Why is metaphorical language used




















While Philosophy developed an interest through philosophy of language, Linguistics as the scientifically oriented discipline devoted to the study of language became involved especially through Cognitive Linguistics.

Psychology opened up new areas of investigation, as did Neuroscience, with research on the brain giving insights for example into the impaired processing of metaphor by people who have impaired centres in the brain or severed hemispheres.

Cognitive linguistics has tended to privilege the conceptual system that underlies metaphorical expressions, and this has often entailed a lack of attention to the differences between languages. The project pursued here will draw on the entire team of researchers involved in investigating Creative Multilingualism in order to benefit from their linguistic expertise and generate a deeper understanding not only of how metaphor works in languages beyond English, but the extent to which it is culturally widespread or even universal, and what precisely might be universal about it.

The importance of the body as part of a holistic concept of the human being for the project lies not only in the prevalence and efficacy of images that are derived from body parts and bodily functions, but also in the fact that language involves parts of the body and bodily processes, with the body being a human universal.

It can therefore serve as a useful point of reference as we investigate metaphors across different languages and cultures. The challenges facing research on metaphor are manifold. At the very centre lies the fact that we cannot talk about metaphor without having recourse to metaphor, or the related phenomena of simile, metonymy and analogy, just as we cannot conceptualise either thought or language without involving thought and language — and metaphor. Nevertheless — or perhaps because of this — basic words that refer to cognitive, linguistic or metaphorical processes can tell us something about how we conceptualise those processes.

Words matter, and notwithstanding their arbitrariness in some respects, pursuing their metaphorical implications can give us glimpses of coherent conceptual systems. What does it imply if we take it literally? Asking such literal-minded questions about language-specific words that concern universal processes may help to identify the role of metaphor in different languages, and how languages relate to each other in terms of the role metaphor plays in them. The fact that metaphors are not in fact literal opens up tremendous possibilities for creative variation both in the conceptualisation of what we want to talk about and in its linguistic framing.

Language and speech can be compared to many things and many processes, each of which invites us to think of them in subtly different ways. We can resist that invitation, or go with the flow, here once again following Cicero as he defines eloquence with a metaphor that gains meaningful vividness from the very language in which he builds up to it:. Eloquence is one, into whatever shores or realms of discourse it ranges. Whether its subject is the nature of the heavens or of the earth, the power of gods or men, whether it speaks from the well of the court or the floor of the house or from the bench or rostrum, whether its object is to move men to action or to instruct them or to deter them, to excite them or to curb them, to fire them or to calm them down, whether it be delivered to few or to many, among strangers or among friends or by oneself, the flow of language though running in different channels does not spring from different sources, and wherever it goes, the same supply of matter and equipment of style go with it.

Cicero, De oratore , III. But a successful metaphor also depends on what the person using it hopes to achieve. These metaphors were undoubtedly not accidental. And what constitutes a bad metaphor or simile? But it may just seem tired and unoriginal from overuse. For example, we frequently refer to the past being behind us and the future in front of us. Does this influence what we consider possible or even affect our whole frame of thinking? These are often imperceptible.

Allan says that as early as we have evidence, it seems the same verbs have been used to mean visually perceive and mentally perceive. But because we know a metaphor generally draws on the concrete to express the abstract, we assume it originated from the earlier meaning of physically seeing. These seem to exist because we aspire to an upright position, explains Allan. It would be hard to prove there are universal metaphors used in every language. The metaphor of vision to mean understanding is found in language families that are so different, it seems unlikely one has borrowed from another.

Hugging or being physically close to people creates warmth; as a common human experience, you would expect to find it in lots of languages. In fact, many if not most of the signs denoting abstract concepts in a given sign language are built on this double mapping, as illustrated and exemplified in depth by Taub Moreover, this is a very productive way for creating new signs, in everyday use and in sign language poetry.

In spoken languages, metaphor is often described as a process of making novel use of existing means: existing lexical items are used to refer to novel concepts by means of metaphorical extensions. In sign languages, this description is not accurate: metaphor is usually not making novel use of existing means, but rather the means for creating novel forms.

At present, it is not clear to us how to account for this difference, and we leave it as an open question for future research. Another difference between languages of the two modalities pertains to providing alternatives to metaphors.

Metaphors and similes are often used to create a vivid sensory image. But there are other means for achieving this goal. One alternative way to create vivid imaginary is through iconic means, which, as we have seen above, cannot be inhibited. Since iconicity is much more prevalent in sign languages, we expect to find many instances of vivid iconic representations of the desired visual image, instead of metaphors or similes.

This is indeed the case. A widespread use of body parts in visual languages is signaling the target domain of metaphorical mapping by articulating a sign close to a specific body part. We saw an example with the sign LEARN, where the head signals that the action encoded in the sign is a mental action. Another example is the sign for BOIL, usually articulated in neutral space. As the poet depicts the politician eating lunch and reading the newspaper, he changes the location of the verb EAT from the mouth to the eyes, indicating that the politician consumes news as he consumes food Figure 8 ibid.

All these examples show how the iconicity of body parts in sign languages can be exploited to create a vivid sensory image, without resorting to explicit or implicit comparisons as in similes and metaphors. Spoken languages cannot exploit body-part terms in the same way, since these terms are not iconic in the spoken modality.

Yet iconicity can be used to create sensory image even in the spoken modality. And Sharlin , p. But different languages have different means for achieving this goal.

Affordances of the modality may channel languages to use specific means, e. But as the use of mimetics show, it is not only about modality. Even within the same modality, languages may show different preferences.

We leave it for future study to investigate the different factors that may lead languages to show preference to one figurative means over another. In languages in both modalities, metaphor is prevalent, and many metaphorical mappings are shared by both, providing strong support for a universalist view of metaphor and metaphorical mapping in language.

But each modality has its own constraints and affordances, shaping the use of metaphors in ways particular to the modality. A cross-modal and cross-linguistic comparison enables us to grasp the central role of metaphors in human expression on the one hand, and the different means that languages provide for carrying out this function. All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

IM had tragically passed away before the paper was published. She was a brilliant linguist and a wonderful colleague, and will be sorely missed by all who knew her.

This work was partly supported by a grant from the Israel Science Foundation No. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

IM has been collaborating on research projects with host editors Wendy Sandler and Carol Padden over the past two decades. Wendy Sandler is warmly thanked for excellent suggestions and invaluable help. Akita, K. Kabata and K.

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