communicating flexibly with metaphor: a replacement-compounding-strengthening complex john barnden...

Communicating Flexibly with Metaphor: a

Replacement-Compounding-Strengthening Complex

John Barnden

School of Computer ScienceUniversity of Birmingham, UK

Supported by: Leverhulme Trust

RaAM 2014, Cagliari, June 2014

Plan of Talk

• Nature of metaphor compounding, replacement, and strengthening.

• Links/overlaps between them.

• Towards an integrated approach

– within the ATT-Meta framework.

The Three Phenomena• Metaphor Compounding (or: Mixing)

– Same-target parallel compounding:

A as [like] B1 and also A as [like] B2

– Same-source parallel compounding (or: Multivalency [Goatly]):

A1 as [like] B and also A2 as [like] B

– Serial compounding [chaining]:

A as [like] B and also B as [like] C

• Metaphor Replacement (with same target):

A as [like] B1 replaced by A as [like] B2

• Metaphor Strengthening

Not merely: A as [like] B1 but more strongly: A as [like] B2

[Special]: Not merely: A as like B but more strongly: A as B

Parallel Compounding: Examples

• “My husband stands beside and behind me.” [origin unknown]

• “My so-called personality had always been a costume I put on fumblingly, and removed with vague, perplexed fingers; it shifted depending on circumstances, like unfastened cargo in the hold of a ship. ... The personalities I assembled never lasted long. Like quilts carelessly sewn together, I periodically fell apart.”

• “This idea crystallized the nebulous mental meanderings that had plagued me since ... “ {or serial compounding??}

• “… he paced restlessly about inside his desire, like a prisoner in his dungeon. A perpetual anguish stifled him.”

• “These unconscious activities underlie our conscious thoughts, and the latter are but a taming, censoring, and making reasonable [of] the well-springs of mental activity.” {or serial compounding??}

Parallel Compounding:Examples contd

• “The recent history of Afghanistan demonstrates that a new war in that country

would not simply be like the U.S. war in Vietnam. The war would instead be like

Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Colombia and Somalia all rolled into one. Afghanistan

offers a package deal of multiple disasters, loaded with extra bonus features.”

• Later we find ``Afghanistan is Vietnam,'' then some explanation of this view, and

then ``But Afghanistan is not simply like Vietnam,'' some more explanation, then

``Afghanistan is Yugoslavia,'' some explanation of this, then ``But Afghanistan is

not simply like Yugoslavia,'' and so forth, adding in Colombia and then Somalia in

the same cumulative way.

Replacement:Examples

• “Libraries aren't like supermarkets, they are magical places where dreams begin.”

• “Human consciousness isn't like a program running on a substrate -- it is that substrate.”

Strengthening: Examples

• {Correcting part is a clearly strengthened simile/metaphor}:

– “If you have ever built a sand castle and tried to save your creation as the surf swept in and out, you know something of how legislators must feel as they try to solve Oregon's budget crisis. ... Someone said, `It isn't only like trying to move sand while the tide rushes in, it feels like we're trying to move it with a teaspoon!' ”

– “Paul would not speak lightly of anyone, even of a child - he adds, that in `another' respect it would be well to be like them - nay, not only like children, but like `infants.‘ ”

– “Madonna isn't only like a virgin again -- she's become like a nun.”

– “When the wind blew, it was not merely like someone breathing: it was the breath of a god.”

Strengthening: Examples, contd

• {Correcting part is a distinctly different simile/metaphor using the same target but different source}:

– “Have I mentioned recently that there are no good statistics on wait times in the US, so comparing the US to any other country isn't merely like comparing apples to oranges, it's like comparing apples to invisible pink unicorns? ”

– “Ponder these words: `when the universe becomes yourself.' This type of connection isn't merely like a fastening device that brings together two separate entities, it is oneness. Now we're talking about real connection! I am my brother, I am my universe, I am my Divinity. We all are.”

A Special Type of Strengthening Analyzed by others incl. Chiappe & Kennedy (2000),

and by Barnden (2013) at RaAM Seminar 2013

“Big government isn’t just like show business, it is show business.”

“The Internet Isn't `Like’ Crack, It Is Crack.”

“The director’s exploitation of this actor is like filming a drowning man and doing nothing – in fact, it isn't merely like that, that's exactly what it is.”

“You aren't just like Hitler, YOU ARE HITLER!”

“She doesn't just look like me, ... she is me.”

[real examples, some slightly edited]

Links

• Roughly speaking, strengthening is an EFFECT, whereas replacement and compounding are (mainly) DISCOURSE ACTs.

• strengthening may replacement

strengthening may compounding

partial replacement may compounding

Link: Strengthening as Replacement• Some forms of strengthening can be regarded as a special form of replacement: a

metaphor source scenario is replaced by a strengthened version.

• This can be by a proper addition to the original scenario, as in

“It isn't only like trying to move sand while the tide rushes in, it feels like we're trying to move it with a teaspoon!”

• So the original scenario is replaced by an expanded one, which includes all of the original scenario.

Strengthening as Replacement, contd

• But strengthening can involve replacement in a deeper sense:

– “When the wind blew, it was not merely like someone breathing: it was the breath of a god.”

If we take a god to be very different from a person, the qualitative type of breath is replaced.

The new scenario does not include the whole of the original scenario, but merely some aspects of it.

• Overall effect is to strengthen the positive evaluation of the wind's blowing.

Non-Replacement-based Strengthening

• “Like/be” strengthening is not in itself a matter of replacement:

In pure forms, the target and source scenarios remain the same.

• But there are hybrid cases where the source is modified, as indeed in

“When the wind blew, it was not merely like someone breathing: it was the breath of a god.”

Link: Compounding may Some Replacement• In compounding, there is a varying degree of pressure or need to suppress or replace

parts of some of the source scenarios,

– because of source/source clashes, source/source influence, or target/source dissimilarities.

• First, look at cases where this does not / may well not happen.

“These unconscious activities underlie our conscious thoughts, and the latter are but a taming, censoring, and making reasonable [of] the well-springs of mental activity.”

This can perhaps be understood by adding together separate understandings of (a) conscious thoughts “taming” unconscious ones, (b) conscious thoughts “censoring” unconscious ones, and (c) unconscious thoughts being “well-springs” of conscious ones.

Each of (a), (b) and (c) operates as though respectively only “taming,” “censoring” or “well-springs” had been mentioned.

Compounding may Some Replacement, contd• But consider Afghanistan as Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Colombia and Somalia.

• The text [in parts not shown above] explicitly …

• points out Vietnam as having strong central govt and ethnic core, but Afghanistan and Yugoslavia as ethnically divided and unstably governed.

So certain aspects of Vietnam should be suppressed, and in effect replaced by opposite aspects of Yugoslavia.

Or we can say: the Yugoslavia metaphor partially replaces the Vietnam metaphor, without fully supplanting it.

• Similarly, Yugoslavia developed an industrial economy, whereas Afghanistan had/has a prominent illegal drug economy, run by multiple factions, as in Colombia. So aspects of Yugoslavia should be suppressed and replaced by opposite aspects of Colombia.

Compounding may Some Replacement, contd

• “My so-called personality had always been a costume I put on fumblingly, and removed with vague, perplexed fingers; it shifted depending on circumstances, like unfastened cargo in the hold of a ship ... The personalities I assembled never lasted long. Like quilts carelessly sewn together, I periodically fell apart.”

• Normally the putting-on, taking-off or changing of a costume are deliberate and purposeful, but the shifting of cargo is not. So the deliberateness/purposefulness aspects of the costume scenario need to be suppressed.

• BUT: the “quilt” aspect doesn’t so much contradict the nature of costumes, as to push them in the direction of poorly constructed ones.

• Still can be seen as a mild form of replacement.

Caution re: Compounding Replacement

• Source/source clashes need not imply partial replacement, because the understander may or may not need to combine the source scenarios themselves into a consistent single scenario.

• Recall the taming/censoring/well-springs example, and:

“My husband stands beside and behind me.”

One aspect of the husband’s help is up front and direct (from “beside”), whereas another aspect is in the background, and may be more a matter of private moral support, etc.

These two aspects can be separately processed.

Link: Compounding may Strengthening

• Compounding can generate strengthening, because the different conceptions can all address some common concern about the target.

• For example, putting together Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Colombia and Somalia emphasizes the diversity and difficulty of the problems in Afghanistan. Each source country introduces some difficulties that are not contradicted by the others.

Unified Framework: ATT-Meta

• Propose that a framework such as ATT-Meta [Barnden 2008, 2009, in press] is beneficial in obtaining a unified treatment of compounding, replacement and strengthening.

• In ATT-Meta development, compounding has been a key concern [Lee & Barnden 2001, Barnden in press].

• Replacement and strengthening have not been addressed in the context of ATT-Meta.

ATT-Meta contd• Some aspects of ATT-Meta that are helpful for compounding and that also help

replacement or strengthening:

– Handling of non-definite information: e.g. the mere default that costumes are well-integrated and put together.

– “View-neutral mapping adjuncts”: for mapping of a certain range of qualities, such as evaluative ones, irrespective of the particular metaphorical views in force. So, very different sources in a compound can all contribute similar evaluations, causing strengthening.

– Possibly-multiple “pretences” or “fictions”.

– Autonomy of individual view-specific mapping rules, as opposed to packaging mappings into conceptual metaphors. Any combination of rules can act.

The following slides apart from the Conclusionwere not shown in the talk

Fictions/Pretences

• The Att-Meta approach is based on pretences (or fictions).

• Related:– Levin’s approach in literary theory [Levin 1993]

– Fictionalist approaches in Philosophy [Walton 2004/1993].

– Blending approach [Fauconnier & Turner 2008]

– An addition to Relevance Theory: [Carston and Wearing 2011]

An Example

“The idea was buried in the outback of Katy’s mind”

• The understander (as well as the speaker) momentarily pretends that Katy’s mind is literally a physical terrain that has an outback and that the idea is literally physically buried in the outback.

• So the idea in question is inferred to be – (to a high degree) physically hidden to,

– currently physically unmanipulable by, and

– would be difficult to physically manipulate by Katy.

K cannot mentally use J

K would find it difficult to mentally use J

J is buried in ...

K’s mind is a phys terrainJ is a phys object

J phys’ly hidden to K’s c. self

J not phys’ly manipulable by K’s c. self

J would only be manipulable with difficulty

by K’s c. self

J = the idea

inference

pull-out by view-specific and view-neutral mapping

Reality (incl. Reality (incl. target-side)target-side)

FictionFiction

A View-Specific Mapping Rule

• IF an idea I of person P’s is [in a pretence] a physical object

THEN P’s physical manipulation of I [in the pretence]

corresponds to

P’s mental usage of I [in the space surrounding the pretence]

• The IF part is a “guard” or “enabling condition” that allows the rule to be used whenever appropriate, without regard to anything else.

• Also note: a correspondence created by the rule refers to a specific idea I and person P.

Target info

Source 1 info

Source 2 info

PARALLEL COMPOUNDING

(one type)

view-neutral mapping helps here

Target infoSource 1 and Source 2 info MIXED

PARALLEL COMPOUNDING

(another type)

arbitrary combining of mappings helps here

Conclusion

• Compounding, replacement and strengthening of metaphor are heavily interlinked.

– And other phenomena should also be brought in, such as source domain distortion.

• They deserve a unified treatment.

• The ATT-Meta approach is a candidate for providing one.

ReferencesBarnden, J.A. (2008). Metaphor and artificial intelligence: Why they matter to each other. In R.W. Gibbs, Jr. (Ed.),

The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, pp.311--338. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Barnden, J.A. (2009). Metaphor and context: A perspective from artificial intelligence. In A. Musolff & J. Zinken (Eds), Metaphor and Discourse, pp.79-94. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Barnden, J.A. (in press). Mixed metaphor: Its depth, its breadth, and a pretence-based approach. Invited chapter for volume on Mixed Metaphor edited by R.W. Gibbs, Jr. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Draft copy available on request.]

Barnden, J.A. (2013). A hyperbolic account of the apparent forcefulness of nominal metaphors. Talk at RaAM Seminar 2013: Metaphor, Metonymy and Emotions, Adam Mickiewicz Univ., Poznan, Poland, 2-3 May 2013.

Carston, R. & Wearing, C.~(2011). Metaphor, hyperbole and simile: A pragmatic approach. Language and Cognition, 3 (2): pp.283—312.

Chiappe, D.L. & Kennedy, J.M. (2000). Are metaphors elliptical similes? J. Psycholing. Research, 29(4), pp.371-398.

Fauconnier, G. & Turner, M.~(2008). Rethinking metaphor. In Gibbs, R.W., Jr. (Ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, pp.53-66. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Lee, M.G. & Barnden, J.A. (2001). Reasoning about mixed metaphors with an implemented AI system. Metaphor and Symbol, 16 (1&2), pp.29—42. [Beginnings of ATT-Meta approach to mixed metaphor.]

Levin, S.R. (1993). Language, concepts, and worlds: three domains of metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and Thought, 2nd edition, pp.112--123. New York and Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Walton, K. (2004/1993). Metaphor and prop oriented make-believe. In E. John & D.M. Lopes (Eds), Philosophy of Literature—Contemporary and Classic Readings: An Anthology, pp.239--247. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.

Standard Generic Parallels include … • Emotional/attitudinal qualities/value-judgments/beliefs, etc.

– Unpleasantness of someone shouting in your ear; anger of Sharon’s inner voice. Unwantedness of junk. Lack of intention of being in prison; knowingness in loading a gun.

• Changes and Time-Course, incl. starting, ending, smoothness/intermittence, etc. (See below.)

• Causation/prevention/enablement/ability/ease/difficulty. – Bullets causing death; cell-bars preventing stopping the situation. Non-ability

to see a nylon string. Of finding and manipulating something buried.

• Normal functioning. – Junked item no longer serves and perhaps never will serve its normal function.

Car-on-holiday is not engaging in normal function.

• Possibility/necessity/obligation/…

• Qualitative number/amount (little, much, few, many, more, …)

Multiple Pretences, contd

• Multiple (but non-nested) pretences also useful for

Parallel compounding of metaphor:

X is viewed as both Y and Z

where Y is not itself (on this occasion) viewed as Z, and Y and Z are difficult to combine within one pretence.

Creativity of mixed metaphor• “This worry was a corrosive chemical that was nibbling at her self-

esteem.” [closely adapted from an example in a Sylvia Plath diary;

courtesy of Zsofia Demjen]

– Serial mix (= chaining) of WORRY-AS-CHEMICAL and CHEMICAL-AS-ANIMAL

– Mixed in parallel with SELF-ESTEEM AS NIBBLABLE OBJECT.

• The thought of her step-mother's arrival hung over her mind like a dark angry cloud.

– Serial mix (= chaining) of THOUGHT-AS-CLOUD and CLOUD-AS-PERSON

Mixed Metaphor• Serial mixing (chaining) of metaphor:

X viewed as Y and Y viewed as Z

“This worry was a corrosive chemical that was nibbling at her self-esteem.”

[closely adapted from an example in a Sylvia Plath diary; courtesy of Zsofia Demjen]

• The worry (X) is viewed as a chemical (Y);

the chemical (Y) is viewed as an animal (Z).

[Also, her self-esteem is viewed as a nibblable physical object.]

• Handled by nested fictions (nested pretences).

Like a play within a play, or a story within a story.

The WORRY is slowly affecting her self-esteem negatively

The worry-CHEMICAL is slowly physically-damaging her self-esteem-object

The worry-chemical-ANIMAL is nibbling at her self-esteem-object

The worry-chemical-ANIMAL is slowly eating her self-esteem-object

SERIAL MIXING