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Metaphors: How are they different for the poet, the child and the everyday adult?
New Ideas in Psychol. Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 333-341, 1988 Printed in Great Britain
0732-118X/88 $3.00+0.00 (~ 1988 Pergamon Press pie
M E T A P H O R S : H O W ARE T H E Y D I F F E R E N T F O R T H E P O E T , T H E C H I L D A N D T H E EVERYDAY A D U L T ? SUSAN ENGEL Developmental Psychology, Graduate Center, City University of New York, 33 W. 42nd St., NY 10036, U.S.A.* A b s t r a c t - This paper considers differences and similarities in the way children, poets and everyday adults make and understand metaphors. Samuel Levin (1976, in Pragmatics of language and literature, Amsterdam: North Holland Publishers; and 1979, in Metaphor and thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) has argued that metaphors involve changing concepts of the world rather than shifts in word meanings. His theory rests on the idea that metaphors are to be understood literally and that the poem is a kind of speech act containing an implicit invitation for the reader to enter the poet's world. Werner's (1948, The comparative psychology of mental development, New York: International Universities Press) theory o f physiognomic perception is discussed in order to show how childrens' as well as poets' metaphors are meant to be taken literally. While the meaning structure underlying adult and child metaphors is similar the intentionality and boundaries of use may differ for young children. Goffman's (1974, Frame analysis, New York: Harper and Row) theory of frames in discourse is presented in order to explore contexts other than poems in which a metaphor user might issue an invitation for a listener to enter his or her world. INTRODUCTION T r a d i t i o n a l l y t h e r e have b e e n two a p p r o a c h e s to the study o f . m e t a p h o r . O n e a p p r o a c h has b e e n to describe the s t r u c t u r e o f a m e t a p h o r a n d explain how m e t a p h o r i c l a n g u a g e e x p r e s s e s m e a n i n g . T h e e x a m p l e s used in this kind o f w o r k t e n d to be ideal m e t a p h o r s that contain a clear topic a n d vehicle a n d an identifiable g r o u n d . It is usually t a k e n f o r g r a n t e d in this kind o f a p p r o a c h that the h e a r e r would recognize that he or she is b e i n g asked to e n g a g e in m e t a p h o r i c talk b e c a u s e o f the lack o f literal sense in the m e t a p h o r . T h i s kind o f a p p r o a c h tends to focus on the essential f e a t u r e s o f m e t a p h o r i c m e a n i n g . It takes the m e t a p h o r i c p h r a s e as a key or g u i d e to an u n d e r l y i n g m e a n i n g structure, o n e in which w o r d s a n d their m e a n i n g s relate to each o t h e r in a particular way. A second a p p r o a c h has b e e n to focus o n how p e o p l e use m e t a p h o r s . T h i s type o f a p p r o a c h takes into a c c o u n t the c o n t e x t (physical, linguistic a n d social) in which m e t a p h o r s are used. T h e p r o b l e m is to find a way o f talking a b o u t m e t a p h o r s that c o m b i n e s a discussion o f s t r u c t u r e with o n e o f use. T h i s i n t e g r a t i o n would p r o m o t e a view o f m e t a p h o r s as c o m p r i s i n g a system o f m e a n i n g with e n d u r a b l e identifying characteristics, a n d at the s a m e time as a f o r m o f m e d i a t i o n that is v u l n e r a b l e to the vagaries o f their creators, people. I n t u r n , the relationship b e t w e e n m e t a p h o r s a n d o t h e r aspects o f h u m a n e x p e r i e n c e c o u l d be better u n d e r s t o o d . *Correspondence to RD2, Box 178A, Great Barrington, MA 01230, U.S.A. 333
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This paper presents one approach to this integration. The basis for this effort is a model for literary metaphors proposed by Samuel Levin (1976, 1979). Two theories that support the psychological reality of his model will be presented: (1) Werner's (1948) theory of childhood language and experience will be used to support the psychological validity of Levin's theory and to draw links between the function of metaphors for adults and for children. (2) Goffman's (1974) theory of communicative frames will be presented in order to extend Levin's theory from the realm of poetry (and structural analyses) to the realm of discourse, and used to highlight the psychological implications of Levin's model. These three theories - - Levin's, Werner's, and Goffman's - - represent disparate perspectives. When integrated, they provide an approach to the study of metaphor that focuses on issues of both structure and use. This in turn may allow for more fruitful continuity between developmental research on metaphor and literary theories of metaphor. CONCEPTUAL VERSUS SEMANTIC VIEWS OF METAPHOR Levin (1979) begins his a r g u m e n t by describing standard approaches to metaphor that rest on the idea that a metaphor creates semantic conflict. For example, in "the gloomy clouds" the reader or hearer experiences conflict because the word, "gloomy" belongs to a semantic network of words that represent emotions and are used to describe only human experience. "Cloud" belongs to a set of words that name inanimate objects. In order to understand the metaphor, the hearer must make sense of a phrase that puts two "incompatible" words together, and must resolve the conflict between the state of gloom and a cloud. According to standard theories of metaphor, the hearer does this by changing word meanings. So, for example, the hearer extends or shifts the definition of gloomy to include grey or thick, so that it can be an appropriate descriptor for a cloud. T h e assumption is that the world remains stable. After all, clouds do not have feelings. T h e only transformation the hearer can make is one involving word meanings. Levin argues against this explanation of metaphor. He asserts that the words in a metaphoric phrase are to be interpreted literally. Word meanings remain stable and in order to make sense of the metaphor the hearer reconstrues the world. For example, "gloomy" means what it usually means, a sad, depressed frame of mind, and the word "cloud" still refers to a cloud in the sky, but on hearing (or rather understanding) the metaphor we imagine a real cloud feeling gloomy. Levin argues that if the idea that "poetry is creative" is anything more than a trivial clich6, the poet must be a creator and the poem the world he or she creates. In order to read and understand the poem one must share the poet's transformations of the world. This is a radical view of metaphor in that it makes metaphors a conceptual rather than a semantic phenomenon. The listener must think differently about the world - - what changes is not what the word "gloomy" can mean, but the concept of what clouds can be. There are two important psychological implications of the theory. The first is that symbols (in this case, words) do not merely refer to or convey reality, they
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help to create reality. T h e second is that metaphors do not impart their meaning in isolation from the context in which they are created and understood. Levin's theory implies that metaphors are interpreted within a particular framework. The context of the poem directs the way a metaphor is interpreted or, indeed, the fact that it is interpreted. These two theoretical implications now need to be discussed. HOW METAPHORS SHAPE REALITY FOR ADULTS AND CHILDREN The first implication of Levin's theory is that symbols help shape reality as it is perceived by humans, and that the world can be transformed through words. This is not to suggest that actual objects change in substance because of the way they are named or described. Rather, it is to suggest that one way we experience our world is through our talk about it. Students of psychology, language, and the arts have constructed theories of how we experience the world through the symbols we use to describe that world (Goffman, 1974; Goodman, 1968; Ricoeur, 1981; Schafer, 1983). One assumption common to these theorists, as well as to Levin, is that the symbols or words we use to describe something provide us with a form in which to think about those things described. In many spheres of activity it is this represented world, rather than some objective and stable world, within which we function. Similarities between children and adults Werner's (1948) description of a p h e n o m e n o n he calls "physiognomic perception" adds a developmentally relevant dimension to the notion of reality transformed through words. Werner asserts that young children do not differentiate between the domain of inanimate objects and the domain of human experience. Objects seem to express feelings and other human characteristics directly. For example the four or five year old says "the cup is tired" or "that is an angry six." There is a developmental relationship between the young child's use of physiognomic language and the adult's use of metaphor. This relationship consists in part of the similarity between the way physiognomic and metaphoric language sound or seem, although in itself this would be a strictly structural similarity. The claim to be made here is that there is also an implicit similarity in the way children and adults use metaphors. Children's utterances, such as "Mother, it's so foggy, everything is like whispering" (Werner, 1948, p. 74), are structurally similar to adult metaphors in that two usually disparate domains (fogs and whispers) are brought into proximity. But, at a deeper level, children's physiognomic expressions and adults' metaphors are related because they do the same thing: they involve construals of the world. The relationship between words and concepts of the world is basically the same for both types of language use. The aspect of Levin's theory that is specifically applicable to children's physiognomic language is the idea that words in a metaphoric phrase are to be taken literally, and that what changes is one's construal of the world. Interpreting metaphors involves new concepts, not new word meanings. This seems to describe precisely the dynamic of children's physiognomic expressions.
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Children mean what they say when they use physiognomic language. The impetus for children's metaphoric expressions comes from children's vivid experience of things - - the cup expresses tiredness, the six expresses anger. Traditional approaches to children's metaphor often focus on children's limited vocabulary ("use words you know to express what you don't have the correct name for"). This does contribute to children's production of metaphor. But these same utterances also reveal changing construals of the world in much the same way as they do for the poet. From the child's point of view the world is still to be completely discovered. Boundaries between types of experience are not firm. Physiognomic construals of the world seem plausible and real. The relative limitations of the child's linguistic system highlight the conceptual nature of metaphors. In a study which looks at children's figurative language (Engel & Glick, 1982) many of the examples clearly reflect that the construct is based on experience in the world rather than on word meaning. Often these examples are not clear cases of adult metaphor from a linguistic point of view. But they are expressions that describe one thing in terms of another and draw together two disparate domains. For example: "He's a watermelon because he's lonely and alone a lot, and did you ever buy two watermelons?" is typical of children's non-literal talk. The basis or ground of the connection between watermelons and the person comes from experience rather than word meanings. This suggests that children use their conceptual knowledge and real world experience as a resource for expressing themselves through words. The same vehicle can reflect a language system base or a real world base. For example, in "He's a banana 'cause he's tall and thin," the ground is drawn from the semantic network, and in "He's a banana 'cause he slips a lot," the ground is drawn from real world experience. In the first, the ground depends on conventional attributes of a banana, height and thinness, which help define banana within the category, "fruit." In the second example, however, the ground depends on a series of associations that stem from seeing bananas used in comedies in which people slip on banana peels. Differences of the sort just described suggest that we need more information on the ways in which children's metaphors create meaning. In the past, there have been two strategies for investigating metaphors. In one strategy, adult metaphors (usually found in poems) are analysed for the way they express or create meaning. T h e investigator disembeds them from their context of use, letting the metaphors speak for themselves, and attempts to uncover the implicit meaning structure. In the second strategy children's metaphors are analysed in terms of how they reflect the child's cognitive or linguistic skill. T h e investigator asks, "Is the child able to interpret this metaphor correctly, or produce the correct metaphor in a given situation?" If, as has been suggested here, children's figurative language bears some central functional and structural relationships to the poet's metaphors, a set of categories is needed that reflects the various ways children's metaphors create meaning. In other words, an inquiry might temporarily separate how children's metaphors create meaning from the child's ability or proclivity to use metaphors
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intentionally as a potent form of communication. When and under what circumstances a child is able to produce or explicate a metaphor correctly is a different problem from the variety of ways in which the child brings together two disparate domains to create new meaning. A vocabulary is needed for children's figurative language that is as rich and as complex as the ones developed for poets. o f t e n , Children's figurative expressions are based on associations and connections made through real world knowledge and experience rather than on manipulations of semantic relations. This supports the argument that metaphors have a conceptual rather than semantic base - - for children and adults. There are, however, important and interesting differences in the intentionality with which children and adults use metaphors.
Differences between adults and children In adult life, language branches off into two general types of usage. People most often use language as if it were transparent and only sometimes as if it were opaque. Transparent language is language used only to communicate. The words refer to objects and actions; they are vehicles for meaning. Opaque language occurs when the words themselves become an interesting or important part of communication. The sounds of the words or the way something is expressed becomes salient to the speaker and or the listener. When opaque language is used, the listener must work through the words to arrive at the meaning. The metaphor reawakens the interactive relationship between words and worlds. In metaphoric talk (one form of opaque language), the listener confronts a seeming misfit between words and their usual meanings. The work involved in the refitting between word and concept is an important psychological element in the use of metaphor. One possible characteristic of opaque language is that it renders a different relationship to reality from that of everyday transparent use of language. Rather than describing reality, opaque language mediates it. Language can play a greater or lesser, more explicit or more implicit role in the shaping of reality as we experience it. Using opaque language can be seen as an acknowledgment and exploitation of the role language plays in determining the world we experience. While all language may help shape our experience of non-linguistic reality, the use of opaque language such as metaphor tends to draw our attention to the interactive relationship between words and the world created through them. It is characteristic of young children's development that all of their language has this opaque quality. For the child, the interplay between world and word is right at the surface and still negotiable. This negotiation process is an integral part of language and concept development. Thus children slip in and out of metaphoric language in a more fluid and less intentional way than adults. For adults, on the other hand, the negotiation between world and words takes place only under special circumstances. The difference between children's and adult's metaphors lies in the fact that, for the child, a metaphoric phrase expresses construal, while for the adult, it expresses reconstrual. The adult's conscious attempt to communicate an inner
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vision to a listener or reader through a particular choice of words suggests an awareness of semantic and conceptual tension. In contrast, the young child's metaphors do not involve conflict or tension. Moreover, the child's primary motivation may not be successful communication to another person. Metaphors do the same thing for adults and children by demanding a construal of the world that makes sense of the words. What would seem to change with age is the intentionality with which the speaker uses metaphor to invite reconstrual of the world. The boundaries of use change. Children do not perceive that they are using language in a special way when they say "the cup is tired; the six is angry." They are merely expressing their experience. For adults, metaphors and the reconstruals they involve seem to take place in more special, discrete contexts. T h e boundaries of the context draw attention to the special use of language. We need to focus next on how adults mark the contexts in which negotiation through metaphors takes place. THE ROLE OF CONTEXT IN THE USE OF METAPHOR The second aspect of Levin's theory that has important psychological implications centers around the idea that the interpretation of metaphors requires that the interpreter enter the "world" of the metaphor maker. Goffman (1974) argues that all verbal communication takes place and can be interpreted within frames. For instance, a sentence can have one meaning within a literal frame, and a different meaning within a metaphoric frame as in "My mother is a policewoman" (Hadley, 1982). In a literal frame, this may mean that the speaker's mother is literally on the police force. Taken in a metaphoric frame it may describe her overbearing authority and discipline. The meaning of the sentence will depend on the way it is taken, metaphorically or literally. The way it should be taken may be indicated by the actual context (the listener's real world knowledge about the speaker's mother) or by tone of voice, linguistic context, etc. This in turn suggests that the frame in which an utterance is interpreted influences the a m o u n t of, or necessity for, reconstrual of the world through language. One implication of this is that context plays as important a role in verbal communication as semantic networks and lexical units do. Goffman also says that frames are negotiated between speakers. People engaged in conversation can share a frame, make a new frame, or break a frame. In Levin's theory, metaphors can transform one's conception of reality because one willingly enters the poet's world. This can be seen as the act of acknowledging the poet's frame. Metaphors fulfill their function because of the context or frame in which they occur. Understanding the poem as world in terms of Goffman's frame theory, we can begin to integrate the structure of metaphoric meaning with the role of context in metaphor use. An implication of this integration is that other types of communicative situations besides poems can be considered as frames in which metaphors invite reconstrual of the world. The detection and delineation of these conversational boundaries may be more difficult than in poems. Nevertheless, it seems psychologically compelling to argue that the interpretation of metaphors in conversation requires that the
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listener accept that the m e t a p h o r maker implies a whole world through his or her metaphors. Specifically, this entails the idea that the listener is being invited to reconstrue the world in a new way. T h e worlds created in spoken dialogue may have more subtle boundaries than poems do. T h e reading of a poem usually involves physical and behavioral clues that a new or special frame is involved (the opening of the book, the isolation o f the r e a d e r f rom the outside world, etc.). T w o people having a conversation, however, may shift from a literal frame to a metaphoric frame without these clear cut external clues. For example, two conversational partners might be taking and giving orders regarding a shared task. One of them may refer to their boss, "She's tough, man, she's a dragon." T h e listener has been invited to reconstrue his conception of the boss; a frame with an unspoken invitation has been constructed. But because this new frame was constructed within the flow of more literal transparent communication, the two partners d e p e n d on a complex set o f behavioral and semantic clues to establish that there is a new frame, and to u n d er s tan d the meanings conveyed within the metaphoric frame. If the two partners succeed in sharing a new conception o f their boss, they will also share, at least for that moment, a world in which bosses can be dragons, or other animals. As anot her example, two friends are discussing eating habits and one says to the o the r " I f you skip dinner so often, you will be a one (1)." If the listener understands the invitation and acknowledges the new frame she will conceive of a world in which people are numbers, and she herself is a n u m b e r one. A poem has an illocutionary force: an invitation to enter a world. T h e perlocutionary effect is for the reader to accept the invitation by believing (construing) the world as the metaphors in the poem demand. Levin's argum ent shows how what initially seems like an expressive device turns out to entail a kind o f psychological interaction between r e a der and poet. In speech, metaphoric phrases can be seen as a kind of speech act. At the m o m e n t when someone speaks a m e t a p h o r a new speech act occurs. T h e implied first sentence is "I invite you into a world in which . . . " It may be that the everyday conversant has less authority than the poet. T h e result is that spoken metaphors may not always achieve their effect. This is where empirical evidence can contribute something. What we need is an e t h n o g r a p h y o f metaphor. We need to know how, when and where people use metaphors in conversation. One thing we already do know is that metaphors are traditionally m or e prevalent in times of excitement, stress, and social change (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Turnbull, 1961; Werner, 1948). This suggests that metaphors are needed where we are forced to change o u r thought about the world. Moreover, intuition says that people resort to metaphors when they cannot share or communicate their t hou ght or experience to another using everyday language. Bridging that communication gap can be seen to involve inviting the listener to shift frames and ent er the circle of the speaker's reconstructed world. An interesting implication of this is that metaphors need no longer be considered to rest on a specific cognitive skill (Billow, 1975; Gardner, 1978). T h e listener must have the communicative skills to detect a shift in frame from nonmetaphoric to metaphoric language and meaning. He or she must shift the way
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he or she interprets to correspond with the demands of the new frame or world. In addition to having this communicative skill, the interpreter must accept the shift in frame. Choice enters into the phenomenon. If, in interpreting metaphors, the listener accepts the speaker's intended reconstrual of the world, then it follows that there should be significant social dynamics between people when metaphors are used. This supports any theory of metaphor that views it as a powerful socializing agent. CONCLUSIONS I have attempted to integrate three theories in order to identify some possible similarities and differences in the way poets, everyday adults, and children use metaphors and/or create meaning with metaphors. This attempt can be summarized as follows. Levin's theory of metaphor interpretation has psychological validity. One source of support for this view is in developmental descriptions (e.g., Werner, 1948) that suggest that metaphors do the same thing for children as they do for adults - - they involve a particular construal of the world. Metaphors are conceptual rather than merely semantic. They can be seen as a stress point of language in which the relationship between language and reality becomes salient and negotiable. Metaphoric activity is different for the child than the adult in two ways. While, for adults, metaphors involve reconstrual of a conventional world, for the child, metaphors express construal and the discovery of relationships between domains of experience. A second difference consists of the intentionality with which metaphors are used. Levin stresses that poets invite a reader into a world and thus invite reconstruals. Children more often are simply expressing a construal which demands reconstrual on the part of the listener. For the child, whose language is often opaque, the relationship between language and experience is salient and negotiable much of the time. For the adult, whose language is usually transparent, this relationship is made salient and topical only in special uses of language such as metaphor. This special use entails a delineated context. Poetry is an example of a context with explicit, clear boundaries. But contexts in which metaphors are interpreted literally occur in other types of discourse as well. Levin has described poems as a kind of speech act in which the reader is invited into the poet's world. It is proposed here that the interpretation of metaphors in spoken dialogue entails the same kind of speech act, in which a conversational partner is invited into the speaker's reconstrued world. T h e world can be experienced in a multitude of ways. Perhaps the child and the poet are most open to "alternative spheres of reality" (Werner, 1948). The world seems more fluid to them. But language, in particular metaphor, makes available to all speakers the means by which to share unique conceptions of the world. REFERENCES Billow, R. (1975). A cognitive developmental study of metaphor comprehension. Developmental Psychology, 2, 415---493.
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Engel, S., & Glick, J. (1982). Did you ever buy two watermelons? A study in children's use of metaphor. Unpublished paper, Graduate Center, City University of New York. Gardner, H., Winner, E., Bechhofer, R., & Wolf, D. (1978). The development of figurative language. In K. Nelson (Ed.), Children's language, 1. New York: Gardner Press. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. New York: Harper and Row. Goodman, N. (1968) Language of Art. Indiana; Merril. Hadley, M. (1982). The realization of metaphor in context - - a developmental interpretation. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Graduate Center, City University of New York. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Levin, S. (1976). Concerning what kind of speech act a poem is. In T. van Dijk (Ed.), Pragmatics of language and literature. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishers. Levin, S. (1979). Standard approaches to metaphor and a proposal for literary metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ricoeur, P. (198 I), Hermeneutics and the human sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schafer, R. (1983). The analytic attitude. New York: Basic Books. Turnbull, C. (1961). The forest people. New York: Simon and Schuster. Werner, H. (1948). The comparative psychology of mental development. New York: International Universities Press.
0732-118X/88 $3.00+0.00 (~ 1988 Pergamon Press pie
M E T A P H O R S : H O W ARE T H E Y D I F F E R E N T F O R T H E P O E T , T H E C H I L D A N D T H E EVERYDAY A D U L T ? SUSAN ENGEL Developmental Psychology, Graduate Center, City University of New York, 33 W. 42nd St., NY 10036, U.S.A.* A b s t r a c t - This paper considers differences and similarities in the way children, poets and everyday adults make and understand metaphors. Samuel Levin (1976, in Pragmatics of language and literature, Amsterdam: North Holland Publishers; and 1979, in Metaphor and thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) has argued that metaphors involve changing concepts of the world rather than shifts in word meanings. His theory rests on the idea that metaphors are to be understood literally and that the poem is a kind of speech act containing an implicit invitation for the reader to enter the poet's world. Werner's (1948, The comparative psychology of mental development, New York: International Universities Press) theory o f physiognomic perception is discussed in order to show how childrens' as well as poets' metaphors are meant to be taken literally. While the meaning structure underlying adult and child metaphors is similar the intentionality and boundaries of use may differ for young children. Goffman's (1974, Frame analysis, New York: Harper and Row) theory of frames in discourse is presented in order to explore contexts other than poems in which a metaphor user might issue an invitation for a listener to enter his or her world. INTRODUCTION T r a d i t i o n a l l y t h e r e have b e e n two a p p r o a c h e s to the study o f . m e t a p h o r . O n e a p p r o a c h has b e e n to describe the s t r u c t u r e o f a m e t a p h o r a n d explain how m e t a p h o r i c l a n g u a g e e x p r e s s e s m e a n i n g . T h e e x a m p l e s used in this kind o f w o r k t e n d to be ideal m e t a p h o r s that contain a clear topic a n d vehicle a n d an identifiable g r o u n d . It is usually t a k e n f o r g r a n t e d in this kind o f a p p r o a c h that the h e a r e r would recognize that he or she is b e i n g asked to e n g a g e in m e t a p h o r i c talk b e c a u s e o f the lack o f literal sense in the m e t a p h o r . T h i s kind o f a p p r o a c h tends to focus on the essential f e a t u r e s o f m e t a p h o r i c m e a n i n g . It takes the m e t a p h o r i c p h r a s e as a key or g u i d e to an u n d e r l y i n g m e a n i n g structure, o n e in which w o r d s a n d their m e a n i n g s relate to each o t h e r in a particular way. A second a p p r o a c h has b e e n to focus o n how p e o p l e use m e t a p h o r s . T h i s type o f a p p r o a c h takes into a c c o u n t the c o n t e x t (physical, linguistic a n d social) in which m e t a p h o r s are used. T h e p r o b l e m is to find a way o f talking a b o u t m e t a p h o r s that c o m b i n e s a discussion o f s t r u c t u r e with o n e o f use. T h i s i n t e g r a t i o n would p r o m o t e a view o f m e t a p h o r s as c o m p r i s i n g a system o f m e a n i n g with e n d u r a b l e identifying characteristics, a n d at the s a m e time as a f o r m o f m e d i a t i o n that is v u l n e r a b l e to the vagaries o f their creators, people. I n t u r n , the relationship b e t w e e n m e t a p h o r s a n d o t h e r aspects o f h u m a n e x p e r i e n c e c o u l d be better u n d e r s t o o d . *Correspondence to RD2, Box 178A, Great Barrington, MA 01230, U.S.A. 333
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This paper presents one approach to this integration. The basis for this effort is a model for literary metaphors proposed by Samuel Levin (1976, 1979). Two theories that support the psychological reality of his model will be presented: (1) Werner's (1948) theory of childhood language and experience will be used to support the psychological validity of Levin's theory and to draw links between the function of metaphors for adults and for children. (2) Goffman's (1974) theory of communicative frames will be presented in order to extend Levin's theory from the realm of poetry (and structural analyses) to the realm of discourse, and used to highlight the psychological implications of Levin's model. These three theories - - Levin's, Werner's, and Goffman's - - represent disparate perspectives. When integrated, they provide an approach to the study of metaphor that focuses on issues of both structure and use. This in turn may allow for more fruitful continuity between developmental research on metaphor and literary theories of metaphor. CONCEPTUAL VERSUS SEMANTIC VIEWS OF METAPHOR Levin (1979) begins his a r g u m e n t by describing standard approaches to metaphor that rest on the idea that a metaphor creates semantic conflict. For example, in "the gloomy clouds" the reader or hearer experiences conflict because the word, "gloomy" belongs to a semantic network of words that represent emotions and are used to describe only human experience. "Cloud" belongs to a set of words that name inanimate objects. In order to understand the metaphor, the hearer must make sense of a phrase that puts two "incompatible" words together, and must resolve the conflict between the state of gloom and a cloud. According to standard theories of metaphor, the hearer does this by changing word meanings. So, for example, the hearer extends or shifts the definition of gloomy to include grey or thick, so that it can be an appropriate descriptor for a cloud. T h e assumption is that the world remains stable. After all, clouds do not have feelings. T h e only transformation the hearer can make is one involving word meanings. Levin argues against this explanation of metaphor. He asserts that the words in a metaphoric phrase are to be interpreted literally. Word meanings remain stable and in order to make sense of the metaphor the hearer reconstrues the world. For example, "gloomy" means what it usually means, a sad, depressed frame of mind, and the word "cloud" still refers to a cloud in the sky, but on hearing (or rather understanding) the metaphor we imagine a real cloud feeling gloomy. Levin argues that if the idea that "poetry is creative" is anything more than a trivial clich6, the poet must be a creator and the poem the world he or she creates. In order to read and understand the poem one must share the poet's transformations of the world. This is a radical view of metaphor in that it makes metaphors a conceptual rather than a semantic phenomenon. The listener must think differently about the world - - what changes is not what the word "gloomy" can mean, but the concept of what clouds can be. There are two important psychological implications of the theory. The first is that symbols (in this case, words) do not merely refer to or convey reality, they
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help to create reality. T h e second is that metaphors do not impart their meaning in isolation from the context in which they are created and understood. Levin's theory implies that metaphors are interpreted within a particular framework. The context of the poem directs the way a metaphor is interpreted or, indeed, the fact that it is interpreted. These two theoretical implications now need to be discussed. HOW METAPHORS SHAPE REALITY FOR ADULTS AND CHILDREN The first implication of Levin's theory is that symbols help shape reality as it is perceived by humans, and that the world can be transformed through words. This is not to suggest that actual objects change in substance because of the way they are named or described. Rather, it is to suggest that one way we experience our world is through our talk about it. Students of psychology, language, and the arts have constructed theories of how we experience the world through the symbols we use to describe that world (Goffman, 1974; Goodman, 1968; Ricoeur, 1981; Schafer, 1983). One assumption common to these theorists, as well as to Levin, is that the symbols or words we use to describe something provide us with a form in which to think about those things described. In many spheres of activity it is this represented world, rather than some objective and stable world, within which we function. Similarities between children and adults Werner's (1948) description of a p h e n o m e n o n he calls "physiognomic perception" adds a developmentally relevant dimension to the notion of reality transformed through words. Werner asserts that young children do not differentiate between the domain of inanimate objects and the domain of human experience. Objects seem to express feelings and other human characteristics directly. For example the four or five year old says "the cup is tired" or "that is an angry six." There is a developmental relationship between the young child's use of physiognomic language and the adult's use of metaphor. This relationship consists in part of the similarity between the way physiognomic and metaphoric language sound or seem, although in itself this would be a strictly structural similarity. The claim to be made here is that there is also an implicit similarity in the way children and adults use metaphors. Children's utterances, such as "Mother, it's so foggy, everything is like whispering" (Werner, 1948, p. 74), are structurally similar to adult metaphors in that two usually disparate domains (fogs and whispers) are brought into proximity. But, at a deeper level, children's physiognomic expressions and adults' metaphors are related because they do the same thing: they involve construals of the world. The relationship between words and concepts of the world is basically the same for both types of language use. The aspect of Levin's theory that is specifically applicable to children's physiognomic language is the idea that words in a metaphoric phrase are to be taken literally, and that what changes is one's construal of the world. Interpreting metaphors involves new concepts, not new word meanings. This seems to describe precisely the dynamic of children's physiognomic expressions.
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Children mean what they say when they use physiognomic language. The impetus for children's metaphoric expressions comes from children's vivid experience of things - - the cup expresses tiredness, the six expresses anger. Traditional approaches to children's metaphor often focus on children's limited vocabulary ("use words you know to express what you don't have the correct name for"). This does contribute to children's production of metaphor. But these same utterances also reveal changing construals of the world in much the same way as they do for the poet. From the child's point of view the world is still to be completely discovered. Boundaries between types of experience are not firm. Physiognomic construals of the world seem plausible and real. The relative limitations of the child's linguistic system highlight the conceptual nature of metaphors. In a study which looks at children's figurative language (Engel & Glick, 1982) many of the examples clearly reflect that the construct is based on experience in the world rather than on word meaning. Often these examples are not clear cases of adult metaphor from a linguistic point of view. But they are expressions that describe one thing in terms of another and draw together two disparate domains. For example: "He's a watermelon because he's lonely and alone a lot, and did you ever buy two watermelons?" is typical of children's non-literal talk. The basis or ground of the connection between watermelons and the person comes from experience rather than word meanings. This suggests that children use their conceptual knowledge and real world experience as a resource for expressing themselves through words. The same vehicle can reflect a language system base or a real world base. For example, in "He's a banana 'cause he's tall and thin," the ground is drawn from the semantic network, and in "He's a banana 'cause he slips a lot," the ground is drawn from real world experience. In the first, the ground depends on conventional attributes of a banana, height and thinness, which help define banana within the category, "fruit." In the second example, however, the ground depends on a series of associations that stem from seeing bananas used in comedies in which people slip on banana peels. Differences of the sort just described suggest that we need more information on the ways in which children's metaphors create meaning. In the past, there have been two strategies for investigating metaphors. In one strategy, adult metaphors (usually found in poems) are analysed for the way they express or create meaning. T h e investigator disembeds them from their context of use, letting the metaphors speak for themselves, and attempts to uncover the implicit meaning structure. In the second strategy children's metaphors are analysed in terms of how they reflect the child's cognitive or linguistic skill. T h e investigator asks, "Is the child able to interpret this metaphor correctly, or produce the correct metaphor in a given situation?" If, as has been suggested here, children's figurative language bears some central functional and structural relationships to the poet's metaphors, a set of categories is needed that reflects the various ways children's metaphors create meaning. In other words, an inquiry might temporarily separate how children's metaphors create meaning from the child's ability or proclivity to use metaphors
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intentionally as a potent form of communication. When and under what circumstances a child is able to produce or explicate a metaphor correctly is a different problem from the variety of ways in which the child brings together two disparate domains to create new meaning. A vocabulary is needed for children's figurative language that is as rich and as complex as the ones developed for poets. o f t e n , Children's figurative expressions are based on associations and connections made through real world knowledge and experience rather than on manipulations of semantic relations. This supports the argument that metaphors have a conceptual rather than semantic base - - for children and adults. There are, however, important and interesting differences in the intentionality with which children and adults use metaphors.
Differences between adults and children In adult life, language branches off into two general types of usage. People most often use language as if it were transparent and only sometimes as if it were opaque. Transparent language is language used only to communicate. The words refer to objects and actions; they are vehicles for meaning. Opaque language occurs when the words themselves become an interesting or important part of communication. The sounds of the words or the way something is expressed becomes salient to the speaker and or the listener. When opaque language is used, the listener must work through the words to arrive at the meaning. The metaphor reawakens the interactive relationship between words and worlds. In metaphoric talk (one form of opaque language), the listener confronts a seeming misfit between words and their usual meanings. The work involved in the refitting between word and concept is an important psychological element in the use of metaphor. One possible characteristic of opaque language is that it renders a different relationship to reality from that of everyday transparent use of language. Rather than describing reality, opaque language mediates it. Language can play a greater or lesser, more explicit or more implicit role in the shaping of reality as we experience it. Using opaque language can be seen as an acknowledgment and exploitation of the role language plays in determining the world we experience. While all language may help shape our experience of non-linguistic reality, the use of opaque language such as metaphor tends to draw our attention to the interactive relationship between words and the world created through them. It is characteristic of young children's development that all of their language has this opaque quality. For the child, the interplay between world and word is right at the surface and still negotiable. This negotiation process is an integral part of language and concept development. Thus children slip in and out of metaphoric language in a more fluid and less intentional way than adults. For adults, on the other hand, the negotiation between world and words takes place only under special circumstances. The difference between children's and adult's metaphors lies in the fact that, for the child, a metaphoric phrase expresses construal, while for the adult, it expresses reconstrual. The adult's conscious attempt to communicate an inner
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vision to a listener or reader through a particular choice of words suggests an awareness of semantic and conceptual tension. In contrast, the young child's metaphors do not involve conflict or tension. Moreover, the child's primary motivation may not be successful communication to another person. Metaphors do the same thing for adults and children by demanding a construal of the world that makes sense of the words. What would seem to change with age is the intentionality with which the speaker uses metaphor to invite reconstrual of the world. The boundaries of use change. Children do not perceive that they are using language in a special way when they say "the cup is tired; the six is angry." They are merely expressing their experience. For adults, metaphors and the reconstruals they involve seem to take place in more special, discrete contexts. T h e boundaries of the context draw attention to the special use of language. We need to focus next on how adults mark the contexts in which negotiation through metaphors takes place. THE ROLE OF CONTEXT IN THE USE OF METAPHOR The second aspect of Levin's theory that has important psychological implications centers around the idea that the interpretation of metaphors requires that the interpreter enter the "world" of the metaphor maker. Goffman (1974) argues that all verbal communication takes place and can be interpreted within frames. For instance, a sentence can have one meaning within a literal frame, and a different meaning within a metaphoric frame as in "My mother is a policewoman" (Hadley, 1982). In a literal frame, this may mean that the speaker's mother is literally on the police force. Taken in a metaphoric frame it may describe her overbearing authority and discipline. The meaning of the sentence will depend on the way it is taken, metaphorically or literally. The way it should be taken may be indicated by the actual context (the listener's real world knowledge about the speaker's mother) or by tone of voice, linguistic context, etc. This in turn suggests that the frame in which an utterance is interpreted influences the a m o u n t of, or necessity for, reconstrual of the world through language. One implication of this is that context plays as important a role in verbal communication as semantic networks and lexical units do. Goffman also says that frames are negotiated between speakers. People engaged in conversation can share a frame, make a new frame, or break a frame. In Levin's theory, metaphors can transform one's conception of reality because one willingly enters the poet's world. This can be seen as the act of acknowledging the poet's frame. Metaphors fulfill their function because of the context or frame in which they occur. Understanding the poem as world in terms of Goffman's frame theory, we can begin to integrate the structure of metaphoric meaning with the role of context in metaphor use. An implication of this integration is that other types of communicative situations besides poems can be considered as frames in which metaphors invite reconstrual of the world. The detection and delineation of these conversational boundaries may be more difficult than in poems. Nevertheless, it seems psychologically compelling to argue that the interpretation of metaphors in conversation requires that the
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listener accept that the m e t a p h o r maker implies a whole world through his or her metaphors. Specifically, this entails the idea that the listener is being invited to reconstrue the world in a new way. T h e worlds created in spoken dialogue may have more subtle boundaries than poems do. T h e reading of a poem usually involves physical and behavioral clues that a new or special frame is involved (the opening of the book, the isolation o f the r e a d e r f rom the outside world, etc.). T w o people having a conversation, however, may shift from a literal frame to a metaphoric frame without these clear cut external clues. For example, two conversational partners might be taking and giving orders regarding a shared task. One of them may refer to their boss, "She's tough, man, she's a dragon." T h e listener has been invited to reconstrue his conception of the boss; a frame with an unspoken invitation has been constructed. But because this new frame was constructed within the flow of more literal transparent communication, the two partners d e p e n d on a complex set o f behavioral and semantic clues to establish that there is a new frame, and to u n d er s tan d the meanings conveyed within the metaphoric frame. If the two partners succeed in sharing a new conception o f their boss, they will also share, at least for that moment, a world in which bosses can be dragons, or other animals. As anot her example, two friends are discussing eating habits and one says to the o the r " I f you skip dinner so often, you will be a one (1)." If the listener understands the invitation and acknowledges the new frame she will conceive of a world in which people are numbers, and she herself is a n u m b e r one. A poem has an illocutionary force: an invitation to enter a world. T h e perlocutionary effect is for the reader to accept the invitation by believing (construing) the world as the metaphors in the poem demand. Levin's argum ent shows how what initially seems like an expressive device turns out to entail a kind o f psychological interaction between r e a der and poet. In speech, metaphoric phrases can be seen as a kind of speech act. At the m o m e n t when someone speaks a m e t a p h o r a new speech act occurs. T h e implied first sentence is "I invite you into a world in which . . . " It may be that the everyday conversant has less authority than the poet. T h e result is that spoken metaphors may not always achieve their effect. This is where empirical evidence can contribute something. What we need is an e t h n o g r a p h y o f metaphor. We need to know how, when and where people use metaphors in conversation. One thing we already do know is that metaphors are traditionally m or e prevalent in times of excitement, stress, and social change (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Turnbull, 1961; Werner, 1948). This suggests that metaphors are needed where we are forced to change o u r thought about the world. Moreover, intuition says that people resort to metaphors when they cannot share or communicate their t hou ght or experience to another using everyday language. Bridging that communication gap can be seen to involve inviting the listener to shift frames and ent er the circle of the speaker's reconstructed world. An interesting implication of this is that metaphors need no longer be considered to rest on a specific cognitive skill (Billow, 1975; Gardner, 1978). T h e listener must have the communicative skills to detect a shift in frame from nonmetaphoric to metaphoric language and meaning. He or she must shift the way
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he or she interprets to correspond with the demands of the new frame or world. In addition to having this communicative skill, the interpreter must accept the shift in frame. Choice enters into the phenomenon. If, in interpreting metaphors, the listener accepts the speaker's intended reconstrual of the world, then it follows that there should be significant social dynamics between people when metaphors are used. This supports any theory of metaphor that views it as a powerful socializing agent. CONCLUSIONS I have attempted to integrate three theories in order to identify some possible similarities and differences in the way poets, everyday adults, and children use metaphors and/or create meaning with metaphors. This attempt can be summarized as follows. Levin's theory of metaphor interpretation has psychological validity. One source of support for this view is in developmental descriptions (e.g., Werner, 1948) that suggest that metaphors do the same thing for children as they do for adults - - they involve a particular construal of the world. Metaphors are conceptual rather than merely semantic. They can be seen as a stress point of language in which the relationship between language and reality becomes salient and negotiable. Metaphoric activity is different for the child than the adult in two ways. While, for adults, metaphors involve reconstrual of a conventional world, for the child, metaphors express construal and the discovery of relationships between domains of experience. A second difference consists of the intentionality with which metaphors are used. Levin stresses that poets invite a reader into a world and thus invite reconstruals. Children more often are simply expressing a construal which demands reconstrual on the part of the listener. For the child, whose language is often opaque, the relationship between language and experience is salient and negotiable much of the time. For the adult, whose language is usually transparent, this relationship is made salient and topical only in special uses of language such as metaphor. This special use entails a delineated context. Poetry is an example of a context with explicit, clear boundaries. But contexts in which metaphors are interpreted literally occur in other types of discourse as well. Levin has described poems as a kind of speech act in which the reader is invited into the poet's world. It is proposed here that the interpretation of metaphors in spoken dialogue entails the same kind of speech act, in which a conversational partner is invited into the speaker's reconstrued world. T h e world can be experienced in a multitude of ways. Perhaps the child and the poet are most open to "alternative spheres of reality" (Werner, 1948). The world seems more fluid to them. But language, in particular metaphor, makes available to all speakers the means by which to share unique conceptions of the world. REFERENCES Billow, R. (1975). A cognitive developmental study of metaphor comprehension. Developmental Psychology, 2, 415---493.
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Engel, S., & Glick, J. (1982). Did you ever buy two watermelons? A study in children's use of metaphor. Unpublished paper, Graduate Center, City University of New York. Gardner, H., Winner, E., Bechhofer, R., & Wolf, D. (1978). The development of figurative language. In K. Nelson (Ed.), Children's language, 1. New York: Gardner Press. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis. New York: Harper and Row. Goodman, N. (1968) Language of Art. Indiana; Merril. Hadley, M. (1982). The realization of metaphor in context - - a developmental interpretation. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Graduate Center, City University of New York. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Levin, S. (1976). Concerning what kind of speech act a poem is. In T. van Dijk (Ed.), Pragmatics of language and literature. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishers. Levin, S. (1979). Standard approaches to metaphor and a proposal for literary metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ricoeur, P. (198 I), Hermeneutics and the human sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schafer, R. (1983). The analytic attitude. New York: Basic Books. Turnbull, C. (1961). The forest people. New York: Simon and Schuster. Werner, H. (1948). The comparative psychology of mental development. New York: International Universities Press.