Metaphor-II
Linguistic Stylistics
Metaphor-II
Figures of Speech
Paper Coordinator Prof. Ravinder Gargesh Module ID & Name Lings_P-LS10 Metaphor-II Content Writer Dr. V.P. Sharma Email id [email protected] Phone 9312254857
Contents:
10.1 Dead Metaphors
10.2 Conceptual Metaphor Theory
10.3 Extended Metaphor
10.4 Mixed Metaphor
10.5 Metaphor in Literary and Non-literary discourse
10.1 Dead Metaphors
We have noted that a metaphor is characterized by linguistic deviation. This characteristic allows metaphor, particularly poetic metaphors, to create novel and original combinations of ideas, objects and sensations. But as they come into common use, the novelty wears off and there is no perception of semantic deviation. More significantly, they lose their iconicity: in ‘root cause of the problem’ or ‘heated argument’, the original metaphor has lost its figurative ‘charge’; ‘root cause of a problem’ is simply the ‘fundamental reason for the occurrence of the problem’, and ‘heated argument ‘ is another expression for ‘angry exchange of words’. Such metaphors are dead metaphors.
But metaphors never really die. The metaphors that ‘die’ in poetic language come to ‘live’ in ordinary language. The habit of words to extend their meaning by metaphor and then cease to be metaphorical is a fact of language. It further allows metaphors to be used to fill gaps in vocabulary: leg of a table, wings of a building, clock hands, World Wide Web, crashing or hanging (as in computer hangs), surf, crash course. In such cases of metaphorical extensions, there are no literal substitutes for these expressions. This is true of all languages. In Hindi, metaphorical extension has often been accompanied by phonological variation. Thus, shikh (head) becomes shikhar (peak of a mountain) pet (belly) becomes peti (box) kuhni (elbow) becomes kona (corner)
Language is full of such dead metaphors. It has led many scholars to believe in the inescapable metaphorical quality of all human discourse. Cognitive linguists have criticized the traditional dead metaphor theory--the view that a conventional metaphor is "dead" and no longer influences thought. Conceptual Metaphor Theory, advanced by them, while rejecting the notion that metaphor is a decorative device, asserts that metaphor is central to thought, and therefore to language: "The 'dead metaphor' account misses an important point: namely, that what is deeply entrenched, hardly noticed, and thus effortlessly used is most active in our thought. The metaphors . . . may be highly conventional and effortlessly used, but this does not mean that they have lost their vigor in thought and that they are dead. On the contrary, they are 'alive' in the most important sense--they govern our thought--they are 'metaphors we live by.'"(Zoltán Kövecses, Metaphor: A Practical Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2002) http://grammar.about.com/od/c/g/conceptmetaphorterm.htm
10.2 Conceptual Metaphor Theory
A metaphor that “governs our thought”, may be reflected in our everyday language by a wide variety of expressions; it is no longer simply a dead metaphor but what cognitive linguistics call a conceptual metaphor. A conceptual metaphor, or cognitive metaphor, refers to the understanding of one idea, or conceptual domain, in terms of another.
In Metaphors We Live By(1980), Lakoff and Johnson introduced the terms source domain and target domain to understand the notion of conceptual metaphor.
If ‘Time is money’ is the conceptual metaphor before us, ‘time’ is the target domain which we are trying to understand in terms of the source domain ‘money’. Target domain and source domain are roughly equivalent to Tenor and Vehicle respectively of I.A. Richards but unlike in the case of tenor and vehicle, there is a unidirectional mapping of source domain on the target domain in the conceptual metaphor system. So, here we have ‘Time is money’ reflected in
(14) You are wasting my time
(15) This gadget will save you hours. (16) I don’t have the time to give you.
As the authors explain, the conceptual metaphor ‘Time is money’ reflects the notion of time in Western culture: ‘Time in our culture is a valuable commodity. It is a limited resource which we use to accomplish our goals.’ (Lakoff and Johnson 1981:290)
The phrase "giving my time" carries stronger connotations of bargaining. Selection of such metaphors tends to be directed by a subconscious or implicit habit in the mind of the person employing them.
Similarly, the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR is reflected in our everyday language by a wide variety of expressions:
(17) He attacked every weak point in my argument.
(18) His criticisms were right on target.
(19) I demolished his argument.
(20) He shot down all of my arguments.
The authors suggest that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, and the way we think what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor. Among the most important implications of this theory are:
Conceptual Metaphors structure our thinking, our knowledge, and indeed our communication.
They are grounded in physical experience. http://theliterarylink.com/metaphors.html http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/sourcedomainterm.htm
Exercise 1: Comment on the statement: they (Dead metaphors) are 'alive' in the most important sense--they govern our thought--they are 'metaphors we live by.’
10.3 Extended Metaphor
An extended metaphor is a group of several metaphors developing a single image. An author uses an extended metaphor to build a larger comparison between two things. The extended metaphor works with a sustained analogy with multiple-linked tenors running through a given text.
In Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold, for example, we have the extended metaphor of faith throughout the third stanza: (21) The Sea of Faith Was once too at the full Lay like the folds of a bright girdle-furled! But now I only hear Its melancholy, long withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. Dover Beach (ll. 21-29): Matthew Arnold
An extended metaphor is made up of a primary metaphor and a string of secondary metaphors ‘whose vehicles are metonymic of the primary vehicle and whose tenors are metonymic of the primary tenor’ (Riffaterre 1978: 5n 182).
In (21) above, the primary tenor is ‘Faith’ (in the given context, the vanishing faith in religion in the post-Darwinian world) and the primary vehicle ‘the sea’ (at low tide).The melancholy roar, the night wind, the vast edges and naked shingles are metonymic images of the primary vehicle, the Sea; likewise, there is a parallel chain of metonymic images of the primary tenor: (vanishing) Faith –despair, uncertainly, ugliness in the human world.
The central metaphor of ‘Faith is a vast sea’ is developed in secondary metaphors. The situation of the sea waters flowing around the earth like a belt clasping the earth (which is a simile) once in high tide but now at low tide, withdrawing and making a melancholy sound leaving behind an ugly shore covered with naked shingles, even as the night-wind has started blowing, is a metaphoric image of the disappearance of faith from human life leaving bare the sense of insecurity, uncertainty, and ugliness of human situation.
Extended metaphors occur in ordinary discourse as well but they do not generally extend beyond one or two sentences:
(22) My drooping spirits were uplifted by the news.
(23) He has a dense head which logic can never penetrate.
10.4 Mixed Metaphor
Mixed metaphors are different metaphors occurring in the same utterance, especially the same sentence, which are used to express the same concept. In simpler terms, a mixed metaphor is an incongruous combination of two or more dead metaphors that have not quite lost their imaginative force, and which somtimes results in an unintentionally comic effect.
(24) *The departed leader’s footprints will be our beacon lights for future.
(25) *The plan is tailor-made to suit our requirements but will have to be pruned for lack of adequate funds. (26) Corruption is the biggest bottleneck holding up India’s passage into the 21st century.
(27) We'll burn that bridge when we come to it.
It will be noticed that there is no perception of incongruity in (26) and (27). In (24), we notice the incongruity of footprints becoming the beacon lights, because the two are still not completely dead metaphors. The same applies to (25). In contrast, ‘bottleneck’ in (26), has come to simply mean ‘obstacle’, and is quite acceptable. (27), combines the meaning of the two metaphors ‘to cross the bridge when we come to it’ and ‘burn the boats’ into something like “We're ready to fight when the right time comes,” and still maintains imagery that makes sense.
According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980) mixed metaphors often, but not always, result in a conflict of concepts. They place mixed metaphors into two categories:
(a) Impermissible metaphors
(b) Permissible metaphors
Impermissible mixed metaphors are metaphors that conflict because they serve different purposes.
In the following examples, there is a conflict between two conceptual metaphors, ‘Argument is journey’ and ‘Argument is container’:
(28) * We can now follow the path of the core of the argument. (29) * The content of the argument proceeds as follows.
Permissible mixed metaphors, according to them, are mixed metaphors that do not conflict with each other because they serve the same purpose, and exhibit a correlation with each other.
They suggest that Argument-as-journey can address the “direction” of the argument and the argument-as-container can address the “amount of content” of the argument. Hence these are permissible mixed metaphors:
(30) At this point our argument doesn’t have much content.
(31) In what we've done so far, we have provided the core of our argument.
(cf.www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/WhatAreMixedMetaphors.htm)
But mixed metaphors need not be judged only on the basis of concept conflict or incongruity. Consider Hamlet’s soliloquy:
(32) To be or not to be – that is the question; ------To take up arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? -Hamlet III.i.56-60
There is an apparent incongruity in ‘taking up arms’ and ‘sea of troubles’. Yet the combination of the two incompatible metaphors is significant as it reveals an abstracted state of mind with an intensity which a coherent image could not have done.
10.5 Metaphor in Literary and Non-literary discourse
Metaphor is used extensively in both literary and non-literary discourse. We cannot, however, distinguish between the two kinds formally. Novel figures characterize all speech as diverse as poetic and scientific, though, of course, they have a larger role in literature than in non-literature. What is more noteworthy is the fact that the same metaphoric usage can mean different things in different discourses since metaphoric usage is context-bound.
(13) Man is a machine.
In an anatomy class, the utterance would be interpreted in terms of the great deal of resemblance between the functioning of a man’s body and that of a machine. But in a poem on modern society, it might signify modern man’s loss of individuality and freedom, and the power to think for himself.
It is, therefore, possible to distinguish between the two kinds on a functional level.
Hedwig Konrad (quoted in Ricoeur 1978: 108) distinguishes between two kinds of metaphors, the linguistic metaphor and the aesthetic metaphor. The linguistic metaphor ‘names an object with the help of the most typical representative of one of its attributes.’ Thus to call a man a lamppost is to evoke the attribute of ‘tall-ness’ of the latter and apply it to the former. The non- literary metaphor has in general a rhetorical function. As part of an intended communication, it argues its point and having established it, does not demand any further interpretation. As such it is finite in meaning.
The aesthetic metaphor, on the other hand, is used for creating illusion, principally by presenting the world in a new light, giving a new impression of objects by creating novel relationships, between the objects (cf. Wellek 1966:196). It is characterized by iconicity or double vision and the potential to create a fictive context. It is not autonomous but is an integral part of the literary artifact as an Art Symbol. Its meaning is not finite but is determined by readers’ perceptions, and as such may change across time and space.
Exercise 2: “We cannot distinguish between the two kinds of metaphors, metaphors used in literature and metaphors used in non-literary discourse, only on the functional level.” Comment.
Summing Up
To sum up the foregoing discussion, metaphor is a figure of speech which describes one thing as being another. It is the most important figure of speech used not only in poetry but in ordinary discourse as well. It is a versatile figure of speech that works on all parts of speech. Like other tropes, semantic deviation characterizes metaphor as well but very often whether a statement is to be taken literally or metaphorically depends on our recognition of the speaker’s intention as well.
The metaphoric process involves four elements: Similarity, Equivalence, Interaction and Tension. A metaphor sets up equivalence between two verbal signs (called tenor and vehicle) which is guided by the element of similarity between the two signs that are referentially different. Metaphoric meaning is finally the result of interaction between tenor and vehicle. However, interaction does not erase the literal meaning altogether. It only reduces the difference between the literal and the figurative meaning. The tension between the two gives to the metaphor its ‘metaphoricity’. Interpreting the metaphor in a given discourse requires us to realize this tension for which I.A. Richards has provided an elaborate framework.
Metaphor is used extensively in both literary and non-literary discourse, but we cannot distinguish between the two kinds formally. It is, however, possible to distinguish between the two kinds on a functional level. The non-literary metaphor has, in general, a rhetorical function.. And it is finite in meaning. The aesthetic (i.e. literary) metaphor, on the other hand, is used for creating illusion, principally by presenting the world in a new light, giving a new impression of objects by creating novel relationships, between the objects. Its meaning is not finite but is often determined by readers’ perceptions across time and space.
References:
Fowler, R. (ed.) (1973) A dictionary of modern critical terms. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980) Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Lakoff, G. (1981) Conceptual metaphor in everyday language. In M. Johnson (ed.) (1981): 286- 328
Leech, G. (1979) Linguistics and the figures of rhetoric. In R. Fowler (ed.) Essays on style and language. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 135-156.
Nowottny, W. (1968) The language poets use. London: The Athlone Press
Richards I.A. (1936) The philosophy of rhetoric. London: Oxford University Press.
Ricoeur, P. (1978) Rule of metaphor. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Riffaterre, M. (1978) Semiotics of poetry. London: Methuen.
Sapir, J.D. (1977) The anatomy of metaphor. In J.D. Sapir and J.C. Crocker (ds.) The social use of metaphor, Pennsylvania Press, 3-32
Wellek, R. and Warren, A. (1966) Theory of literature. Penguin.
Wimsatt, W.K. (1970)The verbal icon. London: Methuen and Co.