How We Resist Metaphors

Most people love metaphor, but we still sometimes find ourselves resisting their presence or meanings for various reasons. We resist metaphors both as a general strategy (e.g., “Metaphors are meaningless” or “Mixed metaphor are incoherent”), and as a response to some metaphors in very specific situational and discourse contexts (e.g., “I do not like the idea that my cancer treatment is seen as a war against my body”). People resist metaphors they have produced, metaphors imposed on them by others, and metaphors that they find to be offensive or that negatively stigmatize other individuals, or groups of people. But metaphors are also resisted for their lack of explanatory power in, for instance, scientific communities. There are also many ironies associated with metaphor resistance, such as consciously resisting some metaphor while still being governed by that same metaphor in our unconscious thinking and actions. Most generally, though, metaphor resistance is its own kind of metaphorical action. Taking a dynamic systems approach to resistance to metaphors, we discuss several implications of these observations for theories of metaphorical thought and language.

Η μέθοδος της Φωτογλώσσας στο χώρο της θεραπείας

In this article we present a particular method of group psychoanalytic psychotherapy, which is included in methods using mediating objects as the Photolanguage© method. We propose clinical sequences from the case of Sophie who participates in a Photolanguage© group in order to illustrate in a better way the method but the specific processes whichtake place too. Sophie, whose metaphorical thought is failing, has the possibility to access consciousness and subjectivity with the double aid of the group and of the mediating object. The figurability of the affect can be treated by the group which proposes a space where the internal groups of Sophie can be diffracted, permitting her to find the words and restore the thread of her personal history. The photograph, as an object, creates a playing area where the subject is able to create the link between her internal and external images, and between sensations and words.

Norwid's "tatarski czyn". Between hierarchy and eruption (semantics, contexts, and consequences)

Drawing on a scholarly polemic of the 1930s, this paper differentiates between two ways of understanding and translating Cyprian Norwid’s formula “tatarski czyn,” as ‘Tatar deed’ (from the Polish czyn) or as ‘Tatar rank’ (from the Russian chin according to the Tsarist Table of Ranks). The aim is to show how the eruptive versus the hierarchical readings of “tatarski czyn” have influenced the opinions on Norwid’s dialogic treatise Promethidion (1851) and, more generally, on his criticism of the utopian thought of Polish Romanticism and of Russian po-litics. It was Adam Mickiewicz who in the 1820s and 1830s pointed to the homonymy between czyn and chin and its potential in enacting ambivalences between the seemingly incommensurable imaginaries of eruption and hierarchy. Moreover, Mickiewicz already linked both understandings of czyn with a stereotypical Tatar, or Mongolian, “Asianness.” In this respect, Norwid’s formula is fairly conventional. What is genuinely original, however, is how Norwid turns Mickiewicz’s earlier ideas against those of the later Mickiewicz who, in his Paris Lectures on the Slavs (1840–1844), seems to glorify the “Tatar deed.” In contrast to the “bloody ladder” of Russian bureaucracy and the irrational tendency in Mickiewicz’s activism, Norwid suggests a “gradual labor” culminating in, not erupting with, the deed (Promethidion). This aspect of Norwid’s metaphorical thought is shown in a parallel reading with the philosopher August Cieszkowski who, in his Prolegomena to Historiosophy (1838), conceptualized history as a “texture of deeds” leading to institutions. Similarly, Norwid’s positive notion of the deed, i.e. his revision of Romantic activism, should be situated beyond the alternatives of eruption and hierarchy.

Visual metaphors in medical knowledge representation

Understanding the role of mental images and embodiment in metaphorical thought is fundamental to the study of metaphor in science in general, and in medicine in particular. And analysing typologies of metaphorical images and their function is a key issue in assessing their success in disseminating knowledge, since knowledge construction depends on the interaction between verbal and visual information (Ketola, 2016). In this article, we describe the premises and methodological steps followed in analysing and describing visual metaphorical information in medical texts for lay audiences. We follow a data-driven approach in which images were extracted from the VariMed database, a multimodal terminographical tool for translation, linguistic research and knowledge dissemination. An experiment was carried out to explore how successfully metaphorical images used as illustrations for specific medical concepts were identified and understood. We conclude that metaphorical images were preferred over non-metaphorical illustrations for medical concepts, which may point to lay audiences’ familiarity with metaphorical multimodal references.

Big Little Snake

This chapter poses a complicated philosophic question: Are ecosystems complex, natural wholes that involve interdependent, dynamically interrelated, and interactive parts, or are they abstract conceptions in the human mind, lacking in any independent natural reality? This question is difficult since human beings are creatures with one foot in natural reality and another foot in metaphorical thought. The answer given comes in the form of a story of trout fishing on the Little Snake River and an encounter with a large trout, a wise old survivor that the author calls Big Little Snake. The encounter with Big Little Snake was concrete when it happened, but later in memory and reflection it has become a metaphor for a rich and abundant nature. The unanswerable question becomes a practical insight. Human beings need nature and our fellow living creatures for the metaphoric opportunities that they afford. To impoverish the biological diversity of the natural world is to impoverish our own humanity as well.

Metaphor and ideology: Conceptual structure and conceptual content in Spanish political discourse

This article presents the results of the analysis of a number of linguistic metaphors found in a corpus of opinion articles published in the Spanish newspaper El País. The authors included in the corpus, who tend towards the left of the political spectrum, use metaphor to express moral judgements on the actions and decisions of the conservative, centre-right People’s party ( Partido Popular or PP), which governs Spain with an overall majority. With the aim of describing this discourse, we have undertaken a qualitative analysis with a conceptual framework deriving from CDA and cognitive linguistics. First, therefore, we have made use of the methodology developed by Steen and the Pragglejaz group to extract the discourse units that could be considered as the lexical expression of an underlying mapping between domains, that is, the metaphors; second, according to the descriptions of Talmy, Croft, Sweetser, Sullivan, and Dancygier and Sweetser, we have verified that the different types of grammatical structure in which the lexical items appeared also indicated the existence of a metaphorical thought process; and third, in the words of van Dijk, we have studied the ideological semantics underlying conceptual structures and conceptual content. As we have demonstrated, all the samples of linguistic metaphors found led readers to construct the same interpretation of the meaning: The Spanish People’s party government is the past, a past that provokes rejection and which was thought to be definitively ended.

Metaphor, Objects, and Commodities

This Article is a contribution to a Symposium that focuses on the ideas of Margaret Jane Radin as a point of departure, and particularly on her analyses of propertization and commodification. While Radin focuses on the harms associated with commodification of the person, relying on Hegel's idea of alienation, we argue that objectification, and in particular objectification of various features of the digital environment, may have important system benefits. We present an extended critique of Radin's analysis, basing the critique in part on Gadamer's argument that meaning and application are interrelated and that meaning changes with application. Central to this interplay is the speculative form of analysis that seeks to fix meaning, contrasted with metaphorical thought that seeks to undermine some fixed meanings and create new meanings through interpretation. The result is that speculative and metaphorical forms are conjoined in an interactive process through which new adaptations emerge. Taking this critique an additional step, we use examples from contemporary intellectual property law discourse to demonstrate how an interactive approach, grounded in metaphor, can yield important insights.

Counting Metaphors: What Does this Reveal about Language and Thought?

Counting metaphors has become quite fashionable in metaphor research. There are numerous attempts to reliably identify metaphors in discourse and count their frequencies. These studies aim to accurately assess the prominence of metaphor in language, but also provide insights into active metaphorical thinking. My evaluation of this research suggests that there may be rough correspondences between the frequency of metaphor and the richness of metaphorical thought. At the same time, even a single verbal metaphor can fundamentally structure an entire discourse, illustrating the power of metaphor to shape how we think about many abstract ideas and events. I also describe instances in which nonmetaphorical language can also enhance metaphorical thinking, and suggest the need for new ways of measuring metaphoricity in language and thought.