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Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

Pós-Graduação em Inglês e Literatura Correspondente

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The role of metaphor in informative texts

Lonl Grimm Cabral

Tese submetida à Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina para a obtenção do grau de Doutora em Letras

opção Língua Inglesa e Linguística Aplicada

Florianópolis Agosto 1994

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pro g ram a de Pós-G raduação em Inglês para a obtenção do grau de

Doutora em Letras

Opção Língua Inglesa e Linguística Aplicada ao Inglês

D ra. C arm en Rosa Caldas C oulthard C oordenadora

D r. M alcolm Coulthard O rientador

Banca examinadora:

)r. M alcolm Coulthard (orientador)

/ "/lC_— ^

ra. Leila B árbara (exam inadora)

D ra. B ranca Telles Ribeiro ( exam inadora)

—D rT H ilário I. Bohn (exam inador)

D ra. C arm en R osa Caldas Coulthard (exam inadora)

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Para as famílias Grimm Cabral Grimm Cabral Nelson

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A gradecim entos institucionais cabem a: U niversidade Federal de Santa Catarina;

D epartam ento de L íngua e L iteratura Vernáculas; C urso de P ós-G raduação em Inglês;

FIN EP; CN Pq;

D epartam ento de Inglês da U niversidade de Birm ingham ; P.E.O . C hapter de M arshfield, W isconsin.

A g ra d e c im e n to s especiais

A o Prof. Dr. M alcolm C oulthard pelo constante estím ulo e dedicada orientação; À s Profas. Dra. L eonor Scliar Cabral, D ra.Susana B. F unck e D ra.Carm en R osa C aldas C oulthard pelo apoio e valiosas contribuições.

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Abstract

The role of metaphor in informative texts

Loni Grimm Cabral

Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina 1994

Prof. Dr. Malcolm Coulthard Supervisor

In this thesis inform ative texts are analysed in order to observe the role m etaphor has in their organisation. The claim is that texts are the result o f choices and once a m etaphor is chosen it plays an essential role. The analysis is done w ithin the fram ew ork o f MATCHING RELATIONS (W inter, 1986), LABELS (Francis, 1994) LEXICAL REPETITION (Hoey, 1991a),

TEXTUAL PATTERNS (W inter & H oey, 1986), ENCAPSULATION AND

PROSPECTTON (Sinclair, 1992) and the three MACROFUNCTIONS o f language

(H alliday, 1985). W e propose there are textual m arkings differentiating interpersonal and ideational m etaphors. A look at m etaphors in translated texts w ill further exem plify som e o f o u r claims. W e conclude by show ing the im plications o f this research for the teaching o f reading and for text analysis.

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T he role o f m etaphor in inform ative texts

Loni G rim m Cabral

U niversidade Federal de Santa C atarina 1994

Prof. Dr. M alcolm Coulthard orientador

Através da análise de textos informativos, mostramos o papel da metáfora como elemento coesivo. Focalizando a metáfora dentro de textos em Inglês e em Português, caracterizâmo-la dentro das três macrofunções da linguagem: ideacional, interpessoal e textual (Halliday, 1985). Embora todas as metáforas carreguem as três funções, o escritor pode realçar qualquer das fimções através do texto. A íünção interpessoal, a função não marcada, realça a protofimção do "vamos imaginar" na metáfora (Halliday, 1975) pois leva o leitor a construir o seu significado. A função ideacional, marcada, inclusive por sinais metadiscursivos, realça o aspecto conceituai da metáfora, quando o autor a define através de uma expansão. A função textual vem demonstrada dentro dos desdobramentos lexicais da metáfora, nas suas relações anafóricas e catafóricas (encapsulation e prospection (Sinclair, 1992) ) e no padrão metafórico-metalinguístico.

O papel essencial da metáfora foi observado, também, através da análise de .textos traduzidos. A falta de precisão na sua tradução, seja pela opção de expressões literais, ou pela substituição de uma metáfora por outra, leva a perda de significados conotativos bem como denotativos. Substituição de metáforas por expressões literais, por exemplo, afetam a interligação entre as frases do texto (Hoey, 1991), mostrando a necessidade de mostrar estas funções da linguagem não só a nível frasal como Halliday (1985) propõe, mas a nível textual (Coulthard, 1994).

A análise nos faz repensar o ensino da leitura e do léxico nas escolas em geral e nos programas de remediação de leitura (Laboratório de Leitura da UFSC), evidenciando a necessidade do desenvolvimento de estratégias não só metacognitivas, mas também estratégias textuais.

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Table of Contents

In tro d u c tio n ... 1

Metaphors and tex ts... 4

What is metaphor?...8

Metaphors and the functions o f language... 10

Ideational metaphors and te x ts ...13

Context effects... 15

Metaphors and metalanguage...19

The problem...22

C h ap ter 1 ...25

Texts, context an d conventions... ... 25

The relationship between writer-audience and the resulting te x t...25

The role o f context in the production and reception o f te x t...34

Definition o f context... -35

Discourse and conventions... ... 37

Conventions at the grammatical level...38

Conventions and Genres...38

Genres and Registers... 39

The writer's point o f view ... 43

The writer and the channel... 43

The writer and the content... 44

Genre...44

The form... ...45

The reader's point o f v iew ... 46

The reader and the channel... 46

The reader and the content... 47

The reader and the genre... 47

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A textual analysis... 58

Inappropriate M etaphors... 68

C h ap ter 3 ... ... ...73

Ideational M e ta p h o rs... 73

The strategies to guide the reader's interpretation... 74

Metadiscoursive strategies...74

Labels as metadiscourse... 79

Salience as metadiscourse...83

Glossing strategies... 89

Lexical repetition and matching relations in the development o f m etaphors... 89

Matching relations and the Hephaestus-technology m etaphor... 90

C h ap ter 4 ... 98

M etaphors as encapsulation... 98

Reading Comprehension and Anaphoric M etaphors... 98

Cohesive elements... 99

Winter's clause relations... 102

Lexical patterns as cohesion... 104

Labels as cohesive elements...106

Anaphoric m etaphors... 108

Metaphors and labels...117

Metaphors and lexical repetition...121

Conclusion... 123

C h ap ter 5 ...124

M etaphors and Prospection... 124

Metaphors and prospection... 125

The prospective pattern... 128

C hapter 6 ...139

M etaphors and translation...139

Metaphors and the functions o f language in translated te x t... ... 140

Example 1 ... 141

Example 2 ...148

Example 3 ... 150

Example 4 ... 154

Final R em arks...156

Pedagogical implications for reading...157

Suggestions for further research...163

References for the m ain examples... 167

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Introduction

This study o f m etaphors in texts derived from a particular need to have a better textual understanding in o rd er to be able to act in the context o f rem edial reading fo r college students. A previous piece o f research (L aboratório de L eitu ra U F SC , 19881) had em phasised m etacognitive strategies in students' attem pts to overcom e their reading com prehension problem s in their native language. H ow ever, parallel studies (M enegassi, 1990) pointed out that m etacognitive strategies associated to textual strategies gave m o re efficient results in rem edial reading program s. T h erefo re, this study is an attem pt to open up a new perspective in the effo rt to im prove reading com prehension.

Inform ative texts are one o f the two main sources o f acquisition o f know ledge for m ost students, the other being expository classes. N evertheless, the teaching o f reading before the university rarely focuses on this type o f text (G rim m -Cabral, 1988). This is due to the fact that teaching reading is thought to be exclusively the task o f language teachers who focus m ainly on narratives and literary texts, forgetting the ideational function.

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Some students naturally develop their reading com petence, b ut others reach the university w ith severe problem s in coping with the assigned texts. Besides, as p ointed out by Halliday (1989), there is a gap betw een the texts students read before and at the university, a gap which contributes to the reading problem s o f som e o f the students.

Therefore, inform ative texts have been chosen because they are the prim ary object o f the rem edial program offered at the R eading Lab. M oreover, m etaphors have been chosen because o f the challenge they offer: how is it that an item w hich literally m eans som ething else does not destroy the cohesion o f a text. Furtherm ore, they are a natural sign which could lead to the de-autom atisation o f reading, i. e., upon encountering a m etaphor, though this is som ething still to be investigated, readers will change their reading pace in order to construct its meaning.

Despite the fact that w e live by m etaphors (L akoff & Johnson, 1980), they are not usually considered in terms o f teaching outside the dom ain o f literature. W hen w e talk about m etaphors to the layperson the usual reaction is that m etaphors are not part o f their concern because "that is art".

V In school, for exam ple, m etaphors are w idely studied in the context o f poetry, but they are rarely m entioned in other contexts, despite their everyday usage.

This characterisation that students, teachers as well as lay people have is different from practice. As has already been pointed out by L akoff & Johnson (op.cit) and from w hat it was observed in this research into new spapers, m agazines, jo urnals and books, m etaphors appear constantly. They are part o f our understanding o f the world, and they are so deeply rooted in our language that unless they are very unusual w e do not perceive

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Introduction

them as different from other literal expressions, although readers may attribute different meanings. O ur econom ic news, for example, dem onstrate that we ordinary people are alw ays fighting enem ies where inflation is seen, cf. F o lh a's cartoons, as a m onster or a disease ( 'os sintom as da inflação1, 'dar à inflação um tratam ento de choque', 'a im unidade da inflação a tratam entos tradicionais', 'a cura da inflação' (K neipp,1990, 59:60)), and bankers and high financial officials are part o f a naive children's game: "a ciraiida dos juros".

I

The best insight I have had about m etaphors related to reading came from a subject who was participating in a pilot experim ent on reading com prehension. The experim ent was about reading. The text had been rew ritten to include a couple o f words com pletely out o f context, places at w hich I w as predicting that subjects w ho w ere paying attention to the content w ould autom atically stop reading and ask them selves w hat was going on. The task expected o f subjects w as to indicate at w hat point they paused reading because the text did not m ake sense and to verbalise after finishing the text about w hat had taken place. W hile the task worked according to prediction for m ost o f the subjects, one did not m ark anything. H is post verbalisation, how ever, was m ost insightful. For him the text had m ade sense all the way through. Some o f the points I had altered he had considered m etaphors w hich m ade sense w ithin the text as a whole. His reasoning was: "W hen I w as given the text I did not suspect any catch so the text w hich was supposed to have been published in F olha had to make sense. A nd after all people do w rite bizarre things once in a while..." (G rim m -C abral, unpublished data). The verbalisation dem onstrated that for a good reader words are not to be seen in isolation but in a much w ider

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process used to construct m eaning not ju st w hile w riting but w hile reading as well.

W hen we read a text, a com plex process o f interacting information takes place. On the one hand we have the printed m aterial w hich usually offers, besides the text itself, inform ation about the source o f the text, its author and vehicle. On the other hand, we have the reader's experience, the know ledge he/she m ay have on the subject and the w orld in general. The interaction o f the two sources results in the reading o f a text (Stanovitch, 1980). By reader’s know ledge it is usually understood his/her know ledge o f the w orld, o f the language and his/her previous know ledge about the content o f the text. O ther im portant aspects o f this know ledge, such as the interpersonal aspects o f language in use, are left im plied. The expectation o f a w ell w ritten text inside a new spaper, the expectation o f factual inform ation and the know ledge that people use m etaphors, for example, are some aspects w hich are present in the understanding o f a text. In this study, I will focus particularly on m etaphors and texts, exam ining the two- w ay relationship betw een the two.

v

M etaphors and texts

From the tim e o f the C artesians until quite recently, m etaphors have been under attack as a m eans o f objective com m unication. H obbes in Leviathan ( p t.l, chap.4; a pud Cohen, 1978:3) considers m etaphors an abuse when he com pares them to the proper uses o f speech:

The general use of speech, is to transfer our mental discourse into verbal; or the train of our thoughts, into a train of words....Special uses o f speech are these; first, to register, what by cogitation, we find to be the cause o f any thing, present or past; and what we find things present or past may produce, or effect; which in sum, is acquiring of arts. Secondly, to show to others

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Introduction that knowledge which we attained, which is, to counsel and teach one another. Thirdly, to make known to others our wills and purposes, that we may have the mutual help o f one another. Fourthly, to please and delight ourselves and others, by playing with our words for pleasure or ornament, innocently.

To these uses, there are also four correspondent abuses. First, when men register their thoughts wrong, by the inconstancy o f the signification of their words, by which they register for their conception, that which they never conceived, and so deceive themselves. Secondly, when they used words metaphorically, that is, in other senses than that they are ordained for; and thereby deceive others.

...And therefore such (inconstant) names can never be true grounds for any ratiocination. No more can metaphors, and tropes of speech: but these are less dangerous, because they profess inconstancy; which the other do not.

^H obbes, in the above quotation, precedes the functionalists in summing up the m ain functions o f language: the most general use is to communicate. B ut he specifies other im portant uses such as to acquire know ledge, to express know ledge, to interact and to have and produce pleasure. Aristotle w ould have included m etaphors within the last category, since he defines them as ornam ents. B ut H obbes explicitly excludes them from the uses o f language, placing them am ong the abuses o f language as a w ay to deceive people. H e acknow ledges, though, that they are w idely used and warns about the inconstancy that is em bedded in them.

Locke, who soon obfuscated Hobbes, is m uch m ore intolerant o f figures o f speech :

Since wit and fancy finds easier entertainment in the world than dry truth and real knowledge, figurative speeches and allusions in language will hardly be admitted as an imperfection or abuse o f it. I confess, in discourses where we seek rather pleasure and delight than information and improvement, such ornaments as are borrowed from them can scarce pass for faults. But yet, if we would speak o f things as they are, we must allow that all the art o f rhetoric, besides order and clearness, all the artificial and figurative application of words eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the

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judgem ent, and so indeed are perfect cheat; and therefore however laudable or allowable oratory may render them in harangues and popular addresses, they are certainly, in all discourses that pretend to inform or instruct, wholly to be avoided and, where truth and knowledge are concerned, cannot but be thought a great fault either o f the language or person that makes use of them. What and how various they are will be superfluous here to take notice, the books o f rhetoric which abound in the world will instruct those who want to be informed; only I cannot but observe how little the preservation and improvement o f truth and knowledge is the care and concern o f mankind, since the arts o f fallacy are endowed and preferred. It is evident how much men love to deceive and be deceived, since rhetoric, that powerful instrument o f error and deceit, has its established professors, is publicly taught, and has always been had in great reputation; and I doubt not but it will be thought great boldness, if not brutality, in me to have said thus much against it. Eloquence, like the fair sex, has too prevailing beauties in it to suffer itself ever to be spoken against. And it is in vain to find fault with those arts o f deceiving wherein men find pleasure to be deceived. ( Bk.3, chap. 10, pp. 105-6 apud de Man, 1978:15)

R hetoric and its devices are harshly attacked by Locke in a crescendo. Initially, "figurative speeches and allusions" are seen as "an im perfection or abuse o f (language)". Then the art o f rhetoric serves for nothing else but "to insinuate w rong ideas, m ove the passions, and thereby m islead the ju dgem ent, and so indeed (is) a perfect cheat". And he finally describes rhetoric as "the arts o f fallacy", as a "powerful instrum ent o f error and

deceit". ^

The root o f these philosophers' argum entation goes back to Plato and the discussion about nature and convention. To consider som ething as n a tu r a l w ithin their fram ew ork m eant that its origins rested in the eternal and im m utable principles beyond m an (Lyons, 1968: 4-6). Thus, the naturalists preached that words, in som e w ay which m ay n o t be visible to the ordinary m an but can be dem onstrated by the philosopher, carry in them the "reality" o f things. In opposition, the conventionalists saw words as the result o f a social convention. The naturalist approach is em bedded in

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Introduction

the thoughts o f H obbes and Locke, who sought the best objective language to convey ideas.

Such notions have been passed from generation to generation since the seventeenth century. K ayzer (1948; 1963: 191), in his classical

Introduction to the Science o f Literature, still m aintained the idea o f

m etaphors as the m ost "im proper" o f languages. For him we should always avoid m etaphors w henever we look for "steadiness, form, and plastic consistency". The "proper" form o f speaking looks for the adequate word, the w ord w hich reveals stability and precise boundaries. K ayzer also is unable to see the linguistic sign as an elem ent in place o f the object. N evertheless, he precedes L ak o ff and Johnson (1980) w hen he says that even

in our every day way o f speaking, not rarely what we consider as proper designations reveal themselves as "transposed"; the same happens even in our scientific language, which is under the stylistic law o f maximum exactitude (Kayzer, 1963:192)2.

As observed in the literature, m etaphors have apparently lo st some o f their stigm a and are used n o w as both ornam ents and, contrary to H obbes'

\ . advice, as devices to transm it and acquire knowledge. Petrie (1979) argues that m etaphors are essential for learning som ething new; Stitch (1979:485) considers m etaphors as "tools for extending our capacities fo r analytical thought". B oyd (1979) describes the role o f m etaphor in theory change. Q uine (1978) sees m etaphors as "the grow ing edge o f science and beyond". They govern "the grow th o f language and our acquisition o f it". Such approach to language is reflected in the words o f the biologist R. Dawkins:

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"W ords are our servants, not our masters. For different purposes we find it convenient to use w ords in different senses" (D aw kins, 1986 :1) This show s a strong tendency to accept m etaphors as an active part in the interaction betw een reader and writer.

W hat is m etaphor?

What metaphor is can never be determined with a single answer. Because the word has now become subject to all o f the ambiguities o f our notions about similarity and difference, the irreducible plurality o f philosophical views o f how similarities and differences relate will always produce conflicting definitions that will in turn produce different borderlines between what is metaphor and what is not. We thus need taxonomies, not frozen single definitions, o f this "essentially" contested concept. (Booth, 1978:175)

D espite B ooth's advice, a single definition will be attempted. I consider that m etaphor is the result o f a cognitive process w here in the act o f referring to elem ent X the w riter uses the denom ination o f elem ent Yw , creating a situation that i f taken literally w ould be considered bizarre. This act o f referring leads to the superposition o f tw o or m ore conceptual schem ata w hich, in its turn, leads to a suspension o f the ordinary concepts involved and to a rearrangem ent o f the conceptual schemata. Thus in stating

Exam ple 1

For the student o f language and thought, metaphor is an eclipse...

the w riter is referring to m etaphor (X) as an eclipse (Y w ), which is certainly very bizarre for the reader. In order to m ake sense o f the sentence above, w e suspend the ordinary m eaning o f eclipse (Y) and superim pose the two schem ata, o f X r and o f Yr. The result o f such superposition, the area w here the tw o schem ata overlap, should be the point the w riter is

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Introduction

trying to make. The superposition o f the two schem ata may enhance some features and dim inish others (cf. fig. 1 ).

Fig. 1 The overlapping area show s the features X w and Y w have in com m on.

It is im portant to note that this superposition intended by the w riter m ay be different from the one realised by the reader. The area o f overlapping may be larger or sm aller due to the personal differences in the schem ata activated by the w riter and the schem ata activated by the reader (cf. fig 2).

Fig.2 D ifferences in overlapping area and original configuration o f m eaning m ay give rise to differences in m etaphor interpretation

There are cases, then, as I will indicate below, when the w riter shows the path that the process o f interpretation should follow in the attem pt to hom ogenise the overlapping area. B ut m ost often this rearrangem ent is m ade by the reader based on the inform ation he/she has stored in both schem ata. F irst o f all the reader has to perceive the "pretend" gam e (see below ) suggested by the w riter and accept the task o f producing a new m eaning. This m eaning will be the result o f both the inform ation stored

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(C ollins and Q uillian,1969). These two aspects and the definition m ade above explain w hy tw o different people m ay have different interpretations for the same m etaphor. It is im portant to stress that, like other signs but in a m uch m ore com plex w ay, m etaphors require a construction o f meaning.

M etaphors and the functions of language

A t the beginning o f this section I inform ally talked about ideational3 and interpersonal m etaphors. I w ould like now to elaborate on this distinction, since the concept o f a m ore oriented ideational m etaphor is crucial for my argum entation.

A ccording to H alliday (1985) every utterance is structured on three levels: the ideational, the interpersonal and the textual, each o f them having a specific function. The ideational aspect is the use o f language to express content. The interpersonal aspect has to do w ith establishing and m aintaining contact w ith interlocutors. The textual aspect is the use o f language to create a text, that is, to m ake a m essage integrate with its context so that it is cohesive and coherent. These three functions are the m aturation o f seven protofunctions w hich H alliday (1975) proposed to explain the initial child's intentions:

a) the instrum ental, the "I want" function;

b) the regulatory, the "do as I tell you" function; c) the interactional, the "me and you" function; d) the personal, the "here I come " function;

^Throughout this work I use the terms experiential and ideational interchangeably despite the subtle differentiation which Halliday (1985) makes.

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Introduction e) the heuristic, the "tell m e why" function;

f) the im aginative, the "let's pretend" function;

g) the representational, the "I've got som ething to tell you" function.

For the study o f m etaphor it is im portant to consider the imaginative function o f language. Even though ideational, interpersonal and textual aspects are present in the construction o f m etaphors, they are not sufficient to explain the w hole process w hich seem s to bring back the feature o f being able to play w ith language w ithout the constraints o f the conventional system.

The imaginative function (...) is the function o f language whereby the child creates an environment o f his own. As well as moving into, taking over and exploring the universe which he finds around him, the child also uses language for creating a universe o f his own, a world initially o f pure sound, but which gradually turns into one story and make-believe and let's-pretend, and ultimately into the realm of poetry and imaginative writing. (Halliday,

1975:20)

"Let's pretend" happens w ith language structures and in play situations as well. Sw anson (1978:163-164), even though not talking about the im aginative function, describes the child at play w ith language which

results in m etaphors: ^

A child is a small scientist who tries out all kinds o f ways o f using the world. A box or a wastebasket he might use as a boot, a plate as a hat, a ring-shaped toy as a doughnut, and a potato chip as a cowboy hat for a doll. He acts and speaks in metaphors. I propose that we look upon such metaphors as partly erroneous conjectures being put to the test. One might argue against such a view by pointing out that the child knows the errors to be errors, and so not in need o f testing; but the child's way o f saying "I know this isn't so" might be to playfully try it out. The appeal o f the metaphoric act lies both in its resemblance to the truth and in the presence o f error. It is pleasurable to master the distinction between the true and the false -between reality and fantasy- by repeatedly testing what is already known to be refuted.

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This playful characteristic o f experim enting with language, o f stretching it to the limits possessed by the child (Quine, 1978:162) and the pleasure derived from it, rem ains in the adult's everyday use o f the m etaphor. W hat reason w ould a gardener have on a hot summ er afternoon to com e and ask "I need some w ater for my radiator" and help him self to a glass o f cold w ater, other than to play a "pretend game"? It is true that not all the m etaphorical uses are that unsophisticated. The predom inant representational feature o f language makes it£ m ark on this gam e too, sophisticating it, m aking it a tool for science. Just as the child works on perceived analogies, the scientist also makes use o f resem blances. The child's overextensions, for exam ple, m ay be ’m etaphors stillborn1:

These primitive metaphors differ from the deliberate and sophisticated ones, however, in that they accrete directly to our growing store of standard usage. (Quine, op.cit.)

M etaphor, then, m ay be an im portant part o f our lexicon growth.

C ognitive m aturation, the acceptance o f the conventional code, drives away- m etaphor from our language; nevertheless, we often have our m om ents o f regression. W e use the gam e to create new m eanings through m etaphors by breaking the code w hich is accepted by the m em bers o f a com m unity:

a) at the ideational level: participants and processes are not compatible am ong them selves. For exam ple in the dance of the planets, dance asks for a [+ hum an] subject w hich planets are not.

b) at the interpersonal level: w hat is im plied is an invitation: 'let's pretend'. E.g. W hen som eone says: "Give me some water for my radiator!" meaning it is for him /herself, he/she is pretending that the body is like a motor w hich has a radiator to cool the engine.

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Introduction c) at the textual level: if the utterance is taken literally there is no cohesion nor coherence in the text. In the text below "novos-inform atizados" and "os pobres escravos da m áquina" have to be considered to have the same referent otherw ise the text is not coherent. The same can be said o f "oráculos" and "m áquinas".

Exam ple 2

Atualmente temos que conviver com um novo tipo de chatos: os "novos-informatizados". Não bastando ostentar as proezas de seus programas e a capacidade de seus rígidos, agora, os pobres escravos da máquina as carregam de cima pra baixo, em aviões, trens, restaurantes... Coitados, nada podem fazer sem consultar seus oráculos.

By breaking the code the w riter is creating a com plicity betw een him self/herself and the reader, who connives or even participates in this transgression w hen he/she cooperates by understanding and accepts the new m eaning. D espite the sophistication im printed onto the m etaphor by the adult cognitive m ind, the unm arked form o f the m etaphor (see below ) carries the feature o f the "pretend game". The m ajority o f m etaphors carry the im aginative protofunction, unless stated otherw ise. There are cases when the w riter tries to make explicit this "pretend game". The m etaphor, then, lessens its playful character and assum es an ideational role:

(...) the speaker expresses bis experience o f the phenomena o f the external world, and o f the internal world o f his own consciousness. This is what we might call the observer function of language, language as a means o f talking about the real world.(Halliday, 1975: 17)

Ideational m etaphors and texts

It is true that interpersonal aspects are deeply em bedded in m etaphors, but it is also true that they play an im portant role in ideational com m unication: they associate different fields o f know ledge to create a n ew concept for the

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reader. M oreover when he/she attributes this ideational aspect, the m etaphor user m akes sure he/she provides the elem ents which will allow for the interpretation intended. Thus m etaphors and texts relate from two different but com plem entary perspectives.

M etaphors as conceptualisers have an im portant function in texts. By their very nature, w hereby they create a m om entary suspension o f m eaning, they bring an argum ent into stage which, then, needs to be developed in order to be accepted. Observing from a slightly different perspective, m etaphors look like a m om ent o f detachm ent from the conventions im posed by the code, a process sim ilar to the one described by Tadros (1985) and W inter (1986) as hypothetical-real, follow ed by a stage o f reassum ing the code. This process results in a pattern m ade up o f two elem ents, w here one o f the elem ents is m etaphoric and the other one m etalinguistic because it provides the glossing for its interpretation. Ideational m etaphors in this sense are prospective: upon reading them we expect that w hat is com ing will tell us how the concept reflected in the m etaphor is possible. A t the same tim e that they have the prospective quality they can also be retrospective, encapsulating information- and m aking the continuation o f the argum ent from a new point o f view, that provided by the evaluation m ade by the m etaphor possible. Textually, then, m etaphors function as organisers as they are capable o f prospecting and/or retrospecting inform ation.

W hile it is stim ulating to observe w hat m etaphors can do to texts, it is also im portant to see how texts help in developing an interpretation o f them.

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C ontext effects

The first thing I w ant to argue for is that texts provide the natural environm ent for m etaphors to be studied, despite the fact that, literary investigations apart, m ost studies o f m etaphor have used contexts that are no larger than a single sentence. This is true for both philosophers and psychologists, the two areas w here m etaphors have been m ost examined. Paivio (1979), for exam ple, begins an interesting article about m etaphor w ith the m etaphor "A m etaphor is a solar eclipse." given in exam ple 1. Later in the article he picks up this m etaphor again to explain it:

E xam ple 3

The term solar eclipse will tend to arouse a compound image that includes the blackened center, together with the glowing ring that rounds it. Both components, obscurity and light, will then be simultaneously available to arouse further associations relevant to the metaphorical context.... (p. 166)

H ow ever, i f he had considered the w hole text that he him self provided, he w ould have noticed that this last piece o f inform ation w as redundant, because he had already given the grounds for its interpretation 16 pages

earlier: \ ,

E xam ple 4

For the student o f language and thought, metaphor is a solar eclipse. It hides the object of study and at the same time reveals some o f its salient and interesting characteristics when viewed though the right telescope, (p. 150)

T here are o f course some (O rtony, Schallert, Reynolds and Antos, 1978 and H arris, 1979) who contextualise their m etaphors in paragraphs for experim ental purposes and some others (H oneck, Voegle, D orfm ueller and H offm an, 1980; Loewenberg, 1973; O rtony, Reynolds and Artner,

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1978 (a p u d M cCabe, 1983)) w ho argue for the im portance o f a context for the recognition o f m etaphors.

In my view significant am ounts o f the (con)text m ay be essential for the understanding o f m etaphors, considering that when they are created there is a break o f conventional rules. In fact it w ould be interesting to m easure the processing tim e o f a m etaphor in two situations: isolated and in context. This falls out o f the scope o f this thesis, but m y assum ption is that processing tim e in context w ould be much sm aller and that if com pared to non-m etaphorical expressions some m etaphors in context w ould not present significant difference. M etaphors outside their contexts w ork like am biguous sentences to which one can attribute different meanings. W ithin the text the reader finds clues w hich will direct his/her inferences.

All m etaphors are ideational. Through the m etaphor the w riter is reconceptualising the world. This reconceptualisation, how ever, has a deep interpersonal character. The w riter uses a metaphor:

a) to aid his/her reader : by using a m etaphor to express a concept he/she considers the reader will not easily follow, the w riter is showing consideration for his/her audience. The use o f m etaphors is a w ay to fill in the gap o f necessary previous know ledge the reader m ay n o t have. The m etaphor saves the know ledgeable reader from explicit inform ation and brings to the uninform ed reader a com pact version o f w hat he/she should learn through som ething the w riter assumes he/she knows. For example, w hen the w riter refers to the m ovem ent o f the planets as the dance o f the planets, he/she is associating to planets some o f the features o f dance which are relevant: periodicity, predeterm ination, unpredictability,

Introduction

16 \

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Introduction

conservation o f energy, conservation o f angular m om entum .4 Such features are certainly related to dance, though they m ay not be norm ally connected to dance under these names.

b) to express a different perspective on the w orld other than that conventionally pressed into the code. It can reveal ideological, aesthetic and cultural aspects o f its author. G oing back to the previous exam ple, the w hole developm ent o f the m etaphor reveals the author's interest in dance as well as in music:

Example 6

The cosmic dance is intricate and elaborate: sarabande to a score by Newton, Largo con gravita.

c) for self-prom otion: some m etaphors in nonfiction are so bizarre that rather than aid the reader they create m ore difficulty in the sense that besides the understanding o f the topic the reader has also to deal w ith the understanding o f the vehicle and the connection betw een the two. The connection m ay be there but it is restricted to the author and a particular small group o f people w ho hold that specific knowledge.

d) as a rhetorical tool: it derives from the two categories above that m etaphors can be political tools in the sense that they can hide or enhance aspects o f reality. A t the same time, by coding reality through m etaphors which have restricted the understanding o f inform ation contained in the text, the w riter preserves this view o f reality for a privileged class o f readers only. Booth (1979) gives a hum orous exam ple o f a legal case being won because o f the use o f a good metaphor.

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H ere is B ooth's story:

A lawyer friend o f mine was hired to defend a large Southern utility against a suit by a small one, and he thought at first that he was doing fine. All o f the law seemed to be on his side, and he felt that he had presented his case well. Then, the lawyer for the small utility said, speaking to the jury, almost as if incidentally to his legal case, "So now we see what it is. They got us where they want us. They holding us up with one hand, their good sharp fishin' knife in the other, and they sayin', 'you jes set still, little catfish, we're jes going to gut ya.'" At that moment, my friend reports, he knew he had lost the case. "I was in the hands o f a genius o f metaphor."

The reconceptualisation o f the world, therefore, is subdued by the personal aspects which readers may attribute to the utterance. The linguistic code usually restrains the connotative aspects, but once the writer breaks the code he/she needs other constraints such as the (con)text in w hich the sentence containing the m etaphor is inserted in order not to let the interpretation go free.

The m ost traditional view o f m etaphors em phasises the interpersonal aspect, w hich has caused them to be banned in the past from texts w ith an inform ative character. A ristotle, for exam ple, saw them as a mere decorative device, and for D escartes and the other philosophers m entioned at the beginning o f this chapter they lacked the objectivity necessary for non-literal texts. N evertheless, m etaphors perm eate our lives and are part o f m ost scientific literature treatises. The distinction betw een w hat I initially called interpersonal and ideational m etaphors has reflections in the developm ent they receive w ithin the text. Interpersonal m etaphors stay at the "let's pretend" function. Ideational m etaphors, w hich also have this function, expand w hen some grounds for interpretation are provided. The text, therefore, is the natural unit to study metaphor.

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Introduction

A ccording to Bolinger (1968), linguistic elem ents can be classified as m arked and unmarked. U nm arked are those elem ents w hich are the most usual, the expected options in opposition to the m arked elem ents which are distinguished and unexpected. M oreover, m arked elem ents are sometim es explicitly signalled. In terms o f m etaphors, interpersonal ones are unm arked in opposition to ideational ones, w hich are marked. Observe the exam ples below:

Exam ple 7

Vulcões e terremotos modelam a superfície como um arquiteto.

The figure above occurs in the subtitle o f an article about earthquakes and volcanoes. W e are free to interpret how earthquakes and volcanoes are architects. This is m odified in the body o f the article w here the same m etaphor occurs but w ith a defining constraint enhancing its ideational function:

Exam ple 8

De modo geral, (...) as placas são verdadeiros arquitetos da Terra: elas criam, destroem e recriam a superfície, dando-lhe diferentes faces_ ao longo das eras.

The m etaphor is realised intra-sententially by clauses with an appositive function. T he punctuation with a colon signals an explanatory statement.

M etaphors and m etalanguage

M etaphors, in the ideational sense, are a form o f definition. H effem an & Lincoln (1982) in their handbook on writing present six w ays o f defining a

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a) by synonym ;

b) by com parison, contrast, and analogy; c) by function;

d) by analysis; e) by exam ple; f) by etym ology.

M etaphors should be y et another category. Even though some m etaphors encom pass com parisons, contrasts and/or analogies, the effect achieved w ith them is different. W hen we have ordinary com parisons, we deal with sim ilar things. The m etaphor brings together things that ordinarily w e w ould think have nothing to do w ith each other and yet we find that they m ay be com parable.

O f course these categories do not w ork com pletely alone. They com bine am ong them selves in the text. R eturning to the exam ple quoted above,

E xam ple 8

XViv De um modo geral, (...), as placas são os verdadeiros arquitetos da Terra: elas criam, destroem e recriam a superfície, dando-lhe diferentes faces ao longo das eras.

w e can analyse this portion o f text as a definition w hich involves two categories: It involves both a m etaphor and its analysis. The m etaphor in itse lf has a m etalinguistic function as it is defining p la ca s tectô n icas.5

^Within the pattern general-specific, which we will discuss later on, we find the pattern metaphor-metalinguistic, where

as placas (tectônicas) são os verdadeiros arquitetos da T erra represents the metaphorical part, and

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Introduction

The process o f defining by m eans o f m etaphor is very com plex and creative. Due to the unusual collocation there is a m om entary suspension o f the linguistic conventions attributed to the signs in question. The signifiée part o f the linguistic sign loses some o f its specific semantic features, requiring a com pletion guided by the utterer o f the m etaphor and/or by the activation o f the sem antic netw ork o f the receiver.

W hen the intention o f the w riter is a definition, the unspecificness o f the m etaphor has to be m ade specific ju st as w ith other item s o f the m etalanguage (cf. W inter, 1992):

For the unspecific to communicate it must be made specific (in contexts where it is not known by the decoder) by the next sentence to become lexically unique.

To become a significant message, it has to become lexically unique through the open-class specific of its second sentence.

H ow ever, there are m om ents w hen the w riter uses a m etaphor to define but does not com plete the m eaning, leaving the task exclusively to the reader. These m etaphors I classify as interpersonal m etaphors, as I have already m entioned before. Though there is a conceptual function the

"S is interactional aspect comes on top o f it. The "let's pretend game" is on. In cases like these, either the context is sufficient to m ake the m etaphor understood, or the intention is to play w ith the m ultiplicity o f meanings.

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T he problem

Given the stigm a that m etaphors have had historically since the seventeenth century and their w idespread use now adays not ju st in everyday language but in inform ative texts as well, I have exam ined a num ber o f m etaphors in books, jo u rn als and new spapers to discover how they overcom e the bad reputation o f im proper language for serious matters. Since the late seventies m etaphors have acquired academ ic respectability (Cohen, 1978:3), and the num ber o f publications on m etaphors in ordinary language has increased. As Cohen (op. cit.) says:

These are good times for the friends of metaphor. They are so salutary that we are in danger o f overlooking some thorny underbrush as we scramble over the high road to figurative glory.

I am looking at the question not from a historical point o f view, but from a textual point o f view: considering that the basic concept o f m etaphor has not changed over the centuries, w hat is it that w e perceive now that rem oves the "unsteadiness" o f language.

This thesis is the result o f extensive observation o f text and its relation to m etaphor. I will try to show specifically the follow ing points whi^h are m eaningful for the teaching o f reading and w riting, specifically where it relates to lexis, and to the description o f text:

1. M etaphors in texts can be classified according to the three main functions o f language proposed by Halliday: ideational, interpersonal and textual. Though they all carry the three functions, the text usually foregrounds one o f the functipns.

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Introduction

2. Ideational m etaphors are im portant cohesive m arkers w hich either project the text ahead creating expectations about w hat is to com e, or they encapsulate portions o f text allow ing for a shift in the topic.

It is im portant to anticipate w hat will be evident later on that despite the fact that I use H alliday's (1985) term inology and his concept for the function o f language (ideational, interpersonal, textual)", I do not apply them to the level originally proposed —the clause. H alliday w ould reach the ideational function o f the text, for exam ple, through the analysis o f each clause o f the text: the ideational function o f the text as a w hole would be the sum o f all clauses. M ine is a less restrictive use o f these functions looking from the perspective o f the text as a whole, view ing (cf. Coulthard, 1987:185) them as pre-textual.

This is not therefore a study o f m etaphor per se, but a study o f texts w hich involve a particular type o f m etaphor which I call ideational. Texts are the result o f the m any choices a w riter has to make. O ne o f these choices is w hether to use a m etaphor or a literal expression to convey a concept. A s it has been m entioned, this choice is not random , but reflects the pre-ideation the w riter has for his/her text. At the same tim e, once the choice o f a m etaphor is made, it m ay have influence through the developm ent o f the text, w hich is w hat I w ant to examine. The focus o f this work, then, will be on ideational m etaphors in relationship to the role they have in the developm ent o f texts, sim ultaneously with the role texts play in the developm ent o f metaphors.

The first chapter deals with the role o f context and o f conventions in the interpretation o f m etaphors. The point o f departure is the w riter-reader relationship, I try to characterise the process o f w ritten language in terms

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o f production and reception. The approach is textual, that is, I try to explain w riter-reader relationship by looking at the text. However, w henever needed, processual aspects are also included.

T he second chapter looks at interpersonal m etaphors, observing their textual developm ent in term s o f lexical relations.

In the third chapter I make a characterisation o f ideational m etaphors, bringing evidence from the text. I discuss the m etadiscoursal aspects o f the text w hich explicitly bring out the ideational aspect and the role o f m atching relations in the unpacking o f metaphors.

The fourth chapter starts on the role m etaphors have in textual organisation specifically how they encapsulate portions o f texts. After discussing the prospective aspect, show ing how a pattern o f tw o elem ents m etaphor-m etalinguistic can be observed (chapter 5) and the issues raised by m etaphors in translation (chapter 6), I conclude show ing the im plications o f w hat has been found for the teaching o f reading and text analysis.

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Chapter 1

Texts, context and conventions

This chapter tries to show som e o f the considerations that a w riter has to take into account w hile producing a text and the efforts on the part o f the reader to understand this text. Two key concepts -- context and conventions -- play an im portant role in filling the gaps left by the lim itations o f w ritten language as the vehicle. H ere it is dem onstrated how both w riter and reader m ake use o f them.

T he relationship between w riter-audience and the resulting text

A good reading o f a w ritten inform ative text is the one in w hich the final understanding approaches the intention o f the writer. O ne m ight s a ^ that this is a definition that cannot be tested and it m ay be true. B u t there is no sense in reading a text i f it is not to get w hat the w riter intended to express. N o t having the w riter to confirm our outcom e, the b est approach is to construct the m eaning o f a tex t w hich is congruent w ith the evidence it offers. W hereas the m eaning o f a spoken text is, in general, a product o f interaction am ongst the participants, the m eaning o f a w ritten text results from tw o acts in solitude: the w riter's and its readers'. A t a distance in time and place from the people he/she intends to address, the w riter transfers

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interlocutors indecisions, doubts, and mistakes. E ach reader, in his/her own tim e, approaches the product o f that act in solitude too. Alone, each has to m ake decisions, resolve doubts. The text is the elem ent which bridges the tw o participants both in space and in time.

This bridge, how ever, is sometim es insufficient because o f the restrictions o f its ow n structure. The physical text cannot hold everything: first, due to the physical lim itations o f the channel (the linearity o f the w ritten language, despite its hierarchy, is insufficient to conduct explicitly the m ultiple m eanings required); second, because it w ould go against the principle o f inform ation exchange, w hich holds that it m ust not be redundant, but adequate; and third, because experience is richer than texts can convey. F or at least these three reasons the w riter m ust skilfully choose w hat and h o w he/she will express his/her intentions about a certain topic. The adequacy o f the w ritten text is therefore crucial.

F o r com m unication to take place, that is, to have exchange o f inform ation from X to Y, there should be a certain im balance between the old and the n e w inform ation presented in a tex t1. B y old it is m eant the

V* inform ation w hich is possessed by the reader before reading the text and by n ew the inform ation w hich the reader will acquire from the text. If there is a perfect balance betw een the two, everything is stable, there is no flux and no m ovem ent occurs. O n the other hand, i f the im balance is too big, again there is no exchange. I f this is the case, tw o extrem e situations m ay

’The distinction we are making is different from the traditional given/new concepts to describe the information in the text which the reader can recover(the given) and the information which the reader cannot recover (the new).

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occur: (a) there is a barrier and no transfer o f inform ation; (b) there is redundancy and, therefore, also no transfer o f inform ation: the reader already had it.

In order to avoid a big im balance betw een the old and the new inform ation, w hich im pedes com m unication, the w riter m ust idealise his/her reader and establish in his/her m ind w hat kind o f know ledge they both share, w hat the reader will need to understand his/her point and what is not really evident.

Let us take a text in order to exem plify w hat it has been pointed out.

E xam ple 1:

Context and conventions

N ew W hoof in Whorf2

An old language theory regains its authority

(l)L inguistic relativity - the idea that the language one speaks shapes the world one sees - was framed in the 1940s, embraced in the 1950s and seemingly discredited by rigorous tests in the late 1960s. (2) Yet some researchers say it is worth another look, arguing that although the particularities of language may not control the mind, they may influence it in subtle ways.

(3)Linguistic relativity is better known as the Whorf Hypothesis, after Benjamin Lee Whorf, an insurance man and part-time linguist who popularised it (4) "We cut nature up, organise it into concepts, and ascribe significance as we do, largely

2The text above was published in Scientific A m erican, a journal whose purpose is to popularise scientific knowledge and whose readers have a wide range of interests.

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because we are parties to an agreement to organise it in this way" he wrote. (5) "All observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture o f the universe unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated."

(6)W liorfs idea was eagerly adopted by cultural anthropologists intent on explaining individuals as the products o f culture and culture as autonomous o f biology (7) Most linguists, however, regarded the hypothesis as speculative and preferred theories that emphasised matters common to all languages. (8)The universalists seemed to win the day in 1969, when Brent Berlin and Paul Kay o f the University o f California at Berkeley disproved that colour perceptions varied among cultures. (9)They found that all languages added colour terms according to a strict pattern. (10) After some refinement, they now say languages having two terms group red, yellow and white under one and green, blue and black under the other. (1 l)Those having three group red and yellow together, as opposed to white. (12)Languages add subsequent terms through successive divisions o f the remaining categories.

(13)Ridicule was added to such refutations when the most widely repeated Whorfian anecdote was debunked. (14)W horf had asserted that Eskimos use many distinct words in place o f the one English word "snow". (15)He concluded that an Eskimo and an Anglo would perceive the same snowdrift differently because they pigeonhole the concept into different lexical grids. (16) But Laura E. Martin, an anthropologist at Cleveland State University, traced the story to its sources and found that Whorf had exaggerated the number o f Eskimo snow roots while understating the number in English: slush, powder, blizzard and so forth.

(17)M istakes were made, admits John J. Guniperz, a linguist anthropologist at Berkeley. (18)But Whorf had his finger on part o f the truth, he maintains, and workers are now revising relativist ideas in the light o f acknowledge language universals.

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(19)Gumperz, who helped to organise a conference on the subject last summer, says linguists are particularly interested in indexicality - cultural conventions on how meanings o f words vary with circumstance o f use. (20)"We" in English, for example, means one thing in the sentence, "We get our alphabet from the Phoenicians," and another in Queen Victoria's famous statement, "We are not amused".

(21)Another area o f investigation concerns uses o f language that are not centred in an individual -deliberations o f information that no one person possesses at any one time. (22) Such out-of-body thinking, as it were, can be seen in the rhyming mnemonic devices o f oral cultures and in writing which enables one to conduct an elaborate discourse with oneself. (23) Habits inculcated by reading and writing often leave marks on utterances -for example, by inducing a person to talk like a book.

(24) But is there nothing more striking than this to put beside the flights o f fancy o f the early Whorfians? (25) Stephen C. Levinson o f the Max Planck research group for cognitive anthropology told the conference o f collective work suggesting that spatial conceptualisation is not universal. (26)Certain Australian languages, for example, are devoid o f relative terms for space -"in front of' or "beside"- but instead refer to an absolute frame o f reference -"north of," "south of'. (27)This system has sweeping implications because it requires speakers wishing to report a scene to memorise it with its cardinal direction.

(28)Spatial distinctions o f particular languages are mastered very early in life, says M elissa Bowerman, also o f the Max Planck group. (29) She cites studies o f Korean children as young as 18 months who understand exotic distinctions that their language make. (30) For example, they distinguish between "on tightly" and "on loosely", as in "He put the lid (tightly) on the jar, which is (loosely) on the table." (31) Developmental psychology has assumed, since the classic experiment o f the Swiss psychologist Jean

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Piaget, that children develop concepts o f space first and then apply language to them. (32) But if, as Bowerman believes, the order is sometimes reversed, then intellectual development may itself be conditioned by culture. (33) "1 think Bowerman's results are very impressive," Kay says.

(34 )But he cautions against exaggerating the contrast between languages. (35) Languages that make unique distinctions, he says, usually make the more familiar ones as well. (36)Western languages, for example, have been characterised as representing time in linear terms, in contrast to the cyclical terms of many non-Western languages. (37) "But Western languages have days o f the week, months o f the year, the seasons, which are cyclical schemata," he says, just as non-Western languages have linear

i

schemata. (38)"Whorfians," Kay points out, "have sometimes tended not to look at the diversity that exists within each language.

Phillip E. Ross

The text transcribed above, although about linguistics, is not addressed specifically to linguists. H aving in m ind that the text will be read by non specialists, the w riter defines several concepts, as for example:

\u Linguistic relativity - the idea that the language one speaks shapes the world one sees....

Linguistic relativity is better known as the Wliorf hypothesis after Benjamin Lee Wkorf, an insurance man and part-time linguist who popularised it.

Gumperz, who helped to organise a conference on the subject last summer, says linguists are particularly interested in indexicality -cultural conventions on how the meanings o f words vary with circumstance o f use. Such a procedure is com m on in new spapers and general interest m agazines, allow ing their readers to build up the necessary lexical relations to understand the text they are reading.

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Context and conventions A nother feature w hich dem onstrates that he is w riting for non specialists, is the identification o f people w ho provide specific inform ation:

Brent Berlin and Paul Kay o f the University o f California at Berkeley.

Laura E. Martin, an anthropologist at Cleveland State University. John J. Gumperz, a linguist anthropologist at Berkeley.

Stephen C. Levinson o f the Max Planck research group fo r cognitive work.

Melissa Bowerman o f the Max Placnk group. The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget...

The identification o f the institution where the sources com e from is unnecessary in an academ ic paper addressed to people in the area, as it is supposed that the readers o f the publication know about those people and recognise their im portance in the field. In the case o f this article, the author uses the origin o f the sources as a way to give w eight to his argum entation. H is sources, i f not know n to the readers, come from very reputable places, B erkeley, M ax Planck...

Inform ation o f the type depicted above w ould be redundant directed to a readership o f specialists. C onsider the text below.

Exam ple 2:

Language Determines Thought

Although the classical doctrine (thought determines language) held sway for a very long time, the opposite opinion has had a good deal o f influence during this century. Many theorists were impressed both by the tremendous diversity o f languages that are found around the world and by the diversity o f the cultures in which these languages are spoken. In an attempt to account for the cultural diversity, some theorists claimed that the cultural patterns grew out o f or depended upon the linguistic patterns. According to this view, people have great flexibility in how they

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organise their experience, and language has an important impact on how experience is interpreted.

The individual who did the most to popularise the "Language-Determines-Thought" position was Benjamin Lee Whorf (1 8 9 7 -1941). Whorf is an interesting figure in that he was trained as a chemical engineer and spent his life working as a fire prevention engineer for the Hartford Fire Insurance Co. He was a successful businessman who also devoted him self to the study of American Indian languages and culture. His life was described by Carroll in the volume of W horf s papers that Carroll collected (Whorf, 1956).

According to Whorf, the child's cognitive system is very plastic; that is, the system is susceptible o f being organised in many different ways. The primary determinant o f how it is organised is the structure o f the language that the child acquires. Since, according to Whorf, linguistic structures are highly dissimilar in different languages, the resulting cognitive systems are also dissimilar. Thus, W horfs views have two parts. The first claim is usually called the hypothesis o f linguistic determinism. It says that linguistic structure determines cognitive structure. The second claim is called the hypothesis o f linguistic relativity. It says that the resulting cognitive systems are highly different in speakers o f different languages.

Whorf argued that, "We cut nature up... as we do largely because we are partners in an agreement to organise it in this way -an agreement ... that is codified in the patterns o f our language" (1956, p.213). This statement does not imply that the speakers o f a language are aware o f the "agreement" to organise the world in some particular way. Rather, the language imposes the organisation upon each new speaker o f the language. Hence, this is a theory of cognitive development. For example, Whorf noted that some languages have separate words for different types o f snow. A child who grows up speaking such a language will develop more cognitive categories for snow than will an English-speaking child. When the former child looks out at a snowy environment he w ill, in some sense, see it differently from a child who has but one word snow.

...(p.382-383)...

Thought Determines Language: Colour Again

Much o f the research involving colour terms assumed that languages were free to divide up the colour spectrum in any way their speakers chose. Thus, a boundary between colour names could be put right in the middle o f the colour that English speakers would call a good blue. On the

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