These are my notes (to myself) for the talk at Purdue Oct. 2000 about metaphors. There has been no proofreading!

Metaphors, structures, and creativity

Carlo Grevy, Denmark

In this talk I shall strike three topics. Part 1) First I shall show that there are very good reasons for rethinking the function of metaphors: they are not especially creative, not more than the rest of the language. Their function are not to tell us something new about the world but merely to reconfirm that the world is very static. Metaphors are not even common in our everyday talk - which is at statement that never has been shown empirically - the metaphors are common in specialised language. For instance: if we talk about a technological topic we cannot do without metaphors. And their functions are to connect our commonsense knowledge with the new experiences. This is the only way to get new knowledge into language. Part 2) Second: from this point of view, where I try to get us to a new perspective on metaphors, I shall give some answers to the question: which function has the container metaphor? This metaphor is - as other metaphors - a general way to talk about new things in a commonsense way. This metaphor's source domain is, as other metaphor's sources, commonsense experiences, based on non-reflective words referring to physical object and relations among such physical objects. And this way in putting words together, to put the world into the structure of language - seen in a constructivistic perspective - is restricting us in talking in a substantial way of many topics, which not are of everyday experiences (for instance the space, the mind and the language). The structures of metaphors are restricting our perspective on fundamental new things and in our possibilities to talk about these things (or aspects of the world) in a proper way. For the third - Part 3): to be able to talk about how metaphors and especially how the container metaphors is functioning, I shall introduce some new terms: I shall talk about the word in our everyday language upon which we ground the metaphors as fixed words.

In my talk I shall not give all the examples as demonstrated in part 1. The time will not allow doing this. I think I shall concentrate on the ideas in part 2 and 3! But the examples - all are empirical grounded - will here allow me to ague for the idea of the final system. I shall demonstrate some of the ideas showing some ads, which mirrors the structure of the language in the specialised language.

Literature

Part 1

It is my aim here to give a new perspective on metaphors. For the last decades we have been trapped in a special perspective on metaphors. We have been trapped in the cognitive semantic perspective on metaphors. Scholars have for hundreds of years discussed this topic. Today most of the scholars are focussed on how thinking and metaphors are connected, and it is supposed, that we think like we talk and write: we think the same way as we use metaphors. I think there are some contradictory assumptions behind these ideas about metaphors, and these assumptions lead to stagnation in the development in this linguistic field. The many articles over the last decades can be seen as an indication on this stagnation: the perspective on metaphors is in a mere backwater.

To open up for a new perspective we have to look on how metaphors really work. We have seen a wide tradition for talking on how we - or other - think metaphors is used. This leads to lot of speculation, which not really have anything to do with how metaphors are used. We could ask us selves: is it possible that a metaphor, for instance "discussion is war" determines how we think and make assumptions about wars, even if we not are using it? Is it possible that the contrary standpoint, which it also is possible to observe in large corpus (for instance using searching engines on the Internet), that for instance "discussions is dance" are a more proper way of talking about how we think about discussions? My answer to this question is yes. This yes don't meant, that the dance-idea really is more used than the war-idea. It means that it's a possibility. The point is: we can't really know before we have researched how people use metaphors.

To have a new perspective on metaphor means therefore to have a new methodology. I am convinced, that the stagnation - indicated on the many articles on this topic - in this linguistic field is coursed on a misleading methodology, which talk about how we think about metaphors and not talk about metaphors themselves.

To come a step further I have chosen to make a research on computer metaphors. I could give several courses why this area is interesting - but here I only shall mention that this area itself has a very high developing rate: new products and technological new thinking are in a long and very fast moving lane introduced into the market and into our consciousness. There could be good reasons for claiming that one would be able to find many new metaphors here. To find out how metaphors worked in this computer area I collected every metaphor for a computer periodical for nearly a year. I made a research on over 6000 computer metaphors. I related these results to other areas so as mathematics, physicists, pedagogic, literature, where I already had made some smaller investigations.

What I found gave something to think about. I had to rethink the way we are looking at metaphors:

Some conclusions – research on 6000 computer metaphors

Pilot researches in fields of e.g. physics, mathematics, pedagogy, popular science, religion, ads, television language give the same indications:

1. The metaphors are structured systematically and can be arranged into 12 scenarios, including about 400 different typical metaphors
2. The metaphors are not as creative as often believed – on the contrary the metaphors can in some sense be predicted on the basic of the scenarios
3. The metaphors are widespread in specialized (and technical) language
4. The function of metaphors are always to map something unknown into the area of known (the field which Berger & Luckmann calls commonsense conscious), to the surface of our everyday knowledge
5. The function of metaphors is not to tell something new at all, but to tell something old, something we already know.

Some of these conclusions are in contrast to the way metaphors most often are seen. We often have this idea - with inspiration from looking at metaphors in literature I think: metaphors tell us something radically new. But this is not my conclusion. No - on the contrary: when we have something new in the world we use a lot of energy through metaphors telling us selves and others that these things are something old! And to do this we have a restricted system of linguistic possibilities. I call them scenarios; structures of words related to well know aspects of our everyday live. For instance: when computers accelerate, runs fast, has a high speed, and when data arrives to a place, when they are at home computers or at web hotels, we use old words from everyday experiences on how to come around physically in our everyday life, for instance how we use our car to get from our home to a hotel. And in using words from this scenario we say nothing new about computers, on the contrary: we tell that this hi technology is very common.

There are many possibilities to use metaphors, nearly 400. In my research I found, when I had examined about 3000 metaphors, that the metaphors never changed. People always used the same words (from the same scenarios) to tell something (old) about computers. It was not my thesis, that I should find the same metaphors, but from this point I intensively searched for some other to see if the area really was restricted. My conclusions after systematically examine 3000 metaphors more was that we always - and not only in the metaphor field - are using metaphors from the same scenarios.

There are some other facets about metaphors where this research has an influence: when metaphors often are seen as unpredictable and unrestricted, they also are seen, as man's creative, innovative and intuitive power. But when metaphors do not tell us anything new - we are not interested - metaphors always tell us what we already know.

And something more: metaphors are based on our experiences from our everyday life. But metaphors are not indigenous to everyday language, as often supposed. Metaphors are indigenous to specialised language, in other places they are special occurrences - a statement, which is in opposition to well known and often discussed cognitive linguistics. Metaphors are always extensions of everyday life, and they do not differ very much in the way they appear in different environments.

I shall demonstrate how metaphors work (will not appear in this form in my talk):

The system

The scenarios

1. The non-human area

1.1. Reification

1.2. Botany

1.3. Animals

2. Human activities and rooms

2.1. Human activities

2.2. Various human social rooms.

2.2.1. Basic rooms for survival (production)

2.2.2. Social rooms outside the production

2.2.3. Art & culture

2.2.4. Social rooms without control

2.2.5. Social rooms diachronic

3. Orientation / movement

3.1. Physical rooms

3.2. Psychological rooms

1. The non-human area

1.1. Reification / Inanimate things

"Radio Data Packet Transmission"

"Note - if you have problems unpacking any of the following files…"

"Maps and Data Store"

"Integrated Data Communications Services Homepage"

"Check the order of text flows"

"Hot Page System updates for Information Technology"

(Physical, bodily attributes)

"COLD FACTS - the quarterly publication of CSA"

"Golden Networks Computer Help"

(Metal– inner qualities)

1.2. Botany

Activities (be in flower, to grow, to mature)

Results (to ennoble)

Objects (apples, fruits, trees)

"The writer plucks some of the fruits of authorship"

1.3. Animals

Animals (predators, reptiles etc.)

Other indications (living or dead "The Dead Pizza Files")

Clones

Sensitivity ("Note that most web servers are case-sensitive")

2. Human activities and rooms (including personification)

2.1. Human activities

Activities and conditions (make one’s contribution to…,be well mannered, fall between two stools – rule, manage, be generous)

Mental activities (to be intelligent, be awake, be grown up)

Communication (talk, use language, to communicate, to read, to write)

Perceive (see, hear, feel, watch, look after)

Solving problems

Intentionally

Glory and honor (respectable)

Responsibility

Proper names (Einstein, Mona Lisa)

Related to the human body

2.2. Various human social rooms

2.2.1. Basic rooms for survival / Production

Societies bases on hunting and fishing (hunting, fishing)

Agriculture

Trade (tools)

Trade (arranging, organizing, being concerned about the architecture, testing, constructing, and strike while the iron is hot)

Industry (machinery, engines, gears, overdrives, mechanics, workers)

Sale and service (to offer, to introduce, to deliver)

2.2.2. Social rooms outside the production 1

Parties (dance with the program)

Entertainment (acrobat)

Warnings, accidents (alarm bell, funeral)

Ceremonies

Intimacy

Policy (anarchy, machine breaker)

Law, jurisprudence

2.2.2. Social rooms outside the production 2 – the meal

The meal (appetite, samples, spam, menu, beans, wafers, Visual Cafe)

2.2.2. Social rooms outside the production 3 – relations between people

The family - biological (generations, sisters, brothers, babies, children, cousins, parents)

2.2.3. Social rooms outside the production 4 – social arrangements

The family - cultural (marriage (seek in marriage, engagement, adoption)

Friendship and related relations (companion, darling, neighbor)

According to employment (serve, guard, agent, client, assistant, master, slave, inceptor)

Other relations (fan, nobility)

2.2.3. Art & culture

Art of painting (exhibitions, brush stroke, Picasso’s blue period)

Music (sweet music, give the keynote)

Textile engineering (tailored system, designed, collect under one hat)

Theatre (the scene, actor, the play, masquerade, soap opera, win an Oscar)

Sports, athletics (levels of power - the participants - the players - the competitors - the placing - the winner, the finalist)

Activities, type of sports (soccer, football, baseball, cycle race, martial art, surfing)

Games (gambling, chess, playing cards, game of dice)

2.2.4. Social rooms without control

Crimes

The persons (pirates, gangs, robbers)

The activities (the fights, firing, the taking of hostages)

The persons and activities handling the problems (cops, taking finger-prints)

War

The event (the war, the battle, the attack, the intervention)

The place (the front-line)

The participants (the warriors)

The tools (armament, pistols, guns)

The result (lose ground)

Disease and illness

The actors (virus, doctors)

The subject (health)

The indicators (infection)

The activities (take the computers temperature, use medicine)

The irrational

Religion (actors, subject, goal, activities – Christianity/other)

The fantastic, the fabulously and magic (actors, activities, accessories – wizards, pixies, ghost – prophesy, conjure, haunt - horn of plenty

2.2.5. Social rooms diachronic

Experiences from childhood

Knowledge on history

3. Orientation / movement

3.1. Physical rooms

Up/down (down, low, fall, rise, lower)

The surface (before, behind, area, background, breaking through, heavy, light, under, over, platform)

The landscape (at nightfall, the weather, the perspective)

The city (the office and the equipment – the house – the hotel – the library – the campus – the post office)

The journey (the vehicles, the places, the way to do it, the result – ships, cars – on roads, in the air – fast, slow, short cuts, overtaking, accelerating – get access, visit, leave)

3.2. Psychological rooms

Feelings and perceptions through the senses

Part 2

The container metaphor is wide spread in the western world. It is one of the main metaphors, where we talk about new terms in concrete form. The container metaphors are not only about qualities about physical things - it is also about some specific relations about these things. The metaphors here are referring to knowledge both about space and about concrete things - it's about how things are in space. There has been a long tradition for scholarship in this topic - and it is shown that different cultures represent such knowledge about the world in different ways. In several fields this metaphor was fundamental for understanding topics - or at least: talking about these topics - in the late 19^th century and the new 20^th century. In the economics the metaphor was present as liquids in reservoirs and communication vessels. In the psychology scholars were talking about psychological liquids for mental objects. The linguists were talking about the meaning in the words. And the physicist ware talking about the objects in the space, though they had problems showing where the space was included: it was included in it self, because there was nowhere else to be included.

There are some obvious problems in using these metaphors. The mind is not in the body. But talking so, we almost think so - and that restrict our way of talking about the mind in a proper way. Therefore we often are talking about the mind as the mind in the machinery. The world is divided into independent classes such as body and soul - the dualistic platonic way. The meaning are not in the words - and talking about it this way give us some problems understanding language. The economics is not about liquids but about people, but using this way of talking about it the perspective is twisted. And even talking about the real space gives us problems: how do we understand that the space is in itself?

Some of these examples from the history of the container metaphor show some of problems using metaphors - but also the main function of metaphor. It is not so, that we have to avoid metaphors. Metaphors are necessary. But we have to have attention to how metaphors restrict us in a proper way to talk about complex things. The function of metaphor is to connect our everyday experience to new borderlines of the world. We have no other possibility to talk about the things around us. But these metaphors are also restricting what we are able to say. Using these metaphors involves systems of associated ideas, and this means - using a non-mentalistic way of expressing the problem - that these systems are restricting our possibilities to access other part of our vocabulary.

Part 3

Let us return to the structure of the metaphors. Looking at metaphors this way give us some epistemological problems: what does it mean to understand anything? If we always have to use metaphors, how are we then able to understand? For me to see: this is no problem. The old empirical tradition from Locke and Hobbes told us that metaphors did not have any epistemological value. But seeing it from a holistic and constructive perspective, there is no problem. The world is always constructed through our language - and the world is changing through the intonation of the always-changing paradigms. The new knowledge is in a way better that the previous - but it is never absolute.

But a question is what this exactly means and how we can use our knowledge here about metaphor. This means, that our knowledge always is grounded upon our everyday live. What metaphors do are to connect our everyday live with the new. This means that we never understand things "as they are" but through words from our commonsense world used upon the new. I therefore will conclude: to understand is to use metaphors - it is to connect special words from our everyday live with the new. Knowledge then is not something we have in our heads (as meaning not is in the words) - it's the relation between unproblematic words, words we think we know what means, with the new.

When we talk about the water in the bath we think we know what we mean. That's why we are able to use words as water and bath as the source in the metaphor. And this is a real container metaphor. We could call such word fixed words - words we think we know what means. There is a social agreement: we know what this means. We are using such words to be orientated in the world (whatever this term world means). Other scholars in other disciplines are using this way of thinking too. For instance in the psychology: Mageret Mahler talks about object relations. To be orientated, to familiarize in a complicated social and technical live, we connect us selves to some fixed objects. And that's what we are doing using metaphors: we are using the fixed word to swing ourselves a further step along. This is of course a phenomenological point of view, and we could say that we through the metaphors are trying to digitize an analog world. The historian says this in another way. She knows that she is not able to grab the "world as it is". She therefor constructs (in her mind) the house from the remaining post, the fundament of the house - and she constructs the entire hi-story from such posts (remaining fundaments). When we use metaphors we do it the same way. Understanding aspects of the world means constructing the whole from the parts; we are in this work walking on the remaining fundament from the house, jumping from the one fixed point to the next, from the one post to the next.

In this perspective we see that metaphors not tell us something new. But using them we understand and we construct an entire world.

Other notes for the talk

Metaphors, structures, and creativity

3 parts

The conclusions

Part 2

Part 3