorical or literal.
(See also, Coulson & Van Petten 2007; Mason & Just 2006; Shibata et al.
2007).

However, as Schmidt et al. (2009) point out, our current picture of

how the meanings are processed in the brain, and how context is
incorporated is splotchy at best: “The dominant neuropsychological
hypothesis that the RH processes metaphors is not supported consistently.
In addition, this hypothesis remains relatively coarse in its neural claims.”
(p. 4). This is also echoed in Marshall et al. (2009), who used novel, poetic
metaphors and compared them with literal familiar utterances and
unfamiliar nonsensical utterances. They found strong activation levels for
novel metaphors in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (semantic and
episodic memory) and in the left posterior middle temporal gyri (sentence
comprehension) (see also Rapp et al. 2004).
 Thus, we see that a complex picture is emerging as to how meanings
activated by different words in an utterance are integrated, and how they
are affected by the context. We may not yet have sufficient data to construc
as comprehensive a model of semantic processing as the one provided by
Simos et al. (2002) for the reading process, but there have been significant
achievements. For example, research is going on to show how the brains of
the speaker and the listener show synchronous activity during successful
communication (Stephens, Silbert & Hasson 2010). Also, studies are being
done to see how neural circuits in the brain incorporate information during
extended real-life activities like watching a movie or having a conversation
(Lerner et al. 2011).

Moreover, comprehensive models of language evolution are being

developed that take into account evidence from neurolinguistics, and that
do not take the notion of literal as given. Notable among them is the
framework being developed by Michael Arbib (Arbib 2005, 2008, to
appear), which takes the position that “inferring the meaning of an
utterance of language need not be a simple, direct translation from
‘syntactic form’ to ‘semantic form’ but may be an active process calling on
diverse ‘knowledge sources’ to negotiate what appears to be a satisfactory
interpretation. We may use our estimate of the overall meaning of an
utterance to guess the meaning of a novel word therein, possibly guided by
the internal structure of the word – but also guided by the social interaction
within which the utterance is embedded” (Arbib to appear, Ch. 10).

Such models address concerns raised by Barnden (2009) against

traditional accounts, which rely on mapping elements of the source to the
elements of the target. Barnden argues for giving context a more central
role in guiding the construction of metaphorical meaning. In fact, in models
such as the spreading-activation model described avove, or the one
proposed by Arbib, context is the key to meaning construction for all
utterances: literal as well as metaphorical.

One consequence of these models worth highlighting here is that the

metaphorical meaning is not constructed via the literal meaning route. On
the contrary, these models incorporate the hypothesis that all that is
conventional and literal now must have been metaphorical once (Indurkhya
1994). This is because what is literal now is essentially due to the
associations that have been strengthened through frequent usage.

In summary, we see that more and more evidence is emerging

indicating that in understanding an utterance or a piece of text, all the
conceptual and sensorimotor associations related to the words and concepts
occurring in the utterance are activated. They interact with each other in
complex ways, and context, as represented by the pre-existing activation
levels of the concepts and sensorimotor states, further modulates this
interaction. The tidal bore metaphor proposed by Deheane (2009, 113–116)
may perhaps be the best way to visualize this process, whereby each
utterance causes a tidal wave that works its way through the existing
conceptual and sensorimotor network, reaching into its far recesses here
and there. The context can be thought of as the topology of the shore and
the inland, which is dotted with hillocks, troughs, ridges and gullies; except
that this topology is dynamic and is constantly changing in radical ways so
that each tidal wave encounters a different topology. As the wave recedes,
the lattice of rivulets that is left behind might be what we call
‘understanding’. The process of tidal bore is the same for the literal as for
the metaphorical, and the distinction may well lie in the patterns of rivulets
that are left behind.

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 On the role of perceptual
features in metaphor
comprehension
Amitash Ojha & Bipin Indurkhya
Kyungpook National University, Daegu, South
Korea | Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland

In this chapter we present three studies that were conducted to investigate the role of

perceptual features in metaphor comprehension. Results suggest that priming verbal

metaphors with explicit perceptual images facilitates comprehension. Moreover,

stimulating the source concept facilitates metaphor comprehension more effectively than

stimulating the target concept. Finally, on analysing the semantic associations between the

source, target, and metaphor features, we found that when both the source and the target

are primed with their respective images, relatively more perceptual features of the source

are related to the metaphor’s features; as opposed to the no-priming condition when

relatively more conceptual features of the source are related to the metaphor’s features.

Based on the results of these studies, a perception-based model of metaphor processing is

proposed.

Keywords

imagery; priming; perception; metaphor

1. Introduction

The role of metaphor in human communication is well known. Metaphor is

not just a linguistic phenomenon, but is a multimodal, conceptual one in
which various cognitive processes such as perception and imagery interact
together. Therefore, one of the central issues in metaphor research is to
understand the role of these cognitive processes in metaphor in particular,
and communication in general. In this study, we focus on the role of
perception and imagery in metaphor understanding and in communication.

Many studies suggest that imagery plays a key role in understanding

metaphors (Neisser 1976; Walsh 1990). But imagery is inherently
subjective, and the only thing we can say for sure is whether the brain areas
generally used for visual imagery are also used during metaphor processing
(Schmidt et al. 2007; Shibata et al. 2007; Eviatar & Just 2006; Bottini et al.
1994). As there are wide variations in how an individual reader evokes
imagery in response to a metaphor (Pylyshyn 2002), it is difficult to study i
empirically. However, an alternative is to use perceptual stimuli, where
specific visual images are provided to the participants. The features of these
images can be controlled precisely, and we can study whether these images
facilitate or hinder metaphor processing.

The three experiments presented in this chapter are designed to study

the role of images in metaphor processing. In the next section we present
the background and motivation for this research, starting with the idea that
metaphor is not just a verbal phenomenon but is a conceptual process,
which can occur in different modes of communication. In the next section
we review the role of imagery in metaphor comprehension and discuss in
what ways imagery is like perception. The three experiments to study the
effect of image priming and image stimulation on metaphor processing are
presented in Section 4. Finally, in Section 5, we discuss the implications of
this study and outline a model for textual and visual metaphor processing.

2. Metaphor, imagery and perception

2.1 Metaphor as a conceptual process

Metaphor is defined as the experience of one thing in terms of another

thing. Since Richards (1936) argued, “Thought is metaphoric and proceeds
by comparison, and the metaphors of language derive there from”, there
have been many approaches to consider metaphor as a conceptual
phenomenon (Ortony 1979; Lakoff & Johnson 1980). In particular, the
Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) of Lakoff and his colleagues argues
that human cognition is organized in conceptual schemas, which are
metaphoric in nature. These schemas are constantly enriched and modified
by interaction with the world. Language draws on these cognitive schemas
but is not identical to them. Moreover, verbal metaphors are surface
manifestations of the metaphorical grounding of these schemas. To sum up,
metaphor is “fundamentally conceptual, not linguistic in nature” (Lakoff
1993).

Considering metaphor as a predominantly conceptual phenomenon,

and not merely a verbal one, has sparked many explorations of different
aspects of metaphor processing and its relation with other cognitive
processes such as perception, memory, and imagery. A number of attempts
have also been made to examine the nature of non-verbal metaphors
(Kennedy 1982; Forceville 1996; Carroll 1994), and they have found ample
evidence that metaphors occur in various modes of communication like
vision, gestures, etc. For example, synesthetic and physiognomic
phenomena have been studied as forms of non-verbal metaphor (Werner &
Kaplan 1963). Johnson & Malgady (1980) have suggested that the
interpretation of some works of visual art (paintings) may parallel the
interpretation of verbal metaphors, while Verbrugge & McCarrell (1977)
reported some success in using musical passages as prompts for recall of
metaphoric sentences. All this shows that the apprehension of figurative
relations can also occur in non-linguistic media; one can even argue that the
origins of many metaphors lie in perception and only later they are
expressed through verbal forms.

2.2 Mental imagery and metaphors

Research on metaphor and imagery suggests that during metaphor

comprehension perceptual experiences are evoked and the success of a
metaphor partially depends on the vividness of the experience it produces
in the reader’s imagination. Neisser (1976) suggested that words are
embedded in the perceptual schema associated with the [perceptual]
situations in which they have been encountered. Further, words produce a
quasi-perceptual experience (imagery) that shares certain implicit
characteristics of the direct perception of the corresponding physical
environment. In another study (Walsh 1990), it was found that noun-noun
metaphors are easier to understand and are considered more apt when they
evoke some appropriate imagery in the reader: “what we imagine is what
we transfer” (Walsh 1990, 239). Gibbs & Bogdonovich (1999) presented
three studies to show that concrete mental images are evoked during
comprehension of poetic metaphors.

Indurkhya (2006) proposed a theoretical framework that distinguishes

between ‘analytic’ and ‘synthetic’ metaphors. According to this view, in
‘analytic metaphors’ the interpretation of metaphor can be obtained by
analysing the meaning constituents of the components of the metaphor. In
‘synthetic metaphors’ however, the interpretation of metaphor cannot be
obtained by merely analysing the meaning constituents of the components
of the metaphor. In this regard, they can be said to be non-compositional
and the meaning is created by synthesis. As an example he mentions the
poem ‘Seascape’ by Stephen Spender and argues that metaphors in the
poem cannot be understood without a resonance between the perceptual
experiences related to the concepts. Moreover, created meanings are
subjective, and hence we see a wide variation among different subjects’
interpretations (See also Nueckles & Janetzko 1997; Indurkhya 2007). The
significance of these studies is that they show the importance of imagery
and the role of perceptual processes in metaphor comprehension. However
it must be noted that these studies focussed on verbal metaphors and not on
visual or pictorial metaphors.

2.3 Imagery and perception

In imagery research there has been an on-going debate between the view
that images are picture-like and pseudo-perceptual, and the opposing view
that images are just another kind of propositional or symbolic
representation (Pylyshyn 2002; Kosslyn, Thompson & Ganis 2006). Given
this debate, it is important to ask, “What is the status of imagery?” and “Is
imagery perception-like?” In order to understand the imagistic component,
we refer to the sensorimotor account (O’Regan & Noë 2001; Thomas 2002
Thomas 2009), according to which a component of the meaning
representation incorporates sensorimotor contingencies – that is,
information about various ways in which the object can be acted upon, and
how its perceptual properties change in response to those actions – and
various cognitive processes may refer to this representation as needed.

Given several studies to show that perception and imagery use the
same underlying brain mechanism (Griffith & Zaidi 2000; Zaidi & Griffith
2002; Kosslyn & Thompson 2003; Dehaene 2009), we may assume that
both perception and imagery have a similar effect on higher cognitive
processes such as metaphor comprehension. Imagery is subjective, and it is
difficult to manipulate perceptual features of imagined concepts or to
directly determine their effect on metaphor comprehension. On the other
hand, perceptual features of conceret images can be manipulated, and their
effect on metaphor comprehension can be ascertained.

2.4 Text vs image priming and semantic processing

During cognitive processes involving language, such as metaphor

comprehension, perceptual features of the concept are evoked through text,
but this evocation is highly subjective. On the other hand, when an image is
shown to a participant, perceptual features of the image are objectively
given. Though it has been noted that text and images are processed
differently (Clark & Paivio 1991; Paivio 1986), there is evidence to suggest
that they interact and influence each other in tasks that require semantic
processing, and perhaps this is why we see facilitative effects when text is
primed with pictures. Text and images can represent the same information
differently. Text is described as ‘descriptive’ and pictures are described as
‘depictive’ representations (Schnotz 2002). The distinction between
descriptions and depictions can be applied not only to external
representations such as texts and pictures, but also to internal mental
representations, which are constructed during text and picture
comprehension. Current approaches in text comprehension research assume
that in understanding text the reader constructs multiple mental
representations. These include a surface representation of the text, which
happens at the perceptual level, a propositional representation and later a
mental model of what the text is about at the conceptual level (See Graesser
et al. 1997). In picture comprehension, the viewer also constructs multiple
mental representations, which include a surface structure representation
(perceptual) and then a mental model.
 The important point to note here is that in an image, surface structure
representation corresponds to the perceptual (visual) image of the picture in
the participant’s mind. So, when the text is primed with the corresponding
image, it evokes the picture comprehension process as well, and their
combined effect somehow results in faster semantic processing. Such cross
modal priming effects have been observed for a variety of tasks that require
semantic processing, such as naming, categorization, and lexical decision
(Bajo 1988; Durso & Johnson 1980; Zwaan et al. 2004). However, to our
knowledge, no such study is available for metaphor comprehension.
Therefore, we chose to study the effect of perceptual features on metaphor
comprehension in three different experiments using the priming paradigm.

3. Experiments

Considering that: (1) imagery facilitates metaphor comprehension, (2)

imagery and perception use the same underlying brain mechanism, and
therefore can be considered to be the same (or similar) process and (3)
image priming fecilitates text comprehension; we hypothesize that image
priming will facilitate verbal metaphor comprehension too. We also
hypothesize that by image priming, effect of perceptual features on
metaphor comprehension can be ascertained, which is difficult to measure
in the case of imagery evoked by words. We expect to see a facilitative
effect if one or both of the source and the target concepts of a verbal
metaphor are primed with perceptual features (via images).

Therefore, to investigate the role of concrete visual stimuli in

metaphor comprehension we conducted three experiments. To be more
specific, if a textual metaphor is stimulated with the visual image of the
source concept, visual image of the target concept, or visual images of both
the source and the target concepts, what is the effect on metaphor
comprehension? When imagery is evoked through words, it is highly
subjective because it comes from the previous experiences of the cognitive
agent. There is no way of controlling the previous experiences of the agent,
or to measure any characteristic of the imagined experience. Therefore, it is
difficult to probe the imagery process experimentally. However, an
alternative is provided by visual metaphors, where at least one concept is
depicted as an image. Images are presented concretely; their perceptual
features like shape, texture, orientation, etc. are given objectively, and can
be manipulated or measured in stimuli and their effect on the metaphorical
process can be ascertained. For example, if ‘umbrella’ is presented as text,
then one can imagine an umbrella that is red or black, has a different shape,
is small or large etc. and we cannot measure any of these attributes.
However, if an umbrella is presented as an image, then its colour, shape,
size, etc. can be experimentally controlled.

There are two possible effects of image stimulation on the process of

metaphor comprehension. If the image is presented first, it may evoke
certain perceptual features, and we can measure how these evoked features
facilitate or hinder metaphor comprehension. On the other hand, if the text
is presented first, the participants may start to imagine the object referred to
by the text, but the perceptual features of these imagined objects are likely
to vary widely across the participants. Now if an image is presented after a
short interval, then an interference effect is possible because the concrete
features of the presented image may clash with the imagined features. For
example, if the stimulus is the word ‘umbrella’, the participant may start to
imagine a big wide umbrella. But when the image of a folding umbrella is
presented shortly after, its features would conflict with the features of the
imagined object. So it would be interesting to see how this conflict
influences the participants’ response. We can measure the effect of
perceptual features in metaphor comprehension in both these situations by
analysing the response time, generated list of features, etc.

One more issue related to the priming of images is the role of

perceptual features. Several studies (following the comparison theory of
metaphors) have shown that features of the source or the target may lend
themselves as metaphor features. However, studies following the
interaction theory of metaphor suggest that at least some of the metaphor
features are emergent (they are not related to either the target or the source)
In this study our objective is to study how this facilitation or interference of
perceptual features affects the overall metaphor comprehension and, in
particular, the emergent features. For example, are the metaphor features
more strongly related to the source features, or to the target features? This
can be measured using semantic association between the source, target and
metaphor features.

The first two experiments were conducted to study this effect of

stimulated perceptual features on metaphorical comprehension. In each
experiment, images of the source concept, the target concept or both the
concepts were presented to the participants together with the text. In the
first experiment these images were shown before the presentation of the
textual stimuli, and in the second experiment they were shown after the
presentation of the textual stimuli. In the third study, we measured the
relationship between the perceptual features of the stimulated concepts and
the metaphorical features by analysing the semantic association between
these features using Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) (Landauer & Dumais
1996).

3.1 Experimental method and setup

Our objective is to determine how perceptual features influence metaphor
comprehension and how features of the source and the target associate with
metaphor features. For measuring comprehension, various parameters have
been used in the past research: such as memory recall, recognition, and
feature counting (Franklin & De Hart 1981; Bock & Brewer 1980). For our
study, we used the following measures: (1) Response time to decide the
meaningfulness of metaphor, (some researchers prefer to call it processing
time but in our research we would call it response time as the majority of
literature suggests) (Van Weelden et al. 2011; Paivio 1986), (2) aptness
rating, and (3) number of features generated for the metaphor.

The stimuli for all our studies were textual metaphors in X is Y

format, where X is the target concept and Y is the source concept. This
methodology is commonly used for empirical study of verbal metaphors
(Keneddy & Chiappe 1999; Chiappe et al. 2003; Chiappe & Keneddy
2000). Study 1 used a cross-modal priming paradigm in which the
participants were primed with images corresponding to the source concept,
the target concept or both the source and the target concepts before
presenting the textual stimuli. Study 2 was similar to Study 1 except that
images corresponding to the concepts were presented 200 milliseconds
after presenting the textual stimuli. In Study 3, we used similar stimuli.
First, pairs of concepts were shown, and then those concepts were shown
individually to generate features. This methodology is similar to the one
used by Gineste et al. (2000) in a verbal metaphor study.

In the literature, aptness of metaphor is used in different ways. For

example, in some experimental studies, aptness is considered to be the
extent to which a comparison captures salient features of the topic in
question (Katz 1989, 1992; Malgady & Johnson 1976; Tourangeau &
Sternberg 1981, 1982; Trick & Katz 1986). However, this characterization
is based on the comparison theory of metaphor. In the interaction theory of
metaphor, on the other hand, there can be emergent features, which affect
the aptness of metaphor (see, for instance, Gineste et al. 2000). In our
study, aptness was determined by asking the participants: “How much did
you like the metaphor?” This method of rating aptness has been used in
several other experimental studies as well (e.g. Kennedy & Chiappe 1999).

Images corresponding to the concepts were presented only for 100

milliseconds. This duration is sufficient to process perceptual information
from images but not enough to integrate this information into object
recognition (Bullier 2001; Thorpe et al. 1996). This ensures that the
participant processes only the perceptual information such as shape, texture
and orientation, but not the semantic information associated with the
images. Moreover, images were converted into black and white to remove
the color parameter in order to reduce their cultural association.

3.2 Study 1: Priming condition

Participants

Twenty-eight undergraduate students (thirteen females and fifteen males),

fluent English speakers and with the average age of 21 years participated in
this study.

Stimuli material and priming conditions

The stimuli consisted of 80 textual sentences in ‘X is Y’ format, where X

and Y were concrete nouns. X is considered to be the target and Y the
source. Participants were presented with all the sentences in four
conditions: so 20 sentences for each condition. Condition 1 with no priming
(TT), served as control; Condition 2, where only the target concept was
primed with its image for 100 milliseconds (IT); Condition 3, with only the
source concept primed with its image for 100 milliseconds (TI); and
Condition 4, where both the target and the source concepts were primed
with their respective images for 100 milliseconds simultaneously (II). This
is shown in Figure 1, which illustrates the priming conditions: ‘T’
corresponds to text and ‘I’ corresponds to image. The first element is the
target and the second element is the source. So TT means no priming, TI
means that source of the metaphor was primed, IT means the target of the
metaphor was primed and II means both the source and the target were
primed.

Figure 1.

Priming conditions (‘T’ corresponds to text and ‘I’ corresponds to image)

Procedure and task

Participants were given a training session before the actual experiment. The
training set included two metaphors in all four conditions. It was done to
familiarize participants with the experimental procedure. Data from the
training session was not included in the analysis. Actual experimental
stimuli included 80 metaphors in four conditions (20 each). Participants
were primed randomly with images of only the source, or only the target, or
both the source and the target for 100 milliseconds before the metaphors
appeared on the screen. They were asked to decide if the metaphor ‘X is Y’
was meaningful to them in any context. If it was not meaningful, they were
asked to proceed to the next stimulus by pressing 1 on the keyboard. If the
metaphor was meaningful, then they were asked to rate its aptness (“How
much you liked it?”) on a 1–7 scale by pressing the corresponding numeric
key. Once they gave their aptness rating, a blank screen with a + sign
appeared and they were asked to give up to five features of the metaphor.
The participants gave this response orally, which was recorded and later
transcribed for analysis (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Procedure followed in Experiment 1

Results

An analysis of the response times to comprehend metaphors showed that

primed metaphors (II, IT and TI) were comprehended faster than non-
primed metaphors (TT). (Mean response time for II = 5.90 seconds, for
TI = 6.94 seconds, for IT = 6.59 seconds and for TT = 8.30 seconds). We did
a t test to determine the statistical significance. The rest of T test showed
that differences between TT and II [t (1,18) = 8.22, p < .01], TT and IT [t
(1,18) = 5.2627, p < .05], TT and TI [t (1,18) = 9.37, p < .01] were
significant. Differences between IT and TI and II were not significant
(Figure 3).

We found no significant difference in the aptness ratings among the

four conditions. Therefore, in another analysis, we divided the ratings of
TT (ranging from 1–7) into high and low ratings. We expected to find the
effect of image priming on those metaphors that got high aptness ratings.
For this, all ratings above the median (4.00) were considered high and all
ratings below the median were considered low. Then high-aptness
metaphors of TT condition were compared with II, IT and TI conditions.
We found that the aptness ratings for those metaphors in II (M = 5.43), TI
(M = 5.29) and IT (M = 5.25) conditions were significantly higher than TT
(M = 4.61) condition. The T test showed that the difference between TT and
II [t (1,18) = 7.22, p < .01], TT and TI [t (1,18) = 6.24, p < .02] and TT and
IT [t (1,18) = 4.68, p < .05] were statistically significant. In the low-aptness
group this difference was not significant (Figure 4).

Results of this study show that priming of perceptual features (a

concerete image) of the target, the source, or both, before the presentation
of verbal metaphors significantly reduces the comprehension time.
Moreover, it also shows that priming had a significant effect on aptness if
the metaphor was liked. If the metaphor was not liked then the priming had
no effect. This suggests that priming facilitates metaphor comprehension.
Figure 3.

Mean response time to comprehend the metaphor

Figure 4.

Aptness ratings under different conditions

3.3 Study 2: Image stimulation condition

Experiment 2 was similar to Experiment 1 except that images were

presented 200 milliseconds after presenting the textual stimuli. The
objective was to test how the perceptual features of the presented image
interact with the evoked imagery (if any), and its effect on the metaphorical
comprehension.

Participants

Twenty-eight undergraduate students (twelve females and sixteen males),

fluent English speakers and with the average age of 21 years, participated
in the experiment.

Stimulus material and image stimulation conditions

The same material and the same four conditions (TT, II, TI and IT) as in
Experiment 1 were used for this experiment, with the only difference being
that the image stimulation followed the textual presentation (Figure 5).

Figure 5.

Stimuli used in Experiment 2

Procedure and task

Instructions were similar to Experiment 1 and the participants had to
perform the same task but the order of stimuli presentation was slightly
different: the textual stimuli was presented for 200 milliseconds, followed
by the image of the source (TI), or the target (IT), or both (II) or none (TT)
for 100 milliseconds (Figure 6).

Results

We found that in the image stimulation conditions, the response time to

comprehend a metaphor was faster (mean response time for II = 6.05
seconds, for TI = 5.75 seconds, for IT = 6.65 seconds and for TT = 8.50
seconds). The T test showed that the differences between TT and II [t
(1,18) = 9.17, p < .01], TT and IT [t (1,18) = 5.54, p < .05], TT and TI [t
(1,18) = 8.76, p < .01] were significant. The differences between IT and TI
and II were not significant (Figure 7).
Figure 6.

Procedure followed in Experiment 2

Figure 7.

Mean response time to comprehend a metaphor

We did not find any significant difference in the aptness ratings across the
four conditions. So in a follow-up analysis similar to Experiment 1, we
divided the ratings of TT (ranging from 1–7) into high and low ratings. We
expected to see the effect of image suggestion on those metaphors that got
high-aptness ratings. For this, all ratings above the median (2.98) were
considered high and all ratings below the median were considered low.
Then high-aptness metaphors of TT condition were compared with II, IT
and TI conditions. We found that the aptness ratings for those metaphors in
II (M = 4.80), TI (M = 4.64) conditions were significantly higher than TT
(M = 3.88) condition. The difference between TT and IT (M = 4.32) was not
significant. The differences between TT and II [F (1,18) = 8.58, p < .009],
and between TT and TI [F (1,18) = 6.49, p < .02] were statistically
significant. In the low-aptness group this difference was not significant
(Figure 8).

Figure 8.

Aptness ratings under different conditions.

Similar to Study 1, we found facilitative effect of images in comprehension
and aptness of metaphor. Even though images were presented after 200 ms
of verbal metaphor presentation (which was enough time to evoke
imagery), images facilitated metaphor comprehension instead of
interfering.

3.4 Study 3: Semantic association between source/target features

and metaphor features

The last two studies showed that image suggestion facilitates metaphorical
comprehension, as primed metaphors (prior and during verbal metaphor
presentation) are comprehended faster. The aim of the third study was to
discern if there was any difference between how strongly perceptual and
conceptual features of the source and the target are semantically associated
with the metaphor features. We consider metaphor features to be those
features that are generated in interpreting a metaphor, and source/target
features to be those features that are generated for the source/target
concepts individually (see Gineste et al., 2000). For determining the
strength of semantic associations, we used the technique of Latent
Semantic Analysis (LSA), which has been developed for extracting and
representing the contextual meaning of words from statistical computations
based on a large corpus of text (Landauer & Dumais 1996).

Participants

Twenty-two undergraduate students (sixteen males and six females), fluent

English speakers and with the average age of 21 years, participated in the
experiment.

Stimulus material
The same material as in Experiment 1 was used for this study. Four
conditions (TT, II, TI and IT) in this experiment were the same as in
Experiment 1.

Procedure and task

The study was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, participants were
shown 20 sentences in ‘X is Y’ format, and were primed with the images of
the concepts in the four conditions (TT, II, IT and TI) as in Experiment 1.
We made sure that all participants received non-repeated stimuli in all
conditions. The participants were asked to interpret each stimulus
metaphorically, if possible. If they did not find it metaphorical, they could
proceed to the next sentence by pressing 1 on the keyboard, and the second
stage did not follow. But if they found the sentence metaphorical, they
proceeded to the second stage by pressing 2 on keyboard, when they were
shown individual concepts either as text or as an image. Participants were
asked to list up to five features of the concept being shown. They provided
their response orally, and it was later transcribed. This procedure for the
image-image (II) condition is shown in Figure 9.

Scoring

After the two-stage study we compiled the generated features into three
categories: (1) metaphor features, (2) source features, and (3) target
features (see Gineste et al. 2000). For example, if “Earth is an Apple” was
given as a stimulus in the first stage, then the features obtained for it were
considered to be metaphor features. Features generated for ‘Earth’ or
‘Apple’ individually were considered as the target features and the source
features, respectively.
 A feature can also be categorized as a conceptual feature or a
perceptual feature (Nolan 1994; Van Weelden et al. 2011; Schilperoord et
al. 2009). For example, ‘red’ and ‘round’ are perceptual features, and
‘beautiful’ and ‘strong’ are conceptual features. We asked five participants
to categorize each of the source/target features into conceptual-perceptual
category. Based on the inter-subjective agreement we calculated the
semantic association between the metaphor features and the source/ target
features using LSA. An example is given below in Table 1. Higher values
in the table show stronger semantic associations between concepts. For
example ‘war’ (an emergent feature) has a strong semantic association with
‘red’ (a perceptual feature of the source concept in one of the metaphors).
Similarly ‘healthy environment’ (an emergent feature) has a relatively
weaker semantic association with ‘red’ (a perceptual feature of the source
concept in one of the metaphors).

Figure 9.

Procedure for Study 3 for the image-image condition

Table 1. Semantic associations between source/target and metaphor features

Metaphor features

Sinful Lots of War Healthy

people pollution environment
Perceptual Red 0.25 0.21 0.36 0.12
Source
features Round 0.33 0.3 0.08 0.06
Conceptual Fruit 0.19 0.1 0.04 0.17
Adam 0.2 0.19 0.12 0.07
Vitamins 0.07 0.04 0.01 0.17
Keeps the doctor 0.32 0.42 0.02 0.26
away
Perceptual Blue 0.29 0.1 0.15 0.13
Target
features Round 0.33 0.3 0.08 0.06
Conceptual Third planet 0.17 0.16 0.08 0.14
Environment 0.07 0.47 0.12 0.37
Greenery 0.04 0.36 0.01 0.06

Analysis and results

A total of 932 features (245 metaphor features, 318 source features and 369
target features) were generated, from which the sets of unique features for
the source (12 features), the target (16 features) and the metaphor (34
features) were identified along with their frequency for each metaphor. For
example, for a given source/target concept, if ‘red’ was given as a feature
by nine participants, ‘round’ by four participants and ‘healthy’ by three
participants, then the total number of generated features for this concept
would be sixteen, and the total number of unique features would be three
(‘red’, ‘round’, ‘healthy’). These unique features of the source, the target
and metaphor were used to find the semantic association between features
using LSA for each of the four experimental conditions. A weak semantic
association between the metaphor feature and source and target concepts
would indicate that metaphor feature is an emergent feature. On the other
hand, a strong semantic association would indicate that the metaphor
feature is associated with the target or the source.

Figure 10.

Average semantic association between source/target and metaphor features

Figure 10 shows the results: average semantic associations between the

(perceptual and conceptual) source/target features and the metaphor
features in all four experimental conditions. From the graphs we can see
that when both the source and the target were primed with images (II
condition), perceptual features of the source were more closely related to
the metaphor features (mean association = 0.28), as opposed to the
conceptual features of the source (mean association 0.18). On the other
hand, under the no priming TT condition, it is the conceptual features of the
source that were more closely related to the metaphor features (mean
association = 0.24), as opposed to its perceptual features (mean
association = 0.17). For target features, there was no such effect of image
priming, and in both conditions, conceptual features (compared to the
perceptual features) of the target were somewhat more strongly related to
the metaphor features.

Perhaps surprisingly, however, when only one of the source and the
target was primed with an image, we found no significant effect (compared
to the control condition of no priming) on the semantic association between
the metaphor features and the perceptual and conceptual features of the
source and target.

4. General discussion and conclusions

The aim of our study was to explore the role of perceptual features in
metaphorical comprehension and our results suggest that perceptual
stimulation of concepts facilitates the metaphorical interpretation process.
Specifically, there were three major outcomes of our experiments:

1. Image stimulation facilitates metaphorical interpretation. We found

that the response time to comprehend a metaphor decreases
significantly if perceptual information of concepts is provided. This is
in agreement with the previous studies related to semantic processing
in naming and categorization (Carr et al. 1982; Sperber et al. 1979;
Vanderwart 1984).

2. We did not find any significant effect of perceptual stimulation on

aptness ratings. However in Experiments 1 and 2, we found that for
higher aptness metaphors, image priming or stimulation of the source,
the target, or both, increases the aptness value. On the other hand, for
lower aptness metaphors this priming and stimulation does not have
any significant effect.

3. Compared to the conceptual features, perceptual features of the source

are more closely related to the metaphor features when both the source
 and the target concepts are primed by images. In contrast, when there
is no priming, the conceptual features (as opposed to the perceptual
features) of the source are more closely related to the metaphor
features. There is no such effect on the target features.

As for the question posed in the introduction, namely whether priming by

visual images facilitates or hinders metaphor comprehension, our
experimental results show that priming facilitates comprehension. It seems
that concrete perceptual features such as shape, texture, and orientation of
the source and/or the target concepts help the reader in creating associations
between them, which in turn helps in generating a metaphorical
interpretation.

We found that individuals take less time to comprehend a verbal

metaphor if one or both of its concepts are primed with the corresponding
images. Also, the perceptual features of these primed images are
semantically more associated with the metaphor features. A possible
explanation for this can be the difference between the text and the image
processing. Initially, when an individual reads a piece of text, he or she
processes its surface features at the perceptual level, creates a propositional
representation and then an internal mental model at the conceptual level.
On the other hand, in viewing an image, he or she processes the surface
features of the image and then creates a mental model and then a
propositional representation at the conceptual level. So when a metaphor is
primed, the surface features of the image produce a similar visual image of
the picture in the individual’s mind (without creating a propositional model
and these features are registered and used in metaphor comprehension)
whereas in non-primed metaphors, surface structure of text is processed
initially at perceptual level and then a propositional model is created, which
in turn produces a mental representation of concept represented in text
(which is comparatively a longer process).

We propose a model for metaphor processing which is based on the

current theories of perception (O’Regan & Noe 2001; Treisman & Gelade
1980; Zimbardo & Gerrig 2002) and integrated model of text and image
processing (Schnotz & Bannert 1999; Schnotz 2002).

The cornerstones of this model are a distinction between the

conceptual and the perceptual spaces, and positing top-down and bottom-up
mechanisms that allow features in these two spaces to stimulate each other.
In top-down processes, conceptual features in the conceptual space
stimulate perceptual features in the perceptual space; and in bottom-up
processes, perceptual features in the perceptual space stimulate conceptual
features in the conceptual space. In our earlier model (Indurkhya 2006), we
had hypothesized that in certain metaphors, top-down processes stimulate
perceptual features of the source and the target, more familiarly known as
imagery, which interact together and in turn activate conceptual features
(through bottom-up processes), which are identified as metaphor features.
Moreover, those metaphor features that are not evoked by the source or the
target alone are seen as emergent features.

A graphical schematic of our proposed model is shown in Figure 11.

According to this model, when the image of the source or the target is
presented directly, it stimulates perceptual features faster, thereby speeding
up the generation of metaphor features, as indicated by our experiments.

We have not yet incorporated the asymmetry of metaphors in this

model. Though it is generally accepted that metaphors are asymmetric in
that ‘X is Y’ is not the same as ‘Y is X’ (Connor & Kogan 1980; Malgady
& Johnson, 1980; and Verbrugge, 1980), there are different accounts of
how this asymmetry is manifested. For example, the feature-transfer model
of Ortony (1979) favours a source-to-target transfer, whereas Barnden
(2001) has discussed a target-to-source transfer model. Our experiments
strengthen the results of Paivio & Clark (1986), who found that the source
concept imagery is more effective in understanding a metaphor than the
target concept imagery. Though in our Study 1 (priming condition), we
found no significant difference between TI and IT conditions, in Study 2
(stimulation condition), stimulation by the source image led to a slightly
faster response time than stimulation by the target image. Moreover, we
found in Study 3 that when both the source and the target are stimulated
with images, the perceptual features of the source are more closely related
to the metaphor features compared to the perceptual features of the target.
This suggests that though both the source and the target images facilitate
perceptual feature interaction, it is the perceptual features of the source that
end up being more strongly associated with the metaphor features.
However, these findings are very preliminary, and we do not have an
adequate explanation for the role of the target image in this interaction. All
this requires further experimentation where we swap the source and the
target, and study the effect of image priming and stimulation on the
directionality of a metaphor.
Figure 11.

A model for visual and textual metaphor processing

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PART II

The communicative dimension

of metaphor
 Adventures of a metaphor
Apian imagery in the history of
political thought
Giovanni Damele
New University of Lisbon

This chapter analyses some examples taken from the different versions of the metaphor of

the beehive or the swarm of bees (one of the most popular symbolic models of human

society), with the aim of exploring the relevance of cognitive and persuasive aspects in this

political metaphor. What the analysis of this particular example aims to show is,

ultimately, that, in many cases, political metaphors are persuasive not because they are

clear, but because of their ambiguity and their relative obscurity. In this particular case, the

rhetorical force of the metaphor is exploited with the aim of increasing the effectiveness of

an implicit rhetorical definition, based on the selection of the semantic features that can be

persuasive, disregarding others that are possibly self-defeating. Besides that, the

effectiveness of the beehive metaphor is grounded, on the one hand, on the persuasive

force of the naturalistic argument, which derives from the alleged naturalness of the model

(i.e. the beehive as a ‘naturally’ hierarchical, or cooperative, or monarchical society), on

the other hand, on its imaginative power.

Keywords

political discourse; argumentation; persuasive strategy; ambiguity;

political metaphor

1. Introduction – The beehive metaphor and the political

discourse
This chapter aims to provide some remarks concerning communicative and
persuasive aspects of political metaphors. 1 In order to do this, I will
present some examples taken from different versions of metaphors
belonging to the semantic field of ‘bee’ or ‘beehive’.

This allegory has been one of the most popular symbolic models of
human society, shifting alternatively from a positive to a negative image.
Generally seen as a positive model in cultural contexts where traditional
social and communitarian values prevail, the example of the beehive or the
swarm of bees, in which the individual is subordinated to the authority and
the control of the organisation, is mainly considered as negative in more
individualistic cultures. 2 However, we can also find “liberal” (or
“mercantilist”) interpretations of the metaphor, such as by Bernard de
Mandeville, Dupont de Nemours or Diderot, alongside “utopian-socialist”
or “cooperativist” interpretations, such as those from Saint-Simon, Fourier
(Musso 1990) or in the Anabaptist tradition. Furthermore, monarchist
versions of the metaphor, such as by Joseph De Maistre, have been
challenged by republican ones, such as those presented by intellectuals and
naturalists in the revolutionary France (Drouin 1992, 337).

Nevertheless, this case has been selected not only because of its status
of cliché in political discourse, but mainly because of its characteristic of
being used as an image of very different, and occasionally diametrically
opposed, models of political society. This pervasive and all-encompassing
character of the use of the beehive metaphor in political discourse can be
considered in order to show whether this metaphor is used for clarifying or
sharing information, or rather as a rhetorical device, with the aim of
strategically persuading the audience.

Structuring, transforming, and creating new knowledge are usually

considered the main capacities of metaphors, along with evoking emotions
and influencing evaluations (Sopory and Dillard 2002, 382). This idea is
clearly expressed in a well-known quotation of Aristotle, “we learn above
all from metaphors” (Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1410b, 12), and many scholars
have focused on the cognitive dimension of metaphors. In their seminal
works on metaphor, Lakoff and Johnson suggest that “the essence of
metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of
another” (Lakoff & Johnson 1980, 5). They view metaphor as a
fundamental cognitive tool “for trying to comprehend partially what cannot
be comprehended totally: our feelings, aesthetic experiences, moral
practices, and spiritual awareness” (Lakoff & Johnson 1980, 193).
Furthermore, as Landau pointed out, metaphors play a central role in
political discourse, since “political science has always resorted to
metaphors, to the device of proceeding from the known to the unknown”
(Landau 1972, 101–102). However, it has become a truism to say that
political discourse does not simply have a communicative dimension. In
fact, the main purpose of a political discourse is to influence actions and/ or
evaluations. In this sense, the role of metaphors might be crucial.
Metaphors, indeed, not only play a role in learning something new, but they
can also play a prior contributory role in changing someone’s mind (Moran
1996, 391). For this reason, we may preliminarily say that metaphors also
have a strategic dimension.

This strategic dimension should be understood in the context of the

distinction between communicative and persuasive discourse. Persuasive
discourse can be defined, following Robin Lakoff, as the “attempt or
intention of one party to change the behaviour, feelings, intentions or
viewpoint of another by communicative means” (R. Lakoff 1982, 28).
Thus, in this sense ‘communicative means’ are strategically exploited in a
nonreciprocal way in order to induce someone’s actions or behaviours or
beliefs. Conversely, in this context ‘communication’ should be intended as
a reciprocal activity primarily based on the exchange of information.
Communication and persuasion are, therefore, two related concepts. The
main difference, however, is related to the goal: since ‘communication’ is
related to the exchange of information, in a persuasive discourse any
exchange of information is subordinated to the persuasive strategy of the
speaker. 3

In this sense, the occurrences of the beehive metaphor in political

discourse seem to suggest a pre-eminently persuasive use based on an
implicit argumentative structure which has a fundamental strategic purpose
to which any cognitive dimension is subjected. As a matter of fact, the
rhetorical force of the metaphor is frequently exploited with the aim of
increasing the effectiveness of the (implicit) rhetorical definition (Mortara
Garavelli 1988; Lausberg 1998), that is a kind of definition based on the
selection of the semantic features that can be persuasive, disregarding
others that, even though they are equally important, are possibly self-
defeating. In this case, the metaphor relies on an analogical process hiding
an implicit re-definitional reasoning (that is an implicit re-formulation and
re-systematization of the set of the possible meanings). Thus, the
effectiveness of this re-definitional process is ultimately based on two
aspects. On the one hand, it is grounded on an argumentative foundation: in
this case, on the naturalistic argument, the persuasive force of which
derives from the alleged naturalness (based on the nature of the things or on
the values commonly shared in a specific culture) of the model (i.e. the
beehive as a “naturally” hierarchical, or cooperative, or monarchical
society). On the other hand, it is grounded on the imaginative power of
metaphors. According to Aristotle, a primary virtue of metaphor is the
ability to set something vividly before the eyes of the audience (Moran
1996, 392). Actually, Aristotle makes reference to metaphors of activity
and animation, mainly to the figure of personification. As a matter of fact, a
major source of political theory metaphors is subhuman activities or
processes in nature, 4 such as the lupine metaphor in Thomas Hobbes, 5 or
Machiavelli’s fox and lion, and so forth. Another of the dominant
metaphors that have influenced modern political theory is the organism
metaphor, that is, the idea of a ‘social organism’ such as the beehive, that is
higher than any of its individual parts.

In other words, the beehive metaphor seems to provide persuasive

force to an implicit re-definitional process by presenting a concrete and
vivid example of a natural society, whose fundamental characteristics
coincide, allegedly, with the ideal model of society suggested by the author
The selected definitional characteristics are thus presented in a figurative
and concise way as ‘natural’ and, only for this reason, positive.

2. Solidary and individualistic, monarchic and

republican: The beehive as social model

In 1507, Louis XII of France entered Genoa, reaffirming the French

protectorate over the Genoese republic. Instead of the porcupine, the usual
symbol of the king, he decided to display his merciful disposition and his
connatural power by wearing a tunic over his armour, decorated with a
swarm of gold bees and the Latin words “non utitur aculeo rex cui
paremus,” 6 which does not mean, as recent book about the use of the
beehive metaphor in architecture mistranslates, “the king has no sting”
(Ramirez 2000, 18), but “the king whom we serve does not use his sting”.
The first version would suggest deficiency, or from Seneca’s point of view,
the wisdom of nature, 7 while the second emphasizes the clemency of the
ruler and is based on the Aristotelian representation of the life of bees in the
History of Animals (Aristotle, Historia Animalium: V, 21, 553b, 5).
 This characteristic of the king of bees as a ruler, who ruled his subjects
through clemency and not through terror, was emphasized by classical
authors such as Varro, Pliny, Virgil, and others. The classical image of the
beehive as a society was the idea of a well-ordered commonwealth, ruled
by a king (not a queen) who was not a tyrant, but rather, who succeeded in
maintaining his sovereignty over the hive precisely through his clemency.
In fact, his subjects the bees followed him wherever he went because they
were unable to live without a king. This monarchic image of the beehive
was strengthened during the Middle Ages and the ancien régime, even after
the definitive attribution of the female gender to the queen bee by the
Dutch scientist Jan Swammerdam at the end of the XVI century (see also
Butler 1609. Concerning this theme: Hassig & Strickland 1995, 52–3;
Klingender 1971, 356–358; Deonna 1956; Baldini 1990). This powerful
metaphor of the monarchic regime was considered so persuasive that at the
time of the Revolution, French naturalists tried to translate it into
republican terms. In a well-known debate in the École normale between the
French naturalist Daubenton and a student called Laperruque, the problem
of the monarchic structure of the beehive was considered with great
attention. After Daubenton clarified the absolute unnaturalness of the
monarchy, showing that there is no king in nature, Laperruque critically
intervened: “I see in nature something worse than a king; that is to say, I
see a queen. And what is even more extraordinary, a queen in a republic!”
surrounded by “courtiers, protectors, body-guards, defenders” and so on.
“You see, citizen, that I am speaking of the queen bee. I should therefore
hope that natural history should take another step towards republican
principles”. Daubenton’s answer left no room for reply: the real ruler of the
beehive is not the queen, but the workers, because they are “the most
numerous and the most powerful” and “they do everything apart from
fertilize the female and her eggs”. The fact that it was believed that this
female, the only fertile female of the beehive, was a male, and that it was
called the king, “proves that its actions were understood no better than its
sex”. So “it is obvious that in Nature there can be neither king nor queen”.
What we call “the queen of bees”, actually, is just the mother-bee (Drouin
1992, 333). After which, “mother-bee” was precisely the term that was
used in beekeeping handbooks during the French revolutionary era (Drouin
1992, 342). We can come back to the 16th century and consider an example
of a utopian social experiment. After the fall-out of the so-called “Kingdom
of Münster” in 1536, and a surge of persecution by the Habsburgs, some
Anabaptist communities, initially led by the Tyrolean shepherd Jacob
Hutter, settled in Moravia and began to live in a communitarian manner,
practicing community of goods and living in communities of large and
collective houses in which the members lived cooperatively in common in
a system called Haushabe or Bruderhof. Rebutting the ‘pigeon coop’ image
of these communities, made by catholic preachers, the Hutterites likened
their communities to a beehive (Hostetler 1974, 34–37). Almost two
centuries later, a Dutch author, Bernard de Mandeville, published a book in
English, The Fable of the Bees or Private Vices, Public Benefits, in which
the beehive is the image of a society that is everything but cooperative. 8
As a matter of fact, this book is usually considered one of the seminal
works of the laissez faire doctrine. It could be interesting to note that
without the satirical tone and the provocative intention of Mandeville, the
physiocrats, the economists who advocated the adherence of social
institutions to a supposed natural order, used the same metaphor. 9 The
focus of the image, now, is the idea of a self-regulating society, in which
individual actions, egoistically motivated, are the true sources of public
welfare.
3. Evaluating the persuasive force of the ‘beehive’

Considering all these examples and the popularity of the beehive metaphor,
we might ask: why is this metaphor so powerful? Where does its persuasive
force come from? Is it persuasive because it is a vehicle of understanding,
or because of its fundamental ambiguity and lack of clarity?

Actually, one of the three main virtues of metaphors, according to

Aristotle, is clarity or lucidity, the other two being pleasure and strangeness
(Aristotle, Rhetorica 1404b, 9–12). These three virtues are, as Moran
pointed out (Moran 1996, 387), strictly related. By presenting us something
strange, metaphors provide us an occasion for learning something with ease
(Aristotle, Rhetorica 1410b, 10). This idea is not so far from the so-called
‘pleasure or relief ’ theory, as presented by Sopory and Dillard, following
which a metaphor is fundamentally a semantic anomaly (Bowers &
Osborn, 1966; Reinsch 1970, 1973). From this point of view, understanding
a metaphor is a three-stage process, starting with the perception of the error
(or of the novelty), which leads to a conflict (or recoil), and ends with a
resolution. The resulting pleasure ultimately reinforces the metaphorical
meaning and increases persuasion (Sopory & Dillard 2002, 385). From this
latter perspective, as Moran underlined, pleasure does not only attend the
learning of something new, but it can also play a prior contributory role in
changing someone’s mind (Moran 1996, 391).

However, even taking for granted this perspective on metaphor

persuasiveness, one may wonder how an actual metaphor, such as the
beehive, can fit this three stages process. For the sake of simplicity and in
order to evaluate the examples presented above, we may consider, the short
list of criteria for metaphoric effectiveness drawn by Wayn C. Booth from
“almost any rhetoric text from Aristotle to Whately”. According to this
catalogue, good metaphors should be (1) active, “leading the energy of
animated things to whatever is less energetic or more abstract”; (2) concise
(3) appropriate to the task in hand and (4) to the audience; finally, (5) they
“should build a proper ethos for the speaker, […] sustaining his character as
someone to be trusted” (Booth 1978, 56–57). This latter criterion, which is
especially important for the purpose of this chapter, is linked to the well-
known problem of ‘communicator credibility’. According to Aristotle, “the
greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor”, because it is something
“that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of genius” (Aristotle
Poetics 1495a, 3–8). Although being a ‘master of metaphor’ could have
sustained the ethos of Mandeville, for instance, this criterion is clearly
insufficient for explaining the persuasive force of the beehive metaphor in
the presented examples. For this reason, we also need to consider the
others. Stated briefly: is the beehive metaphor, as presented above, active,
concise and appropriate to the task and to the audience?

4. “Setting things before the eyes”

According to Booth (1978, 56) an “active” metaphor leads “the energy of

animated things to whatever is less energetic or more abstract”. As we saw
before, this criterion is clearly Aristotelian. For Moran (1996, 392), this is
the primary virtue of the Aristotelian metaphor: “the ability to set
something vividly before the eyes of the audience” (Aristotle, Rhetorica
1410b, 34–35). With “bring things before our eyes”, Aristotle means “that
things are set before the eyes by words that signify actuality”, like in
Homer, when someone “speaks of inanimate things as if they were
animate”. Aristotle makes reference, in other words, to the rhetorical figure
of personification, as examples like “the shameless stone” and “the eager
spearpoint” show (Aristotle, Rhetorica 1411b, 24–27).
 The beehive metaphor appears to fit this criterion. Actually, what we
have here is precisely something ‘animated’ (the swarm, or, metonymically
the hive) used in order to explain something more abstract (the society, or a
particular example or ideal of society). Even if the case of the Anabaptist
Bruderhof seems more ‘concrete’ than the others, we may say that in all the
examples mentioned the image of the beehive is used in order to set things
before the eyes, leading ‘the energy of animated things’ to something more
abstract.

This characteristic may explain the popularity of the beehive metaphor

among different, even opposite, political traditions. In every case, the hive
or the swarm are used as a powerful and ‘vivid’ (in the true sense of the
word) image of a well-ordered society. However, it does not explain how
the selection of different aspects of the same image works. Clearly, the
persuasive force of the metaphor in such different political context implies
that the image, even when presented in an ‘objective’ and ‘neutral’ fashion,
is strategically (and implicitly) reframed in order to highlight the aspects
that are coherent with a given political or social point of view, hiding others
that can be more problematic. Thus, this ‘reframing’ is something that goes
beyond the mere presentation of a ‘vivid’ image in order to explain an
abstract concept.

5. Good metaphors are concise

Is the beehive metaphor (at least in the presented examples) concise? And
if so, in what sense? According to Ortony (1975), the relevance of
metaphors depends on their ability of communicate a large amount of
information concisely. In the same vein, for Edelman “Metaphor and myths
are devices for simplifying and giving meaning to complex and bewildering
sets of observations that evoke concern” (Edelman 1971, 65). He further
suggested that what makes metaphor effective is that it evokes a part-to-
whole relation. As Mio (1997, 118) pointed out, this can come in two
forms. First, a certain metaphor can become symbolic of a broader issue.
Second, simple metaphors can render a complex issue understandable,
making it relevant to the general population.

One of the possible purposes of the use of the beehive metaphor is

probably “to render a complex issue understandable”. However, at least the
examples presented, seem more complex in this respect. If in the case of
Louis XII swarms are clearly used as a symbol (of clemency, first of all),
the ironic and innovative use of the beehive image by Mandeville can be
defined as ‘explanatory’ only in the broad sense of the word. Furthermore,
the use made by the Anabaptist of the beehive metaphor has a clear
apologetic purpose, and in the case of Daubenton we can see the
propagandistic attempt to show the ‘unnaturalness’ of the monarchic
institution.

I do not want to say that this specific metaphor does not have any
explanatory function in any of these cases. I simply want to highlight, on
the one hand, that communicating information is not the main goal of the
metaphor (at least in this case), and on the other, that even if the beehive
metaphor is also used for communicating information, this happens in a
way that reflects a preliminary and strategic selection of this information,
operated with persuasive purposes. This means that, at least in this case,
clarity and lucidity are not two ‘virtues’ of the metaphor, since its
persuasive force seems to rely on the lack of clarity about its functioning.
Thus, we may say that the beehive metaphor is concise in the sense that
“communicates a large amount of information concisely”, however, the
main issue here is precisely the selection of this information.
6. The metaphor and its context: ‘Conservative’ and
‘progressive’ interpretation of the metaphor

According to Booth’s catalogue, good metaphors are appropriate in their

grandeur or triviality, to the task in hand, and must be properly
accommodated to the audience. Put simply, “metaphors cannot be judged
without reference to a context” (Booth 1978, 60). This somewhat obvious
remark has a crucial relevance for the analysis of our examples. First of all,
because, as we have already noticed, every different use of the same image
is directly linked to a specific political and/or ethical context. Second,
because the relation between the metaphor and its context can confirm, or
not, the persuasive power of metaphor’s ‘novelty’ or ‘strangeness’.

Being a cliché in political discourse, the beehive metaphor says

something about the question of whether persuasion is directly or inversely
related to metaphor novelty. 10 A dominant metaphor, or a dominant use of
a metaphor, tends to become self-perpetuating, until competing
metaphorical uses, definitions, or interpretations can arise and supplant it,
thus creating a new dominant interpretation (Miller 1979, 161). From this
point of view, we may identify two main uses of this metaphor in political
discourse. The first one can be considered more ‘conservative’, resorting to
a traditional interpretation of an image, while the second can be considered
more ‘progressive’, presenting new interpretations. Although in the case of
the opposition between monarchist and republican interpretations of the
beehive-metaphor we may find a form of parallelism between
‘conservative’ and ‘progressive’ interpretations and ‘conservative’ and
‘progressive’ political points of view, this symmetry should not be
considered, obviously, automatic. To continue with the example of the
beehive, the use made of the metaphor by the Anabaptists can be
considered based on a traditional interpretation, since the idea of the
beehive as a cooperative society is grounded in the classic literature.
However, the Anabaptist social experiment cannot properly be considered
‘conservative’ in the true political sense of the word. In this sense, the use
of this metaphor was eminently strategic, aiming to show that the
Anabaptist community was a kind of ‘return to the origins’, resorting to the
typical allegory of the virtuous society, also used by catholic authors such
as Thomas of Aquinas and John of Salisbury. 11 Thus, the ‘traditional’ or
‘conservative’ interpretation of the beehive-metaphor was used in order to
mitigate the disruptive novelty of the Bruderhof, setting the anarchic image
of the pigeon against the prototypical allegory of the well-ordered society.

However, both in the case of the ‘conservative’ and of the

‘progressive’ interpretation of the beehive metaphor, the key point of the
rhetorical strategy is not simply to give a concrete and ‘physical’ example
of a super-organism, but rather to provide a naturalistic justification of a
given type of society. In this case, the persuasiveness of the argument
cannot simply be reduced to a matter of metaphorical novelty.

On the contrary, Edelman suggested that the goal of political discourse

is not to find novel metaphors that mobilize public opinion, but to use
simple metaphors that are repeated continuously. “Chronic repetition of
clichés” results in “dulling the critical faculties rather than awakening
them” and simply evokes “a conditioned, uncritical response” by the
audience (Edelman 1964, 124–125). I do not want to say that the beehive
metaphor is used here in order to “dull the critical faculties” of the
audience. However, I do want to suggest that this is precisely an example o
a ‘simple metaphor’: a familiar cliché used in order to influence and, above
all strengthen, the audience’s evaluations.
 Indeed, the use of this particular metaphor is based on a strategic
emphasis on the ‘normative force’ of nature (the ‘naturalistic argument’). In
other words, the metaphor cannot be interpreted separately from the
structure of the (rhetoric) argument in which it is embedded. Thus, the
persuasive force of such an argument is ultimately based on the idea, shared
both by the speaker and the audience, that there is something like a ‘natural
order’ of things and that following this ‘natural order’ is good. Also from
this point of view, the persuasiveness of the metaphor is strongly
contextual.

7. “We learn above all from metaphor?”

The examples presented above seem to show that the beehive metaphor, in
those contexts, adds no new truth or additional information to the
audience’s stock of knowledge. Also in the ‘didactic’ case of Daubenton
and Laperruque, the dialogue is fundamentally based on a shared
knowledge, which is exploited in order to justify political or ideological
preferences. Moreover, as we already mentioned, the use of a metaphorical
image like that represented in our examples is much more based on
ambiguity than on clarity and it is precisely in this ambiguity that the
persuasive force of the metaphor resides, more than in a ‘feeling of
enlightenment’ or a ‘feeling of familiarity’ (Mio 1997, 121–122). Roughly
speaking, the beehive metaphor seems to select and emphasize information
rather than add information. What is interesting is that the emphasis is, in a
sense, bidirectional.

Reviewing Jan J. A. Mooij’s book A study of metaphor, Avishai

Margalit interestingly used the example of the beehive metaphor in order to
explain the difference between ‘dualistic’ and ‘monistic’ theories on
metaphor. 12 Margalit starts from the remark that there is something that
“most theorists of metaphor agree upon” and it is that “literal meaning does
not disappear but plays an essential part in the interpretation of the
metaphor” (Margalit 1979, 454). Thus, for the monist, the literal meaning
of the metaphor is used “as input for the mechanism charged with the
interpretation of the metaphor”, and its role ends there. On the contrary, for
the dualist the literal meaning “not only features in the input but is part of
the end product, in the sense that in the ‘interpretative output’ there
remains, inherently, a systematic ambiguity between the metaphorical and
literal meanings of the given expression”. In that way, considering the
beehive metaphor, a monist would say that it “affects a transfer of features
from the beehive to the state, but talks about – or refers to – the state only”,
while according to the dualist “the metaphor talks about, or refers to, both
the state and the beehive, simultaneously”. For him, “there is a transfer of
features in both directions: from the beehive to the state as well as from the
state to the beehive”. Hence, “each of the two is a model for the other; the
metaphor is ‘about’ the beehive as much as it is ‘about’ the state”.

Setting aside the problem of the existence or not of a “metaphorical

meaning” (see Lepore & Stone 2010), what is interesting for our purpose is
Margalit’s remark that the metaphor talks about, or refers to, both the state
and the beehive. This mutual relation is due, in our reconstruction,
precisely to the strategic selection of some aspects of the image for
persuasive purposes. Roughly speaking, using the image of a beehive or a
swarm in order to demonstrate the naturalness of the monarchic institution,
does not only present an ‘ideal view’ on human monarchies, but it also
emphasizes the monarchic structure of the hive as the fundamental
characteristic of this particular insect society. This reciprocal influence may
further increase the metaphor’s persuasiveness, focusing the audience’s
point of view on those traits of the metaphor strategically (and implicitly)
selected by the speaker (or the author).

8. Conclusions: The political metaphor as a rhetorical

device

According to Landau, when developed as clear and explicit models,

metaphors can play a vital role in the search for political knowledge and, in
this sense, “to employ a model is always to propose the existence of
analogy” which must be “verified through careful analysis and research”
(Landau 1972, 222–225). The idea, roughly speaking, is that political facts
are basically unobservable, and that metaphors are a way of moving from
the observable to the unobservable, viz. political facts. This idea was
briefly expressed by Eugene Miller, who considered political metaphors as
the peak of a trajectory from the observable to the unobservable, or from
what is less obscure to us to what is more obscure (Miller 1979, 155–170).
From this standpoint there are similarities between the metaphorical model
and the political reality and those similarities, which can be found by
paraphrasing the metaphor, make political realities more intelligible.
Certainly, there are different perspectives, different points of view, which
are partial and imperfect. However, we can look at the political reality not
from one or another partial perspective, but from a kind of integrated point
of view that combines all the different partial perspectives. 13 Moreover,
since every partial perspective contains some genuine insight into the
nature of political realities – contains a part of the truth – the integral view
is closer to the truth than the partial perspectives.

I think that the examples presented above, as analysed in this paper,

clearly do not fit that model. More generally, I suggest that this is a
misrepresentation of the use of metaphors in political discourse. I have tried
to show, with a few examples, that this passage from obscurity to clarity is
not the main purpose of metaphorical language, at least in the context of
political discourse. We can come back to Aristotle and to the idea of setting
something vividly before the eyes of the audience. Following this idea,
Kenneth Burke has described the strategic importance of metaphors, using
the example of the metaphorical translation of the principle of security with
the image of the mother, the persuasiveness of which is increased by other
principles implicitly assumed by the same image (affection, tradition,
naturalness, communion and so on). 14

However, Burke was well aware of the possibility that certain

concepts implicitly contained in the metaphorical image may contradict
each other. It is precisely in this contradiction where the strategic
dimension of the metaphorical discourse resides: the speaker may exploit
such contradictions in order to persuade the audience. As Moran pointed
out, “explicit, literal speech carries with it the risks and responsibilities of
being right or wrong, justified or unjustified, in what one asserts […].
Whereas to the extent that, instead of making some explicit assertion, the
speaker provides an image before the eyes of the audience, whose
implications they are to work out for themselves, he may profit from such
implications as are useful to him” (Moran 1996, 395).

Edelman underlined that a metaphor can be “a subtle way of

highlighting what one wants to believe and avoiding what one does not
wish to face” (Miller 1979, 160). Or, from my point of view, it can be a
subtle way of highlighting what is considered persuasive for the purpose of
the discourse and a way of avoiding what is considered not persuasive.
Metaphors are neither linguistic ornaments nor heuristic devices – they are
rhetorical devices. They create similarities for rhetorical or persuasive
purposes. In this case, that of the beehive, the metaphor exploits all the
persuasive force (at least in traditional societies) of the naturalistic
argument, of the argument of the nature of things. More precisely, the
metaphor in this case shapes the idea of nature and of natural society, which
is then used, through a naturalist argument, as a justification of a given
model of society. In other words, the superficial level of the allegory,
characterized by an analogical process, is finally based on argumentative
grounds with the aim of justifying political societies by showing their
absolute naturalness.

In this sense, we can agree with Landau and say that to employ a
model, and we may consider the beehive as a social model, is always to
propose the existence of analogy. Thus, in this aspect, the metaphor indeed
also has a heuristic dimension. However, this heuristic dimension is entirely
subordinate to the strategic and rhetorical purpose of the metaphor itself. In
fact, it is precisely for this reason that one can hardly find examples of
metaphors “developed as clear and explicit models” (Miller 1979, 158).
Sometimes metaphors deal with implicit information, in other cases their
unclearness or implicitness is merely strategic, hiding aspects considered
unpersuasive.

From this standpoint, we might say that metaphors can be seen as

strategic at two levels of analysis. At the level of the analogical surface of
the allegory, the terms of comparison are first of all framed on the basis of
the persuasiveness of the discourse, strategically isolating some aspects
from a cluster of possible meanings and nuances of the image. This
selection, strategic in itself, can be interpreted as re-definitional reasoning
and is ultimately based on an often unexpressed argumentative foundation
which ultimately bears the entire metaphor and improves its rhetorical
effectiveness. In the case of the beehive-metaphor, as we have seen, the
argumentative foundation is given by the naturalistic argument that justifies
different political models with their alleged ‘naturalness.’

Acknowledgements
This chapter has been developed in the context of an institutional project funded by the Portuguese
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Argumentation, Communication and Context – PTDC/FIL-
FIL/110117/2009).

Notes

1. I will use the term “metaphor” in the broad sense, as a comparison of different elements,
concepts, or conceptual domains according to the Aristotelian general conception of metaphora, the
sense of which is that of a transfer of a word or a concept from its original concept to another one
(see Moran 1996, 385–386).

2. Seen as an ideal model for hierarchical and communitarian societies, the example of the beehive
has seen a revival in the recent debate on the commons, as a metaphor of a cooperative community:
“The hive cannot be reduced to the sum of the bees, but also includes the relationships between the
different components (workers, guardians, Queen etc.), those between the group and its assets (the
nest) and products (honey)” (Mattei 2011, 28). As E. Vitale pointed out, this use of the metaphor
belongs to a “holistic, organicist and strongly hierarchical dimension, which is the exact opposite of
a society founded on the rights of man and of the citizen”, for “the hive is the model of a ‘natural
community’, militarily organized” (Vitale 2013, 42). Interestingly, the metaphor of the bee, as
opposed to the locust, has been used by Geoff Mulgan as an image of the useful and creative side of
capitalism (that of the entrepreneurs) as opposed to the predatory and rapacious side of the
speculators (Mulgan 2013).

3. The persuasive dimension of metaphors in general and the persuasive role of metaphors in
political discourse in particular, are well documented: see for example Sopory and Dillard 2002;
Graesser, Mio and Millis 1989; Bosman 1987 and Bosman & Hagendoorn 1991; Bowers & Osborn
1966; Johnson & Taylor 1981; Mio 1996; Reinsch 1971.

4. “A great deal of attention has been given to some dominant metaphors or models that have
successively influenced modern political theory – the machine, the organism and the
servomechanism”, (Miller 1979, 157); “Le langage politique possède, lui aussi, des prototypes qui
lui sont propres, et auxquels il recourt régulièrement, tels que l’organisme, la machine, la famille, le
conflit belliqueux, le navire, l’édifice, la balance ou le voyage” (Rigotti 1990, 550).
5. Hobbes also keeps in mind the example of the bee: “And the experience we have in this, is in
that little creature the bee, which is therefore reckoned amongst animalia politica. Why therefore
may not men, that foresee the benefit of concord, continually maintain the same without compulsion
as well as they?” (Hobbes 2004, 71).

6. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Manuscript fr. 5091, in Couderc (1929). The source is Pliny
(Naturalis Historia: XI, 17, 568–570): “illud constat, imperatore aculeo non uti”. Seneca (De
Clementia : 1, XIX, 3) emphasises that: “Rex ipse sine aculeo est; noluit illum natura nec seuum esse
nec ultionem magno constaturam petere telumque detraxit et iram eius inermem reliquit”.

7. Seneca (De Clementia: 1, XIX, 3): “Rex ipse sine aculeo est; noluit illum natura nec seuum esse
nec ultionem magno constaturam petere telumque detraxit et iram eius inermem reliquit”.

8. “Such were the Blessings of that State; / Their Crimes conspir’d to make them Great: / And
Virtue, who from Politicks / Had learn’d a Thousand Cunning Tricks, / Was, by their happy
Influence, / Made Friends with Vice: And ever since, / The worst of all the Multitude / Did
something for the Common Good. / This was the States Craft, that maintain’d / The Whole of which
each Part complain’d: / This, as in Musick Harmony, / Made Jarrings in the main agree; / Parties
directly opposite, / Assist each other, as ‘twere for Spight; / And Temp’rance with Sobriety, Serve
Drunkenness and Gluttony.” (Mandeville 1988, Vol. 1, 69).

9. “Les abeilles se soumettent d’un commun accord et dans leur propre intérêt à l’organisation de la
ruche”, Pierre Dupont de Nemours, Physiocratie (1767), in Baslé (1993, 87).

10. As Sopory and Dillard (2002, 390) pointed out, most of the perspectives on metaphors and
persuasion suggest that novelty should enhance persuasive effectiveness.

11. John of Salisbury, Policraticus, (B. VI, c. 20–21); Thomas of Aquinas, De regimine principium
(B. I, c. 1). “Thus no peoples serve their king with the devotion shown by the bees […]. Their
devotion is such that no bees dare leave their living areas in search of food, unless the king has gone
first and has claimed his place at the head of the flight. Their flight takes them over a scented
landscape, where there are gardens of flowers, where a stream flows through meadows, where there
are pleasant places on its banks. There young people play lively games, there men exercise in the
fields, there you find release from care”, Aberdeen Bestiary, 63v–64r.

12. Dualistic theories “hold that words, if used metaphorically, keep their normal referential
capacity, thus retaining a reference to elements of their literal extension. Besides they may carry a
second reference, because of their special (metaphorical) function” (31). Monistic theories, on the
other hand, “hold that words, if used metaphorically, lose their normal referential capacity but may
get another reference instead” (loc. cit.)

13. “Les métaphores, si on sait les lire, révèlent une tendance politique [et] quelquefois dévoilent
des ressemblances et des analogies entre idéologies différentes et même antithétiques” (Rigotti 1990
559).
14. “Ideationally, a speaker might have to go through much reasoning if he wanted to equate a
certain measure with public security. But if he could translate it imaginally into terms of, say, the
mother, he might profit not only from this one identification, but from many kindred principles or
ideas which, when approached in this spirit, are associated with the mother-image (or mother
principle, or idea of the mother). Yet, whereas these further meanings might serve as implicit
‘arguments’ if the speaker’s thesis were translated into an image, they would not figure in the
explicit ideological statement at all. Assume, for instance, that there are five major principles of
appeal in a mother-image (security, affection, tradition, ‘naturalness,’ communion). Then assume an
ideological argument identifying a cause in terms of security, but not explicitly pleading for it in
terms of these four other principles. Now, if the speaker, in winding up his argument for his cause as
an aid to security, translates it into a mother-image, might he not thereby get the ‘unearned
increment’ from the other four principles vibrant in this same image?” (Burke 1969,87).

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 Moral disgust at its best
The important role of low-level
mappings and structural
parallelism in political disgust and
disease metaphors
Elisabeth Wehling
University of California, Berkeley

Conceptual metaphoric mappings – i.e., the comprehension of one, often abstract, domain

of reasoning in terms of another – are a common means of framing political issues, with

direct fallouts for the electorate’s decision-making (e.g. Landau, Sullivan, & Greenberg

2009; Thibodeau & Boroditsky 2011). But what makes one given metaphoric mapping a

particularly productive framing device in political communication? Using data from the

Italian public debate as an example, this paper first introduces a distinction between

higher-level and low-level mappings, arguing that a source domain’s degree of semantic

specification can determine its potency. Second, the concept of structural parallelism is

introduced; suggesting that frame-inferential parallels between source and target domain

can increase the potency of political metaphors.

Key words

political discourse; conceptual metaphor; framing

1. Introduction

Conceptual metaphor denotes a mental mapping mechanism that, among

other things, facilitates comprehension of abstract in terms of concrete
conceptual domains: frame-inferential structures that lend ideas meaning
(Fillmore 1985) are mapped from one domain of reasoning, the source
domain, to another domain of reasoning, the target domain (Gibbs 1994;
Johnson 1987; Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Turner 1987). In the linguistic
framing of political issues, metaphor choices can determine voters’ politica
judgments by offering different perspectives on the issue at hand (e.g.
Landau & Greenberg 2009; Thibodeau & Boroditsky 2011). Differences or
conflicts between the metaphors that political actors implement in their
communication are commonly grounded in differences between
(group-)specific values. Generally speaking, two moral types can be
distinguished in politics: conservative and liberal. The values that are
specific to each group can often be traced back to concrete, physical
experiences in the world. Two personality traits that commonly co-occur
with conservatism are strong negative responses to physical impurity and
disease (Haidt & Graham 2007; Helzer & Pizarro 2011; Hodson & Costello
2007; Inbar, Pizarro, & Bloom 2008), leading conservatives to embrace
purity and disease avoidance as core values and to metaphorically map the
two physical concerns onto political, moral concerns (Lakoff 1996). In line
with the above, it has been observed that the metaphors IMMORALITY AS
IMPURITY and IMMORALITY AS DISEASE are commonly implemented in
political discourse to frame political groups or policies as moral threats, and
especially so by conservatives (Lakoff 1996). However, both metaphors are
semantically underspecified, higher-level mappings – as opposed to low-
level mappings, such as, IMMORALITY AS CANCER and IMMORALITY AS
VIRUS , which provide more detailed frame-inferential structures than their
high-level counterpart IMMORALITY AS DISEASE .

Under former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Italian public

discourse has seen a major moral divide, with strong opposition to his
persona and policies. One of his major concerns during office, therefore,
was to frame his opposition as a moral threat to the ‘right’ kind of
government (Berlusconi’s government) and the ‘right’ kind of policies
(conservative policies). Drawing on some of the most prominent moments
of Italian public discourse under Berlusconi between 2003 and 2011, this
chapter analyses the metaphoric framings he used to construe his
opposition as a moral threat to the Italian nation, and shows: while
Berlusconi in fact resorted to conservative physical concerns with impurity
and disease as metaphoric source domains to communicate so-perceived
moral threats, he tended to use low-level mappings rather than the general
higher-level metaphors IMMORALITY AS IMPURITY and IMMORALITY AS
DISEASE . Importantly, those lower-level mappings can lead to a high degree
of structural parallelism between the metaphoric source and target domain,
making them a highly productive means of inferring moral threats – and
specific kinds of moral threats – from physical threats.

2. Metaphor in political communication

Conceptual metaphors structure many aspects of everyday reasoning and

language. But not all metaphors are alike. Mappings in which a directly
perceivable domain is processed in terms of another directly perceivable
domain (concrete-concrete mapping) must be distinguished from those in
which a nondirectly-perceivable domain is processed in terms of a directly
perceivable one (concrete-abstract mapping) (Wehling 2013). An example
for the first would be the mapping of verticality onto quantity via the MORE
IS UP metaphor: while we have no trouble directly perceiving quantity, we
commonly resort to the domain of verticality to reason about it. An
example for the latter is the nation as person metaphor, where we have
direct experiential access to the source of personhood but not the target
domain of nationhood. Metaphors are extremely common and productive in
political reasoning and discourse because most political concepts – such as
democracy, the nation, and governance – are abstract. In order to
comprehend them, we rely on concrete-abstract mappings, which makes
political discourse a metaphor minefield.

Linguistic metaphoric framing, i.e., the usage of metaphoric concepts

in public political discourse, can directly impact political judgment. For
example, Landau, Sullivan, & Greenberg (2009) showed that reminders of
viral infections paired with a metaphoric framing of the nation in terms of a
human body increases anti-immigration attitudes. In a similar study,
Thibodeau and Boroditsky (2011) found that different metaphoric framings
of crime resulted in different stances on crime policy: using the metaphor
crime as beast led to support for stricter policy, such as, harsh punishment,
while using the metaphor CRIME AS VIRUS led, to a certain degree, to
support for more preventative policy, such as, better social infrastructures.

Although this study focuses on metaphors in public language use, it

should briefly be noted – as it speaks to the strong grasp that metaphors
have on our reasoning – that metaphors can be evoked in multiple ways, all
with direct effects on people’s reasoning and decision-making: through
movement (e.g., Boroditsky & Ramscar 2002; Glenberg & Kaschak 2002;
Richardson et al. 2003; Wilson & Gibbs 2007), positioning in space (e.g.,
Oppenheimer & Trail 2010), physical sensations such as temperature (e.g.,
IJzerman & Semin 2009; Williams & Bargh 2008), 1 language (e.g.,
Landau & Greenberg 2009; Matlock 2004; Thibodeau & Boroditsky 2011),
non-linguistic visual input (e.g., Boroditsky 2000; Williams & Bargh
2010), and gesture perception (e.g., Casasanto & Jasmin 2010).

3. Impurity and disease concerns and the metaphoric

construal of morality
Two psychological traits that recurrently correlate with conservatism are a
high need for purity and negative responses to reminders of disease:
preferences for cleanness and a low disgust threshold are predictive of
conservative judgments and behaviour (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek 2009;
Haidt & Graham 2007; Hodson & Costello 2007; “Inbar, Pizarro, & Bloom
2008; Terrizzi et al. 2010; Jost, Federico, & Napier 2009, for a review),
framing political issues in terms of purity affects conservatives, but not
liberals (Feinberg & Willer 2012), and the mental evocation of impurity
and disease concepts can lead to conservative issue positioning (Heltzer &
Pizzarro 2011; Landau, Sullivan & Greenberg 2009, although cf.
Thibodeau & Boroditsky 2011). Both directly perceivable domains –
physical impurity and disease – commonly serve as source domains in
concrete-abstract mappings that target morality. This is facilitated by the
fact that metaphoric construals of morality generally evolve around the
experience of physical and emotional wellbeing: things that foster human
wellbeing are good, thus moral, while things that threaten human wellbeing
are bad, thus immoral. Threats to physical wellbeing are thus
metaphorically understood as moral threats (Lakoff 1996; Lakoff &
Johnson 2002). Physical impurity and disease are tightly linked to human
wellbeing – cleanliness fosters wellbeing, and disease is a threat to
wellbeing – and thus the conceptual metaphors IMMORALITY AS IMPURITY
and IMMORALITY AS DISEASE ARISE . The metaphors can result in strong
priming effects. For example, participants who are instructed to recall
immoral behaviour – such as cheating on a test – and subsequently wash
their hands have less of a bad conscience than participants who do not
physically cleanse themselves after engaging in immoral thoughts (Zhong
& Liljenquist 2006). That is, physical purification, i.e., action within the
metaphoric source domain, affects our comprehension of the target domain
the cleaner we are physically, the better we perceive of ourselves morally.

The metaphors IMMORALITY AS IMPURITY and IMMORALITY AS

DISEASE are regularly implemented by conservatives when reasoning about
and arguing for conservative policies (e.g. Lakoff 1996). The conceptual
mechanism that allows for the mapping of physical concerns onto national
moral concerns is the NATION AS PERSON metaphor. This very common
metaphor (we speak of the deaths and lives of nations, and so on) facilitates
an understanding of national morality in terms of physical cleanliness and
health. Silvio Berlusconi, and as a result the Italian media, used both
general metaphors in Italian public discourse to frame his opposition as a
moral national threat. However, as the data will show, he did not resort to
simply using the common, higher-level mappings; instead, low-level
mappings that provided a high degree of structural parallelism between the
source and target domain were used.

4. Metaphoric framings of Berlusconi’s opposition as a

national moral threat

To illustrate Berlusconi’s metaphoric choices, linguistic data from two

central discourses in recent Italian public debate were selected: First, the
ongoing opposition to Berlusconi’s immunity legislations spanning from
2003 to 2011; second, the opposition to Berlusconi’s party during the 2011
elections in Milan and Naples, which at the time cost the conservative party
its majorities. As we will see, in order to frame his opposition as a moral
threat to the Italian nation, and to gain support for his policies and party,
Berlusconi resorted to two low-level mappings: IMMORALITY AS CANCER
and IMMORALITY AS BODILY FILTHINESS . I will now discuss each of these in
turn.

4.1 The IMMORALITY AS CANCER metaphor

Throughout the years 2003 to 2011, Silvio Berlusconi repeatedly tried to

implement legislative reforms that would grant him and high-ranking
representatives immunity. The following data exemplify his metaphoric
choices when it came to framing the Italian judiciary’s antagonism to his
reform efforts.

2003: Berlusconi starts to promote his own political immunity and

emphasizes the need to fight opposition among magistrates by

stating: “[…] it’s an exigency that regards the life of a normal

democracy. […] This is a cancer that can no longer be tolerated,

that has to be cut out” (La Repubblica.it, 3/9/2003).

2006: Berlusconi’s first legislation has been ruled unconstitutional. He

proclaims, “The judiciary is a disease of our democracy” (Matrix,

Canale 5, 3/10/2006).

2008: A month before the second immunity legislation comes into effect,
Berlusconi addresses the Italian public: “Ideological judges and

State Attorneys are the metastases of our democracy” (Corriere

della Sera.it, 6/25/2008).

2010: Berlusconi is advocating his latest legislation and declares, “It’s

necessary to end a terrible disease that has befallen our democracy:

the influence of the judiciary in politics […]” (TT.com, 3/20/2010),
 therefore, he encourages his countrymen, “[…] let’s reform the

judiciary in order to heal the democracy” (IGN, 3/23/2010).

2011: Berlusconi’s latest legislation has been defeated. He states, “[…]

The pathology of our democracy is the existence of a judiciary that

has transformed itself into a judicial power tool” (Corriere della

Sera, 1/12/2011).

In 2011, after eight years of ongoing metaphoric framing of judicial

opposition as a (cancerous) disease, the media latched on to the frame.

2011: Luigi Bersani, chairman of the Italian Democratic Party, states

during a TV-interview, “They say that the magistrates are a

tumour” (Annozero, Rai, 5/12/2011).

2011: The headline of a cartoon about Berlusconi’s latest legislative

defeat reads: “State attorneys are a cancer” (Annozero, Rai,

5/12/2011).

As can be seen, Berlusconi’s opposition was metaphorically specified as a

certain kind of disease through the IMMORALITY IS CANCER mapping. In
summary, here is the metaphoric moral narrative Berlusconi and the media
employed (quotations in italic):

The life of democracy is under threat. Namely, the judiciary is a

disease that has befallen democracy and political judges are a
symptom of the pathology of democracy. They are a cancer, the
metastases of democracy. This cancer needs to be cut out, in
 order to heal the democracy. Magistrates are a tumour and state
attorneys are a cancer.

As can be seen, in order to frame his political opposition as a national

moral threat, Berlusconi did not simply resort to the higher-level mapping
IMMORALITY AS DISEASE. Instead, he prominently implemented a low-level
mapping, namely IMMORALITY AS CANCER , which allowed him to draw
from highly specified source domain semantics and maximize the structural
parallelism between source and target domain. Before turning to a detailed
discussion of the involved mechanisms, consider the second metaphor
Berlusconi introduced to Italian public discourse to frame his opposition as
a moral threat.

4.2 The IMMORALITY AS BODILY FILTHINESS metaphor

In early May 2011, political opposition to Berlusconi’s persona and policies

intensified as the struggle for political majorities spiked during regional
elections. The elections ultimately cost Berlusconi’s conservative party its
majorities in Milan and Naples. The following data exemplifies how
Berlusconi framed Italian left-wing leaders as a threat to national self-
hygiene through one targeted discourse moment, and how the Italian media
latched on to the concept and spelled out the metaphoric moral narrative it
provided.

2011: Berlusconi supports his party in regional elections in Naples and

Milan, and proclaims, “When they [the leaders of the left] go to the
bathroom, and it’s not the case that they do this often, seeing how they
wash themselves very seldom, […] they become scared of themselves”
(Corriere TV, 5/10/2011).
 The Italian media latched on to the concept, “reporting” on
Berlusconi’s moral assessment of the Italian left-wing and thereby spelling
out the moral narrative the Prime Minister had apparently intended to
evoke: left-wing politicians are dirty, filthy citizens, their policies stink, and
they are thus a threat to the moral self-hygiene of the Italian nation.

2011: Notizie Italiane reports on Berlusconi’s statement: “Berlusconi

shocker – Leaders of the left stink” (Notizie Italiane, 5/11/2011).

2011: An article headline reads, “Berlusconi and the enemy that stinks:
Those of the political left wash themselves very seldom”, and

continues on, “Berlusconi discovers the ‘foul-smelling enemy’ and

said: those of the left don’t wash themselves. […] He defines the
leaders of the left [as] dirty. As if he wanted to say: we of the

majority are not only good, we’re also beautiful and fragrant […].

Those others, however, […] stink […]” (Blitzquotidiano,

5/10/2011).

2011: Famous Italian political critic Vauro Senesi presents a cartoon on

national television just before the elections in Naples and Milan.

The title reads: “Leaders of the political left rarely wash

themselves”, and the cartoon depicts a man announcing: “Wow.

Finally there is hope that we’ll find one [a left-wing leader]. We’ll

follow the stench!” (Annozero, Rai, 5/12/2011).

In this discourse, Berlusconi’s opposition was construed as impure

(metaphorically: immoral) and promoting dirty policies (metaphorically:
immoral policies), thus posing a metaphoric threat to the nation’s bodily
hygiene (metaphorically: morality). Here is the metaphoric moral narrative
Berlusconi and the media employed (quotations in italic):

Left-wing leaders are dirty and they stink. Berlusconi’s enemy is

an enemy that stinks. In fact, those of the political left wash
themselves very seldom, they are foul-smelling. The political
majority under Berlusconi is beautiful and fragrant while the
political minority of the left-wing stinks. Finding new left-wing
leaders is therefore is easy – one may simply follow their stench.

Through his framing choice, Berlusconi catered to a specific, low-level

mapping that allowed him to frame the political left wing as a national
moral threat, namely IMMORALITY AS BODILY HYGIENE . In contrast to the
more general concept IMMORALITY AS IMPURITY , the mapping, in which
the political left-wing was assigned the role of filthy citizens, i.e., impure
parts of the nation body, provided a high degree of source domain
specificity and accordantly allowed for a high degree of frame-structural
parallelism between source and target domain.

The following section discusses Berlusconi’s metaphor choices in

detail, laying out how far they constituted low-level rather than higher-leve
mappings. It is argued that the low-level mappings IMMORALITY AS
CANCER and IMMORALITY AS BODILY FILTHINESS that were facilitated by
the linguistic choices of Berlusconi and the media amplified the potency of
his moral metaphoric framing for two reasons. First, as low-level mappings
they provided richer semantic inferences than their higher-level relatives
IMMORALITY AS DISEASE and IMMORALITY AS IMPURITY . Second, due to
their low-level nature they allowed for a maximization of structural
parallelism between source and target domain.
5. Low-level mappings, and how they can amplify
metaphor potency

The two moral metaphors IMMORALITY AS IMPURITY and IMMORALITY AS

DISEASE are higher-level mappings in the following sense: They draw from
rather general source domains, namely disease and purity. The frame
structure of the two domains is semantically underspecified, leaving much
room for contestation and diverse semantic roles. For example, a
contagious viral infection and cancer are both forms of disease, but they
come with very different semantic frames that grant different answers to
questions such as: How does the disease come about? What are its
consequences for one’s health and life? How is the disease commonly
treated?

Low-level mappings provide answers to those questions via a specified

frame structure in the source domain, which is drawn from our direct
experience with and common knowledge about different types of disease.
The two source domains virus and cancer, for example, give very different
answers to the above questions regarding a disease’s origin, the threat it
poses to one’s health, and the best course of treatment: A virus enters the
body from the outside, while metastases are mutations of one’s own body
cells and attack the body from the inside. A viral infection may be fatal, but
not necessarily so, while cancer constitutes a mortal threat. Common viral
infections can be prevented through a strong immune system and treated
with medication, whereas cancer commonly requires body part removals
and extreme treatments such as chemotherapy. And so on. There are two
important things to notice about these mappings.
 First, these low-level mappings conceptually recruit specified source
domain concerns. They allow for metaphoric imagery that is much more
concrete than the one provided by higher-level mappings. That is, the
mappings address quite precise physical concerns and, in this case, fears.
By using cancer as a source domain that automatically entails a fatal threat,
2 for instance, Berlusconi automatically taps into some basic physical
concerns that correlate with conservatism: people engage in conservative
thought when reminded of their own mortality (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, &
Solomon 1999, for a review). The IMMORALITY AS DISEASE metaphor
would not have automatically entailed such mortal threat; it would have
been less potent in evoking conservative moral concerns and mobilizing a
conservative majority.

Second, low-level mappings allow for a higher degree of structural

parallelism than high-level mappings do, because they spell out source
domain inferences that may be matched – or mismatched – with target
domain inferences. For example, doing as Berlusconi did and framing
political opposition in one’s own country as a cancer entails a high degree
of low-level structural parallelism between source and target domain: the
source of cancer lies within the human body, it is a mutation of its own
cells, just as the source of political opposition lies within the nation and can
thus be metaphorically construed as a moral mutation. This is a match of
frame-inferential structure between source and target that amplifies
metaphor potency. And, in the case of mismatches, metaphor potency can
be decreased since mappings of parallel structures are blocked. This would
be the case, for instance, if national political opposition were framed as a
virus, since national opposition does not intrude into the nation body from
the outside. Similarly, framing immigration as a national threat through an
IMMIGRATION AS VIRUS metaphor provides a high degree of structural
parallelism: viral diseases enter the human body from the outside just as
immigrants enter the nation from the outside. An IMMIGRATION AS CANCER
framing would, again, block this mapping due to a lack in frame-inferential
parallelism (however, it could of course evoke strong notions of cultural
threat from immigrants that are already within the country).

Similar observations can be made with regard to the IMMORALITY AS

IMPURITY mapping. It too is a higher-level mapping that lacks semantic
specification. For example, physical impurity may be the result of one’s
own bodily functions or it may be the result of an impure environment. The
two low-level mappings provide different answers to the questions: What is
the source of impurity, and how can purity be maintained? In the mapping
IMMORALITY AS BODILY FILTHINESS the cause for impurity lies within one’s
own bodily functions (such as sweating) and the matter of staying clean,
i.e., moral, becomes a matter of moral self-hygiene. In the mapping
IMMORALITY AS ENVIRONMENTAL IMPURITY the cause for impurity lies
outside of one’s own body and the matter of staying clean, i.e., moral,
becomes a matter of defence against a morally impure environment.

The framing of Berlusconi’s political opposition as dirty, filthy and

impure made ‘unhygienic’ left-wing leaders understandable as impure cells
of the nation body, allowing to construe left-wing leadership as a threat to
national moral purity. Moreover, the frame afforded another inferential
parallelism, namely a call for the metaphoric Italian nation body to engage
in self-hygiene by cleaning itself from dirty, unhygienic cells, i.e., the
political left wing, in the upcoming elections. Again, the chosen metaphor
accomplished a high degree of structural parallelism because it was a
semantically highly specified, low-level mapping. The IMMORALITY AS
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPURITY metaphor, in contrast, would have blocked the
above inferences due to a low level of structural parallelism between source
and target domain.

6. Conclusion

In the Italian public discourse under former Prime Minister Silvio

Berlusconi, framing political opposition to the conservative majority and
their policies as a national moral threat was a major concern. While
resorting to physical concerns that are known to be associated with
conservatism, namely impurity and disease (e.g., Feinberg & Willer 2012;
Haidt & Graham 2007; Heltzer & Pizzarro 2011; Hodson & Costello 2007;
Inbar, Pizarro, & Bloom 2008; Jost, Federico, & Napier 2009, for a review;
Lakoff 1996), the metaphors that were used to make national opposition
understandable as a moral threat constituted mappings that drew from
semantically highly specified source domains: IMMORALITY AS CANCER
and IMMORALITY AS BODILY FILTHINESS .

Such low-level mappings can be distinguished from higher-level

mappings, such as IMMORALITY AS IMPURITY and IMMORALITY AS
CANCER , which rely on source domains with less detailed frame-inferential
structure; moreover, the usage of low-level mappings in political
communication allows one to tap into an exceptionally high number of
concrete physical concerns foundational to moral, political concerns. For
example, while the low-level IMMORALITY AS CANCER mapping
automatically entails mortality concerns that are associated with
conservatism (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon 1999, for a review) the
higher-level IMMORALITY IS DISEASE mapping does not perforce provide
such inference.
 Finally, low-level mappings can afford an exceptionally high degree of
structural parallelism between a metaphor’s source and target domain,
thereby amplifying its potency. However, when low-level mappings happen
to match source and target domains that are minimally parallel in terms of
their frame-inferential structure, then metaphor potency may decline. This
problem decreases, of course, with an increase of source domain
contestability, and, thus, decrease in semantic specification.

Notes

1. Metaphoric priming studies usually show source domain priming effects on target domain
perception, and it has been shown that target domain priming sometimes has no effect on source
domain perception (e.g. Casasanto & Boroditsky 2008: Priming for space affects reasoning about
time, but priming for time does not affect reasoning about space). However, some studies indicate a
bidirectional effect: Priming for temperature affects perception of social intimacy (Williams & Bargh
2008), and priming for social intimacy affects perception of temperature (Zhong & Leonardelli
2008). This indicates bidirectional conceptual mappings for at least some linguistically
unidirectional metaphors.

2. In her discussion of illness metaphors in social discourse, Sontag (1991) classifies metaphors
based on fatal sicknesses such as tuberculosis and cancer as master-illness metaphors and critiques
their usage as “implicitly genocidal” (Sontag 1991, 84).

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 “The Ultimate Spinner”
Metaphors of evil in Hillary R.
Clinton’s media coverage
Michela Giordano
University of Cagliari

In 1999, a New York Post survey ranked Hillary Clinton as the sixth most evil person of the

millennium. Hillary has been labelled ‘the ultimate spinner’, adept at weaving tangled

webs, manoeuvring events and courses of action to turn them to her own advantage. She

has now been part of the American political scenario for many years and her supporters

and detractors have in turn depicted her in both positive and flattering ways or in a critical

and fault-finding manner. The present study focuses on the portrayal made by the media of

Hillary Clinton as an evil person. The metaphors of evil used to appraise and assess her

public image are taken from epic and myth, history, religion, politics, the animal world,

fiction and television.

Key words

media; politics; metaphor; women studies

1. Introduction

From her beginnings as presidential spouse to her tenacious efforts to

become established as a political leader, much of American public opinion
(through the press, television and the Internet) has attempted to emphasize
what many consider to be Hillary R. Clinton’s (HRC henceforth) alleged
true nature: “overbearing and scary”, “cool and calculating” (Stephen,
“Hating Hillary”, 26 May 2008), an “unguided missile” (Blackwell,
“Hillary invades Canada”, 3 April 2010), or “a Xenalike persona”
(Raimondo, “Hillary Clinton, War Goddess”, 24 January 2006). Her
character, morals and behaviour have often been represented unpleasantly
and with serious criticism. During the 2008 presidential election in
particular, “much of the media coverage pertaining to Hillary Clinton
focused on her personal characteristics and trivial topics” (Gutgold 2009,
78), such as her mouth, hair, eyes, ankles and cleavage, or on her presumed
character-oriented flaws such as her inclination to be “polarizing”,
“deceptive”, and “secretive”. “As Hillary Clinton stood at the frontier of
women’s struggle to break into the public sphere in their own right, she
became the target for a number of highly stylized and gendered metaphors
used to conceptualize her role in public life” (Lim 2009, 254), many of
which characterized her for example as a Madonna, an Unruly Woman, or a
Witch and a Bitch. This study aims to show how a wide variety of
representations in media texts have attempted to scrutinize her allegedly
resolute character, and her devious and deceitful use of language. Although
Hillary Clinton’s career has lasted for more than 30 years, this investigation
focuses on those periods of her life in which she had a political role and
consequently became the object of gendered evaluations and attitudes.

Nowadays, women have become progressively more accepted as

leaders worldwide. Nevertheless, in a country such as the United States, the
attitudinal, historical, socio-cultural, and institutional barriers continue to
prevent women from achieving full equality, and politics is one of the
public professions which has remained in large part the sanctified realm of
men. As Leslie Sanchez, a prominent American author and political pundit,
aptly puts it:
 We represent more than half the voting-age population. We are a
significant political force. We contribute our time and our money
to candidates and causes we believe in. Yet when you consider
that at present only six of the nation’s fifty governors are women,
or that of one hundred U.S. senators only seventeen are women,
the situation seems grim. The United States lags behind many
countries in the level of gender equity in elective office.(Sanchez
2009, 3)

2. Theoretical framework

It was Lakoff & Johnson’s famous work (1980) that first stated how
metaphor is pervasive in everyday life and how our conceptual system is
fundamentally metaphorical in nature. Our conceptual system “plays a
central role in defining our everyday realities” (1980, 3). According to
Charteris-Black (2004, 7) metaphor is characteristically used in persuasion,
since “it represents a novel way of viewing the world that offers fresh
insight”. Here metaphor is not considered just as a mere artificial,
linguistic, rhetorical device, or a stylistic resource used by politicians, but
as something that encompasses linguistic, pragmatic and cognitive
characteristics. In Charteris-Black’s words (2004, 1) metaphors provide an
example of “how pragmatics – context-specific linguistic choices by
speakers – impinges on semantics – the linguistic system for the realisation
of meaning”. The author maintains that metaphors originate in human
creativity and provide a novel linguistic encoding of relationships between
phenomena, stimulating new ways of understanding that represent the basis
for new ways of thinking and acting: metaphor refers to both the cognitive
process (new senses are attached to old words) and to the words that are the
outcome of this process (Charteris-Black 2004, 2–3). Furthermore,
metaphors have the potential to help construct representations of the world
that influence human understanding of various aspects of social and
political life; they therefore play a vital role in forming and influencing
human beliefs, attitudes and actions (Charteris-Black 2004, 28).

Metaphor is central in Critical Discourse Analysis: Fairclough (1995,

114) explains that in any representation you have to decide what to include
and what to exclude, what to ‘foreground’ and what to ‘background’.
Therefore the choice of metaphor can be a key factor in differentiating
representations in any domain. Carver and Pikalo’s work on metaphor and
its relevance in political communication considers language as a tool for
viewing the world, or a kind of window onto it, and metaphors can function
as magnifying glasses through which the metaphoric object is observed: the
authors maintain that the analysis of political metaphors should not just be
about their interpretation, but also and above all about the creative-
productive function which they exemplify (2008, 1–11).

This study sets out to explore the intricate relationship between

language, politics and gender through the analysis of the controversial and
much-debated figure of HRC. The analysis will focus on HRC as the topic
of mass media discourse and the target of gendered political metaphors
underlining her negative characteristics. Useful insight for this study has
also been gained from some recent studies carried out by Lawrence & Rose
(2010), Holmes (2006), Brown & Gardetto (2000), Gutgold (2009), Lim
(2009), Goldsher (2010), Miller, Peake & Boulton (2010), and Rigotti
(1992).

3. The public vs the private realm

Holmes (2006, 34) maintains that “leadership is a gendered concept”: she
explains that “although an increasing number of workplace leaders and
managers are female”, “until relatively recently the prevailing stereotype of
a leader (…) has been decidedly male”, and therefore the concept “think
leader, think male” is still commonly widespread. According to much of the
research in the area of leadership, there exists a “remarkably masculine
conception of what makes an effective leader” (Holmes 2006, 34): some of
the most vital traits of leaders seem to be authoritativeness, strong-
mindedness, decisiveness, courage, competitiveness, confidence,
aggressiveness, and single-mindedness in achieving their goals along with
toughness and willingness to take risks. Therefore, “women are less likely
to be perceived as potential leaders, and those who do move into leadership
positions face a double bind regarding professionalism and femininity”
(Holmes 2006, 35).

Those women who do run for office and manage to occupy political
roles need to adjust and modify their behaviour, their communicative style
and their rhetoric, thus falling in line with what is considered to be the
norm in leadership positions in politics, i.e. the rhetoric of the public sphere
which is deemed masculine by default. Female politicians are expected to
adopt the style and behavioural norms typical of male politicians, lest they
be considered ‘not tough enough’ and therefore unfit for the job. Yet, when
women do adopt a masculine style, it has a boomerang effect in that they
risk being judged and evaluated as too aggressive, unfeminine, cold and
even evil.

The way in which HRC “is represented in news coverage frames of

reference is indicative (…) of prevailing gender ideologies” (Brown &
Gardetto 2000, 44). The image of her portrayed in the media shows
evidence of the “public-private split in Western political thinking”,
inasmuch as a contradiction exists for women who have an active role in
the public sphere: women represent nature, sexuality and family, even when
they are engaged in the public sphere, which remains a masculine
prerogative.

As First Lady, HRC was “located symbolically in both the private and
the public sphere” (Brown & Gardetto 2000, 25): as the President’s wife
she was associated with the private sphere of the family, and her public role
was to serve as hostess for the White House, or ‘White Housekeeper’. But a
female candidate to a leading political role clearly challenges the
entrenched and ingrained idea that women belong only to the private sphere
of social life. The ‘double bind’ dilemma exemplifies how traditional role
expectations preclude women’s departure from the ‘private sphere’ into the
‘public sphere’: according to the ‘public-private split in Western political
thinking’ women who do enter politics have to negotiate the divergence
between the social definitions of femininity and leadership, the latter
continuing to be considered a masculine domain.

3.1 Hillary Rodham Clinton’s public figure

A study by Goldsher in 2010, “The Many Frames of Hillary Rodham

Clinton”, analysed the many different frames used to portray HRC
throughout her career as a public figure, beginning in 1992 as First Lady of
the United States up to the present time in her position as Secretary of
State. Goldsher underlines that “…the media typically issues their own spin
on reality, by ‘framing’ a politician in a particular way” (2010, 6). The
study shows that the Intelligent/QualifiedandLikeable/Favoured frames
were more prominent during the two periods as First Lady and Secretary of
State while the Co-dependent (referring to HRC being politically separate
and independent from her husband) and the Calculating/Fake frames were
in the top three most prominent frames during HRC’s campaign to run for
president and during her run for and time serving in the Senate (Goldsher
2010, 23–24).

Another study by Miller, Peake and Boulton (2010) on newspaper

coverage of HRC’s presidential campaign shows that in general women
presidential candidates tend to receive less press coverage than men, and
the coverage they receive tends to focus disproportionately on their
appearance, personality, family and underdog status at the expense of their
qualifications and their position on important issues. The study, based on
the analysis of about 6 thousand articles and editorials pertaining to the
campaign, from 25 leading American newspapers (from 3 September 2007,
Labor Day to 5 February 2008, Super Tuesday) showed that, although HRC
“received the most coverage of all of the Democrats” (176), and that
reporters treated her as a serious and viable candidate, the coverage
received was markedly “gendered” in the sense that reference to HRC’s
gender was significantly correlated to the question of her electability: i.e. a
woman may not be electable to the highest office in the United States
because of her gender. The study observed how the media portrayed both
HRC and Obama. Three categories were analysed: the campaign-related
traits or her standing in the race; the character-related traits; and the job-
related traits, that is, her policy positions. The “negative traits” references
concerning her character included character-oriented terms such as:
‘polarizing’, ‘unlikable’, ‘deceptive’, ‘lying’, ‘calculating’, and even
‘scary’; negative job-related traits were ‘flip-flopper’, ‘inexperienced’ and
‘immature. Negative portrayals of HRC were clearly of a more personal
nature than those that were applied to Obama.

A further study by Burden and Mughan points out that, after her
husband’s inauguration, 70 percent of respondents in an opinion poll rated
HRC favour-ably. This can be explained as the favourable treatment that
the new president’s wife receives, known as the first lady “honeymoon
effect” (1999, 238–239). At the beginning she is judged favourably as
pointed out by Goldsher’s study in 2010. The authors showed that HRC “is
her own person in the eyes of the American public and not a pale reflection
of a highly visible husband” (241): through a causality test, they showed
that the two variables “Hillary Clinton Favourability” and “Presidential
Approval” were not connected and interdependent, so President Bill
Clinton and his wife were still seen as distinctive actors in the public eye.
However, when studying the amount and nature of coverage of the first
lady in newspapers and on television, the authors realized that coverage
was mostly on scandal-oriented stories such as her involvement in the
Whitewater affair and testimony before a federal grand jury (Burden &
Mughan 1999, 242).

Campaigning for presidential office in 1992, the Clintons promised

joint leadership. Bill, for example, claimed “Buy one, get one free” and
Hillary herself stated “If you vote for him, you get me” (Burden & Mughan
1999, 237): by calling attention to the fact that HRC would play a public
policy role, the president might have wanted to highlight the fact that his
wife would be encouraged to intrude on and interfere with the public affairs
of state.

4. Data and methodology

This study aims to show how a wide variety of representations in media

texts over the last few years have attempted to scrutinize HRC’s alleged
resolute character, along with her purported devious and deceitful use of
language. The investigation is based on an Internet search of mass media
articles, online sources and political blogs. The search was conducted using
key words and phrases such as ‘Hillary Clinton’, ‘metaphors’, ‘female
politician’, ‘gender’, ‘stereotypes’, ‘gender bias’. Among the texts found, a
selection was made in order to focus on those which provide a portrayal of
HCR, her rhetorical figure and her position on political issues. Adjectives,
nouns, verbs and phraseology used to describe her were looked at in order
to assess whether any sexist language or stereotypes were in fact used in
the coverage of HCR during her political career, which constitutes the aim
of this study. The data gathered was not computed quantitatively since that
was not the purpose of the investigation.

The study will focus on the use of metaphor in political

communication and its relation to the categories of evaluation and
representation, and on the ‘double bind’ issue of women in political or
other prominent positions, as well as what implications this has on the
media coverage of women who try to enter the public sphere and to cover a
traditionally ‘masculine’ position. It is argued here that many of the
metaphors used to assess and evaluate her public and private image, drawn
from a vast array of semantic fields (epic and myth, history, religion,
politics, the animal world, fiction and television, to name but a few), very
often provide a negative and essentially wicked picture of her.

Recent studies on press reporting and the frames used to portray HRC
will be the starting point for a qualitative and critical analysis of the
pragmatic role of the metaphors of evil used to describe and negatively
evaluate her character and personality. Lawrence and Rose’s study for
instance, Hillary Clinton’s Race for the White House. Gender Politics and
the Media on the Campaign Trail, documented “the variety of ways that
gender stereotypes shaded coverage of Clinton’s presidential bid and
perhaps wounded her campaign” (2010, 2). Some reporters in the
mainstream media denied sexist bias in the coverage of HCR’s campaign,
and some others even stated that some media biases actually helped her
rather than hurt her. Lawrence and Rose’s analysed the news coverage on
six top news sources (the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and
Washington Post along with evening news programs broadcast by ABC,
CBS and NBC). Additionally, the Internet and the blogosphere were
monitored during the Democratic primary campaign (2010, 15–17).
According to the authors, media surely “held Clinton to a different set of
standards than her male counterparts” (2010, 5), largely drawing upon
gendered stereotypes.

The main issues to be addressed in the analysis of metaphors in a

collection of linguistic data are (a) how to find metaphors and (b) what to
count as metaphors (Musolff 2004, 8). In fact, metaphors cannot be
identified by external or surface features, unlike other linguistic phenomena
such as words and lexemes, morphemes or even sentences, which can be
searched and computed through electronic tools. Although computers are
able to recognize relevant data regarding the distinction between
‘underlying’ metaphorical concepts and linguistic ‘surface’ text features
that “are commonly regarded as metaphorical or figurative language use”,
these data do “have to be interpreted by the researcher” (Musolff 2004, 8).

This study draws on the work of Charteris-Black (2004, 21), and in

particular his definition of metaphor as “a linguistic representation that
results from the shift in the use of a word or phrase from the context or
domain in which it is expected to occur to another context or domain where
it is not expected to occur, thereby causing semantic tension”. Therefore,
due to the subtleties of meaning and use in context, and for the purposes of
the present study, the coding of metaphors has been carried out manually,
reading through entire pieces of discourse several times in order to
establish a general understanding of the meaning and focusing on those
lexical units which have more basic meaning in other contexts than they do
in the given context. The aim was to “identify candidate metaphors” by
“establishing whether there is a tension between a literal source domain and
a metaphorical target domain” (Charteris-Black 2004, 35).

5. Findings

5.1 Hillary Clinton’s personal traits: Metaphors of evil

In their article “The Company He Keeps” (17 January 1993), Kelly and
Dowd explained that presidential wives who have shown an independent
turn of mind have found themselves cast in the role of First Lady Macbeth.
And HRC was clearly a First Lady with her own agenda: she was seen as
“running the show”, in charge of everything. Lady Macbeth personifies the
conflict between femininity and masculinity, as they are epitomized by
cultural norms: she stifles her own compassion, motherhood, and fragility –
all feminine qualities – in favour of ambition, ruthlessness and cruelty in
the pursuit of power.

In 1999 HRC’s physical and personal traits had already become the
object of scrutiny and satire by the media. Junod’s article “Hillary Clinton
Has a Sexy Mouth” (October 1999) describes her smile as a sort of
“schoolmarmish”, pedantic and as arrogant and smug as that of an old
professor; wolfish at times, cruel and ferocious in order to show her hunger
Her mouth is enigmatic and her laugh, “the sexiest thing about her”, is
wicked like that of an evil creature, heavy and deep like a “throaty gargle”.
“Her eyes seem to be shy beneath their veneer of command”, alluding to
her predisposition towards power and control. She is “the most polarizing
political wife”, a monster of cynicism, bloodless and sexless. The same
article which underlines some of her physical features as sexy and pretty,
then pictures her as non-human and even as an asexual or genderless
creature, praying to be made less of a woman, holding back and concealing
her femininity for the sake of power. The figurative language used in
political communication when referring to women in positions of political
power often hints at the price women have to pay when they hold important
political roles. Such language often portrays them in a negative and
unflattering light, pointing to a lack of feminine qualities that makes them
unattractive and unappealing. A mortification of their true nature and
physical features.

HRC’s personality traits have been the object of investigation, as well.

The Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics of Minnesota, run by the
political psychologist Immelman and his students at College of St. Benedic
and St. John’s University, Minnesota, depicted HRC as an exceptionally
dominant, and potentially aggressive personality, with an incessant desire to
pursue a fight: these are of course all masculine characteristics which draw
attention to her Achilles’ heel, i.e. hostility and lack of flexibility. She is
“no bleeding heart”, or one who feels emotion and pity for everyone and
everything like women do, but is highly ambitious, narcissistic and arrogan
(Bahadoor and Immelman, “Hillary Loves a Good Fight”, 23 April 2000).

In the same year, using First Lady HRC as a case study, an

investigation by Parry-Giles, “Mediating Hillary Rodham Clinton:
Television News Practices and Image-Making in the Postmodern Age”,
focused on the significance of stereotypes in television news-making
strategies to discover how the production practices of television news
influence image-making. The visual images for the negative attributes of
HRC’s figure generally reinforce negative constructions: news networks are
more likely to put into evidence the negative stereotypes with respect to the
positive ones. At first, she was depicted as a symbol of feminism since she
chose to practice law rather than to stay at home and bake cookies, but later
she was portrayed as a “political weapon”, “high octane Hillary”, “a
political animal”, a “power monger”, and even as “the political equivalent
of nitroglycerin”. These metaphors are used to underline that powerful
women are frightening and dangerous. After the Lewinsky scandal in 1998,
Hillary managed to benefit from her victim status for some time. In fact,
women with power are feared, yet those with the status of victim are
admired.

Before the year 2000, the New York Post had asked readers to rank the
most evil person of the millennium: HRC was sixth in that survey. Five
years later, New Yorkers seemed to have a different view of the woman
they had elected as senator: 64% said she was honest and trustworthy, 55%
of Democrat voters said she should run for the White House in 2008.
Judging her on her character traits, 75% of the New Yorkers said she had
strong leadership qualities, 65% that she cared about their needs and
problems (“Hillary’s Makeover: From ‘Evil’ To Honest”, 9 February 2005)
At the same time, her opponents saw her as more stridently liberal and
polarizing than her husband was, thus deserving the epithet of “Mrs.
Triangulation”, a calculating Lady Macbeth who would do everything
necessary “to reclaim her husband’s throne” (Bai, “Mrs Triangulation”, 2
October 2005). Once more, the conceptual representation of power as being
gendered allows political pundits to view HRC as too involved in
masculine matters such as political relations and especially leadership.
Moreover, women in general are less likely to be perceived as potential
leaders so the only possibility they have is to artfully reclaim what they
believe is an acquired right for them, i.e. their husband’s throne.
 During the propaganda campaign against Iran’s President in 2006,
some articles on the web by Justin Raimondo, “Hillary Clinton, War
Goddess” (24 January 2006), and “Hillary the Hawk, The Democrats’
Athena Only Differs from Bush on the Details” (27 March 2006), compare
HRC to the War Goddess and state that “despite her Amazonian
aggressiveness when it comes to foreign policy, (the) supposedly ‘antiwar’
Democrats will find her Xena-like persona irresistible”. This is just one
example of metaphors drawn from the semantic field of Greek mythology
used to describe HRC as woman warrior, a warrior princess as bellicose as
Xena, the character in the American supernatural fantasy adventure series
who uses her formidable fighting skills to help people. HRC embodied the
Amazonian wing of the Democratic Party during the years of her husband’s
presidency: she would have occupied Iraq “riding into Baghdad at the head
of her troops like Pallas Athena descending on the Trojans”. Again, the
image of the goddess of wisdom, civilization, warfare, strength, and
strategy is used to refer to her dishonest and constantly shifting position on
the war and to demonstrate “her own complicity with Bush’s Middle
Eastern agenda”.

On a Sunday morning program the chairman of the National

Republican Committee Ken Mehlman was asked if HRC would be the
Republican’s “dream candidate” and he answered that he did not “think the
American people (…) elect angry candidates”. Blyth’s article on the web,
“Anger management: Hillary tries yet another look” (8 February 2006),
depicts Hillary as if in a state of irritation, dubbing her “Hillary the Scold”,
an adjective generally used to refer to a woman who shows her unhappiness
and dissatisfaction. These negative qualities of course make reference to
her look: “in her mouse-beige outfit she looked absolutely drab and sour”.
Once again, HRC is compared to her husband, but only to underline that
she uses her style to hide her “glacial substance”. The metaphor of a
dissatisfied and disappointed person who constantly finds fault is often
used to depict a woman as cold and unfriendly, both in her physical features
and the colour and nuances of her external outfit. The metaphor serves well
to justify the American electorate’s hesitation in voting for a candidate who
barely manages to conceal her anger and cantankerous nature by creating a
new public image.

HRC’s announcement that she was running for president “I’m in, I’m
in to win” provoked reactions from both the Republicans who stated that no
sensible American would ever vote for the she-devil, and from the
Democrats who affirmed she was too hawkish on foreign policy. She had
supported the Iraq war and she was seen as a “street fighter” who invented
the term “war room” (“Hating Hillary”, 27 January 2007). Her early
support for military action against Saddam Hussein had been revised to a
sharp criticism of the war and call for troop reductions: it is behaviour such
as this that highlights how calculating she is (Broder, “Clinton’s
presidential posturing”, 28 January 2007). HRC’s arrogant nature and her
love for war is picked out in another article which describes her as coming
from Mars, rather than from Venus, as a Celtic warrior queen or even as a
Joan of Arc (“Warrior or bully?”, 30 August 2007).

In 2008, the year of the presidential election, stereotypes and

metaphors abounded in describing HRC’s personality. Some of them,
especially on web-sites and blogs, alluded to her inability to accept a
defeat: so she is likened to Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction (1987,
American thriller directed by Adrian Lyne) in which Close plays a woman
who begins stalking her co-worker (played by Michael Douglas) and his
family after a one-night stand with him. In the film she seems to have
drowned in the tub, but she suddenly springs from the water wielding a
knife. Hillary is going to keep coming back, and nobody is going to stop
her (“Obama-Backing Congressman Compares Hillary Clinton to Glenn
Close in Fatal Attraction”, 10 May 2008). HRC is compared to the Black
Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail; the knight has his limbs
lopped off by King Arthur before finally conceding: “All right, we’ll call it
a draw”. She is also likened to the store owner in the Dead Parrot sketch:
no matter how dead it was, he still tried to sell the dead parrot (“Which
Monty Python metaphor fits Hillary Clinton best?”, May 2008). She is seen
as the “psycho ex-girlfriend of the Democratic Party” she will continue to
deny what is obvious to everyone else, i.e. that she has lost (“Hillary
Clinton: the psycho ex-girlfriend of the Democratic party”, 7 May 2008).
The gendered, and even sexist, metaphor here satirizes the behaviour of an
ex-girlfriend who refuses to accept that the relationship is over, depicting
her as psychopathic, morally and ethically reproachable and thus
potentially dangerous.

Lots of nicknames and offensive and insulting epithets are used, such
as “castrating”, “overbearing”, “scary”, “bitch”, “Hildebeast”, “Hitlery”,
“nutcracker”, to underscore her evil nature and strength. “Billary”, for
example, is the derisive nickname coined by the media for her and her
husband, alluding to the amorphous creature called “the Clintons”, an
appellative that stands for amorality and sleaze (Stephen, “Hating Hillary”,
26 May 2008). All these offensive and insulting epithets make it difficult to
separate attacks on HRC as a politician from attacks on her as a woman: for
example, the term ‘nutcrackers’ reveals men’s fear of powerful women, and
the juxtaposition of the names of Hillary and Hitler hints at the convinction
that if she is elected president she will show her evil nature and will set up
some kind of dictatorship. The sexist slurs and gendered metaphors that
promote negative stereotypes about women in general serve to make
misogynistic attacks on HRC as a politician and as a viable candidate.
5.2 Hillary Clinton and power: The metaphors of animals

In 2007 the media focused on Hillary’s kaleidoscopic positions on the war,

since she had been back and forth on Iraq, “like a hawk with dovish wings”
(Limbaugh, “Hillary’s Understandable Contradictions”, 30 January 2007).
Her “zigzagging” was not new: “she has shed her hawk’s plumage for the
white of a dove” (Muravchick, “Hillary’s Changing Plumage”, 23 May
2007). Owing to her hawkish position on Iraq, women themselves did not
trust her, saw her as an opportunist, and opined that she should not behave
like a man, but should actually run as a woman: “(i)f she’s a feminist, how
could she continue to support this war for so long?” She seems like
“patriarchy in sheep’s clothing” (Douglas, “Why Women Hate Hillary?”,
26 April 2007).

In these examples one can notice a semantic transfer of behavioural

attributes normally associated with animals to the behaviour of humans
(according to the conceptual metaphor PEOPLE are ANIMALS ). The hawk
metaphor for example, clearly ranks HRC’s behaviour as negative,
aggressive and rapacious, juxtaposed with the opposite and positive
evaluations of the gentle, mild, meek and docile behaviour associated with
doves and sheep, symbolizing humility and gentleness and restraint from
acts of violence (Charteris-Black 2004, 182–185). As Lakoff and Johnson
(1980, 40) underline, the dove is the symbol of the Holy Spirit since it is
conceived as beautiful, friendly, gentle and peaceful. Its natural habitat is
the sky which symbolizes Heaven. Rigotti (1992, 117–168) distinguishes
between animals above us and animals below us, considering them in
relation to humans: hawks and eagles can be associated with power and
command, they are symbols of strength, height and virility, similar to the
lion on land. Hawks and eagles are generally considered fighters, searching
for their prey, carnivorous hunters and powerful and rapacious predators.
On the contrary, animals below, such as sheep, donkeys, cows and horses
are used to living in communities, and thus represent meekness, docility,
tameness and obedience.

In the media focus on HRC’s laughter in 2007, body language expert

Tonya Reiman noted how Sen. HRC exhibited “evil laughter” during her
Fox News Sunday interview and that she used it to play down the situation,
as a means to undercut a serious question or to avoid answering altogether
(25 September 2007). Her laughter is compared to a hen’s cackle (Healy,
“Laughing matters in Clinton campaign”, 28 September 2007), the clucking
noise hens make after laying an egg. The literal translation of the word
“cackle” is exclusively applied to female chickens. In politics, the chicken
is used to evoke either positive or negative emotions; female chickens may
on the one hand be seen as docile and obedient or alternatively as typically
crying and calling animals, a reference to one of HRC’s worst
characteristics. In modern, everyday usage, the word cackle is applied to
evil-sounding laughter, a scary sound like a screech, the laughter of
witches, as is common in fairy-tales and children’s stories, where the bad
woman is generally a witch. Therefore, HRC’s great belly laugh was proof
of her unseen human side. It is also compared to a caterwaul of a cat in
heat, or to a donkey’s bray, again using two domesticated animals,
generally under the rule of a stronger superior. It seems that women should
only laugh in certain preapproved ways, and historically men have
categorized women’s laughter as a way to belittle them – they either cackle
like a witch, or they titter like a schoolgirl (Dickerson, “Bwah-Ha-ha!
What’s with Hillary’s laugh?”, 28 September 2007).

Her alleged evil nature continues to be associated with that of animals

such as spiders and horses. These two animals are generally acknowledged
for their positive traits: horses are herbivorous, obedient, hardworking,
intelligent and elegant, used to living in society, but also used as metaphors
of liberty and freedom. Spiders, industrious and tireless creatures, generally
symbolize patience, building a web for survival. The spiral they build
represents creative and artistic abilities and the weaving is generally
associated with female energies, able to keep a balance between past,
present and future. However, it is worth noting that it is precisely only the
negative characteristics of these two animals that are emphasized when it
comes to HRC. One article insinuated that HRC is “leaving an insidious
poison in her wake that may irreparably harm America”: her dishonest
character suggests she is akin to a poisonous spider, the “ultimate spinner”,
weaving a tangled web for nesting and catching prey (Ellison, “The
Peculiar Evil of Hillary Clinton”, 2 March 2008). The author adds that she
hedges on everything; hence nobody knows what HRC really believes and
what she is plotting or aiming at.

After Obama’s presidential election and her appointment as Secretary

of State, the media recognized that she would be an exceptionally
knowledgeable and hardworking Secretary of State, though uncertain how
comfortably HRC would work if “in harness” under President Barack
Obama. She is implicitly negatively compared to a wild horse being
restrained by reins and finding it difficult to perform any movement if
constrained by discipline or control by others (Alter, “Hillary Clinton and
Bill Clinton; The most powerful couple in politics may find the times suited
to their skills”, 5 January 2009). This metaphor alludes to HRC’s shrinking
role in the Obama administration. As a matter of fact, the power of the
Secretary of State flows directly from the President, and is not statutory.
“Obama has surrounded Hillary Clinton with his people” and he has
confined her “to the diminished role of her department”: “How long will
Hillary subject herself to this discipline?” (“Hillary’s incredible, shrinking
role”, 9 February 2009 and “The incredible shrinking Clinton”, 26 May
2009).

6. Conclusions

The coverage of HRC’s political career reveals that some of the media have
negative attitudes to her as a career-oriented woman: what is really hard for
the press or for public opinion in general to deal with is the idea that a
woman is able to fulfil multiple roles successfully, while remaining
independent and ambitious. The sexist undertones and metaphors became a
misogynistic attempt to undermine HRC as a politician by evoking negative
stereotypes about women (Crowther, “Sexist Language in Media Coverage
of Hillary Clinton”, 12 December 2007).

The various metaphorical expressions found in the linguistic data

under scrutiny (see Table 1) are taken from epic and myth, history, religion,
war, politics, the animal world, fiction and television. They can be grouped
as metaphors of evil, underlining HRC’s presumed negative, vicious and
aggressive characteristics, metaphors of animals which again stress some of
her negative features rather than the positive ones, and idiomatic
expressions and figurative language regarding her personality and physical
traits which can be considered typical of language use in general but still
evoke emotional responses and add force to negative evaluations.
Table 1. Different groupings of negative metaphors for Hillary Rodham
Clinton

Type Occurrences

Metaphors an unguided missile; Xena-like persona; witch; First Lady Macbeth; the most
of evil polarizing political wife; a political weapon; high octane Hillary; a political animal;
power monger; the political equivalent of nitroglycerin; war goddess; her Amazonian
aggressiveness; Pallas Athena descending on the Trojans; Celtic warrior queen;
coming from Mars rather than from Venus; Mrs Triangulation; calculating Lady
Macbeth; street fighter; evil laughter; Hildebeast; Hitlery.
Metaphors hawk with dovish wings; hawk’s plumage; hen’s cackle; caterwaul; bray; leaving an
of animals insidious poison; poisonous spider; the ultimate spinner; in harness; patriarchy in
sheep’s clothing.
Physical schoolmarmish (smile); wolfish (smile); throaty gargle (laugh); shy beneath their
traits and veneer of command (eyes), mouse beige outfit.
look
Emotional overbearing and scary; cool and calculating; polarizing; deceptive; secretive; unruly
and woman; bitch; unlikeable; inexperienced; immature; flip-flopper; potentially
personality aggressive personality; her Achilles’ heel: hostility and lack of flexibility; no bleeding
traits heart; nutcracker; angry candidate; Hillary the Scold; Glenn Close; Black Knight;
store owner in the dead parrot sketch; psycho ex-girlfriend of the Democratic party;
castrating.

Images of women as mothers and family queens are much more frequent
and widespread rather than the portrayal of them as powerful managers or
presidents. Judgments and evaluative metaphors, and especially the
gendered metaphors used to refer to HRC, continue to depict leadership
ability as an unfeminine quality, and to reproduce and consolidate dominan
power relations which perpetuate women’s inferior position within society.

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 Blending metaphors and
arguments in advertising
Sabrina Mazzali-Lurati & Chiara Pollaroli
University of Lugano

The present chapter aims at outlining a framework of analysis that allows us to identify the

central factors of advertising messages, in particular the arguments that addressers want to

provide to addressees in order to convince them about the worth of the advertised product.

Through the analysis of successful ads, we will try to understand how visual

manifestations of metaphor and hyperbole are effective in the argumentation taking place

in advertising discourse. A three-step analysis will help us in going deeper into how ads

are structured and work.

Keywords

advertising; argumentation; metaphor

1. Introduction

Advertisements are a widespread example of argumentative discourse

where addressers give addressees reasons in order to convince them to buy
the advertised product and where figuration is broadly used both verbally
and visually. Rhetorical studies flourishing in the last decade (cf. Beasley &
Danesi 2002, 113–123; McQuarrie & Phillips 2008; Forceville & Urios-
Aparisi 2009) have highlighted that figuration (in particular, metaphor) is
widely exploited in advertising discourse, from print ads to TV
commercials. The goal of this investigation is to identify how tropes are
used in order to provide arguments. We will do this by analysing examples
of high-quality print ads where metaphor and hyperbole play an essential
role at the argumentative level.

The exploratory method of analysis that we propose in this chapter

proves to be useful to make explicit the mappings and the abstract shared
structure of the two tropes. We hypothesize that the recognition of the
mappings and of the cognitive abstract structure are fundamental at the
communicative level because they make the audience infer the intended
arguments and, therefore, grasp the message of the text at a deeper level. A
detailed description of the cognitive dimension of metaphor and hyperbole
is preliminary helpful to a full understading of the communicative (and, in
particular, the argumentative) functioning and role of the tropes. 1

Metaphor has been a research interest for centuries, but it is only in the
last decades that considerations on this trope have changed: metaphors are
not regarded as ornamental verbal devices based on similarity, but rather as
the manifestation of a process of imagination where a source domain is
employed to conceptualize and comprehend a target domain, namely the
real object of communication. Hyperbole is often defined as a rhetorical
figure of exaggeration or overstatement, “the use of exaggerated terms for
the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect” (Corbett 1999, 403). As a
matter of fact, hyperbole is hardly ever found alone in discourse: various
rhetorical devices – among which we can also count metaphor – might
create a hyperbolic effect. 2 Metaphor and hyperbole are often interwoven
in different kinds of texts and communicative situations: metaphors
frequently produce a hyperbolic effect, thus hyperboles are embedded in
metaphors.

We will carry out our analysis through three different approaches,

which represent three steps towards understanding the mechanism of
argumentation by tropes in advertising: (1) Goldenberg et al.’s (1999,
2009) account of creativity patterns in ads; (2) Forceville’s (1996)
framework of pictorial metaphors (referring to Black’s (1977) interaction
theory); (3) blending theory (henceforth BT; Fauconnier & Turner 2002,
2008; Turner & Fauconnier 2003; Grady et al. 1999). Approaches (1) and
(2) provide fundamental categories for the analysis of metaphors in
advertising: their outcomes supply perspectives that have to be taken into
consideration in order to adequately deal with our topic. First, recent and
innovative studies in the marketing field conducted by a group of scholars
of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem led by Goldenberg and Mazursky
(Goldenberg et al. 1999, 2009) have identified metaphor as an essential too
to create award-winning advertisements: the metaphor template is one of
the fundamental conceptual patterns structuring quality ads. Second,
Forceville (1996, 2004, 2008) has developed a framework of analysis for
identifying, describing and schematizing central mechanisms at work in
pictorial and multimodal metaphors in advertising. This is essential in our
understanding of argumentation in ads since one feature of contemporary
print ads is the dominance of the visual component. As McQuarrie and
Phillips (2008, 15) provocatively remark, “print advertisements are no
longer written texts. They are pictorial texts that include some words” and
“nowhere else in contemporary culture are pictures so central to persuasion
as in mass-media advertising”. Examples of award-winning ads given in
Goldenberg et al. (1999, 2009) provide some convincing evidence of this.
Moreover, following the track of Black’s Interaction Theory (1977),
Forceville considers interaction (as well as projection) to be a constitutive
dynamic of the mechanism regulating metaphor structure. Indeed,
interaction between the two domains of metaphor, and the resulting mutual
adjustment between their properties governed by a logical structure, is a
key notion in our approach. In advertising it is from this mutual adjustment
that the addressee infers the product’s characteristics which the addresser
intends to promote. Therefore, focusing on interaction in tropes is essential
in order to understand how metaphors and hyperboles contribute to
argumentation in advertising.

This aspect might be further highlighted through BT, which has

investigated metaphor as a prototypical example of conceptual integration.
Forceville highlights the relevance of this theory to the analysis of
advertising in his review of Fauconnier and Turner’s The way we think
(Forceville 2004) and to the modelling of metaphors (Forceville 2012). An
example of how BT can provide insightful consideration in detecting
tropical processes in ads is also outlined in Rocci (2009, 275). Here the
emergent structure of the blend in an institutional ad for Shell helps in
reconstructing the standpoint from an apparently incongruous combination
of headline and baseline. In BT, metaphors are conceived as capable of
creating new conceptual structures that, in advertisements, coincide with
the message. The addresser of the ad creates a network of inferences which
are mapped from input spaces (henceforth ISs) onto newly structured
blended spaces containing and providing the arguments that might convince
the consumer to buy the product. By outlining the conceptual network and
the resulting blended space of a given (pictorial) metaphor, BT becomes an
important tool to single out the arguments addressers put forward in order
to persuade addressees.

We will first discuss our hypothesis through the analysis of the Erdal
shoe polish ad, launched in January 2002 (Figure 1) and included in the
selection of successful ads of well-known online archives that address
advertising professionals (Advertolog – Advertising Archive,
http://www.advertolog.com/ and Coloribus – Global Advertising Archive,
http://www.coloribus.com). Figure 1 clearly presents analogies with the
well-known ad for shoes analysed by Forceville (1996, 109–113) as an
example of pictorial metaphor with only the target domain depicted.
Figure 1.

Snapshot of Erdal shoe polish advertisement from www.coloribus.com

Second, we will describe – in a more succinct manner – the analysis of a
second print ad according to this same conceptual framework and we will
show that it provides similar outcomes. We will consider the award-
winning print ad for Nike Air shoes, examined by Goldenberg et al. (1999)
and depicted in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Nike Air advertisement (reproduced from Goldenberg et al. 1999, 336)

2. Metaphor in advertising: Patterns of creativity

With the concern of understanding how product innovation processes could
be supported, Goldenberg and other scholars from the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem have studied examples of product creation and advertising,
discovering that in both domains creativity is not an unbounded intuition
and a constraintfree process, but rather can be traced back to a “few simple,
well-defined design structures” (2009, 1). In particular, they have identified
and described a set of patterns structuring and organizing information
(Goldenberg et al. 1999, 2009) in award-winning ads (that in their
perspective are ads of proven creativity). These structures are called
creativity templates, “a trainable, resource-saving, and effective tool”
(Goldenberg et al. 1999, 333) for the ideation of new ads. The first
classification of six creativity templates (pictorial analogy, extreme
situation, consequence, competition, interactive, dimensionality alteration)
was then (Goldenberg et al. 2009) improved and templates were called
tools. The name changes, but the essential notion remains the same.

The Jerusalem group has established that pictorial analogy templates

are widely exploited in advertisements, and are “characterized by
performing a trick or manipulation on a recognized and accepted cultural
symbol that immediately connects it to (but not in an obvious manner) the
desired message” (2009, 66). Goldenberg and his group of researchers
explain the functioning of the pictorial analogy template as a fusion –
operated thanks to a linking operator – between one of the elements related
to the product (which compose what they call the product space) and one o
the symbols that are evoked “in the consumer’s representation of the
message” (Goldenberg et al. 1999, 335–336) that compose the symbol set.

Advertisers must choose a widely recognized symbol 3 within the

culture of the target audience and take into consideration that symbols are
specific to a context. In Goldenberg et al.’s terms, the metaphor template
usually results in a visual fusion and replacement of product-symbol. If the
tool is well applied, the whole meaning collapses into the image and there
is no need for either the headline or the body copy; it requires minimal
explanatory text (2009, 67). The more fusion, the more interest from the
consumer: in order for advertisements to be effective, the relationship
between product, symbol, and message must be as tight as possible.

We can observe this template and its structure concretely actualized in

the advertisement in Figure 1. The print ad is composed of a dominant
visual component and a product pack shot. The image first catches our
attention: a hand is trying to adjust an unusual and absurd rear-view mirror;
a shoe! The co-text 4 of the shoe, the driver’s compartment, helps us in
evoking the rear-view mirror, not depicted in the visual. The ad
corresponds to the metaphor template: the elegant and shiny shoe entirely
replaces the rear-view mirror; the two elements are fused together in an
original way. In Goldenberg and Mazursky’s terms, a non-obvious
manipulation is performed between a cultural symbol of shininess (the rear-
view mirror; which is chosen among various symbols of shininess listed in
the symbols set in Figure 3), the product space (the elegant and impeccably
polished shoe) and the message (the effectiveness of Erdal shoe polish).
Figure 3.

Pictorial Analogy Template of Erdal ad adapted from Goldenberg et al.

(1999, 336)

Interestingly, another template can be detected in this advertisement: the

extreme consequence template. This pattern exaggerates an absurd and
unexpected result of using the product, as described by the Jerusalem
group:

Creative ads that subscribe to the logic of Extreme Consequence

do not follow the familiar path of exaggerating the product
benefit. Instead, what they do is present an unexpected,
accidental, and often negative scenario, arising as a consequence
of the product’s positive attribute […]. The element of
exaggeration is essential to the effectiveness of the tool. The
scenario in the ad must be unequivocally absurd, unrealistic and
over-the-top.(Goldenberg et al. 2009, 100)
We can observe in Figure 1 that Erdal shoe polish promises an extreme
shininess: using the product creates the absurd scenario where a
businessman can even replace the rear-view mirror of his car with the shoe
itself. This is the magic of the product; it can make an over-the-top
situation out of a common action of polishing one’s shoes.

The replacement of a product with an object linked to it, and the

exaggeration of a consequence of using the product, make us think
immediately about figurative language tools such as metaphors and
hyperboles. The power of the advertising message consists of the
arguments communicated through these two rhetorical devices. Here,
confirming what we said above about the importance of pictures in
contemporary print ads, their manifestation is entirely visual.

3. Forceville’s pictorial metaphors

Research conducted by Forceville (1996, 2004, 2008, 2012) on visual

manifestations of tropes, metaphors in particular, comes to be a crucial step
in our analysis. Stemming from the cognitive approach to metaphor,
Forceville acknowledges that metaphor is a manifestation of a salient and
pervasive cognitive process, the expression of which is not necessarily tied
to language: it can also be visual. Forceville (1996, 2008) outlines a
classification of pictorial metaphors and multi-modal metaphors after
explaining their structure and mechanism starting from Max Black’s
Interaction Theory (1977).

One of the most relevant tenets of Black’s theory consists of its

underlining of the interaction between the domains involved in metaphor
(primary and secondary subjects). As Black puts it (1977, 442) “the
metaphorical utterance works by ‘projecting upon’ the primary subject a set
of “associated implications”, comprised in the implicative complex, that are
predictable of the secondary subject”. The implicative complex is a system
of relationships culturally shared by members of a certain community in
relation to the secondary subject. 5 This dynamic of projections provokes
an interaction between primary and secondary subjects: the properties of
primary and secondary subjects are partly changed because of their
reciprocal influence (cf. Forceville 1996, 2004, 2012). This interaction
gives birth to a “novel implicative-complex” (Black 1977, 442).

The backdrop concepts so far outlined allow us to highlight many

factors of the advertising message in Figure 1. Following Forceville’s
subdivision, the Erdal advertisement would be categorized as a pictorial
metaphor with one pictorially present term (MP1, cf. 1996, 109) or
contextual pictorial metaphor (2008, 182), where one item (the rear-view
mirror) is replaced with another one (the shoe).
Table 1. Projection of properties for A POLISHED SHOE IS A REAR-VIEW
MIRROR

Primary subject (target) Projections Secondary subject (source)

POLISHED SHOE IS REAR-VIEW MIRROR

Shiny – Shiny
Elongated form – Elongated form
Leather/cloth → Plastic/glass
← Adjustable/movable
← Safety
Piece of apparel ← Part of a car
Wear it on foot ← Driver’s compartment
Protects foot ← Reflects images
Elegant/casual —X
Varioud colours —X
Various sizes —X
Comfortable —X

The analysis of the pictorial metaphor A POLISHED SHOE IS A REAR-VIEW

MIRROR grounded in Black’s concept of mutual adjustment and Forceville’s
way of schematically representing it (Forceville represents the pictorial
metaphor of an ad with a similar table; 1996, 113) singles out a selection of
projected traits among the mappable ones of the primary subject and the
implicative complex of the secondary subject. The first column of Table 1
shows the primary subject and the system of its mappable features; the
second column has symbols indicating which features are projected (→/ ←
depending on the direction of the projection, either from the target to the
source or vice versa), which one is shared (–), and which one is not mapped
(—X); finally, the third one contains features pertaining to the implicative
complex of the secondary subject or source domain.
 Shininess and elongated form emerge like shared characteristics
corresponding to the ground (Black 1977, 432). The shoe can replace the
rear-view mirror because, as the rear-view mirror, it is shiny and has an
elongated shape. Furthermore, some features of the mirror are projected
onto the shoe (that is, the shoe becomes an adjustable object positioned in a
car, reflecting images and being functional to safe driving), whereas the
shoe projects the material it is made of (leather) onto the secondary subject,
changing it into a piece of apparel which can be polished. Other properties
of the target are not relevantly mapped onto the source domain (it is an
elegant and comfortable piece of apparel, it is made of different colours and
sizes).

There are many factors of the message which emerge from this
analysis. The mutual adjustment of the pictorial metaphor A POLISHED
SHOE IS A REAR-VIEW MIRROR is well represented. However, some central
factors of the advertisement’s argumentation are not sufficiently
highlighted. According to this analysis the message of the ad seems to be
“this shoe is so well polished that it looks like a rear-view mirror”. This
corresponds to the content of the cleverly-used pictorial metaphor of the
visual of the Erdal ad, which is an important component of the
argumentative network of this ad; however it is not the only message.

First, both metaphor and hyperbole converge in this advertising

message. The hyperbolic effect is connected to the product in the message:
the absurd replacement of a rear-view mirror with the shoe holds because
the shoe has been polished with Erdal, not with whatever shoe polish. In
Table 1 the product does not come out: the ability of the shoe to reflect
images simply results from the projection of one of the rear-view mirror
traits to the shoe domain, equally to other features (such as the trait
“adjustable”). Second, one of the arguments the advertiser wishes to put
forward in order to “prove” the product’s effectiveness (an essential
argument in order to convince a potential buyer to spend money on it), is
the product’s association with a social scenario in which the maximum
standard of elegance is a “must”. Erdal is a traditional product used by
business people who have to wear elegant clothes and are often driving to
meetings. These are all fundamental factors in the argumentative process of
convincing the addressee. Indeed, the complete message of the Erdal ad is
“Erdal shoe polish makes my shoe so shiny that I can use it as a rear-view
mirror, therefore I can be sure to fit to the appropriate elegance standard”.

4. Shedding light on the novel implicative complex: An

analysis with Blending Theory

Two domains are involved in the analysis of the pictorial metaphor depicted
in Figure 1, but these two domains cannot alone capture all the elements of
the argumentation of this ad. More spaces need to be taken into
consideration in order to let the product and its association with the social
scenario requiring the maximum standard of elegance come into play. In
BT (Fauconnier & Turner 1998, 2002, 2008; Turner & Fauconnier 2003)
meaning construction processes are treated as blended spaces nourished by
features projected from two or more mental spaces. The blend does not
correspond to either of the inputs but derives from selective projections
from ISs governed by the generic space. The projections result in a totally
novel structure (the emergent structure), which is brought to life in the
communicative event.

Interestingly, BT “has as one consequence the rethinking of metaphor”

(Fauconnier & Turner 2008, 53), a device which creates new conceptual
structures, or blends. In comparing conceptual metaphor theory by Lakoff
and Johnson (1980) with BT, Grady et al. (1999) point out that metaphor is
not just a matter of adjusting ISs: something new is created when using
figuration. As a consequence, we visualize and conceptualize the target
space in a different way, with different eyes. This consideration is not
completely new in metaphor theory (cf. Forceville 2004). As we briefly
noticed above, Black claimed that integrated projections result in a “novel
implicative complex” which does not correspond entirely to the sum of the
original parts; rather it represents a new creative conceptual dimension.

The involvement of more than two domains in the conceptual

integration network is one of the leading points of conceptual blending; as
Grady et al. (1999, 103) put it, “one of the chief motivations for BT […] is
that the four-space model can account for phenomena that are not explicitly
addressed by mechanisms of the two-domain model”. Likewise, Forceville
(2004, 87) suggests the relevance of BT in the analysis of “pictures and
other multimodal representations […], a big advantage of BT over
metaphor being that it can cope with more than two ISs”.

Thus, BT can deal with complex metaphoric messages, such as the

Erdal ad.

As we observed above, the two elements that cannot be captured in a

“two domains” framework of analysis of metaphors are the product (the
Erdal shoe polish) and its association with a social situation in which the
maximum standard of elegance is a “must”. These two elements are of a
different nature: the first one is an entity, a protagonist in the message,
while the second is a shared current opinion about what is socially
adequate. Both elements can be captured through BT, but play a very
different role in the conceptual integration network: the product is an IS,
while the current opinion related to the maximum standard of elegance
constitutes a generic space, a more abstract space that reflects what the ISs
share in terms of structure and which makes explicit the logical relation
holding the conceptual integration network. 6 Therefore, the conceptual
integration network that constitutes the argumentation of the ad in Figure 1
encompasses three conceptual blends: blend1 results from a metonymic
cause-effect relation (the generic space governing blend1), blend2 results in
another metonymic relation, whereas blend3 is manoeuvred by a similarity
relationship. Blend1 converges into blend2 as if it were an IS itself. In the
metonymic blend1 the product emerges: the entity is not any polished shoe,
but specifically that shoe, the one polished with Erdal. It results from
properties mapped from IS1 related to the shoe domain and IS2 related to
the Erdal product. The emergent blend1 projects, together with IS3,
elements onto blend2. Projections are governed by another metonymic
relation where the effect of “fitting the appropriate elegance standard” is
achieved through the instrument “very shiny shoe polished with Erdal”.
Figure 4.

Conceptual integration network for Erdal ad

The organizing frame 7 of the metaphoric blend3 comes from the rear-view
mirror (IS4), whereas other features, such as the entity, come from blend2.
The shared characteristics of ‘shininess’ and ‘elongated form’ (already
highlighted in the analysis based on Forceville’s framework) constitute the
generic similarity-based space of blend3. Blend2 and IS4 can be identified
respectively with the product space and the symbol set of a pictorial
analogy template and result in the emergent structure of blend3: a shoe
polished with Erdal, which is so shiny that it reaches reflexivity and the
business man wearing it could use it as rear-view mirror while driving to
his workplace or business meeting. In blend3 the source of the extreme
consequence effect emerges, the hyperbole is highlighted and entirely
mapped: it is the shoe polished with Erdal that brings about the hyperbolic
effect of reflecting images. We see then that, behind the pictorial metaphor
of the visual, both similarity and cause-effect relations govern the Erdal ad.

5. Exploring another example: The Nike Air shoes ad

Both the metaphor template (the advertised Nike Air shoe replaces the
jumping sheet; as shown in Figure 5) and the extreme consequence
template (the unexpected and absurd scenario of a fireman rescue with a
huge Nike Air shoe) are present in the print ad for Nike Air shoes (Figure
2).

Thanks to Forceville’s approach to visual metaphors, we can analyse

(see Table 2) the central pictorial metaphor nike-air shoe is a jumping sheet
in the visual and highlight that the shared characteristic is that of “being a
device of protection standing between the person and the pavement”. Some
characteristics of the shoe are projected onto the jumping sheet (white
colour, elongated form, leather material), whereas some characteristics of
the fireman sheet are projected onto the shoe (the dimension – the shoe
does not maintain the real proportions in respect to the firemen – and the
fact that it is held up by firemen). However, in order to capture all aspects
involved in the message, it is not only necessary to take into consideration
the two subjects – shoe and sheet –, but to blend the two scenarios related
to each one of the subjects: walking and firemen rescue.

Figure 5.

Pictorial Analogy Template (reproduction from Goldenberg et al. 1999,

336)
Table 2. Projection properties for NIKE-AIR SHOE IS A JUMPING SHEET

Primary subject (target) Projections Secondary subject (source)

NIKE-AIR SHOE IS JUMPING SHEET

Soft and comfortable – Flexible
Protection – Protection
Cushioning in the heel – Elastic material
Wear it on foot – Between a person and a pavement
Piece of apparel ← Object used by firemen
Used to walk and/or run ← Used to save people
Leather → Elastic material
Elongated form → Round
White → Different colours

Schematization (Figure 6) of this visual metaphor through BT allows us to

better outline all the metaphorical elements of the situation the visual refers
to (a firemen rescue) and particularly the hyperbole, which plays a role in
the advertisement argumentation. In such a perspective, following Grady et
al. who point out that in BT “spaces represent particular scenarios which
are structured by given domains” (1999, 102), the pictorial metaphor of this
ad is the result of a metaphoric blend between the scenario of walking with
Nike Air shoes on one’s feet (IS1) and a firemen intervention (IS2, which is
the organizing frame). The two ISs share the semantic characteristic of
protection, which is the ground in Black’s and Forceville’s terms and which
constitutes the generic space. The emergent structure resulting in the
blended space is a creative emergent scenario where a step is hyperbolically
conceived as a jump into space. In it the shoe – jumping sheet of the
pictorial metaphor stands out: it is big, white, of an elongated form,
flexible, and held up by firemen who are glancing up waiting for the
consumer jumping. In this new hyperbolic metaphor, only the intervention
of the advertised product – thanks to “cushioning in the heel” – can save
him.

Figure 6.

Conceptual integration network for Nike-Air ad

6. Discussion

These examples show that three approaches, stemming from various fields,
can help in singling out the central factors and arguments of an ad and thus
to understand and reconstruct the message and the argumentation that an
advertisement wishes to communicate. Thanks to these three approaches it
has been possible to shed light on different elements and aspects, and it has
been possible to identify and describe precisely the communicative role
metaphor and hyperbole play in it. Particularly, the novelty created by the
metaphor can be highlighted and described, as well as its tight relation to
hyperbolic effects.

The creativity template taxonomy allows us to identify two basic

communicative strategies on which the power of advertising argumentation
depends: the first one (the metaphor tool) consists of the fact that the
product is tied and fused to a cultural symbol; the second one consists of
the fact that the effectiveness of the product is presented as an extreme
consequence of its use. However, an analysis through creativity patterns
does not allow us to unravel the very mechanism of these rhetorical
strategies and to go deeper into the reasons advanced in the ads.

We took a step towards such an aim thanks to the analysis through

integration theory and Forceville’s approach to visual manifestations of
tropes, both allowing us to single out and define the projections on which
the fusion between the product and the cultural symbol (which constitutes
the pictorial metaphor in the ad) is based. However, because of its
interpretation of metaphor as involving only two domains, this approach
allowed us to adequately clarify only the pictorial metaphors: A POLISHED
SHOE IS A REAR-VIEW MIRROR and NIKE-AIR SHOE IS A JUMPING SHEET . The
analysis might be enhanced by a framework in which metaphor is
considered to involve more domains.

BT provides this possibility and allows us to take into consideration

all factors of the message and to catch, highlight and relate all the
arguments in the building of the whole message. In other words, through
BT we can highlight the relevance, at the argumentative level, of both
metaphor and hyperbole and of all the elements represented in the ad,
namely the advertised product and the represented scenario.

However, it also emerges that some further steps need to be taken on

the path towards understanding of the relationship between figuration and
argumentative communication, in particular, the role played by inference
and shared current opinions in tropes. Inference is a crucial mechanism of
metaphor. This emerges both in interaction theory of metaphor and in BT,
but it must be described and clarified in further details. Surely, Black’s
notion of implicative-complex is a key point from which an investigation on
this topic might stem.

Our analysis shows that current shared opinions are not restricted to
projections (as defined by Black), but sometimes (or often?) lie at the root
of metaphors and reside in generic spaces (inhabited also by argument
schemes). Current shared opinions and argument schemes in the generic
space make figuration reasonable and justify the idea of projecting one trait
rather than another one. In our examples, generic space proves to be one of
the underlying factors involved in the conceptual process of integration: it
gives stoutness to the reasoning behind the integration of metaphor and
hyperbole. It is because of the existence of the generic space governing the
conceptual network that the projected elements in Figure 3 and Figure 6 are
relevant and reasonable. The crucial component of the generic space in the
conceptual integration network might be a key point in understanding the
issue we hinted at about the relationship between endoxon, implicative
complex, and tropes. 8

Notes
1. For a more recent development of this hypothesis see Pollaroli & Rocci (2015) and Rocci,
Mazzali-Lurati & Pollaroli (Forthcoming).

2. With regards to this issue, Brdar-Szabò and Brdar (2010, 395) observe that “no reliable all-round
definition of hyperbole can be formulated which would be based on an isomorphic relation between
linguistic form and a corresponding meaning shift. What seems to remain constant across different
traditionally defined subtypes of hyperbole is just the hyperbolic effect which can be brought about
by a greater variety of linguistic means and interplay of conceptual processes”.

3. Interestingly, the application of creativity templates suggested by Goldenberg et al. (2009) has
similarities with the tasks Forceville (2012, 119) suggests accomplishing in order to create pictorial
metaphors in advertising. Forceville says that advertisers should (1) decide on the attributes of the
product to be emphasized, (2) search for a source domain containing those attributes, (3) create a
new scenario where target and source domains are co-present, (4) decide on the semiotic modality
for cuing the pertinent information.

4. Forceville (1996, 2008) stresses the importance of context in eliciting the source and target
domains of a pictorial metaphor, in particular in what he calls MP1 (1996, 109–126) or contextual
metaphor (2008, 182), where “the target of the metaphor is placed in a visual context that forces or
invites the viewer to evoke the identity of the source – which is itself not pictured. For instance, a
beer bottle is put in a champagne cooler to elicit the metaphor BEER IS CHAMPAGNE , with ‘high
quality’ or ‘drunk at festive occasions’ among the associations that can be mapped from source to
target” (2008, 182). However, we adopt here the concept of cotext, namely verbal and/or visual
elements in a text which occur together with other items in the same text. When focusing on and
considering one item to be analysed, all the elements co-occurring in the same discourse are called
cotextual elements.

5. Precisely, Black defines these relationships as endoxa (“current opinions shared by members of a
certain speech-community”; 1977, 442). For sure, endoxa play an essential role in metaphors, since
they are culturally-bound background assumptions that give rise to projectable elements in metaphor
However, the validity of such a correspondence has been verified more in depth, in Pollaroli (in
preparation), on the basis of Rigotti’s (2006, 527) account of endoxa in argumentation.

6. Further research on the centrality of the generic space in governing the logic of blended spaces
has been conducted in Pollaroli & Rocci (2015), Rocci, Mazzali-Lurati & Pollaroli (Forthcoming)
and Pollaroli (in preparation)

7. In BT the result of mappings is an integration network where elements are projected from ISs to
blends according to an organizing frame, “a frame that specifies the nature of the relevant activity,
events, and participants” (Fauconnier & Turner 1998, 163). Mappings through conceptual networks
are governed by constraints (“optimality principles” in Grady et al. 1999, 107) and have to be
consistent with them.
8. Pollaroli and Rocci (2015) have shown that the conceptual network created by a pictorial/
multimodal metaphor prompts the discovery of the abstract category to which both the domains of
the metaphor belong (a category that is called ‘functional genus’) and which serves as a contextual
premise of an argument from analogy. This finding seems to prove that there exists a systematic
correspondence between metaphor and argument from analogy.

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 Metaphors and online learning
M. Beatrice Ligorio 1 , Marianna Iodice 1 &
Stefania Manca 2
1 University of Bari “Aldo Moro” | 2 Institute of
Educational Technology, CNR, Genova

The aim of this chapter is to highlight the role that metaphors and figurative language may

play in virtual learning environments that are based on written communication. In these

contexts they may satisfy cognitive, emotional and affective needs of learning. Research

results achieved so far show that metaphors, establishing meaningful analogies among

different domains, may deeply affect conceptual reorganization and thus knowledge

enhancement. Moreover, metaphors successfully support the expression of the affective

domain and the building of a common identity; at the same time they give concreteness

and familiarity to the immateriality of the virtual spaces. By presenting results gathered in

two research studies here reported, the chapter focuses in particular on the role that

metaphors may play in supporting social presence and collaborative knowledge building in

online learning experiences.

Key words

e-learning; knowledge building; affectivity; identity

1. Introduction: Metaphors in communication and

educational processes

The communicative power of metaphors has been strongly established.

Lakoff and Johnson (1980) show how people frequently use metaphoric
language while speaking and writing. Metaphors are not simply rhetorical
terms, but also cognitive schemas through which the mind builds and
assigns meanings to the world and reality. By using metaphors, it is
possible to anticipate actions, make inferences, define goals, and express
plans and thoughts related to the experiences people are involved in. In
short: “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one
kind of thing in terms of another” (Lakoff & Johnson 1980, 5).

Ortony and Fainsilber (1989) highlight the holistic meaning of

metaphors by noting that they condense a beam of personal and cultural
meaning into a single word or sentence. Through metaphors, experience
can be represented including impressions, judgments, and emotions (Black
1979). The role of metaphors in emotions has also been widely recognized.
A long tradition of researchers has shown that emotional concepts emerge
as social-cognitive constructions, largely made up of metaphors (Kövecses
2002). Ortony and Fainsilber (1989) underline concrete vividness as the
main characteristic of metaphor and figurative language 1 in the expression
of emotions. People would be more likely to use metaphors and
metaphorical comparisons to describe their subjective experience of
emotion than to describe the actions they took in response to an emotional
experience (Fussell & Moss 1998).

All the features defined above are essential also to guarantee the
success of communication, and since communication is essential in
educational contexts, the role metaphors play in education becomes
relevant. For instance, metaphors can be used as tools to reach a better
understanding of a concept or to generate new ideas. According to
Littlemore and Low (2006), metaphorical production and interpretation
require a specific competence called ‘metaphorical intelligence’, based on
associative and analogical ability (Gentner & Stevens 1983). This ability
clearly refers to a cognitive dimension, which is very relevant within
learning processes.
 Beside the cognitive aspect, metaphors also seem able to trigger
relational, interpersonal, and emotional communication. As Tannen (1989)
contends, metaphors are images ‘painted’ with words to which socially
shared meanings are attached. Therefore, metaphorical language
contributes to establish intimacy in conversations, enabling effective
sharing of personal emotions. Through a process of imagery, a speaker
describes or suggests an image and the listener can simultaneously
complete the image depicted by the former. In this way, speaker and
listener co-construct the meaning of the image that emerges from the
conversation.

This process is especially worthy of note for collaborative learning,

when students are required to work in groups and to discuss in a critical and
constructive way, as occurs in the so-called ‘knowledge building’ approach
Scardamalia and Bereiter (2006) contrast such an approach to learning with
learning as transmission of knowledge, by underlining that learning is no
longer an individual task but rather a collective effort. Students are,
moreover, required to share information, opinions and understanding in
order to achieve a more comprehensive vision of facts. Finally, there is a
joint effort in advancing knowledge, which is not considered as static and
given once and for all, but as always improvable. Learning, thus, becomes
an active and complex knowledge-building process, occurring within a
community of learners sharing aims and practices (Brown & Campione
1990; Lave & Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998). In this perspective,
communication among peers is essential to sustain knowledge building
processes. During this type of communication, metaphors can drive
attention towards a specific concept, can suggest new images and new
metaphors can be generated. Furthermore, while communicating, students
can collaboratively create original images representing concepts, models
and argumentation under discussion (O’ Donnell, Hmelo Silver, & Erkens
2006; Vosniadou 2007).

A social constructivist perspective is used in this chapter to understand

what function metaphors cover during communication at the service of
collaborative knowledge building. This perspective allows us to go beyond
the structure of metaphors and the cognitive schemas or functions they
correspond to. Indeed, from the social constructivist point of view it is
possible to focus on how metaphors are used by students to support
communication during the collaborative knowledge building process. In
particular, we will see how metaphors support social presence and sustain
interactions focused on sharing and understanding the content of the
course.

2. Metaphors in online environments

Metaphors also play a strategic function within educational online

environments. In online settings participants use metaphors and figurative
language to symbolize the complexity of their experience. The virtual space
is indeed inhabited by metaphors that may be borrowed from offline
contexts or generated as a consequence of being online. Online there are
(virtual) ‘classrooms’ and web ‘pages’ that users can ‘navigate’ through.
Therefore, most of the research concerning metaphors and online learning
looks at what metaphors better sustain the design of the learning virtual
space, for instance, that of virtual classrooms or virtual lessons (Cronje
2001); or how metaphors used by teachers and instructors impact on
students’ outcomes. May and Short (2003) introduced the metaphor of
‘gardening’ in cyberspace to foster the idea of creating an environment for
learning and personal growth. Other researchers (Çoklar & Bağci 2010)
look at how metaphors are used by teachers to represent technology and
reveal their attitude toward online learning. When metaphors veicholate the
idea that technology is important, useful, able to function as assistant and as
users guide, then technology was better integrated into the teaching
methods. Falconer (2008) analysed how metaphors can support students’
navigation through virtual spaces, even for those students suffering of
autism spectrum disorder, brain damage and other cognitive disabilities.

Recently, metaphors have also been analysed from the perspective of

identity construction within virtual communities. In these cases, metaphors
support the co-construction of collective digital identities as well as the
symbolic space within which participants interact (De Simone et al. 2001;
Gherardi 2000; Vayreda & Núñez 2010). The expressive power of
metaphors is used to represent people, situations, ideas, and feelings
circulating within virtual space. Through the text typed online, metaphors
come to life and compensate for the absence of paralinguistic and non-
verbal cues. Vayreda and Núñez (2010), for example, found that
participants on a web-forum used metaphors to describe the online
environment, for instance as a new land to be explored; to portray
themselves using metaphors able to give account of their feelings and
emotions; and to give meaning to the forum through methaphors that
describe the content and the flow of the discussion. The metaphors
produced by the participants were quite similar, suggesting that a sort of
implicit agreement about how to represent the virtual experience was
reached by the community. In this way, metaphors enter a collective shared
imagination that makes the community cohesive and supports a sense of
belonging.

3. Metaphors to support online social presence

One of the key components of a successful online learning experience is a
good level of social presence. A well-established social dimension appears
to be the prerequisite for collaborative learning and group-based work,
since it encourages and supports meaningful critical thinking processes.
According to Rourke and colleagues (1999), affective objectives that result
in appealing to, engaging, and rewarding group interactions may lead to an
increase in social, academic and institutional integration and results.

Social presence has been defined as “the ability of participants in a

community of inquiry to project themselves socially and emotionally, as
‘real’ people (i.e., their full personality), through the medium of
communication being used” (Garrison et al. 1999, 94). One of the most
relevant dimensions of social presence is the expression of emotions,
whose importance has also been progressively acknowledged in online
learning (Wosnitza & Volet 2005; Zembylas 2008). According to several
authors (O’Regan 2003; Rovai & Wighting 2005), some emotions (fear/
anxiety, shame/embarrassment, enthusiasm/excitement, pride) seem to
inhibit or enhance the teaching/learning process in an online environment,
whereas feelings of alienation can lead to a low sense of community. In
contrast, positive feelings and emotions may lead to a greater sense of
togetherness and intrinsic motivation that sustain active and involved
participation.

The research study briefly reported here, published at greater length

elsewhere (Delfino & Manca 2007; Manca & Delfino 2007), aimed to
explore the spontaneous production of figurative language to express the
affective domain of the learning experience participants were living online.
Neither solicited nor predicted by the course’s designers and tutors, at the
end of the course it was noticed that both tutors and students had included a
significant amount of figurative language in their written communication to
express their emotions and self-disclosure.

The purpose of the study was to provide answers to the following

questions: (1) Did figurative language occur accidentally across the course
or did it especially emerge in conjunction with some course events? (2)
Was there any relation between the participants’ educational background
and their use of figurative language? (3) Are instances of figurative
language classifiable according to some set of recurring types of conceptua
categories?

The context of the research was a 10-week course delivered at a

distance via a computer conferencing system by the Institute of Educationa
Technology of the National Research Council of Italy (ITD-CNR) in the
2002–2003 academic year. The course was delivered entirely online, with
the exception of three faceto-face meetings (at the beginning, in the middle
and at the end of the course). The course was offered to 57 student teachers
of the local Post-graduate School for Secondary School teachers (SSIS),
whose mean age was 32.43 (SD = 6.01), and was managed by seven tutors.
Instructional activities were carried out in small groups and organized in a
number of phases, such as reflection upon the main learning theories,
analysis of and comparison between educational software and discussion of
its integration in the school setting, and development of a project for the
implementation of educational technology in a specific educational context

An inductive, longitudinal, and iterative content-based analysis, based

on a computer-mediated discourse analysis approach (Herring 2004) of the
discussions specifically devoted to socialization and metacognitive
reflection, with particular emphasis on phenomena of self-disclosure, was
conducted. We chose the single message (henceforth, posting) as the unit of
analysis, since it was recognized as the smallest meaningful, independent
and exhaustive data for analysis. They were also the only sizeable data
available (hence most significant) to study the temporary distribution of
figurative language during the course. A single posting could host more
than one figurative language instance (henceforth, occurrence), so segments
of postings were considered for both quantitative and qualitative micro-
analysis.

Two coders worked independently and applied the same coding

procedure to the same set of units of analysis. The coders had to indicate
(1) if the posting contained original uses of figurative language, and if so
(2) how many occurrences were present. Acceptable levels of interrater
reliability were achieved (Capozzoli, McSweeney, & Sinha 1999;
Krippendorff 2004). Percentage agreement was 0.97; Krippendorff ’s alpha
and Cohen’s kappa were both 0.84.

The total amount of messages examined was 843 and it was found that
86 (10.20%) of them contained original uses of figurative language. The
number of figurative language occurrences was 103, with each posting
containing not more than three occurrences (Delfino & Manca 2007). The
results of this qualitative analysis were afterwards analysed quantitatively
to verify the hypotheses in research questions 1 and 2; then they were
subjected to further qualitative treatment in relation to question 3 (Manca &
Delfino 2007).

Results show that temporal distribution of occurrences of figurative

language was marked by the presence of some positive peaks, in
coincidence with: (a) the beginning of the course, soon after the first face-
to-face meeting, during which students were encouraged to express their
feelings about the novelty of the learning experience (e.g., “In this brand-
new activity, I feel a bit like a little turtle going slowly, slowly, …”); (b) the
period soon after the second face-to-face meeting, during which students
were able to express the negative feelings associated with an atmosphere of
unease and uncertainty due to some rather unclear tasks assigned by tutors
and because of the heavy workload (e.g., “Maybe in the beginning we saw
this course almost as an oasis where we could relax a while. Then we
realised that it was a serious matter and should be treated as such”); (c) at
the end of the course when students were again encouraged to share their
feelings and impressions about the whole course experience (e.g., “In these
last weeks, it is as if we had been populating an empty and deserted city,
which now is throbbing with life and traffic!”).

These results seem to confirm, as previously stated in the literature,

that intense emotions lead to a greater use of metaphor than mild emotions.
For most of the participants, this was their first experience of online
learning and they had to face several new problems, including learning to
communicate by written discourse in an asynchronous manner,
familiarizing themselves with communication technologies, and
collaborating within a group setting. For some of them, it might have been
difficult to explicitly acknowledge their anxiety about the course; they
could alleviate it by changing their perspective (for instance, writing that
they were in need of a lifeboat, because they felt quite shipwrecked). Such
disclosure was possible with the reduced degree of epistemic commitment
granted by figurative language.

Furthermore, the analysis showed that there was no strict relationship

between the production of figurative language and the students’ previous
educational background (i.e., arts or science). No real statistical difference
was found, except for an inferior percentage of the science group using
figurative language. Nevertheless, no real difference in the means of group
production was observed. Figurative language seemed to be an effective
means of communication and expression of social presence for people from
all academic backgrounds; however, further studies are needed to
understand how figurative language production in online learning contexts
is cross-culturally biased or how individual attitudes in using figurative
language might be related to other individual characteristics, such as
cognitive and learning styles.

Finally, as far to the classification of instances of figurative language,

qualitative analysis based on emerging and alternative categories revealed
that the variety of concepts and images expressed by the students in order
to describe themselves and their learning experience could be ascribed to
two categories named Feelings and Context, which were further analyzed
according to the categories of Disguise/ Orientation and
Embodiment/Animation (Manca & Delfino 2007). At this stage the process
of codification was repeated on the new corpus of figurative occurrences.
Reliable outcomes were again obtained (percentage agreement was 0.90;
Krippendorff ’s alpha and Cohen’s kappa were both 0.89) and
disagreements were resolved through discussion.

The former (Feelings) is related to the expression of participants’

emotions, moods, and affectivity. Participants frequently used figurative
language to express how they felt in specific moments of the learning
experience, both in terms of self-representation and attribution of affective
properties to others. From further inductive and iterative analysis, different
kinds of iconic images to represent this affective and perceptive domain
emerged. Participants provided themselves and others with a corporeal
identity, using images of animals, objects, or human qualities (Disguise),
such as in “I’m going slowly, uphill, but like an old FIAT 500 [a small
Italian car famous for toughness and reliability]”, and with a sense of
movement in the immateriality of CMC environments (Orientation), such
as in “Yesterday I’d have been happy to jump into a virtual lifeboat; I felt a
bit like a castaway”. Depending on the learning speed and the rhythm they
experienced, they talked about their travel in the new world of the course
through representations of (for example) navigators and explorers, means
of transport, and animals. Sometimes the topic of their discourse was the
journey itself and the various kinds of actions associated with finding one’s
way around the virtual space.

The latter (Context) refers to the several iconic representations used to

depict the components of the course context in which participants were
immersed. In this case, figurative language was used to give a soul to
inanimate objects (Animation), such as the computer as in “You are
CRAZY! Don’t you know that these contraptions have eyes, ears and a
tongue? Don’t you know that they love playing tricks and being the centre
of attention?”; or to give a body to immaterial entities (Embodiment), such
as the CMC environment that was materialized through images of
expanding cities or a dance hall after a party as in “I felt like I was in a
dance hall, or a club after the party was over: cans everywhere, empty
bottles everywhere, scraps, shreds, writing … some items of clothing as
well, showing us how life in there had been lived in every way, to the very
ending”.

These results show that metaphors and figurative language allowed

participants to represent their affective domain and to conceptualize the
main learning components giving themselves and other participants shape
and body, disguising their corporeity and making it move in different
settings, as well as to give body and soul to the incorporate elements of the
learning setting. They used figurative language with the effect of changing
the shared ontological status of people and objects, and at the same time to
make affordable their learning experience.
4. Metaphors and online argumentation

Most of the time, online learning implies discussions among peers. In a

specialist university course on Psychology of E-learning held at the
University of Bari during the 2009–2010 academic year, 40 students were
required to discuss all the educational material provided by the teacher in a
web-forum. The course was delivered in a blended mode, which implied
two weekly face-to-face encounters, during which the professor gave
classes, and the online activities were discussed and assessed carefully to
specifically support interaction and knowledge building (e.g. Ligorio &
Annese 2010; Ligorio & Sansone 2009).

The course lasted 12 weeks and comprised five modules. The students
were split into three groups to whom the same tasks were assigned. The
content of the tasks was different for each module but the process was the
same: the professor launched a question guiding the modules, and all the
activities were aimed at reaching a shared answer. The professor selected
educational materials concerning the topic of the module (e.g. book
chapters, articles), assigned to each student one piece of material to read
and, right after, students were supposed to write a short review about it. The
reviews were meant to highlight the elements contained in the reading
material useful to answering the research question. All the reviews were
posted online and students read all of them with the aim of negotiating a
common shared answer. Later, as group work, students prepared a cognitive
map organizing the various points comprising the answer to the research
question guiding the module. All these activities were aimed at replacing
forms of rote learning with forms organized around discussion and group
work. A free platform, called Synergeia, was used as a virtual space.
 While reading the web-forum discussions we noticed that students
produced many metaphors. The research questions guiding the analysis of
the metaphors produced by students were: (1) when metaphors appeared, in
what phase of the discussion, and (2) what happens once a metaphor
appears; do the other students use it, and how?

Through qualitative content analysis, applied to 1290 notes, we looked

in particular for metaphors generated during the discussion focused on the
research question launched by the teachers. First, two researchers
independently individuated the metaphors; later the outcomes of the two
researchers were compared and divergent cases were discussed with a third
researcher till a total agreement was achieved. Through content analysis
143 metaphors were found. We considered as unit of analysis one or more
sentences, with connected meaning referring to the same metaphor.
Metaphors were found in more or less 30% of the notes analyzed. It should
be considered that a note containing a metaphor could also contain different
types of content and that the same metaphors could be mentioned in several
notes.

Differently from the study presented in the previous section, the face-
to-face meetings were frequent so it was no longer reasonable to assume
that they could be considered as special events able to generate metaphors.
Rather, we segmented the discussions into the six following phases: (a)
quoting: during this phase students mainly quoted the educational materials
and the teacher’s lectures; (b) summarizing: students attempted to
summarize what has been discussed; (c) commenting: students commented
on the discussion; (d) proposing: personal, new and original theories were
elaborated; (e) building on: a theory proposed by a peer was taken up and
further developed; (f) new questions: aimed at replacing the starting
module-question proposed by the teacher.
 43% of the metaphors appeared in the “proposing” phase, while 28%
emerged in the “quoting” phase and 11% when “commenting” on the
discussion. Both during the “summarizing” and “building on” phases, 7%
of the metaphors was produced, and during the “new question” phase only
4% of the metaphors was generated.

These results show metaphors were mainly used when students were
involved in a productive phase, when they were attempting to propose
something personal and new. Indeed, almost half of the metaphors (43%)
appeared during the proposing phase. When students attempted to propose
their personal point of view was when they most needed metaphors. A nice
example is given in the excerpt reported later on, where a student uses the
image of two roads to propose her idea about the interconnection between
online and offline learning. Presumably, students took advantage of the
communicative power of metaphors to describe the new concepts they were
elaborating to the group.

We also wanted to inquire about the social dimension of the

metaphors, in other words what happened once a metaphor was proposed.
Did other students take it up? If so, how and when? In order to answer
these questions we traced the birth and the evolution of the metaphors
during a discussion. In particular, we checked whether a new-born
metaphor was re-proposed by other students in the discussion just as it was
originally or whether changes or re-elaborations were added.

To proceed in this analysis, the following five categories were created:

(a) Start: a new metaphor appeared; (b) Quoting: when a metaphor was
taken up but no changes were proposed; (c) Restart: when the metaphor
was taken up with modifications or a different metaphor was proposed as a
replacement for the starting one; (d) Critique: when the metaphor was
criticized but left unchanged.
 To understand how these categories were chained one to the other a
sequential analyses test was performed. This test reports the probability for
each category to be followed by one of the other categories. The results
obtained show how most of the time (56%) the starting metaphor was
revised by at least one student, whilst only 3% of the cases contained a
critique. Furthermore, when one student took up a metaphor, most of the
time a second student also commented on that metaphor. This snowball
effect tells us that metaphors quickly become socially shared; they are no
longer individual ideas but part of the collective reasoning.

To give a better idea of how a metaphor developed, we describe here

the case of the metaphor generated by Valentina 2 about the relationship
between online and offline learning models. Below is reported the first
excerpt where the metaphor appeared. To facilitate reading we have marked
the precise utterance containing the metaphor in italics.

Excerpt 1

Subject: Try to imagine, by Valentina, 2009-11-23

If we imagine the online and offline learning as two roads,

how do you think we can represent them? Like two roads only
initially crossing or two roads constantly and increasingly
contributing to each other? I think it is more like the second
image …

Valentina was proposing the metaphor of “two roads” as a way to explore

how the group conceives the connection between online and offline
learning. She was openly asking for comments (“what do you think…”)
and right after Mina posted the following note:
 Excerpt 2

Subject: dna, by Mina, 2009-11-23

They always cross …. Do you know how the DNA is

structured? … I figure them like that …. They touch each other
and they cross….

Mina took up Valentina’s metaphor about the road crossing and she
elaborated a new metaphor: the DNA. Promptly another member of the
group, Marisa, further revised the DNA metaphor:

Excerpt 3

Subject: dna, by Marisa, 2009-11-23

The image of the DNA double helix is in my opinion the best

icon to represent the two learning methodologies.

Now DNA is clearly defined as a double helix. The life of this metaphor
ended with Giusy’s note:

Excerpt 4

Subject: Summarizing our discussion …, by Giusy, 2009-11-23

If we actually opt for the DNA double helix I think we have

to exclude the initial idea we had, according to which the
traditional models are starting points for the online learning …
according to this new idea the two types of learning cross each
other … Actually, I rather think traditional models influence
online learning… like a light bulb able to initially illuminate the
 road to follow and later online learning becomes independent …a
kind of support.

Giusy suggested that the original metaphor of the road crossing should be
abandoned and a new metaphor was generated: a light bulb. The path
followed by this metaphor also revealed an interesting function: as a tool to
reciprocally and collaboratively check how concepts were understood. By
going from the crossing road, to the DNA helix and, finally, to the light
bulb these students were sharing and building their understanding of the
concept studied. In this case, the metaphor works as a mirror, where
students can externalize and test the way they are conceptualizing what it is
studied. Therefore, offering a metaphor to depict what has been understood
could be considered as a practice to replace rote learning in a context of
online collaborative learning.

This type of process is very similar to what Cameron (2003, 2007,

2010; Cameron & Maslen 2010) defined as ‘metaphor shifting’. Indeed, our
focus was on the dynamic nature of metaphors used by people in
conversation. What we think is specific to our analysis is that we looked at
the educational nature of the metaphor shifting whilst students are talking
to their peers. This type of metaphor shifting is guided by the students’
need not only to adjust and to adapt contingently the discourse, but also to
collectively agree on the meaning assigned to both the metaphors under
development and the concept metaphorized, looking for a higher level of
consistency.

5. Conclusions
In this chapter we wanted to illustrate how learning through metaphors not
only sustains the understanding of concepts, but also participation in virtual
environments and the development of written peer-discussion, typical of
online learning.

The two research studies we presented both inquired about educationa

learning experiences, with some degrees of difference. The first involved
student teachers challenging themselves in a new learning experience. For
most of these adults, being online represented a novelty and the face-to-
face meetings, as shown by the results, functioned as cathartic moments to
revitalize the online activities sustained by the production of metaphors.
The second study concerned a university course where students are in
general accustomed to technology and the faceto-face encounters occurred
on a regular basis. Nevertheless, for these students the blended course
constituted an innovation in terms of learning experience. Therefore, the
two cases discussed report the different functions metaphors can cover in
online learning contexts. In the first case, metaphors sustain participation,
emotional sharing and mark relevant moments such as face-to-face
encounters. In the second case, the production of metaphors is anchored to
the phases of discussion and the process of collective knowledge building.

Finally, we can conclude by stating that the metaphors produced

during online educational experiences have specific and peculiar features
mirroring the specificity of the situation. In any case, analysing the quality
and the nature of the metaphors and how students react to them could be a
way to assess and monitor the quality of the online activities.

Notes

1. With “figurative language” we refer to the iconic use of language aimed at expressing a non-
literal meaning: not just metaphors, but also other figures of speech such as hyperboles, idioms,
understatement, similes, etc. (Roberts & Kreuz 1994).

2. All the names are pseudonyms in order to guarantee anonymity.

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 Metaphor in sign language
poetry
Rachel Sutton-Spence
Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil

This chapter is concerned with the relationship between the visual modality of sign

languages and metaphor in signed poetry, where poets use highly iconic devices to create

metaphors in new and ingenious ways. Sign language poetry is prized for its highly visual

signing, ‘showing while telling’ (Cuxac & Sallandre 2007, 15), to present often profound

moral or philosophical observations. Poets use exceptionally strong visual signs, which

could be considered the most direct method of linguistic communication, to present the

familiar in an unfamiliar way for their audiences. Drawing upon examples from British

Sign Language (BSL) poems collected at www.bristol.ac.uk/bslpoetryanthology, I will

explore the ways that the physical options afforded to signers by the human body affect the

choice and form of metaphors in signed poetry. By extending options available for signed

communication in this essentially entertaining form of language, poets can communicate at

several levels (with visual images, metonyms and metaphor) at once. Although my

observations relate to BSL, they should readily extend to other signed languages as they

are all embodied, visual languages. Additionally, given the highly gestural nature of the

signs used in poetry, the performance of these poets can further our understanding

generally of the relationship between metaphor and gesture.

Key words

poetry; sign language; gesture; embodiment; visual imagery

1. Introduction
Sign language poets, with their ultimate aim to entertain (while frequently
achieving many other objectives along the way), manipulate their language
to increase the communicative power of their words and generate within
their audience the strongest emotions possible. This can be done – and
frequently is done – by creating and presenting intense visual images
through established signs or drawing on the visual processes behind signs
to move beyond sign language. In addition to the direct, literal
interpretation of these visual images, poets and their audiences can work
together to communicate and experience emotions created through the
embodied metaphors produced in the embodied language. Even if the poet
did not intend a particular metaphor, audiences can draw upon the
fundamental elements of the signs to find additional meaning that satisfied
them.

It is not enough to ask how signing poets produce metaphors in their

poems; we must also ask why they select and present these metaphors. The
poets and their audiences draw upon their shared knowledge of the body’s
ability to experience the world and communicate those experiences to
understand their metaphors. Cienki (2008, 20–21) has raised the question
‘To what degree is the nature of the metaphors we use structured by the
media we have at our disposal to express them?’ and goes on to call for
empirical study of ‘the question of whether different types of metaphor are
being expressed more in gesture than in words and whether different
categories of metaphor are being expressed more in certain types of
gestures than in others’ (2008, 21). Speakers use sounds in their voices to
promote metaphors (Kendon 2004; S. Wilcox et al. 2010); writers can use
the resources available to the written form (font, style and placement on the
page, for example) to develop them1; and in the physical, visual medium of
gesture or sign, some physical aspect of a referent frequently motivates the
visual gesture. The fact that people use their body to produce gestures and
signs means that they must select visual aspects of referents that can be
represented by the body. The examples presented here are offered as a start
to address Cienki’s question, as I consider the gestural elements of signers’
creative metaphors.

Non-signers’ gestures produced either consciously or unconsciously

by speakers (made with or without speech) with no knowledge of sign
language are frequently considered metaphorical in a range of ways
(McNeill 1992, 2008; Mittelberg 2008; Muller 2008; Kendon 2004). As
extensive work has shown that gestures are also used in sign languages,
exploration of signed poetry can inform gesture and metaphor studies.

Signs in sign languages may be seen on a continuous scale of frozen

vocabulary (with reduced or no clear iconicity, and used by signers to ‘tell’)
to highly productive signs (highly iconic and constructed by signers to
deliberately ‘show’ something). Using the term ‘Highly Iconic Structures’,
Cuxac (2000) has identified three transfer operations and structures that
enable signers to deliberately ‘show’ referents as part of discourse: Transfer
of Person (in which the whole body is used to reproduce the actions of an
entity – usually human but possibly animal or even inanimate), Transfer of
Situation (in which the hands represent the spatial movement of entities in a
scene) and Transfer of Form (in which the hands show the size and shape o
referents, usually by sketching their dimensions). Abstract concepts that
cannot be represented directly may be shown metaphorically (Cuxac &
Sallandre 2007 give the example of a Transfer of Form showing a large
skull to mean ‘intelligent’) or metonymically (Poggi 2008 notes that the
idea of ‘dictatorship’ may be shown by Transfer of Person adopting the
posture and actions of a prototypical dictator). Highly Iconic Structures can
‘degenerate’ and become less visual in favor of more economical linguistic
production or perception, leading to the creation of frozen signs, but what
becomes semantically dormant can be awoken at any time. We will see how
poets use the physical options available to them to produce these three
iconic transfers, and how they revitalize the dormant elements of some
signs.

Previous research on iconicity, metonymy and metaphor in sign

languages has focused particularly on the frozen, vocabulary of non-poetic
signing (e.g. Brennan 1992; Jarque 2005; S. Wilcox 2000). In these frozen
signs many of the metaphors that once motivated the vocabulary have
become dormant, if not dead (Müller 2008). Signers no longer see either
the metaphors or the iconic nature of the signs. Russo (2008) gives an
example of frozen metaphor in the Italian sign ‘understand’ which uses a
grasping motion, clearly metaphorical in its origin (UNDERSTANDING IS
GRASPING ) but signers are not aware of this metaphor when they use the
sign. These frozen signs, however, are less the focus of sign language poets
who produce highly iconic structures. Pietrandrea and Russo (2007) note
that signs manifesting what they term ‘highly dynamic iconicity’, where
poets create signs that clearly intend to ‘show’ or illustrate the referent, on
average make up over 50% of a poem. As poetry makes extensive use of
metaphor, and signed poetry uses dynamic iconicity extensively (Ormsby
1995; Taub 2006; Russo, Giuranna & Pizzuto 2001; Sutton-Spence 2005),
we can use signed poetry to see how dynamic iconicity creates metaphors.

Any iconic sign is metonymic, by definition, because selection of one

visual image to represent the whole referent involves metonymy. Any
mental model must be based on our world experiences as embodied beings
(Taub 2001), but for signers the mental model is also expressed through an
embodied language so any image selected must be physically possible for a
manual language. For example, signers may have many mental models of
an octopus based on taste, smell, touch or sight and the visual medium of
signing will predispose them to select a visual experience to convey the
meaning. However, not all visual elements can be represented using the
human body: an octopus can communicate by changing color but a signer
cannot show this through direct embodiment. On the other hand, an octopus
swims in a characteristic way and has many legs, and this could be
represented by using the fingers and thumbs to be understood as its legs.
The fingers may open and close to reflect the way an octopus moves its
legs when swimming. In this one-handed sign, there are only five ‘legs’
(because that is all that is physically available for the human hand) yet this
compromise works well for the sign.

Iconic signs may also use metonyms metaphorically to represent

abstract concepts, incorporating images of concrete objects or actions
within a sign. In sign languages, there is a distinction between conceptual
metaphors that can be embodied and thus can be represented linguistically
by iconic-metonymic signs – and those which cannot, and thus can only be
represented conceptually (by ‘purely’ metaphorical operation). For
example, signs with ‘good’ and ‘bad’ connotations may be placed higher or
lower in signing space, directly spatially embodying the conceptual
metaphor of GOOD IS UP (seen in English, for example in ‘moving up the
chain of command’; ‘descending into chaos’). GOOD IS OPEN is also used in
signed poetry because the fingers articulating the sign can open or close.
However, GOOD IS LIGHT is a visual metaphor but cannot be directly
embodied in sign language because a signer cannot light up. Signs referring
to lights (lamp, flame, morning) are used to express the conceptual
metaphor in the Bristol sign language poetry anthology (and are in many
sign language poems, where light symbolizes many positive aspects of the
visual world of signers) but the signs themselves do not rely on embodying
the metaphor. GOOD IS ON THE RIGHT is not commonly seen in sign
languages because the bilateral symmetry of the body and the handedness
of signers make left-right distinctions in sign languages unproductive
metaphorically (in comparison to spoken languages – see Calibris 2008).

Here I consider some metaphors seen in BSL poetry that rely upon the
use of the body to articulate them: using handshapes and movements to
represent ABSTRACT CONCEPTS HAVE PHYSICAL FORM ; using the eyes to
express UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING ; using metonyms to express the abstrac
concept of time, and using direction and speed of movement to represent
TIME IS SPACE ; selecting handshapes that carry semantic connotations to
represent GOOD IS OPEN ; and varying the height of signs to represent GOOD
IS UP . In all these metaphors the signs used are strongly visually motivated
and are metonymic at some level.

2. Handshapes as entities and for handling – ABSTRACT

CONCEPTS HAVE PHYSICAL FORM

Conceptual metaphors motivating ‘everyday’ language are well attested

(Lakoff and Johnson 1980) and the idea that abstract concepts can be
treated as though they have a physical form has been widely described by
researchers considering spoken languages (e.g. Barnden 1997) and many
sign languages (e.g. Brennan 1990, 2005 in BSL; Taub 2001 and S. Wilcox
2000, 2008 in American Sign Language (ASL) and Jarque 2005 in Catalan
Sign Language). There are many signs established in BSL vocabulary in
which abstract concepts are treated as entities that can be held and
manipulated. These include ‘learn’ and ‘remember’. The sign ‘learn’
represents taking information into the mind, shown as though the hands
hold it and place it inside the head. In the sign ‘remember’, the signer
clenches the fist at head-height, as though to grasp the thought firmly in the
closed fist. Information and memories are abstract and cannot be held, yet
the signs use the metaphorical suggestion that they can be treated as having
physical form, which then can be held in the human hand. We can also see
that the way human hands hold objects matches the way these abstract
ideas are held once they have become treated as concrete. In ‘learn’, the
information is held between the fingers and thumb (see the left hand in
Figure 1 for the handshape used in this sign) suggesting that it may be
easily manipulated and placed into the mind; in ‘remember’ the fist
suggests a much firmer gasp of something that must not be let go. The
signs are also located at head height, suggesting treating THE MIND HAS
PHYSICAL SPACE, seen here as a container (again, a metaphor described in
English, e.g. Barnden 1997).

This metaphor can undergo further metaphorical mapping seen in a

sign suggesting that ideas are not merely held but stored and retrieved in
the head like cards in a filing cabinet. The signer moves the hand away
from the head, as though opening an old-fashioned library catalogue
drawer, while the other hand appears to riffle through index cards and pulls
one out (see Figure 1). Exactly what is found in the mind can vary
depending on the context, so this sign could be used to mean finding
something one has learned, a memory of an experience, or a word. In all
meanings, the metaphors that ideas are concrete and located in the head
allow a physical sign that would be used to refer to handling real index
cards to be made at the head. The eyes show also COGNIZING AS SEEING, as
the signer looks up at the cards to find the correct one.
Figure 1.

Storing and retrieving concepts in your head like cards in a filing cabinet

We must note that the handshapes used to create this highly metaphorical
sign are underspecified. We only know that something is gripped with some
strength (here it is the handle of the drawer) and something else is gripped
with some delicacy (the card that represents the mental item). As Russo and
Pietrandrea (2007) have emphasized, the linguistic context will allow
audiences to interpret their meaning – specifically in this case, the linguistic
context includes the understanding that a metaphor is being used.

Giving concrete form to abstract concepts is seen in two poems about

identity by Richard Carter (Identities) and Donna Williams (Who am I?)
where ‘identity’ has physical form. Both poems also build on the metaphor
described by Barnden (1997) MIND PARTS AS PERSONS, in which the
‘multiple selves’ metaphor, treating self and subject separately and
implying that a person has an inner and an outer self, conceptualized as
social roles (Lakoff & Johnson 1999; Kövecses 2005), allows that a
person’s mind can be treated as though it has parts that are people in their
own right. The conceptual metaphors in spoken languages must necessarily
be mediated by words that tell us the metaphors; in these poems the poets
use their bodies to show these metaphors.

In Identities, as different parts of the poet’s personality leave his body

to debate with him (Figure 2 (a)) the poet uses the upright index finger as
part of Transfer of Situation to show the strong and self-assured elements o
identity as independent agents. The sign referring to the identity is widely
used in Transfers of Situation to represent human beings. Using the same
sign to represent his identity, Richard Carter allows the abstract concept to
move as though it is a human. It also enables the human in the poem to
converse with the abstract concept because it has enough human properties
through the sign’s form for audiences to accept that it can also use
language. ‘Poet’ and ‘aspect of self ’ communicate in normal sign
language, developing the metaphor of ‘inner language’ described by
Barnden where debate occurs between parts of the self (‘Part of Mike was
insisting that Sally had left for good’, Barnden 1997, 313).

In Who am I? the weaker and less self-assured elements of identity are

more passive objects to be manipulated by the signer (Figure 2 (b)). Donna
Williams uses a handshape to indicate how a human might manipulate
something concrete. This abstract entity is treated as though it is small
enough and light enough to hold between the fingers, but it is not capable
of independent movement.

Thus the primary metaphor that ABSTRACT CONCEPTS HAVE PHYSICAL

FORM is used to construct much more complex metaphors as it leads to
IDENTITY HAS A PHYSICAL FORM (Grady 1997). The metaphorical
implications of the self-assured identity in Carter’s poem and the weaker
identity in Williams’ poem are shown specifically by the use of the body’s
articulators, showing how the choice of iconic sign strengthens, extends
and enriches the metaphors in the poem.
Figure 2.

Identity concepts

(a)

Independent identity moves independently in Richard Carter’s poem

Identities

(b)

Identity is held in Donna Williams’ poem Who am I?

3. Use of the eyes – COGNIZING IS SEEING

Once the abstract concept has been allocated a physical form, the poet can
show it to the audience and the poetic characters can see it, so we have one
more metaphorical idea that IDENTITY CAN BE SEEN . This thus allows the
poets to use the metaphor KNOWING IS SEEING. Cuxac and Sallandre (2007)
remark upon the importance of the use of the signer’s eyes in any Transfer
structures, and sign language poets use eyes extensively to develop
metaphors.

One example involves an idiomatic BSL sign using Transfer of Person

that literally means ‘look-inside-your-clothing’ but metaphorically means
‘attempt-toknow-yourself ’. In this sign the hands move as though pulling a
shirt away from the body, in a gesture interpreted metaphorically as
opening the self, and the eyes look questioningly into the space of ‘self ’
created (Figure 3). Self-knowledge is treated as visible (as we saw above)
and the act of looking into yourself entails a quest with the ultimate result
of knowing or understanding. Thus the eyes sign ‘look’, which then is
interpreted as meaning seeking-understanding. This use of non-manual
elements creates an even stronger embodiment of the metaphor as more
parts of the body are recruited for the sign. It also actively drives the
metaphor because human physiology means one can easily look down into
the chest. The raised eyes struggle to show ‘looking through the
metaphorical index cards’ in Figure 1 because the sign is articulated above
the eyes. Thus we can see that physical convenience of articulation drives
the form of the metaphor attempt-to-know-yourself and actually contributes
to the selection of the metaphor locating the mentally constructed concept
of the self in the chest rather than in the head. P. Wilcox (2007) has
observed that some sign languages (including Japanese and Catalan) locate
aspects of the mind in the torso but others (including American and British)
do not. However, BSL poets, recognizing the potential for development of
the metaphor can deviate from the language norms and explore this new
location. In Donna Williams’ Who am I? this conventional metaphorical
sign is extended as she peers into herself to seek to know herself and then
reaches in and pulls out elements of her identity which she holds up for
closer visual examination, as we can see from the direction of the gaze in
Figure 2 (b).

Figure 3.

Attempt to know yourself by looking into yourself

4. Space and speed – Time is space and speed of time

is speed of signing

The use of space to express time is well attested in spoken languages, with
Lyons (1977) arguing that the inherent localism of languages leads to
temporal expressions being derived from locatives. As Veale et al. (1998)
have observed, spoken languages may structure conceptions around space,
but sign languages can use space for both conception and expression.

The real space inhabited by the physical form of the signer can be
used to represent embodied metaphors referring to time. Again, it is
important to remember that there are many visual aspects of ideas linked to
time that the human body cannot show linguistically (for example the
signer cannot develop wrinkles or change hair color as part of reference to
time). The use of space is freely available for the human body to use,
however, and the joints in our arms allow us to move our hands forwards
and back. At the lexical level, TIME IS SPACE is used in BSL as a conceptual
metaphor (Kaneko & Sutton-Spence 2011). It has long been recognized (for
example Frishberg & Gough 1973; Brennan 1992) that moving the hands
forward in signs relating to time implies time moving forward (and thus
future) and moving them backward implies time moving back (and thus
past) and these are so deeply embedded in signing that they are no longer
considered metaphorical by most signers (Pietrandrea & Russo 2007;
Cuxac & Sallandre 2007; and S. Wilcox et al. 2010).

Within the poems found in the BSL anthology, there are relatively few
creative examples of these spatial time metaphors. Instead poets refer to
time using creative metonyms. In John Wilson’s poem Time, which asks
the simple but profound question ‘What is time?’, a range of signs are used
to refer to time. Again we can see that the physical nature of the signs is
drawn into a larger metaphor for the poem. In order to answer the question
‘what is time?’ the signer has to answer a related question ‘how can signs
show time?’ The most widespread sign in BSL to refer to time is made by
pointing to the wrist where a wristwatch would be (Figure 4 (a)). John
Wilson’s poem includes the use of the metonymic wristwatch, extends the
idea to a candle burning down, sand moving in an hour-glass, and finally
‘the path between the cradle and the grave’. Notably, as part of poetic
structure, each metonymic choice is signed using the same handshape
(Figure 4).
Figure 4.

Metonymic poetic signs referring to Time

(a) (b) (c)

conventional sign time candle-burns sand-slips-through-an-hourglass

(d)

cradle path grave

Signers also manipulate their signing speed as a means of iconically or

metaphorically representing the notion of the passing of time. Although
speed of movement of signs refers to that speed of movement, signing
speed can also show that something appeared to move slowly or quickly.
They can map common temporal notions such as ‘protracted duration’ or
‘temporal compression’ (Evans 2004; Evans & Green 2007) and also
metaphorically represent unreality. The unreality of slow movement in
signs is mapped onto the unreality of what is being expressed such as a
dream world, a memory or a fantasy (Niedzialkowski 1993). Again, this is
shown directly by the body. Poets slow the movement of their signs to
show protracted duration as events that happen quickly appear to last for a
long time and also imply an air of unreality – for example leaping to catch
a bullet in the hand before it strikes a child in Richard Carter’s Children’s
Park (Kaneko & Sutton-Spence 2011).

5. Handshape semantics – good is open

All signs in BSL necessarily have a handshape, which may be determined

by a range of factors, including semantic connotations. Within the lexicon
there is a noticeable association between open flat handshapes and signs
with positive connotations. Similarly, clawed handshapes often convey
negative connotations. Signs with open handshapes and positive
connotation include ‘clean’, ‘happy’, ‘sure’, ‘wonderful’, ‘relaxed’,
‘applaud’, ‘lucky’, ‘holiday’, ‘like’ and ‘love’. Signs with clawed
handshapes and negative connotation include, ‘nervous’, ‘accident’, ‘thief
’, ‘poor’, ‘put-up-with’, ‘jealous’, ‘angry’, ‘fear’, ‘moody’ and ‘miserly’.
Although there are open handshape negatives (‘pain’, ‘corrupt’, ‘ashamed’,
‘darkness’) and clawed handshape positives (‘interesting’, ‘exciting’,
‘living’) they are far less frequent.

Table 1 shows findings from Kaneko’s (2011) review of signs from the
Dictionary of British Sign Language/ English (1991) in relation to
handshape and connotation.

Table 1. Proportion of BSL signs with plain and bent handshapes with
positive and negative connotations

Negative signs Neutral signs Positive signs Total signs

Plain handshapes 15% 78% 7% 1896

Bent handshapes 21% 75% 3% 226

This effect is seen strongly with the two variants of the 5 handshape , in
which all fingers and thumb of the hand are open and spread – with fingers
open and fingers clawed (Table 2).

Table 2. Proportion of BSL signs with plain and bent ‘5’ handshapes with
positive and negative connotations

Negative signs Neutral signs Positive signs

Open 5 handshapes 6% 72% 22%

Clawed 5 handshapes 31% 65% 4%

This semantic relation with handshape is exploited in BSL poetry.

Additionally, poets may select handshapes for signs without particular
connotations but which acquire these connotations in a poetic environment
(Kaneko & Sutton-Spence 2012). Nigel Howard’s BSL haiku Deaf is made
entirely with signs having open 5 handshapes about the happy experience
of having a child (Figure 5 (a), showing the signs ‘birth’, ‘cradle-baby’,
‘ask-if-baby-is-deaf ’ and ‘hand-baby-to-medicalprofession’) until the final
sign that means implanting a baby with bilateral cochlear implants (in
Figure 5 (b)). This final act of implantation (seen by many deaf people as
an attack on their humanity) is made powerfully effective by the change of
handshape from open to clawed. The sign ‘cochlear-implant’ is an
established vocabulary item that already has a negative connotation for
many BSL users but most of the other signs with the open handshape are
neutral in their connotations out of the poetic context. It is only in the
poetic context that they gain their additional meaning.
Figure 5.

Signs with positive and negative connotations

(a)

Signs with a positive connotation and open handshape in Nigel Howard’s

poem Deaf

(b)

Sign with negative connotations and a ‘clawed’ handshape

6. Division of signing space – POWERFUL IS UP

The widespread use of orientational metaphors in spoken languages has

also been described extensively in sign languages (for example Wilbur
1990; P. Wilcox 2000, 2007). Dividing signing space into higher and lower
is not particularly easy for our anatomy (compared, for example, to left and
right which suits our bilateral bodies’ anatomy well) but higher and lower
signs can easily allow metaphors such as GOOD IS UP and POWERFUL IS UP
to be embodied in BSL vocabulary, and are easily distinguished because the
upper and lower parts of the body are physically very different (as the head
looks different from the waist). For example, ‘confident’ is made at chest
height but ‘over-confident’ is articulated jocularly above the head and
‘very-diffident’ is articulated below the waist (Figure 6).

Figure 6.

Witty extensions of the sign ‘confident’ exploiting more is up and good is

up

In Paul Scott’s poem Blue Suit, Mrs. Thatcher’s rise and fall from power
and Princess Diana’s rise and fall in public affections are reflected in the
use of space. Figure 7 (a) shows how the hand can be raised in space to
show a rise in power/ grace and how it can be lowered to show the fall from
power/grace. However, Paul Scott’s poem takes this metaphor even further
by using signs that rise and fall without any intrinsic meaning of ‘good’ or
‘bad’ to reinforce the image. The sign commonly used in BSL to refer to
Mrs. Thatcher indicates a long curved nose (probably motivated by the
popular cartoons by Gerald Scarfe which caricatured the shape of her nose)
and this sign sketches the slope upwards and then downwards, following
the same movement as we see in rise and fall from power/ grace. For
Princess Diana, the sign showing the sparkle from her famous sapphire
engagement ring rises and the hands then rise further to show the maidenly
blush spreading up the princess’s cheeks in a Transfer of Person. The hands
then fall again as paparazzi rush towards her in Transfer of Situation
(Figure 7 (b)). Thus we can see, again, that the movement of hands through
space directly matches the selected metaphor, whether through a sign that
directly means rise-to-power/ grace or fall-from-power/grace or through
signs that take on that meaning because of the context of the poem. In all
cases, they are possible representations of the metaphor powerful is up and
popular is up (as popularity is seen in ‘rising in the charts’ and ‘high in
esteem’) because the human body is able to move in this way.

Figure 7.

Movement of hands and space

(a)

rise and fall from power/grace in Paul Scott’s poem Blue Suits

(b)

‘Mrs. Thatcher’, ‘sparkling-ring’ and ‘blushes’ moving up before moving

down, mirroring rise and fall from power/grace

7. Conclusions
Many conceptual metaphors are similar in signed and spoken languages,
perhaps because all users have embodied experiences of the world.
However, in using metaphors from signed poetry we have begun to explore
which metaphors are affected by the medium in which the metaphor is
produced. Frozen, non-iconic signs can be used to create any type of
metaphor in signed poetry, but the linguistic metaphors we find within sign
language poems foreground those conceptual metaphors that can be
directly reflected visually and are driven by the human anatomy (where the
language articulators are the whole body from the trunk up). If this were all
there was to signed metaphor, however, it might be no different from
gestures used by hearing speakers. However, we see complex play with the
internal parameters of signs to create metaphors mediated by the visual
modality of signs. Thus, we may conclude from the examples here that
signers draw upon specific parameters of their language to develop
metaphors, and this process is particularly evident in signed poetry, where
poets set out to take their language far beyond propositional content, using
all their linguistic and performative resources to entertain and generate
powerful emotions in their audiences.

Cienki (2008) has observed that much of the empirical data on gesture
and metaphor has been generated by asking ‘naive’ informants to retell
cartoons through gesture, leading to many examples of gestured metaphors
of motion (probably unconscious on the part of the gesturer) but fewer
abstract metaphors. Expanding our exploration of gesture and metaphor to
the genre of signed poetry where signers are skilled in the communicative
use of gesture and are actively engaged in exploration of profound abstract
concepts such as identity, time and power, has shown the potential for
gestures to represent them metaphorically.
 Future work could consider the work of mime artists, trained to use
gestures communicatively but non-linguistically, who may perform actions
that may be read metaphorically (Kipnis 1974; Niedzialkowski 1993).
Mimes are trained to represent humanity’s ‘inner world’ through action
movements representing performance of actions, character movements that
portray the character habits and quality of a person, spontaneous
movements such as bending the head or raising the fists to show emotions
and descriptive movements that can aim to express thoughts, needs or
describe a person or object (Aubert 1927/1970). If we are to further our
understanding of gesture and metaphor, we could compare the output of
signing poets and mime artists with non-artistic gestures.

Acknowledgements
This work would not have been possible without the talents of the ‘Deaf Beatles’, the poets who
have contributed to the BSL poetry anthology: Richard Carter, Paul Scott, Donna Williams (aka
‘George’ for the project) and John Wilson. I am grateful to them for their kind permission to use
their work. I would also like to thank Michiko Kaneko and Donna West and the anonymous
reviewers for their many ideas and insights and their comments on previous drafts of this chapter.
Nigel Howard and Tim Northam kindly gave permission to use their images in Figure 5 and Figure
6. This work was funded by AHRC grant number AH/G011672/1 and was written with time
provided by the Virginia and Julien Cornell visiting professor fellowship at Swarthmore College,
Pennsylvania.

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 Metaphor and the concept of
sound in contemporary music
Ewa Schreiber
Adam Mickiewicz University

This chapter makes a contribution to musicological research into metaphor. Its purpose is

to analyse the metaphorical concepts of sound in the ideas of three twentieth-century

composers from France and Canada: Pierre Schaeffer (1910– 1995), Raymond Murray

Schafer (born 1933) and Gérard Grisey (1946–1998). Analysis of the composers’ writings

and opinions enables us to characterize the metaphors that influenced their creative

imagination and aesthetic outlook. Their ideas focus on particular metaphors: of the sonic

object (Schaeffer), the soundscape (Schafer), and the sound organism (Grisey). The

conclusions drawn from a comparative analysis of the three composers’ ideas may

contribute to the flourishing research into metaphor and provide new tools for research into

contemporary music.

Key words

music; creativity; aesthetic; imagination; metaphor

1. Introduction

‘There lies, in our most basic apprehension of music, a complex system of

metaphor, which is the true description of no material fact (…) The
metaphor cannot be eliminated from the description of music, because it
defines the intentional object of the musical experience’ – states Roger
Scruton (Scruton 1999, 92). The problem of metaphor aroused the interest
of musicologists in the late 80s. That interest was strengthened by the
growing popularity of interdisciplinary studies and important
methodological trends in the humanities. Due to the ‘linguistic turn’ taken
by philosophy (Rorty 1967), the problems of language and communication
gained special importance. Semiotics inspired studies of musical signs,
whereas cognitive studies generated an interest in psychoacoustics and the
mental representations of music. Metaphor plays an essential role in the
analysis of linguistic, semiotic and conceptual systems; consequently, some
scholars consider it also to be one of the crucial concepts in musicology. 1

However, not all metaphor theories were equally inspiring for

musicologists. Musicological research refers mostly to the cognitive
approach and less often to the interactionist approach. This seems justified
when we realize that it is in cognitive theory that the concept of metaphor
gains a very broad sense, encompassing not only verbal statements, but the
very structure of concepts and the images that lie at their source. From this
point of view, musical concepts can prove just as interesting an object of
study as poetic metaphors. On the other hand, advocates of the
interactionist approach, such as Monroe C. Beardsley and Nelson
Goodman, have often shown more interest in aesthetics than have cognitive
linguists. Some authors argue that cognitive theory, focused on
conceptualization, neglects other important aspects of art, such as poetics
and expression. That is why they refer to previous theory when seeking
profound reflection on the arts. Michael Spitzer refers to Paul Ricoeur’s
theory of ‘living metaphor’ (Spitzer 2004) and his views on poetics,
whereas Simone Mahrenholz is inspired by Goodman’s theory of
expression (Mahrenholz 1998).

Almost every area of musicological studies today has been influenced

by theories of metaphor, including the epistemological status of music and
musicology (Roger Scruton, Nicholas Cook), musical analysis (Naomi
Cumming, Marion Guck), musical expression (Donald Ferguson, Simone
Mahrenholz), musical meaning (Robert Hatten, Vladimir Karbusicky),
musical space and movement (Lawrence Zbikowski, Janna Saslaw,
Candace Brower, Robert Adlington, Arnie Cox) and music history. One of
the most interesting areas of metaphor studies seems to be the musical
thought of the second half of the twentieth century, when radical changes
were taking place in such areas as musical material, its organization,
musical systems and aesthetics. The recorded and electronic sounds that
were being incorporated into music required new compositional methods,
and brought about the development of new genres, new listening situations
and new concert spaces. Composers, conscious of the historical and social
changes afoot, often felt the need for theoretical reflection, to formulate and
communicate their thoughts. Without reference to their writings, it is
difficult to understand not only their own work, but also many ideas
concerning the music of the twentieth century as a whole.

The present article will examine the conceptions of three

contemporary composers: Pierre Schaeffer, Raymond Murray Schafer and
Gérard Grisey (Schreiber 2010, Schreiber 2012). The sound experiments of
Pierre Schaeffer began in the 40s, and their culmination was marked by his
Traité des objets musicaux [Treatise of musical objects], published in 1966.
Raymond Murray Schafer created his ideas in the late 60s, whereas Gérard
Grisey began his compositional work in the 70s. Each of these composers,
creating a new vision of music, became the patron of a new musical
current: musique concrète (Schaeffer), soundscape compositions (Schafer)
and spectral music (Grisey).

The term musique concrète refers to music created with the use of
recorded sounds from all possible sources. In this context, the composer,
using the method of studio montage, extracted musical values from
concrete sonic material. The first pieces of musique concrète included Cinq
études de bruits (1948) by Pierre Schaeffer and Symphonie pour un homme
seul (1950) by Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry. The most mature works
in this current, however, such as Hymnen (1968) by Karlheinz Stockhausen
and Hétérozygote (1963–1964) by Luc Ferrari, were realized almost two
decades later. In soundscape compositions, recorded environmental sounds
are transformed with the use of electroacoustic techniques but remain
recognizable and invoke listeners’ contextual and symbolic associations.
The most notable advocates of this current are Barry Truax and Hildegard
Westerkamp. Spectral music produces unstable, evolving acoustic forms
inspired by the model of the sound spectrum and its inner changes. The
concept of spectral music (Fr. musique spectrale) was developed by French
composers connected with the Ensemble l’Itinéraire: Gérard Grisey,
Hugues Dufourt and Tristan Murail.

Schaeffer, Schafer and Grisey were interested mainly in sound and its
properties. Their artistic creation was motivated by the new possibilities
provided by technology, such as sound recording and its digital analysis. In
the description of complex and heterogeneous musical matter, traditional
categories proved inadequate, hence the search for new vocabulary and the
reference to other disciplines that allowed sound to be presented in all its
richness – as an auditory and aesthetic experience, but also as a social and
acoustic phenomenon. Analysis of these composers’ writings and opinions
enables us to characterize the metaphors that influenced their creative
imagination and aesthetic approach. Their ideas focus on conceptual
metaphors: of the sonic object (Schaeffer), the soundscape (Schafer) and
the sound organism (Grisey).

2. Sound as an Object – Pierre Schaeffer

The French composer, writer and radio engineer Pierre Schaeffer (1910–
1995) started composing in the 1940s, when French Radio opened up a
recording studio to a group of researchers. Whilst working on radio dramas
Schaeffer, fascinated with the new possibilities offered by sound recordings
and transformations, carried out experiments on recorded sounds produced
for radio, and this inspired a new branch of art. 2

Schaeffer was interested first and foremost in grasping and delimiting

the sound. His second main concern was to obtain and communicate
knowledge about it. Schaeffer even tended toward a utopian model of
music communication, according to which each listener should be able to
properly interpret the composer’s intention, as if music could work as a
language (Nattiez 1976, 99). The changes that took place in European
music during the first half of the twentieth century questioned the previous
modes of communication. Schaeffer claimed that the space of
communication between the composer and the listener should be re-
established, not only by musical means but also by the use of language. He
thought that the development of new concepts and vocabulary was a social
issue, because new ideas needed to be constantly verified with the
academic community, composers and audiences.

In order to develop a new language for music description, Schaeffer

chose the concept of the object, which seems very close to what cognitive
theory also knows as ontological metaphor. This kind of metaphor serves
basic cognitive purposes. It enables one to designate, quantify and
recognize various aspects of a phenomenon (Lakoff & Johnson 2003, 25–
32). The metaphor of the sonic object also serves rather limited cognitive
purposes. It is very basic, but at the same time it enables us to describe
sound precisely and in detail.
 The description of a musical object provided by Schaeffer in his Traité
des objets musicaux can serve as a hint to his interpretation of this
metaphor. Typo-morphology provided a first step towards an elaborate
program of musical studies (Programme de la Recherche Musicale or
PROGREMU), which aimed to identify and classify sonic objects and
describe them in detail (Chion 1983, 113). Schaeffer tried to organize the
whole range of sounds that could serve as potential material for music.

Schaeffer’s systematizing tendencies manifest themselves in different

ways. He often uses pairs of notions, in order to show complementary
aspects of the same phenomenon. “Even if there is a dialectic in this
obsession with opposition pairs, it is not the dialectic of contradictions but
rather the dialectic of cognition” 3 – comments Michel Chion (Chion &
Vidal 1970, 5).

The ultimate goal of typo-morphology was the selection of those

sounds which were particularly suited to musical composition. That is why,
as is stressed by Jean-Jacques Nattiez, typo-morphology cannot be
considered a neutral description, but includes a normative element and
creates the germ of a treatise on composition (Nattiez 1976, 104).

The typology consists of two steps: the identification and the

classification of sonic objects. Due to the acoustic qualities of instrumental
sounds, it is easy to distinguish individual notes. However, Schaeffer
sought more universal methods and took into account the energetic
development of sound. The pair of notions ‘articulation/intonation’ helps us
to discern the sonic object within the sonic flow. The moment of
articulation marks the limits of an object, which then achieves a stable form
through intonation. Schaeffer illustrated this phenomenon by means of
examples taken from phonetics, since the sonic flow resembles the
discontinuity of speech, consisting of consonants (moments of impulse) and
vowels (moments of continuity) (Schaeffer 1966, 395–397). The pair
‘form/matter’ (forme/matière) accounts for the most elementary description
of an isolated sonic object. Form refers to the changing parameters of
sound, matter to its constant features likely to be grasped by the listener at a
certain moment. ‘Sustainment’ (entretien) describes the energetic process
sustaining the duration of a sound.

The concept of mass is far more generalized than the traditional

concept of pitch. ‘Mass’ accounts for the area occupied by a sound in the
pitch field (Schaeffer 1966, 516), revealing both its complexity and the
degree of order it displays. Masses of fixed pitch occupy the area between
two acoustic extremes: pure tone and white noise. A ‘tonic sound’ (son
tonique) is characterized by a single defined pitch, whereas a ‘nodal sound’
(son nodal) consists of pitch aggregates. These two categories can mingle
and create a ‘striated sound’ (son cannelé), consisting of tonic or nodal
sounds or groups (Chion 1983, 147). The terms used by Schaeffer reveal an
important tendency in the new idea of sound. The generalized concept of
mass proves that a sound was no longer a single ‘point’, defined by the
parameter of pitch. Tonic sound constituted only one form among others.
The composer was more interested in the internal structure of sound, its
complexity and heterogeneity. The description of such structures was
facilitated by the metaphors of sound strata, which evokes the contact
between different substances; and node, which presents the aggregates of
many different pitch-points. Both metaphors appeal to visual and tactile
experiences.

The notion of ‘facture’, complementary to mass, describes the way in

which the listener perceives various types of sustainment. The variable
development of a sound over time is dependent on the stimulation of the
sound source. As Michel Chion points out, the French word ‘facture’ stems
from ‘faire’, and so it indicates the way the sonic object is made (Chion
1983, 38).

Proper morphology, the last step of typo-morphology, provides an

even more precise study of sonic objects. It consists of seven criteria: mass,
dynamics, harmonic timbre, melodic profile, mass profile, grain and allure.
The notions of ‘grain’ and ‘allure’ are particularly interesting with respect
to the metaphors of physical consistency.

‘Grain’ characterizes the microstructure of a sound, the global

perception of its details and irregularities. ‘This property of sonic matter
makes us think of the grain of a tissue or a mineral’, 4 states Schaeffer
(Schaeffer 1966, 548). Grain types depend on different types of
sustainment. An isolated impulse corresponds to a harmonic (resonance)
grain, a continuous sound to a cohesive grain, and a sound consisting of a
series of impulses to a discontinuous grain (Schaeffer 1966, 553). The
physical nature of sounds does not always account for their actual,
spontaneous perception. That is why Schaeffer, introducing the division of
grain types into classes, uses a qualitative description. The expressions he
uses refer to touch and describe contact with the surface of material objects
A harmonic grain is characteristic of both vibrating sounds and clear
sounds. Between those two extremes, Schaeffer situates the class of
‘swarming’ sounds. Sounds of cohesive grain can be rough, matt or
smooth, whereas sounds of discontinuous grain are thick, compressed or
thin (Schaeffer 1966, 555).

The concepts associated with grain seem the most evocative and, at
the same time, most subjective and difficult to verify. At their source lies
the metaphor of sonic matter, and its description reminds one even of poetic
metaphors that cognitive linguists call ‘one-shot metaphors’, because of
their unique, elusive character (Lakoff & Turner 1989, 89–92). It is also
difficult to discern the subtle changes of grade that allow us to pass from
one verbal expression to another. Schaeffer manages only to mark the
extremes and the central point of a continuous scale.

While the criterion of grain appeals to touch and describes sonic

matter, the criterion of allure evokes kinaesthetic experiences: it is
associated with energy and the dynamism of form (Schaeffer 1966, 556).
‘Allure’ signifies the fluctuation of sound exemplified by instrumental or
vocal vibrato. This criterion helps us to answer the most general question
asked about an encountered object. Is it artificial or natural? Is it hand-
made or produced by machine? Allure indicates a special kind of ‘agent’.
However, the difference between allures does not have to be very distinct.
As Schaeffer stresses, it is immediately perceived and interpreted by the
listener: mechanical objects are perceived to be characterized by regularity,
human activity by periodicity, and unpredictable natural phenomena by
irregularity.

Classes of mass and grain abound in metaphors of matter. The ultimate

goal of Schaeffer’s research was to find sounds that could serve as music
material, but the above-mentioned criteria concern all possible sonic
phenomena. A thorough analysis of such metaphors in music description
has been made by Francesco Spampinato (2008). Spampinato claims that
metaphors of sonic matter are used whenever the sonorous dimension of
music prevails over rhythm, melody or form. Schaeffer focusses on the
sonorous qualities of sound, because the other musical parameters should
be considered later, during the compositional work. The absence of distinct
shapes and contours brings about the recurring reification of sound
perceived in terms of its facture and grain. Its inarticulated character
encourages synaesthetic listening, with all sensory modalities engaged
(Spampinato 2008, 157). The mental basis of such listening is provided by
two conceptual metaphors. The first assumes that PERCEPTION IS PHYSICAL
CONTACT , since bodily contact, realized by movement and touch, is the
most basic relationship with the external world (Spampinato 2008, 142).
The second metaphor, MUSIC IS MATERIAL SUBSTANCE , or, in more general
terms, SOUND IS OBJECT , provides the conceptualization of perceived reality
(Spampinato 2008, 144).

The metaphors of sound as object and music as material substance

proved highly popular with other twentieth-century composers. These
concepts were not limited to recorded or electronic sounds; it also
influenced instrumental music. Iannis Xenakis, for example, used the
images of clouds and grain, mass and molecules (Xenakis 2001), whereas
György Ligeti was especially interested in instrumental texture. He
described different types of the consistency of musical matter and used the
metaphor of tissue (Ligeti 2007). Giacinto Scelsi, for his part, spoke of the
spherical dimension of sound (Hamilton 2003, 46).

According to Spampinato, the metaphors of musical matter are not

limited to the outward similarities of physical and sonic qualities, but refer
also to the expressive values of music. It is no coincidence that the author
also uses the word ‘allure’. This signifies both movement and behaviour.
Spampinato claims that every kind of matter (water, earth, fire, air) is
associated with a special kind of movement, special behaviour, emotional
expression and gesture. Therefore, the metaphor of musical matter is based
not only on relations of similarity (iconic relations) but also on relations of
signification and expression (Spampinato 2008, 149).

Whereas the vocabulary used by Schaeffer in the context of mass and

grain refers rather to external analogies, the criterion of allure is closely
linked to an expressive understanding of musical matter, as the fluctuations
of a sound object express the activity of a fictional subject. The concept of
facture also makes us think of human gestures as the source of sound.

Metaphor also influences the work of the composer. Schafer’s work is

marked by the constant interaction among listening, creating new concepts
and composing. The metaphors underlying the composer’s work stimulated
his music and, depending on the creative results, were constantly tested and
improved.

3. Sound in space – Raymond Murray Schafer

Contrary to Schaeffer, the Canadian composer Raymond M. Schafer (born

1933) is interested in the referential aspects of sound, as well as its
environmental interactions. Schafer has presented his conception in
numerous writings, many of which are devoted to music education. This is
reflected in titles such as The Composer in the Classroom (1965), The New
Soundscape: A Handbook for the Modern Music Teacher (1968) and The
Thinking Ear: Complete Writings on Music Education (1986).

“The world […] is full of sounds. Listen”, writes Schafer (Schafer

1986c, 98). This injunction encapsulates the main message of his writings.
The central concept in Schafer’s reflection on music is that of the
soundscape. This refers to the sonic environment of a particular place, but i
can also describe a musical composition. It is not only considered as an
acoustic phenomenon, but also refers to the human environment and human
perception and to its sociohistorical background.

The soundscape is a field of interactions, even when

particularized into its component sound events. To determine the
way sounds affect and change one another (and us) in field
 situations is immeasurably more difficult a task than to chop up
individual sounds in a laboratory.(Schafer 1994, 131)

According to Schafer, the analysis of contemporary soundscapes counts

among the most important tasks of researchers and artists. 5

Schafer stresses that soundscape analysis requires new vocabulary.

Our culture has been dominated thus far by visual terms and has not
developed adequate words to describe sonic phenomena. Compared to
visual perception, the psychology of aural perception has also been
neglected. 6

The principal element of a soundscape is the ‘sound event’. Contrary

to the elementary metaphor of the object, the metaphor of the sound event
seems more dynamic and context-dependent. According to George Lakoff
and Mark Johnson, the event structure metaphor is one of the most
profound metaphors in our conceptual system (Lakoff & Johnson 1999,
194). It implies a whole series of submetaphors, such as States are
Locations, Changes are Movements, Causes are Forces, and Purposes are
Desired Locations (Lakoff & Johnson 1999, 194). Some of these elements
are implied in the metaphor of the sound event. Firstly, the sound is
interpreted within its specific context and should not be isolated from its
source (cause). Secondly, it builds up a network of interactions between the
other components of a soundscape. Finally, it implies some kind of
movement and encompasses the development of a sound over time.

Though the composer really wants us to listen, his vocabulary is

deeply rooted in visual perception. Schafer introduces some coinages
resulting from direct metaphorical transfer from the visual to the aural
domain. This procedure is based on Schafer’s assumption that certain visua
experiences can have their equivalent in aural perception. The main
distinctions are derived from Gestalt psychology and cover the figure-
ground relationship as well as the notion of the field, understood as the area
where observation takes place. It is worth noting that the same current
inspired both music theory and psychoacoustics in the 80s and 90s.
According to Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, the theory of musical
grouping is an instance of Gestalt theory (Lerdahl & Jackendoff 1983),
whereas Albert Bregman, in his auditory scene analysis, considers the
mechanisms of groupings as the basis of aural perception (Bregman 1990).
The ‘soundscape’ (equivalent to the landscape) accounts for the field of
aural perception. The ‘soundmark’ (equivalent to the landmark) is a unique
sound, perceived in a specific manner by people from a particular
community. It attracts the listener’s attention, just like any other sound
signal, and thus plays the role of a figure. The term ‘keynote sound’,
derived from the musical domain, describes a constantly perceived sound,
such as the sound of the sea or a car engine, which becomes the
background for other sounds. In the acoustic environment, noise is
understood as each undesired signal that masks other sound considered as
important (Schafer 1994, 272–275). The quality of perception is measured
by the noise-signal ratio. In lo-fi (low fidelity), soundscape signals are
overcrowded or masked by noise. Hi-fi (high fidelity) characterizes an
environment in which sounds can be heard clearly (Schafer 1994, 272).
“Schafer’s terminology helps to express the idea that the sound of a
particular locality […] can – like local architecture, customs and dress –
express a community’s identity to the extent that settlements can be
recognised and characterised by their soundscapes”, sums up Kendall
Wrightson (Wrightson 2000, 10).

The visual-aural analogies make the new vocabulary familiar and

adaptable. On the other hand, the new words may seem questionable,
because they are subordinated to visual paradigms, which, as Schafer
himself remarks, “are themselves the product of one set of cultural and
perceptual habits, one in which experience tends to be organized along
perspective lines with foreground, background and distant horizon”
(Schafer 1994, 152–153).

Nicholas Cook discusses the problem of musical multimedia and

argues that the perception of different media, contrary to the experience of
synaesthesia, is based not on their similarity or co-occurrence but on their
perceived interaction. This dynamic relationship is described in terms of
metaphorical cross-domain mapping. “Metaphor provides a model for the
two-way interaction of commensurability and heterogeneity, similarity and
difference” (Cook 1998, 81). Cook also proposes three basic models of
multimedia based on the changing degree of similarity among the
constituent media (conformance, complementation and contest). Schafer
proves that this kind of interaction can serve as an educational tool. The
composer expresses his interest in the visual aspect in a very direct manner.
His writings on music education are full of pictures. 7 In many instances,
he considers visual and auditory parameters to be mutually interchangeable
Simple gestures and shapes drawn on a blackboard encourage pupils to
improvise and stimulate their imagination. In other cases, musical texture
created during improvisation is presented in graphic form (Schafer 1986b,
38–39). Thus the composer conveys knowledge of the elements of a
musical work, each of which is represented by chosen spatial parameters.
Dynamics, for example, are represented by the thickness of a line, duration
by its length and melody by its contour. Texture (dense, clear, transparent,
opaque, etc.) is illustrated with thick or thin lines (Schafer 1986a, 63–64).
Schafer often conducts during improvisations and shows tempo with the
use of more or less violent sound gestures, and articulation with his hands
(fingers and fists) (Schafer 1986b, 31). By transforming sound immediately
into image, the composer communicates not just without words but also
without abstract musical notation. Motivated by his interest in music
education, he created a simple graphic notation encompassing the elements
of improvisation (Schreiber 2014, 138–140). That notation reveals the
communicative dimension of visual metaphors, which can be successfully
used to convey musical qualities negotiated between teacher and pupils. In
this way, Schaeffer also realizes an important aim of his educational
project, namely, to restore the connection between different senses and
different arts: “We separate the senses in order to develop specific acuities
and disciplined appreciation. […] But a total and sustained separation of
the senses results in a fragmentation of experience”, he warns (Schafer
1986d, 249).

According to Eero Tarasti, the musical space can be understood in two

ways: as an inner space identified with pitch space, or as an external space
created as a visual version of the inner space (Tarasti 1994, 77–97). The
externalization of musical space would seem to be a special pedagogical
gift of Schafer. Moreover, the concept of space, in both its literal and its
metaphorical sense, enables us to understand the role of the soundscape
properly. 8 On the one hand, space serves as a metaphor of music. On the
other, the soundscape, which means the real acoustic space, is understood
in terms of music.

Lawrence Zbikowski argues that another very common device in

music theory besides cross-domain mapping is the more complex process
of conceptual blending (Zbikowski 2002, 77), which involves more
specialized and limited mental spaces instead of vast areas of knowledge
represented by a source and target domain. The unidirectionality of
metaphorical mapping is also less important. The input spaces consist of
information from different cognitive domains; the generic space includes
their common structures. Blended space is filled with selected elements of
input spaces, forming a new emergent structure.

When Schaeffer tries to blend the two concepts, he underlines their

common features, and he tries to form a generic structure in terms of
conceptual blending theory. On the one hand, “Every piece of music is an
elaborate soundscape which could be plotted in three-dimensional acoustic
space” (Schafer 1986a, 57). The composer reminds us that the concept of
the soundscape does not need to imply an illustrative, programmatic
element, but refers to a space filled with acoustic phenomena. The space
remains empty until a sound becomes audible: “There is no ‘land’ in a
soundscape” (Schafer 1986a, 57). In the opinion of Hans Ulrich Werner, the
notion of acoustic space, which played an increasing role in the music of
the twentieth century, and the notion of soundscape have a great deal in
common. They cover the character and orientation of sound objects,
movement, and the joint action of individual elements.

On the other hand, the acoustic environment can be analysed in terms

of composition. As Schafer states, “The most vital ‘musical’ composition
of our time is being played on a world stage” (Schafer 1986c, 153).
“Portions of the world symphony have already been played and will not be
repeated: the steam engine, the horse-drawn carriage, the cracking of whips
[…], the coal-oil lamp” (Schafer 1986c, 157). The resulting, emergent
structure – the soundscape – encompasses both the music and the acoustic
environment.

The spatial view of sound influences the mathematical approach to

musical compositions. Schafer is inspired by both medieval polyphony and
serial techniques of the twentieth century. He uses palindromes and canons
in Five Studies on Texts by Prudentius (1962), and serial technique and
isorhythm in Canzoni for Prisoners (1962). He argues that some devices,
such as canon, fugue and palindrome, would not be possible without
notation and its visual dimension. Thus the listener can observe an
immobile landscape that is close to the MUSICAL LANDSCAPE metaphor, one
of the three basic conceptualizations of musical motion presented by
Larson and Johnson (Johnson & Larson 2003, 71–73). Schafer also has a
fondness for stereophonic effects, and he tries to evoke the structure of a
real event and a real landscape that we are passing. “The sonic environment
is a plenum, for the world is always full of sounds. They come from far and
near […] They enter and depart in processions as events pass us or we past
them. This is why the music of the streets has no beginning or end but is all
middle” (Schafer 1992, 36). This kind of experience seems closer to the
moving music metaphor (Johnson & Larson 2003, 69–71).

The metaphors used by Schafer inspire his work in many respects.

They influence the musical form and composition techniques, the graphic
notation and the performance situation. They also play a central role in his
educational work.

4. Sound as an Organism – Gérard Grisey

The organic metaphor underlines the dynamic aspects of sound and its
integral structure. It is associated with unity, growth, and the tension
between a whole and its parts (Solie 1980, 148–150). The development of a
single sound over time resembles birth, gradual growth and death. The
internal structure and internal development of a sound is revealed in the
dynamic and complex model of the sound spectrum. This probably explains
why the organic metaphor was adopted by the French composer, Gérard
Grisey (1946–1998), who was especially interested in the living, acoustic
nature of sound.
 From now on it is impossible to think of sounds as defined
objects which are mutually interchangeable. They are alive like
cells, with a birth, life and death, and above all tend towards a
continual transformation of their own energy. There exists no
sound which is static, immobile, any more than the rock strata of
mountains are immobile.(Grisey 1987, 270)

Grisey was strongly influenced by information theory and new

technologies in computer science. Psychoacoustic research carried out by
Jean-Claude Risset and David Wessel (Risset & Wessel 1982; Risset 1991)
showed that the structure of a single sound is unstable and heterogeneous.
Its components, such as timbre, pitch and duration, should be considered
not as separated parameters, but as a network of mutual interactions.
Precise analysis enabled by information technology also changed the scale
of sound perception. The new acoustic parameters were not of
macroscopic, but of microscopic scale (Dufourt 2004, 49).

For Grisey, “Real musical time is only a place of exchange and

coincidence between an infinite number of different times” (Grisey 1987,
274). The composer’s reflection shows that the organic metaphor has great
potential. According to Grisey, the experience of musical time takes place
in various contexts and assumes various forms. The body, just like musical
time, forms a complex, multilayered organism. It can be seen from differen
perspectives, on a different scale. Its functions can be observed on different
levels, some more static, others more dynamic.

The idea of the multiplicity and exchange of times is clearly evoked in

Grisey’s carefully structured ‘anatomy of time’, consisting of three tissues:
the ‘skeleton of time’ (quantitative approach) covers the temporal divisions
that the composer uses to organize sounds; the ‘flesh of time’ (qualitative
approach) encompasses phenomenological and psychological aspects of the
musical work; the ‘skin of time’ touches the private, unpredictable
experience of the listener.

Reflection on musical time is closely linked to the concept of sound.

That is why the flesh of time, filled with concrete sound, proves to be a
central element of the composer’s reflection. A skeleton, understood as an
abstract form, remains dead and immobile until it is filled with musical
matter. Grisey’s writings reveal the static anatomy of time, the dynamic
physiology of sound and the unexpected interaction of music with the
listener’s organism.

Temporal divisions, constituting the skeleton of time, have been of

particular interest to contemporary composers. However, to quote Grisey’s
words, their speculative, mathematic divisions “became ridiculous when
our elders ended up confusing the map with the lie of the land” (Grisey
1987, 240). Grisey is more interested in the experience of time than its
measurement. His reflection focuses on the flesh of time, “where sounds,
like living cells, will come to inhabit and envelop the temporal skeleton
with their density and complexity” (Grisey 1987, 257). This qualitative
approach is focused on the microphonic structure of sound. From the new
temporal perspective, the small living cell becomes an animal and reveals
all the details of its organism. “The sound object is only a process which
has been contracted, the process is nothing more than a dilated sound
object. Time is like the air that these two living organisms breathe at
different altitudes” states the composer (Grisey 1987, 271). Grisey,
however, is more interested in ‘process’ than ‘object’, and sound is
therefore described in dynamic, physiological terms (Schreiber 2013). Each
sound, just like each living organism, is unique and can be adequately
characterized only within the context of other sounds, in terms of their
differences and similarities. That is why particular interest and research
should be directed at the individual nature and diversity of sounds.

Such a single sound is also capable of reproduction. It can give birth to

some new forms derived from its internal structure. “It is sounds and their
own materials which generate, through projections or inductions, new
musical forms” (Grisey 2000, 2).

The skin of time is largely beyond the composer’s control, as the

listener always remains inaccessible and unpredictable. When Grisey
admits that the listener remains beyond the composer’s control, he seems to
question both the romantic myth of the composer’s divine powers and the
concept of the ideal listener. James Peter Burkholder states that the
existence of classic, canonic works presupposed that the listener should
carefully and repeatedly examine them (Burkholder 1991). The immediate,
single experience became less important. In this respect, the concept of the
ideal listener suppressed the connection with the real audience. Grisey tries
to restore this relationship, but he is aware of all the difficulties. The
metaphor of skin reveals the ambiguity of the communication between the
composer and the listener. The skin constitutes the limits of the living
organism. However, it does not necessarily separate us from the
environment, because it is in contact with the external world. Grisey gives
here only hints instead of any elaborated ideas. The listener’s organism
interacts with music due to its inner biological rhythms. As a result, music
produces ‘transfigured moments of time’. In this interaction, a musical
work can play different roles and provoke diverse responses, such as
ecstasy, indifference or openness.

Grisey’s multidimensional conceptualization of musical time seems to

combine several metaphors. The anatomy of time is based on a relatively
common source domain, namely the human body, which is clearly defined
and familiar to everyone (Kovëcses 2002, 16). The more dynamic level of
sound physiology can be associated with movement and direction
(Kovëcses 2002, 20). According to Michael Spitzer, who refers to cognitive
image schemata understood as dynamic, recurring patterns of our
experience, the organic metaphor is represented by the path image schema,
which embodies multiphase processes, characterized by directionality and
dynamism (Spitzer 2004, 58–59). However, Lukas Haselböck argues that in
the case of Grisey the organic metaphor refers to the musical material and
not to the composition as a whole. For that reason, it can be combined with
a fragmentary apprehension of the work (Haselböck 2009, 150).

The skin of time implies contact with the listener.

“With regard to the time of a musical work, as with regard to a

space – argues Grisey – we are not passive observers situated in
one fixed point. On the contrary, the point of perception itself is
in continual motion, as we are dealing with the present. Besides
this, it is my feeling that the starting point for our perception of
the time of a musical work is that other time which is the very
rhythm of our life”. 9 (Grisey 2008, 32)

This statement reminds one of the metaphor of the moving observer

described by Johnson and Larson (Johnson & Larson 2003, 71–73).
However, the complex processes of our perception, memory, inner rhythms
and changing mental states mean that only some elements are chosen from
a mass of information. ‘What will be inscribed in our memory will be
precisely these corridors, these transmissions, these coincidences which
sometimes establish themselves between our sense of time and that of the
composition’ states Grisey (Grisey 1987, 274).
 The complex, multidimensional concept of musical time does not
necessarily have to follow the concepts of time in everyday life. It refers to
‘transfigured moments of time’, to quote Grisey’s words. According to
Robert Adlington, the metaphor of directional, constantly passing time is
often not adequate for musical works, because the changes in music do not
necessarily have to be conceptualized in terms of movement. Moreover,
there are multiple alternative domains, such as tension and relaxation, light
and darkness, and mass and lightness, which are of special importance in
the music of the twentieth century (Adlington 2003). It is worth noting that
most of the examples given by Larson and Johnson are taken from tonal
music, both classical and popular. Zohar Eitan and Renee Timmers argue
that even the mappings of pitch are based not only on vertical, spatial
schemata but also on a wide variety of other aspects, such as size, mass and
visual lightness (Eitan & Timmers 2010). Ludwig van Beethoven’s last
Piano Sonata, Op. 111, with its extreme changes in register, serves here as a
musical example.

The metaphor of musical time often influences musical processes. The

organic features of sonic matter described by Grisey are exemplified in
smooth, subtle and continuous changes typical of his works written in the
1970s, especially the famous cycle Les espaces acoustiques (1974–1985)
(Baillet 2000). This tendency is even reflected in the titles of the parts
called ‘Modulations’ (1976–1977) and ‘Transitoires’ (1980–1981). Grisey
also makes an important contribution to the notion of periodicity, by
introducing the concept of ‘fuzzy periodicity’, first applied in ‘Périodes’
(1974). This term describes periodic structures that are marked by slight
fluctuations and resemble the rhythms of our heartbeat, breathing or
footsteps. His reflection on musical time and its various dimensions also
inspired works where different incommensurate musical processes are
superimposed: Le Temps et l’écume (1989), Vortex Temporum I – II – III
(1994–1996). The musical current initiated by Grisey proved to be not only
a technique, but a fruitful aesthetic approach, which is still inspiring for
many composers.

5. Conclusion

The analysis of texts written by the three composers shows that metaphors
form an essential, integral part of their ideas. Some of them prove so
evocative that they become a distinguishing mark of a particular
conception. The most important intuitions concerning sound are grasped
with the use of metaphor. Metaphor not only helps to express these
intuitions, but also gives them a systemic structure. Metaphors help to
organize thoughts and to create multidimensional systems, embracing all
the important areas of the composers’ thought.

A review of the three conceptions in chronological order reveals a

certain continuity and complementarity among their ideas. Sound
understood as a self-contained phenomenon serves as the main subject of
Schaeffer’s reflection. The need to grasp the qualities of sound and define
its limits turned the composer to the metaphor of object. Schaeffer uses a
very elementary metaphor, but at the same time he emphasizes the
successive steps in sound research. He gives a detailed description of those
steps and stresses the need for cognitive research.

In the conception of Schafer, sound is an integral unity, but its context

is the most important issue. The metaphor of the soundscape enables a
sound to be situated in the context of space.

Grisey stresses the tension between the spatial and the organic
metaphor. He tries to eliminate the spatial metaphor in favour of the organic
metaphor, which gains a highly sophisticated form in his writings. With the
use of a single diversified metaphor, Grisey grasps at once both the static
view of temporal anatomy and the dynamic image of sound physiology.
The metaphor used by Grisey proves to be the most varied, but at the same
time also the most consistent and hierarchical, embracing different
dimensions of music.

All three composers address the problem of communication.

According to Schaeffer, his experimental music requires new concepts and
vocabulary in order to be interpreted by the listener. Metaphors seem
indispensable in his search for new linguistic expressions to create the
social space of communication. Schafer, mainly interested in music
education, discovers the importance of gestures and the immediate transfer
from visual medium to sound. Grisey considers that the communicative
aspect of music is represented by the metaphorical concept of the skin of
time. The new currents of twentieth-century music thus provide particularly
interesting examples of metaphors that enable us to properly understand
musical concepts.

Acknowledgements
Thanks to John Comber, who revised this chapter.

Notes

1. This is attested, for example, by the fact that metaphor is given as one of the key musicological
notions in the British lexicon compiled by David Beard and Kenneth Gloag (2005), most entries in
which are of a general humanistic character. This choice may indicate that musicology’s links with
other humanistic disciplines remain more crucial for the authors than specialist terms developed
within musicology itself.

2. For a description of the equipment and techniques used in the studio as well as for the beginning
of musique concrète, see Manning 1987; Palombini 1993.
3. “Si dialectique il y a dans cette obsession des couples d’opposés, ce n’est pas une dialectique de
la contradiction – inscrite – dans – les – choses (…) mais une dialectique de la connaissance”.

4. «Cette propriété de la matière sonore fait songer au grain d’un tissu, d’un mineral».

5. For a brief introduction to the idea of soundscape see Wrightson (2000).

6. During the 80s and 90s, interest in the psychology of listening grew quite considerably,
particularly in connection with the development of the cognitive sciences. This is attested by the
publications of such authors as McAdams and Bigand (1993), Bregman (1990) and Handel (1989),
who are interested in the organization of perception, with Bregman drawing on Gestalt psychology.
Schafer’s views remain current in one important question: psychoacoustic research concerns mainly
speech and music, with the perception of environmental sounds playing only a marginal role.

7. As a child, Schafer was very interested in painting and wanted to devote himself to the visual
arts, but those plans were thwarted by unsuccessful eye surgery (Adams 1983).

8. “Soundscapes-Klanglandschaften: akustisch-ökologische Spurensuche nach interdisziplinären

Kommunikatoransätzen zu ‘Umwelt als Klang’ und ‘Klang als Umwelt’” (Werner 1990, 52).

9. “Nous ne sommes pas, face au temps d’une oeuvre musicale, comme en face d’un espace,
spectateur passif situé en un point fixe. Le point de perception est au contraire lui-même
constamment en mouvement puisqu’il s’agit de présent. Je pressens, en outre, que nous percevons le
temps d’une oeuvre musicale à partir d’un autre temps qui est le rythme même de notre vie”.

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 Index

A
advertisements/advertising 5, 8–9, 12–14, 18, 47, 55, 58, 217–19, 221–27, 229, 231, 233–34

ambiguity 173, 183, 278

American Sign Language (ASL) 252, 263–64

analogy 11, 34, 36–37, 40, 45, 47, 120, 168, 184–86, 219, 233

analysis of metaphors See metaphor analysis

animals 13, 72, 125, 135, 177, 187, 211–12, 241, 250, 277

metaphors of 13, 211, 213

aptness 45–46, 144, 153, 155–56, 158–59, 163, 166, 168

of metaphor 153, 159

argumentation 21, 39, 101, 173, 186, 217–19, 224, 226–27, 231, 234, 237

arguments 13–14, 31, 39, 52, 71, 83, 182–83, 185–86, 217, 219, 221, 223–27, 229, 231–34

naturalistic 11, 173, 176, 183, 186

artificial intelligence 2, 19, 44–45, 143

ASL See American Sign Language

associations 6, 9, 47, 110, 119–20, 142, 144, 162–63, 222, 226–27, 258

conceptual 126, 136, 138

asymmetry 36, 43, 164, 166

B
be-form metaphor 26–33, 36–41

bilingual 7, 105, 107, 109, 111, 113, 115, 117, 119, 121

blend 69–70, 73, 76, 219, 226–29, 231, 275

metaphoric 229–30

blended spaces 69, 73, 219, 226–27, 230, 275

blending theory 6, 13–14, 61–63, 68, 70, 75–77, 218, 226, 275

BNC See British National Corpus

brain 59, 103, 126, 132, 141, 143–46, 166–69

British National Corpus (BNC) 6, 61–62, 65, 95–97, 100, 110

British Sign Language (BSL) 15–16, 249, 252, 256–58, 260, 262–63

BSL See British Sign Language

C
categorization 25, 27, 30, 40, 43–44

clustering 66, 108, 113–14

cognitive dimensions 12, 48, 174–75, 236

of metaphor 2, 4–5, 8–10, 12, 174, 217

linguistics 2, 48, 105, 234

collocates 86, 88, 103

frequent 86, 88–89

communication 2–7, 10–11, 14–16, 18, 63, 69–70, 77, 118, 147, 149, 175, 236–37, 240, 278, 280

communicative

contexts 4, 7, 11, 25, 44

dimension of metaphor 2–4, 6–10, 13–14, 17–18, 171

effects 17, 70

power of metaphors 5, 235, 243

comparison 4, 25–27, 29–37, 39–40, 42–44, 84, 91–92, 95, 107, 148, 153, 173, 186, 239, 252 see

also categorization

processes 25–26, 30–32, 36, 40

theory 25–27, 30–32, 35, 152–53

comparison theory of metaphors 31, 152–53

comprehension 8, 106, 123, 127, 130–31, 133, 147, 149, 159, 163, 189, 192

Computational Linguistics 119–20, 144

concepts
 metaphoric 189, 191

musical 266, 281

source and target 68, 162

conceptual

dimension 12, 118

domains 8, 105, 112, 173

features 147, 159–60, 162–65

metaphors 6–7, 10, 15–16, 63–64, 79, 101–2, 105, 189, 190, 252, 254, 256, 261, 267, 271

metaphor theory 61–63, 68, 70, 72, 75–77, 148, 226

conceptualization 7, 16, 62, 67, 70–71, 74–76, 118, 266, 271

lower-level 62, 70

object of 6, 74–76

connotations 15, 252, 258–59

negative 70, 258–59

positive 258–59

consciousness 21, 145, 168, 262

conservatives 181–82, 190, 192, 197–99

construal 42, 62, 74, 76

contemporary music 16, 265, 267, 269, 271, 273, 275, 277, 279, 281, 283

context 16, 70, 106–7, 112, 123–124, 129, 134, 140–42, 175, 181, 207, 241, 259–60, 277–78, 280

extralinguistic 7, 118

linguistic 105–8, 117–18, 254

contextual assumptions 128

conventionality 5, 45–46, 62–66, 68, 72, 76–77

metaphors 65, 166, 5, 61, 63–64, 75, 105–6

conventions 61, 63

conversations, private 83, 92–93

corpus 64–65, 82–83, 85–89, 93–100, 102, 107, 109, 112, 117, 119, 50, 52–53, 55–56, 65, 84, 86–

87, 89, 93–94, 110, 114, 121

 linguistics 10, 19, 47–48, 77, 79, 103, 105

creativity 5, 9–10, 13, 61, 63, 75–76, 221

templates 13–14, 221–22

culture 81–83, 96, 102, 222, 272

differences 7, 80, 82, 103

D
domains 8, 10, 12, 14, 17, 51, 54–56, 191, 196, 203, 207, 224, 226–27, 232–33, 235

auditory 53, 55–56

perceivable 190, 192

source and target 189, 192, 194–98, 222, 275

DSS (Distributional Semantic Space) 105, 107–8, 112, 114–15, 117–18

E
embodiment 20, 48, 59, 119–20, 144, 241, 249, 251

emergent structure 75–76, 144, 166, 219, 226, 229–30, 276

emotional communication 247

emotions 10, 71, 109, 174, 199, 208, 235–36, 238–41, 247–49, 262, 283

endoxa 224, 233

English 6, 49, 62, 77–80, 82–84, 87, 96–97, 100, 102–4, 109, 131, 178, 252–53, 258, 264

sensory lexicon 49

speakers 82, 103, 154, 157, 160

entertainment 4, 9, 14, 17–18

entrenchment 5, 64

epithets 209, 211

experience 5, 11, 17, 47, 49, 57–58, 71, 105, 117, 135, 148–49, 151, 176, 235, 237

F
features

emergent 152–53, 161–62, 164

 metaphor’s 147

physical 208, 210

source/target 159–60, 162

surface 164, 207

figuration 217, 227, 232

figurative language 2, 19–21, 45, 77, 144, 166–68, 208, 213, 235–42, 247–48

instances of 239, 241

uses of 239

production 240

foreign learners (FL) 7–8, 105–13, 115–18

judgments 105, 107–8, 115

frames 10–11, 20, 27, 75, 190, 192–95, 197, 199, 204–6, 215, 228–31

framework 13, 41, 61, 119, 143, 217–18, 227, 232

framing 12, 189, 192–93, 197–98, 204

frequency 5, 57, 63–65, 72, 78, 93, 95, 99, 101, 109, 162

highest 89, 92–93, 99

function

communicative 9–10, 14, 16, 18, 77

metaphor 237, 246

G
gender 20, 203, 205–6, 214–15

gestures 15–16, 19, 149, 199, 249–50, 255, 261–64, 271, 274, 281

ground, common 6, 11, 63, 74–76

gustatory

experiences 48–49, 56–58

perceptions 5, 47–48, 57–58

H
handshapes 16, 252–54, 257–59

clawed 258–59

open 258–59

hapax 53–55

head 48–49, 51, 182, 209, 253, 255, 260, 262 See also modifiers

taste-related 47–48

hearer 69, 75–76

higher-level mappings 6, 11, 61–62, 66, 70–71, 190, 192, 195–98

hive 174, 177, 180, 184

hyperbole 13–14, 45, 217–19, 224, 226, 229–30, 232–33, 236

I
International Corpus of English (ICE) 83, 94–95, 97, 102

ICE See International Corpus of English

Canada 86–91

corpora 83, 86–89, 93, 96–99

East Africa (EA) 84–85, 87–91, 94–97, 103

Great Britain (GB) 85–91, 94–95, 98

India 86–91, 93–96

New Zeland 86–91, 94–95

Philippines 86–91, 95, 98

Singapore 86–91, 94–95, 97

iconic signs 251–52, 254

image

priming 150–52, 163

processing 164

imagery 123, 126, 130–32, 136–39, 147–51, 159, 164, 168–69, 236, 248 See also perception

visual 249 See also visual images

image 8–9, 124, 126, 130–31, 133, 136–37, 148, 150–54, 157, 159–60, 162–65, 180–82, 184–86,

236–37, 241

sensorimotor 135–36, 139

schemas 20, 59–60, 78

stimulation condition 157

imagistic 123, 125–26, 139

components 123–124, 128–31, 135, 150

inference 14, 138, 198, 219, 232, 235

interaction theory of metaphor 8, 152–53, 232

interpretation 30, 38, 41, 50, 106, 124, 128, 142, 149, 155, 158, 174, 182–83, 203, 236

interpretation of metaphor 4, 149, 232

intersubjectivity 9, 22, 61, 74–78

J
judgment 105, 107, 110–11, 120, 138, 235 See also FL judgment; similarity judgment

L
language 2–6, 14–15, 48–49, 63–65, 74, 80–84, 99–100, 102–3, 148, 190–91, 202–3, 249, 261,

264–65, 268

embodied 250–51

foreign 7, 107–8, 117

metaphoric 235

metaphor in 2–3, 10

signed 15, 249, 263–64

written 95, 98, 100

language

comprehension 7, 109, 127, 132–33, 146, 169

processing 126, 140

Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) 152, 160, 162

learners, foreign See foreign learners (FL)

learning 7, 14, 21, 66, 104, 165, 168, 175, 179, 235–37, 240–41, 245–48

collaborative 236, 238, 245, 247

online 14, 235, 237, 239, 241, 243, 245, 247

offline 243–44

experience 240–42, 246

left hemisphere (LH) 132, 140 See also right hemisphere

levels

conceptual 61, 63, 151, 164

linguistic 63, 105–6, 108

lexeme 54, 65–66, 69, 207

lexical representations 7, 105, 107–8, 110, 114–15, 118

linguistic

expressions 62–64, 82, 85–86, 99, 103, 105–6, 118

point 49, 57–58

realizations 6–7, 79, 83, 85, 95, 101–3

literal 28–29, 33, 35, 38–41, 68, 106–9, 123, 128, 130, 134, 139–43, 165, 187, 275

expressions 106–7

meanings 8, 19, 35, 71–72, 76, 123–124, 126–27, 129, 143, 183–84

source domain 76, 207

utterances 123, 139–40

lower-level mapping See mapping, lower-level

LSA See Latent Semantic Analysis

M
mapping 5–6, 10–11, 35, 62, 64–67, 70–72, 190–92, 195–97, 199, 217, 229, 279

concrete-abstract 191–92

lower-level 61–62, 65–66, 70, 74, 190 See also metaphorical mapping

mental
 imagery 144–45, 166–67

models 151, 164, 247, 251

representations 70, 125, 146, 164, 167, 169, 265

metaphor

analysis 19, 103, 207, 214, 218, 227, 246

cognitive force of 144, 166

comprehension 9, 18, 45–46, 107, 120, 123, 140, 143–45, 147–52, 156, 164, 166–67

conventional 143, 166

hinders 152, 163

role of perceptual features in 5, 147, 149, 151, 153, 155, 157, 159, 161, 163, 165, 167,

169

conceptual theory of 10

contemporary theory of 21, 120, 167

conventional conceptual high-level 75

creative 45, 250

elementary 273, 280

embodied 48, 250, 256

essence of 174, 235

features 9, 147, 152–53, 159–65

frozen 108, 251 See also live metaphor

gendered 12, 202, 211, 214

high-aptness 155, 158 See also aptness

immorality 190, 192

linguistic 4–5, 23, 64, 261

live 4, 8, 18 See also frozen metaphor

lower-level 6, 62

new 237, 243–45

non-primed 155, 164

non-verbal 148–49
 novel 106, 108, 141, 182

organic 276–78, 280

paradox of 21, 120

primary 254, 263

primed 155, 159

processing 2, 4, 8–9, 140, 145, 147–48, 164, 167–68

visual 148, 168

research 20, 144, 147, 167

shifting 245

spatial 199, 280

studies 2–3, 6, 10, 18, 82, 119, 250, 266

textual 151, 153

vehicles of 45, 167

visual 13–15, 145, 151, 166, 217, 229–30, 252, 274, 283

metaphorical

comparisons 236

comprehension 9, 152, 157, 159, 163, 167–68

concepts 83, 207, 265, 281

conceptualizations 68, 71

construal 68, 192

expressions 6–7, 47–48, 62, 105–9, 116–18, 188, 213, 263

framings 21, 190–91, 193, 200

image 183, 185

interpretation 38, 163

language 15, 65, 185, 236

mapping 253, 275

meanings 7, 41–43, 62–63, 65–66, 68, 70–71, 76, 108–9, 142, 179, 184

model 8, 184

senses 65, 67–68, 106, 108, 275

 sentences 134, 140, 149, 168

signs 253, 263

source domains 190, 192

understanding 8, 124, 139

model of 123, 125, 127, 129, 131, 133, 135, 137, 139, 141, 143, 145

uses 62, 65–68, 71–72, 75

metonymy 21, 45, 234, 251

modifiers 48–49, 51 See also head

money

expressions 86, 91, 99

metaphor 79, 82–83, 85–86, 94, 99–103

multimodal metaphor 8, 233–34

music 9, 14, 16, 18, 265–68, 271–73, 275–83

conceptualizing 22, 283

spectral 267

musical

compositions 17, 269, 272, 275–76

time 277–79, 281

N
native speakers (NS) 7, 105–8, 110–13, 115–18

naturalness 184–86

O
occurrences 5, 51, 54, 57, 66, 93, 95–96, 98, 106, 109–10, 112, 114, 175, 214, 239–40

online 237, 239, 243–46, 248

environments 237–38

learning 14–15, 235, 237–43, 240, 245–46, 247–48

opponents 73, 209

opposition 4, 129, 182, 190, 192–94

P
perception 5, 16–17, 48, 57–58, 117, 138, 147–50, 164, 179, 191, 251, 271–74, 279, 148, 150–51

perceptual 7, 9, 135–36, 139, 145, 149, 151, 159, 161–63

features 5, 8–9, 106, 147, 149–53, 155–57, 159–65, 167, 169

effect of 9, 151–52

information 108, 119, 138, 153, 163

spaces 164–65

person metaphor 191–92

persuasion 4, 9–13, 18, 175, 179, 181, 188, 202, 219

persuasive force 9–11, 173, 176, 179–81, 183, 186

persuasiveness 182–83, 185–86

pictorial 218–19, 233–34

analogy template 222, 229–30

metaphors 19, 149, 166, 218–19, 222, 224–26, 229–33

contextual 224

pictures 87, 90, 99, 126, 150–51, 164–68, 208, 219, 224, 227, 274

poetry See sign language poetry

political

communication 10–12, 189, 198, 203, 208, 215

discourse 21, 173–75, 181–82, 185, 189–91, 215

metaphors 10, 173, 184, 187, 189–90, 203, 206, 214

opposition 194, 197–98

roles 202, 204, 208

politics 4, 9–12, 17–18, 98, 187–88, 190, 193, 201–4, 206, 208, 212–15

prediction 105, 107–8, 116–17

priming 120, 147, 154, 156, 163, 168, 191

conditions 154, 165

processing 7, 33, 35, 40, 42, 78, 105, 134, 140, 168

time differences 33

R
rear-view mirror 222–26, 229, 232

representations 12, 59, 82, 108–9, 112, 114–15, 117, 120, 126, 132, 150–51, 168, 202–3, 206, 241

conceptual 136, 209

propositional 139, 164

surface structure 151

response time 133, 152–53, 155–58, 163

RH See right hemisphere

rhetoric 21, 168, 174, 179–80, 183, 187–88, 204

right hemisphere (RH) 140–41, 143, 166 See also left hemisphere

metaphor processing 145, 168

S
semantic

associations 147, 152, 159–63

processing 140–41, 150–51, 163

representations 7, 105, 107–9, 116–19

sensory

domains 5, 47–49, 51–53, 56, 58

modalities 47–53, 57–58, 271

sentence 28, 38, 80, 101, 125, 128, 133–34, 140–41, 154, 160, 207, 235, 243

side-processing 33

sign 15–16, 155, 179, 249–61, 264

frozen 251

neutral 258

sign language 15, 249–52, 255–56, 259, 263–64

 poetry 9, 15, 249–253, 255, 257, 259, 261–263

studies 263–64

similarity judgments 110–11

simile 25, 27, 35, 37, 45–46, 166, 236

sound, metaphor of 16, 271, 282

source 4, 7, 9, 25–26, 34, 37, 39, 41–44, 70, 72, 135–37, 147, 151–54, 156–57, 159–60, 161–163,

162–65, 176–78, 197, 222, 225, 229–30 See also target

concept 9, 41, 140, 147, 151–54, 161

domain 10, 16, 64, 76, 189, 192, 196, 198, 218, 222, 225

features 36, 152, 160–62

space 12, 19, 82–83, 191, 199, 226, 230–31, 252, 255–56, 260–61, 263, 268, 272, 275, 279–80

blended See blended spaces

conceptual 125, 135, 164–65

musical 266, 275

signing 15, 252, 259

virtual 235, 237–38, 241–42

spatial time metaphors 257 See also metaphor, spatial; time metaphors

speakers 7–9, 11, 15, 44, 47, 50, 54, 75–76, 97, 116–17, 137, 140–41, 183–85, 236, 250

spoken language 15, 95, 97–98, 100, 252, 254, 256, 259, 261

stereotype 10, 12, 45, 80, 203, 206, 208, 210

stimuli 47–48, 109, 120, 151–54, 157, 160

structural parallelism 11, 189–90, 192, 194, 196–98

structure 3, 5, 51–52, 62, 64, 74, 76, 82, 85, 221–22, 224, 227, 266, 269, 276–77

conceptual 48, 64

frame-inferential 189–90, 197–98

new conceptual 219, 226

sub-corpora 83, 102 See also corpus

subjects 50–51, 74–75, 134, 149, 177, 229, 244–45, 254, 280

primary 224–25, 230

 secondary 224–25

super-category 28 See also superordinate category

superordinate 28, 35, 38 See also superordinate category

superordinate category 28–29, 34–35, 37–38, 40, 42

symbol 176, 181, 208, 211–12, 222–23, 225

cultural 222–23, 232

set 222–23, 229–30

symbolic models 173–74

synaesthesia 5, 47–49, 58, 60, 274

synaesthetic

metaphors 5, 58–60

pairings 49, 54–58

system

conceptual 108, 202, 266, 273

motor 133–34, 143

T
target 4, 25–26, 34, 37, 39, 43, 70, 136, 161–63, 197

concepts 9, 68, 139–40, 147, 151–54, 162–63

domain 10–11, 189–92, 194–98, 218–19, 222, 275 See also source domain

features 36, 152, 160–63

images 165

target/source See source; target

text 8–9, 119, 150

types 55, 85, 90, 92–93, 99

three-dimensional model of metaphor 21, 120

time 53–54, 61–62, 79–83, 85–87, 89, 91–104, 207–9, 242, 244, 251–52, 256–57, 262–63, 270,

275–77, 279–80

anatomy of 277–78
 concept 80–83, 103

flesh of 277

left borrowed 85, 97

loss of 85, 97–98

saving 88–90, 99

skeleton of 277

skin of 277–79, 281

spare 85, 97–98

spending 80, 86, 88, 90

sync 81

transfigured moments of 278–79

wastage of 89–90, 96, 100, 102

expressions 85–94, 99–101, 103, 263

metaphors 6, 79, 80–81, 85, 97

topology 64, 142

tropes 217–19, 232–33

U
understanding 25–26, 30–31, 34–38, 65–66, 105–6, 123–30, 133–36, 139, 142, 218–19, 232–33,

235–37, 245, 251–52, 254–55

be-form metaphor 27, 32

metaphors 2, 147

process 25–26, 34, 37, 40

utterance 19, 26, 32–33, 37–41, 47, 69, 75–76, 124–29, 134–35, 138–42, 244, 263

ironic 141

metaphoric 141

processing

metaphorical 140

V
variance, high 110–11

variants 28–29, 80, 85, 97–98, 258

verbal

learning 78, 143, 166, 168

metaphors 144, 147–49, 151, 153, 156, 159, 163

visual image 9, 145, 148, 151, 163–64, 168, 208, 249, 251

vocabulary 16, 251, 268, 271, 273, 280

W
Westernization 79, 83–84, 99, 101–3

of cultures 6–7, 79, 83