Riccardo Fusaroli and Claudio Vandi 1

MORE THAN A METAPHOR: METAPHORIC STRATEGIES IN DYNAMIC PROCESSES OF MEANING CONSTRUCTION

RICCARDO FUSAROLI AND CLAUDIO VANDI1

Abstract. This chapter aims at presenting a conception of metaphors as the result of dynamic processes of meaning construction. Through the analysis of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Blending Theory and the metaphor “that man is a caiman”, we highlight the need for a dynamic perspective on embodied cognition, where sedimented conceptual structures are locally deployed as resources and not as determining types. Considering cultural, discursive, lexical and co-textual factors, it is possible to describe the metaphor as a local diagram of semantic relations that can be manipulated, as a part of wider interpretative strategies. Through this analysis, a conception of schemata and conceptual structures as attractors sedimented in the course of practices is proposed.

Introduction

An ever growing number of studies persuasively demonstrates that everyday cognition is continuous and dynamic, not a punctual transformation of stable states, but a process of partially overlapping fuzzy grey areas that are drawn over time (Thelen and Smith 1994; Port and van Gelder 1995; Clark 1997; Spivey 2006). The aim of this chapter is to situate metaphorical occurrences in this unfolding of cognitive processes. Assuming a particular kind of Cognitive Semantics approach – in which “meaning is cognition” (Evans and Green 2006) and cognition is ecological and deeply shaped by socio-cultural practices – we will focus

1 While the article has been thoroughly thought and discussed together, Claudio Vandi has materially written “Between embodiment and situatedness” and “Deep into the analysis” except “Which blends” and “Metaphors and diagrammatic reasoning”; Riccardo Fusaroli: “Introduction”, “Cognitive linguistics and metaphors” and “Conclusions”. on linguistic data and not on the experiences of empirically tested subjects. This perspective does not need to neglect discursive frames and contexts. Since cognition is constituted by continuous overlappings, the construction of the meaning related to a specific linguistic expression will emerge in a wider field of expectations. This kind of analysis aims at tracking the conditions through which the relation between text and context emerges, the way a more schematic conceptual structure is constitutively situated and the reason why a configuration of meaning should be conceived as a moment in a trajectory rather than as a stable state. In this sense, the first part of the chapter is dedicated to the review of two of the main approaches to metaphors in Cognitive Linguistics (Conceptual Metaphor Theory, from now on CMT, and Blending Theory, from now on BT), highlighting the unsolved tension which they create between the constitutive dynamicity of meaning construction and the existence of stable and embodied conceptual structures. The second part of the chapter aims at addressing this tension, by sketching a way in which to account for the processual nature of meaning construction as unfolding in social arenas, mixing textual analysis with theoretical reflections. We believe that the real challenge for the scientist lies more in the investigation of the process than in the investigation of the state (Vygotsky 1978); that it is the trajectory that constitutes the meaning of the single moment and not vice versa.

Cognitive linguistics and metaphors

The study of metaphors goes far back in time and – contrary to what is often reconstructed – metaphors were not always treated as rhetorical ornaments. The importance of analogy for constructing knowledge was acknowledged and investigated by Aristotle (cf. Eco 2005) Kant, Cassirer, Blumemberg, Weinrich (cf. Jäkel 1999), and with his usual emphasis Peirce stated that metaphors are “the only logical operation which introduce any new idea” (Peirce 1931-1958: 5.171). However, it is only with the cognitive turn in the study of metaphors – to which Cognitive Linguistics has greatly contributed (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Ortony 1993; for an introduction, see Evans and Green 2006) – that the central role they play in processes of thought has entered mainstream research. Abstract concepts are re-defined as structured through the repetition – in CMT – or the construction – in BT – of patterns. The role of metaphors is to make possible the unfolding of meaning through acts of conflation, and through the connection of different conceptual domains thus make possible the understanding of something new through something already known.

Conceptual Metaphor Theory

CMT emerges mainly from the works of Lakoff and Johnson (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 1999; Lakoff 1987; Johnson 1987). Its aim is to uncover the conceptual structure that underlies language use. In this model, image- schemata are specific and recurring action paths formed along time by embodied experience. They act as regularities to orient future experiences and are open to reconfiguration. Cognition also works through the projection of these bodily-grounded patterns onto uncharted conceptual domains, giving reasons for claiming that abstract thought too has a bodily basis. Metaphorical mapping is the cognitive mechanism performing the projection, and metaphors are the sedimented results of repeated projections.

New metaphors have the power to create a new reality. This can begin to happen when we start to comprehend our experience in terms of a metaphor, and it becomes a deeper reality when we begin to act in terms of it (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 146).

If CMT tends to emphasise the uni-directionality of this metaphoric projection, from concrete domains to more abstract ones, it has to be stressed that these concrete patterns, these image-schemata, are not that simple and mono-dimensional (cf. Hampe 2005). Image-schemata are related to sensorimotor patterns, but these patterns emerge in the blending of culture, language, history and bodily mechanisms (Johnson 1987).

Image schemata are relatively abstract conceptual representations that arise directly from our everyday interaction with and observation of the world around us (Evans and Green 2006: 176).

A world that is deeply shaped by social and cultural practices. However, in CMT, this complexity is problematic. A first stage of the conceptual formation consists of a complete conflation of two basic experiential domains (e.g. MORE IS UP, where quantity and verticality are conflated through the “scale” schema) due to their experiential correlations. These “primary metaphors” emerge “automatically and unconsciously” as we experience various concrete and “subjective” events together. Soon, however, there is a second stage of development, “differentiation”, in which we recognize these conflated domains as different, thus separating them conceptually. Conceptual metaphors – emerging in this phase – are systems of more conventional conceptual mappings held in long-term memory but still grounded in embodied experience (e.g. TIME IS MONEY, in which the more abstract domain of time is structured by an economic domain through a set of more basic image schemata related to UNITY/MULTIPLICITY, OBJECT, BALANCE, etc.). The conflation is thus replaced by a more structured projection claimed to be an invariant. In a related way, the analytical process performed by CMT (cf. also Lakoff and Turner 1989) mainly consists of the individuation of types under which discursive metaphorical occurrences are subsumed without focusing on their local differences. What we are looking at here, is what Kant called a determinative judgement, the application of a rule (Kant 1781-1787). But Kant himself described different kinds of judgements, the reflective and aesthetic ones (further developed by Peirce through the concept of abduction, Peirce 1931-1958). In these judgements, or cognitive processes, we do not have a deterministic rule to apply. We have different regularities, different habits, Peirce would say, that are applicable. Cognition is like bricolage, using the different resources at hand and playing with them. To account for this dynamic functioning, a semantic analysis should show how cognitive resources are employed in the development of linguistic phenomena, not neglecting the specificities of the single metaphors and their relation to the context.

Blending theory

BT has been developed in the works of Fauconnier and Turner (2002) as derived from the Mental Spaces Theory of Fauconnier (1985)2. The first crucial step that separates BT from CMT is the focus on mental spaces rather than directly on conceptual domains. In CMT conceptual metaphors are defined as sedimented projections from one domain of established knowledge to another. In BT the focus is on partial and temporary representational structures that speakers construct when thinking or talking. Mental spaces are thus certainly structured by domains, but they 2Mental Spaces have been criticised for focusing only on the “inside the skull” conception of cognition. We will use Brandt and Brandt (2005) version of mental spaces, that are constituted through interactions with the environment and pertinences established in a more distributed Semiotic Space. are of a more unstable and local nature. A metaphor can be described by a specific kind of blending between two or more of these mental spaces. The “blending” – made possible by a partially common core structure – generates a new and richer structure, which cannot be reduced to the sum of its parts.3 Thus, metaphorical mappings are not resolved in the repetition of pre- established patterns of embodied meaning but in more general mental operations which actively construct patterns and “spaces” of meaning. The strong focus on embodiment that CMT built seems to be at least partially lost here. Blending operations can certainly be grounded in neural processes, but they seem to be free from embodied image-schemata in their creation of patterns, even though they have as a goal the achievement of blends – not better specified – at a “human scale” (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 312).

Critical evaluation

Through CMT it is possible to appreciate the embodied nature of our conceptual patterns, and the way these metaphorical structures and projections imbue the way we think and talk. Through BT we are able to observe the emergence of new meanings and patterns, to focus on local occurrences (thus describing not only linguistic metaphors determined by conceptual ones, but metaphors in general in their putting into play linguistic and conceptual elements). Unfortunately in BT, the strong aspect of embodiment that was constructed in CMT is lost. To overcome this unsolved tension, the reflection on metaphors needs to take some additional steps:  to acknowledge the situatedness of metaphors in their environment (culture, genre, situation, discourse and practice);  to acknowledge the dynamics between language and cognition, which cannot be reduced to a determinative judgement;  to acknowledge the dynamic nature of conceptual and pre-conceptual structures which cannot possibly be reduced to rigid types.

3 In particular, a blend is considered metaphoric when: (1) a single element in the blend corresponds to an element in each of the input spaces; (2) certain very salient aspects of the input domains are prohibited from entering the blend; (3) some salient structure in the blended space is prevented from floating back to the inputs; (4) there are degrees of metaphoricity (cf. Grady, Oakley and Coulson 1999). Thus embodiment can be preserved and the implied conception of cognition in cognitive semantics can be re-attuned to other developments in the cognitive sciences (ecological psychology, social cognition, distributed cognition, dynamic systems approaches, etc.)

Between embodiment and situatedness A political metaphor

In 2004, the most important Italian newspaper, at least for sales, and readership, La Repubblica, published the following metaphor: “that man is a caiman” (in the original version: “quell'uomo è un caimano”). Analysing this as an independent token of language would leave us puzzled. Even dwelling on the established conceptual metaphor PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS, which traits of ‘caiman’ are projected onto ‘man’? Or, employing Fauconnier and Turner, which common structure can be found and which non-common traits can be blended, giving rise to new meaning? It is hard to say. The analysis needs to account for the great relevance of context in creating expectations through which a common structure can be re-constructed, and the emergence of new meaning can happen. In order to do so we need to critically analyse the work of two authors that, while studying metaphors, focus on the issue of cultural variation (Kövecses 2002, 2005) and on the relevance of genre (Steen 1994).

The cultural element

A fundamental study of the cultural influence in metaphors is Metaphor and culture by Zoltán Kövecses (2005). Kövecses attempts a systematic investigation of Chinese, Hungarian and English, in order to show how differences exist both in the way the source domain is used to conceptualize the same target domain (e.g. both English and Chinese use UP and LIGHT to conceptualize happiness, but only Chinese has HAPPINESS IS FLOWERS IN THE HEART) and in the way the same source is used to conceptualise different targets domains (e.g. the BUILDING source, that it is used in English to speak of relationships, but not in Tunisian Arabic). These cross-cultural variations are often used as an argument against the claim that it is possible to sketch an at least potentially limited list of conceptual and metaphorical universals that shape human cognition, universals that are grounded in our embodied experience and extended to abstract domains via metaphorical mappings (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1987; Gibbs 1998). Kövecses (2002, 2005) defines two main causes usually responsible for cross-cultural variations: the Broader Cultural Context from which a metaphor arises and the Natural Physical Context constituting its source domains. However, cultural idiosyncrasies could be easily integrated at a higher level, given the very abstract structure of primary metaphors (Grady 1997; Grady, Oakley and Coulson 1999) on which conceptual metaphors are grounded. A better approach, according to Lakoff and Johnson (2002), is to define “specific level differences” according to how a specific metaphor is instantiated by a specific culture in a specific context, leaving to anthropologists the task of investigating the way the general schema is “filled out” differently between cultures (Kövecses 2005).

The discursive element

This takes us to the second sense in which the expression “variation in metaphors” can be interpreted, namely in the sense of intra-cultural variations. This means focusing on the discursive nature of metaphors and analyzing how the same conceptual metaphor can produce different mappings when instantiated in different contexts. A common hypothesis is that in conceptual metaphors certain schematic elements get mapped from the source domain onto the target domain without changing their basic structure. Olaf Jäkel’s investigation of religious discourse in Western culture (Jäkel 2002) maps out the variations of LIFE IS A JOURNEY in this specific context, despite the highly stable set of mappings that this metaphor usually shows (Lakoff 1990, 1993). While a great number of linguistic occurrences can be found – for instance “following God’s path” – we can note some differences in the source domain of JOURNEY. While this metaphor usually furnishes the possibility of defining multiple paths through which one can reach one’s goal, an analysis of many passages of the Old Testament shows some interesting variations: 1. You must follow exactly the path that the Lord your God has commanded you, [...] 2. My foot has held fast to his steps; I have kept his way and have not turned aside. (examples taken from Jäkel 2002) These sentences clearly show that multiple paths are not given, i.e. they are not inferential possibilities of LIFE IS A JOURNEY in this kind of religious discourse. Analogous variations can be found in many discursive genres. In business discourses, “to take a shortcut to reach one's own goal” is quite a widespread and generally positive metaphor, while in a religious text it would not be so and the few occurrences are generally used to describe the negative habits of sinners and people who are weak in their faith.

Defining context

The conception of conceptual metaphor as a rigid type to be deterministically applied to local occurrences is now more clearly denied in favour of a more dynamic structure constitutively varied in different contexts. This dynamic conception is perfectly in line with certain experimental developments in cognitive poetics. Conceptual structures – prototypes in the quoted passage – emerge as “temporary constructions in working memory constructed on the spot from generic and episodic information in long-term memory, rather than as stable structures stored in long-term memory” (Gibbs 2003:32). Taking into account the previous observations and further elaborating with usually less considered factors, we can sketch a non-exhaustive list of elements to be taken into account in our analysis in order to define how a metaphor emerges: 1. Socio-historical constraints: previous instantiations of the same metaphor, context of reference; 2. Discursive context: the genre; the situation; 3. More local expectations, like the sedimented style of the author, the specific subgenre, etc. 4. The co-text: the sentences that surround the analysed metaphor. 5.Lexical choices.

Deep into the analysis Style of the text and sentence processing

To analyse “that man is a caiman” we have to sketch the field of expectations, or habits, that the style of the text gives rise to (Kövecses 2005). The metaphor appeared in a political commentary by Franco Cordero in La Repubblica, a leftist newspaper. Thus the expectations in its interpretation are of a limited amount of complexity, since a newspaper is not usually subjected to in-depth reading (Steen 1994). The co-text makes it easy to understand that the referent of ‘man’ is Silvio Berlusconi, a man well known to the Italian audience and towards whom both the newspaper and the author of the article have always displayed a strong critical stance, something which is shared by their audience. We could sketch the sedimented knowledge of Berlusconi in this context as follows: Berlusconi is a specific individual, owner (among other things) of three national television channels, the most influential Italian advertising company and a very successful football team. At the time in which the article was published Berlusconi was the Italian Prime Minister, economically and politically involved in many Italian and international industries, and undergoing a good deal of trials for corruption, financial crimes and never clarified connections with well-known criminal organisations. The sedimented knowledge to which ‘a caiman’ gives access is more complex to analyse. The caiman is a South American relative to the crocodile, looking slightly more slender than its African counterpart. There is also a less defined awareness of the fact that it lives in rivers, of its thick skin, and of its voracity. These contextual expectations are part of the meaning of the metaphor (Steen 1994; Kövecses 2005) and influence the way in which “entrenched associations in long-term memory” are recruited in the on-line processes (Grady et al. 1999) so that the potentialities of each term are already constrained by the context and meaning construction is conceived as distributed.

Which blends?

It can easily be said that “that man is a caiman” is a token of the more general PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS conceptual metaphor and that the common mapping in these cases consists of an attribution to the person concerned of some moral quality related to traditional representations of the animal, or behavioural traits recontextualised, and so on. The problem is that in Italian culture, there is no traditional representation of the caiman. A second powerful element in this metaphor is the potential creation of a sharp “image metaphor”, an image-based metaphor that is rich in imagistic details (Lakoff and Turner 1989; Kövecses, 2002). There is in Italian culture quite a common imagery of crocodiles, to which, for lack of a better understanding, caimans are assimilated. But which images are to be used? The image of “crocodile tears”, of an immobile crocodile sleeping on the bank of a river, or of its powerful jaws at work? The only way in which the blending can be oriented without needing to “posit specific mechanisms that override parts of source-to-target-domain mappings in primitive metaphors” (Gibbs 2006: 118) is by sticking to the embodied basis of metaphorical thought. But to articulate the mappings that are triggered by the metaphor, to reconstruct a common structure that allows the idealised subject to construct new meaning, we also have to rely on the contextual expectations previously highlighted. The prejudiced audience makes negative traits highly relevant. The strong presence of Berlusconi in the media, his active invading of any possible field, makes the sleeping image of the caiman less relevant. This activity reveals instead a deep commonality with the image of the caiman’s jaws, a commonality which emerges from this unfolding and tentative comparison. The common structure which allows for blending is that of a common force dynamics (Talmy 2000), that is seen through a dynamic interaction of the two mental spaces. Just like the jaws of the caiman, conceived as an agonist, are able to overcome any resistance in what they are chewing (the antagonist), Berlusconi is able to destroy any boundary and to break any resistance to his invasions.

The lexical element

In our description of the entailments that follow from the use of ‘caiman’ as a source space, we referred to the ‘crocodile’ as an animal to which the caiman is usually associated in Italian culture. But we have not yet considered the lexical aspects of this metaphor. Could the analysis made up to now have worked equally well for “that man is a crocodile”? The term ‘crocodile’ would have been simpler to comprehend since the caiman is quite a marginal figure in the Italian zoological encyclopaedia. The use of ‘caiman’ implies a less structured and vaguer mental space. Idiomatic expressions like “to cry like a crocodile” (referring to people that cry for the negative outcomes of actions for which they are nevertheless responsible and which they would probably repeat) would constrain the space of interpretation and make the emergence of a more adequate blend in which voracity is the emergent meaning, more difficult. With a stronger source space (with the more established conceptual structures related to ‘crocodile’), the metaphor would have been subjected to a more directional mapping, while with a weak source the blend is due to negative aspects of both the source and the target, thus producing a more negative portrayal of the target (Berlusconi). The cultural specificities of one source space are thus fundamental if we want to explain how metaphors are used to conceptualize experience inside a particular culture. Concrete elements used as sources are always inherently culturally embodied: “recognizing that what is cognitive (and embodied) is inherently cultural should be a fundamental part of how we do our work as cognitive psychologists, linguists, and anthropologists” (Gibbs 1999: 156).

Journalistic metaphors

One possible critique to this analysis could be that we have not taken into account evidence from Steen (1994) concerning the differences between reading journalistic metaphor and literary metaphor. Steen, after having set up many observations and experiments on subjects reading both literary and journalistic texts, states that when dealing with literary texts readers more often do the following: 1. Process the focus of metaphors in thinking-out-loud verbalizations. 2. Build contexts in terms of author intentions. 3. Identify metaphors explicitly. 4. Express their judgement. 5.Tend to re-conceptualise metaphors at later stages of the reading process. While these findings are highly relevant, their quantitative perspective has to be integrated into a more local and qualitative approach. The fact that we are dealing with a newspaper is not per se enough to state anything about the way readers will interpret our metaphor. When analysing “that man is a caiman”, we are dealing with a particular journalistic text. Franco Cordero, the author, is renowned for his complex articles where Latin quotations, puns and highly specialised juridical lexicon are common. This has led to the creation of a very specialised audience that quickly adopts and experiments with his metaphors. Moreover, La Repubblica has a tradition of constructing strong identities for its best journalists and editorialists, leading to a situation similar to the second point highlighted by Steen on the specificities of literary metaphors: the attention to (reconstructed) authorial intentions.

Metaphors and diagrammatic reasoning

The model of meaning construction underlying metaphorical occurrences that we are sketching is a tentative procedure in which sedimented structures are employed as resources, and re-deployed, in order to make new meaning emerge. Conceptual structures are thus conceived not as rigid types, but as more dynamic and evolving configurations, something that it is possible to manipulate in social practices. In particular the process described can be conceptualised as a diagrammatic reasoning: “By diagrammatic reasoning, I mean reasoning which constructs a diagram according to a precept expressed in general terms, performs experiments upon this diagram, notes their results, assures itself that similar experiments performed upon any diagram constructed according to the same precept would have the same results, and expresses this in general terms” (Peirce 1976 Volume 4: 47-48). A diagram is a particular configuration of more general relations that can be manipulated, in order to make new inferences possible. Through the semantic processes highlighted we have actually constructed particular configurations of semantic traits that can be manipulated. As already reported, Peirce stressed the idea that metaphors were the only way in which a singularity could generate a regularity, in which a new concept could emerge. From the semantic diagram we constructed, many consequences, many new interpretative tentative habits could be drawn. Any new action performed by Berlusconi could be conceptualised as expressions of his caiman-like voracity, of his need to invade every public field, to increase public charges crushing any boundary and resistance. The whole of Berlusconi’s past and future career is re-read in this way. Not even the (poor) caiman is left untouched. It is now hard to say caiman in Italian without stressing its voracity, which was not so salient before; or without summoning the figure of Berlusconi. An entire movie,based on this metaphor, namely Il Caimano by Nanni Moretti, later on definitely stabilised this process. The diagrammatic nature of this process escapes any rigid schematicity, bringing to the foreground the dynamic nature of meaning in general and of metaphors in particular. Indeed, new interpretative habits and new contexts deeply reshape the metaphor. Let us make a thought experiment. Let us imagine a right wing newspaper (generously funded by Berlusconi) publishing the text “of course that man is a caiman: he needs a thick skin to cope with all the insults that the communists throw at him”. Here we can find a reverted FORCE DYNAMICS schema in which Berlusconi as an agonist has to resist the pressure of the antagonist (the political rivals). Another possibility could be “of course that man is a caiman, the turbulent waves of Italian politics require no less to be tamed. Thus Berlusconi is exactly the man we need”. We leave to the reader the pleasure of finding the trajectory through culture and conceptual structure that crosses this manipulation of the metaphor.

Conclusions: On variations and attractors

Adopting a dynamic (though qualitative) approach to cognition, we have sketched a theoretical and analytical path through which metaphors can articulate the known and the unknown, regularities and singularities. Linguistic metaphors trigger processes of meaning construction that are diagrammatic and not determined by a strict type-token logic. Different semantic traits are available to be attempted and stabilised in a field of expectations. Their stability is also defined according to their conceivable consequences on the following cognitive processes and on the influence they will have on further discourses. In this model, schemata and established conceptual structures like conceptual metaphors do not lose their importance. They are simply pushed further away from any possible conceptualisation as rigid types determining local tokens. They are structures culturally and ontogenetically emerging from local variations and they keep this dynamics. Thus they can be conceived as attractors (Thelen and Smith 1994), i.e. patterns of recurring experience that help a system organise itself through the memory of the previous states. We are not alone in stating this. Gibbs has already proposed that schemata should be conceived as attractors which profile depends “on the overall state of the organism involved in some activity and past basins of attractions created within the system” (Gibbs 2006:115). Our contribution is thus to have sketched a (very tentative) model of the way these attractors mediate between situatedness and generality, and the way in which they are re-deployed in processes of meaning construction. Processes which can be defined as diagrammatic and which are constitutively situated. Language emerges as an arena for thought rather than as a place where thought is expressed. Language is a symbolic artefact and environment through which thought emerges and is engaged in its human specificities (Clark 2006), through which conceptual structures are put into play and potentially remodulated. To use and to understand conceptual structures, but also local metaphorical occurrences, involves at least an implicit understanding of their conceivable consequences, and of the way in which they can be put to work in the unfolding cognitive process, in the dynamic field of expectations in which meaning construction processes take place. And since language use is prominently social and public, “conceptual” here does not mean that metaphors are inner and subjective facts, but on the contrary that they are among the strongest tools social communities have to share and guide their experience. Metaphors can be used to enact (Varela et al. 1991; Gibbs 2006) the embodied, concrete experience in our mental activity; as Gibbs (1999) states it by quoting Kirmayer (1992): “metaphors are tools for working with experience”. It is indeed high time to

[…] move metaphor out of our heads and put it into the embodied and public world […] (This move) does not make metaphor any less cognitive than if we had long lists of metaphors nicely encoded in our heads. All this move attempts to do is acknowledge the culturally embodied nature of what is cognitive and to suggest that there is much less of a difference between what is cognitive and what is cultural than perhaps many of us have been traditionally led to believe. (Gibbs 1999:162).

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