Review of Figurative Language and Figurative Thought by
Katz, Cacciari, Gibbs, and Turner
Seana Coulson
How many words do the Eskimo have for snow,
anyway? Estimates range from as many as
400 to as few as 2, and "experts" have gone on record with varied
counts of 200, 100, 48, 9, and 4. The
snow issue, along with related questions about the number of words Arabs have
for camels, or how many words the Hanunoo have for rice, have historically
fueled debate on the Whorfian hypothesis about linguistic determinism. The idea
that one's language has a profound effect on our perception of the world has
long fascinated students of linguistics, and indeed anyone with an interest in
language. However, perhaps because
these squabbles about vocabulary have sometimes been motivated more by
ethnocentric ignorance than by scholarship, serious debate about the Whorfian
hypothesis seems to have gone out of fashion.
Enter George
Lakoff and Mark Johnson in 1980 with the observation that everyday language is
replete with metaphors, and the claim that metaphors offer the linguist a
window into the mind. On this view,
metaphoric language reflects the output of a cognitive process by which we
understand one domain with cognitive models from another. For example, in some
of their early work Lakoff and Johnson pointed out that a large number of
expressions people use to talk about warfare are also used to discuss verbal
argumentation (where one can "attack," "retreat," pursue
"strategies," and so on).
They argued that these linguistic regularities were not the result of a
strange coincidence, but, rather, were indicative of a systematic set of
correspondences between the two relevant domains. Their early work laid the foundation for conceptual metaphor
theory, where researchers have since identified a large number of clusters of
metaphoric expressions demonstrating that both words and concepts are shared
between many diverse domains, including ideas and food, love and journeys, time
and motion, and many, many others (see Gibbs & Steen, 1999 for review).
Just when you
thought it was safe to go back to the ski slopes, it would seem that linguistic
determinism has once again reared its ugly head. Not only does conceptual metaphor theory posit a far closer
relationship between literal and figurative language than traditionally
assumed, it also posits a relationship between language and thought that
generative linguists might find inappropriate, if not taboo. It is within this context that Katz begins
his introduction to FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT, a book he coathored with
Christina Cacciari, Raymond Gibbs, and Mark Turner. All cognitive scientists with an interest in figurative language,
each author contributes a chapter outlining his or her position on the role of
nonliteral language in cognition. The
book has the flavor of a performance by a jazz quartet, as each member of the
group innovatively opines about the issues.
In the book's final chapter, "Counterpoint Commentary,"
contributors "trade fours," each writing a paragraph or two about
various issues related to the relationship between literal and nonliteral
meaning, and between language and thought more generally.
As noted above, the book begins firmly in the past,
as Katz marches through a series of issues that clogged the psycholinguistic
literature for the latter part of the twentieth century: Chomksy's autonomy of
syntax, Fodor's modularity of mind, brain areas dedicated to language, the
modular lexicon, and, lest we forget, the grammar module. But, if the issues are a bit tired, Katz, at
least, provides a clear, succinct review of the empirical findings that bear on
them. From here, he reviews the ever growing body of work in linguistics and
psychology on the topic of figurative language. As he notes, most of this work has, in one way or another,
concerned whether figurative language is special, or differs from literal
language in any significant way. But
all of this is a preamble, of sorts, for consideration of the implications of
the literature on metaphor for the question of the relationship between
language and thought.
Like Whorf, modern linguists Lakoff, Johnson, and
Jackendoff look to linguistic regularities to draw conclusions about conceptual
structure. But where Whorf emphasized
the influence of language on thought, modern researchers tend to draw the
causal arrow in the other direction. In
some sense, Katz argues, the very existence of figurative language flies in the
face of strong linguistic determinism.
If language determined thought, concepts would depend on the prior
existence of words that name them. But,
rather than being limited by extant vocabulary, speakers frequently appeal to
metaphoric meanings in the expression of novel concepts such as "black
holes". Such metaphoric extension of word meaning clearly argues against
the idea that the contents of thought are limited by one's language. Katz goes on, however, to propose metaphor
as a test case for the effects of language on thought, as in the way that the
metaphoric portrayal of Saddam Hussein as a 'modern Hitler' can affect people's
conceptualization of Hussein and his policies.
In sum, Katz
argues that any assessment of the importance of nonliteral language in
cognition is obliged to consider whether language is an autonomous component of
the human cognitive system, and whether metaphor and other sorts of figurative
language can be dissociated from language proper. The interrelationship between these issues virtually necessitates
the development of models of language and reasoning that are both explicit
(that is to say, computationally implementable) and psychologically real. Although the creation of such models
requires one to make assumptions about the very issues at hand -- are language
and cognition separable, what is the precise relationship between literal and
figurative meaning, and what is the relationship between metaphoric expressions
and metaphoric concepts -- it is through the development of such models that we
will ultimately answer these questions.
Whether he is right or wrong, Katz brings together ideas and evidence from
linguistics, psychology, computer science, and cognitive neuroscience, and
provides a nice overview of the issues.
Perhaps not surprisingly, many of the same issues
that drive Katz' thinking are also evident in Gibbs' contribution to the
volume. Gibbs' focus, though, is not the traditional Whorfian claim, but the
claim in conceptual metaphor theory that metaphoric language reflects
underlying connections between conceptual domains. Accordingly, he formulates four different hypotheses about the
conceptual implications of figurative language, and carefully considers how
each might be evaluated. Like Katz,
Gibbs is concerned with psychologically real models of language comprehension,
and carefully lays out the hypotheses the linguist is best suited to address,
separating them from those for which the psychologist's toolbox is more
appropriate. For example, one way that metaphoric thought might affect language
would be by playing a role in the historical evolution of what words and
expressions mean. This is a question
best addressed by linguists, and one, Gibbs notes, that linguists have shown to
be true. A somewhat stronger connection
between language and thought can be found in the claim that metaphoric thought
motivates synchronic word meanings, or meanings understood by current speakers.
This, too, is well-addressed by
linguistic methods and well-supported by existing data.
However, such claims about lexical semantics do not
necessarily entail Gibbs' third hypothesis, that metaphoric thought motivates
speakers' use and understanding of word meanings. A claim about the products of speaker's on-line comprehension
processes, Gibbs argues that it must be tested with methods from experimental
psychology. Citing numerous studies on
imagery in idiom processing, and on the comprehension of metaphors, proverbs,
and euphemisms, Gibbs argues that the third hypothesis is also supported by the
data. The fourth hypothesis is that
metaphoric thought functions in people's immediate on-line use and
understanding of linguistic meaning.
Gibbs notes that linguistic methods are incapable of addressing this
hypothesis, and only particular methods in psychology are appropriate for
assessing the initial processing of metaphoric language. Although Gibbs' fourth hypothesis is
probably the one psychologists are most interested in, Gibbs' review suggests
the jury is still out.
One criticism of this chapter is that Gibbs' eloquent
writing style occasionally covers for some questionable assumptions. For example, at one point he asks the
question, "Where does the ability to think metaphorically come from,"
alluding to an important claim in cognitive semantics that knowledge is
grounded in perceptual interaction with the physical and cultural world. In conceptual metaphor theory the embodied
basis of metaphor also consitutes the basis of abstract thought more generally
construed. In view of the book's topic,
this claim posits a very close relationship between language and thought, as
each depends on embodied experience in an important way.
However, the case Gibbs makes for embodied motivation
is less than compelling. In support of
his thesis, Gibbs cites evidence that people's concepts of anger have close
parallels in the logic of containers.
Gibbs writes, "It is difficult to explain the richness of these
metaphorical inferences without appealing to people's embodied experiences for
heated fluid in containers that are then metaphorically projected to help
individuals make sense of their anger experiences," (Katz, Cacciari,
Gibbs, & Turner, 1998: 114). However,
it seems rather absurd to suggest that people need to appeal to their knowledge
of fluid-filled containers to make sense of anger, a domain with(in) which they
presumably have far more embodied experience.
In contrast
to the chapters by experimental psychologists, Turner addresses the
relationship between language and thought from the perspective of classical
rhetoric. He argues that even
Aristotle, often attributed with the belief that metaphor was a 'mere' figure
of speech, held that metaphoric language was motivated by underlying conceptual
commonalities. Indeed, the classical
rhetorical view is that rhetorical figures are anchored in conceptual
patterns. Citing Fahnestock, Richards,
Burke, and even Quintilian, Turner shows that the distinction between literal
and figurative language has no real basis in classical rhetoric. As Quintilian wrote, "Quare illo
intellectu priore et communi nihil non figuratum est," ("In the first
and common sense of the word everything is expressed by figures," Quintilian
[1921]: 352-55, cited by Turner). It is
only because Quintilian chose to focus on "artful" figures that
figurative language has come to be thought of as ornamental and different in
kind from the literal expression of meaning.
In his contribution to the volume, Turner manages to
lead the reader on a delightful romp that begins with a tour of rhetorical
figures (antimetabole, ecphonesis, metalepsis, and zeugma,
to name a few), and ends with modern developments in cognitive
linguistics. For example, he traces the
classical definition of figure, as a pairing between linguistic form and
conceptual meaning, to its modern day counterpart in construction grammar, a
formalism that defines grammatical constructions as devices for pairing phonological
form to conveyed meaning. Turner
explains that in attempting to account for all of language use, construction
grammarians tackle the project that Quintilian set aside when he confined himself
to the study of artful figures.
The bulk of the chapter, though, is devoted to what
Turner calls the network model of conceptual integration. Developed in collaboration with Gilles
Fauconnier, Turner's network model holds that meaning construction often
involves the construction of blended spaces in which pieces of two or more
input concepts can be combined to form novel conceptualizations. For example, Turner explains that to
understand "President Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved at a quick pace
during his first 100 days in office," readers combine aspects of their
knowledge of Roosevelt's political achievements with aspects of their knowledge
about people moving along a path.
Turner argues that qualitatively similar sorts of integration underlie
the more obviously metaphoric "FDR made the dust fly as he sped along
during his first 100 days," or "FDR moved at full gallop through his
first 100 days."
On the issue of whether figurative thought is
mirrored in figurative language, as well as the question of whether figurative
thought is typically paired with linguistic form, Turner suggests that language
provides speakers with a set of constructions that typically can express both
literal and figurative meanings. For
example, compound nouns prompt speakers to integrate frames from different
domains, regardless of the figurativity of the resultant integration. That is, the same sort of integration
process is involved in "boat house" and "door knob" as
"fossil poetry" and "jail bait". In many ways he side-steps his assigned task with the assumption
that the traditional questions are ill-posed.
But, of course, if Turner is right, the traditional questions are indeed
ill-posed.
In the book's last authored chapter, the discussion
spirals heavenward, and perhaps even reels, as Cacciari addresses the question
of why speakers use metaphors in the first place. Moreover, given the commonality of speakers' metaphor usage, what
does this imply about the organization of the brain? With a dizzying discussion of topics that range from the
expressive properties of objects ("The postbox 'invites' the mailing of a
letter, the handle 'wants' to be grasped..." p. 125), to synesthetic
metaphors (why do touch words like "sharp" transfer to taste, color,
and sound, but, not, it is claimed to vision or smell?), to the importance of
culture-specific cognitive models (so-called cultural models), Cacciari
suggests there are three reasons we use metaphors. First, metaphors help people to understand and express relevant
parts of their inner lives. Second,
they extend preexisting categories and use the expressive properties of objects
and events as a perceptual basis.
Third, metaphors are used because literal language is not very good at
expressing the complexity of perceptual experience. If some of Cacciari's suggestions are a bit unusual, at least
they are testable -- and perhaps even right.
All in all, this little book deserves a look.