The

Metaphor

Interaction and persuasion

Introduction Topics: metaphor what it is, how it works what it is for. Metaphor: figure of speech= all the words or phrases used in a

way that transcends their literal meaning. Metaphor has to do both with the way we see the world and the

way we try to explain it to others: abstract concepts look for an equivalent in the concrete world,

something that is able to express the same idea but is easier to think about for the listeners (emotions, sensations, the human mind or even the way some collective entities like society work, or economy and so on).

Source domain and Target domain Metaphor can so be defined as understanding one conceptual domain (the field

we refer to) in terms of an other conceptual domain. Conceptual metaphor as an equivalence: CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN A IS CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN B conceptual metaphor ≠ metaphorical linguistic expressions, that are the

words or expressions coming from the more concrete domain (domain B).Metaphor:

Abstract concept ( TARGET DOMAIN) + Concrete concept (SOURCE DOMAIN)

What we’re trying to explain The field we borrow to confer the semantic feature to the abstract concept For example, we often talk about: -life as a journey: he has no direction in life-argument as war: she demolished his argument-theories as buildings: what in the foundation of this theory?

-mappings: finding the equivalent of every element of the target domain in the source domain.E.g. LIFE IS A JOURNEY: -living beings travelers- events that happen in life stage of the travel

- principle of unidirectionality: it typically goes from concrete to abstract and not the opposite.E.g we don’t talk about journey as love but, love as journey.

MOST COMMON SOURCE DOMAIN:

The most common source domain according to the Cobuild Metaphor dictionary are:

Human body:e.g. "The heart of a problem" Health and illness:e.g. "He hurt my feeling" Animals:e.g "He acted like a brute!" Plants:e.g. to cultivate a friendship "the fruit of her labour" Buldings and construction:e.g. "he is financially in ruins" Cooking and food:e.g. "i would like to know which the recipe for success is"

MOST COMMON TARGET DOMAINS (abstract/lackin clear delineation):

Emotion: anger, fear, happiness, sadness are primarily understood by the use of conceptual metaphors:

e.g: "she was bursting (explode) with joy" Desire:e.g. " She is hungry for knowledge" Thought: Metaphor is really useful in this area because we have very little knowledge in

the mind.e.g. She's grinding out (take out from the oven) new ideas Society and Natione.g neighboring countriese.g a friendly nation Politics: political power is conceptualized as physical force, and it's frequently understood

by recurring to source domains such as sport, business, war.e.g to force the opposition out Economy:e.g. to build a strong economy

Conventionality of the metaphor

Evaluation, interaction and persuasion

Notice that a metaphor is always the translation of the point of view of the speaker about a certain event or issue: it can be considered as a means of evaluation.

-If I say that someone behave like a snake it's implicit that I am making a negative evaluation on the way he or she acted, considering it sly and not transparent.

The metaphor as an interactive means to communicate people what our opinion on something is (we have of course to take care that the person we're talking to has the knowledge to get the implied meaning of what we explicitly said).

For such communicative power, metaphor has many realization that are strictly connected with persuasive intent: it's able to convince other people that our evaluation on something or somebody is true. By using metaphor we put emphasis on what we are saying and we get people to identify more with the topic, obtaining their attention, and, in some occasions, their loyalty.

Metaphor in advertising Advertising is one of the field that exploit this

persuasive power the most. Good advertisements are based on conceptual

metaphors, actualized both in words and in pictures, and base on them their selling power. The more accurately a metaphor is chosen, the more it will evoke emotions in the public, remaining for a longer time in audience's memory.

Advertising uses mostly the figure of personification, that it to say the attribution of human characteristics to animals, nature elements, or in this case, unanimated objects.

Cover girl This is an advertisement form august 1997,

for a mascara made by Cover girl, and it consist in a large picture of a young women.

“Life can get heavy. Mascara shouldn’t”.Life can get heavy. Mascara shouldn’t”. HEAVY = which in its literal sense means

that something physically weighs a lot, and in its metaphorical sense, that something is difficult. This second sense is based on the metaphor “ difficulties are burdens (weights)”, which is a version of the metaphor “abstract is concrete”.

Both this sense are relevant: the first one in relation to mascara, the other one in relation to life.

In here we find the principle of unidirectionality, because the metaphor goes from a concrete sense to an abstract one, and not in the other way.

Evian “transparent with a plastic body” and “ no

wonder it goes down well in Hollywood”. “IT GOES DOWN WELL”:reflects the

conventional metaphor “ideas are food” and “accepting is swallowing”.

things that go down well are not only easy to accept, but also well liked and popular.

“TRANSPARENT”: literal sense=physical qualities of an object, such as the water in the bottle

metaphorical sense=more abstract notion, like ideas, arguments, attitudes or people’s personality, according to the abstract is concrete metaphor.

“A PLASTIC BODY”: literal sense= the plastic bottle where the mineral water is, or to an human body with surgical implants, that may not be necessary in plastic, so we include all the other artifical materials, or something that is unnatural, artificial or not genuine.

Bottle= actress in Hollywood,

Water= the feelings, emotions and personality of the actress.

Lexus

“satisfaction comes from choosing your own road in life and sticking to it”.

“CHOOSING YOUR OWN ROAD IN LIFE” is the conventional metaphor “life is a journey” and “ goals are destinations”.

There is presumably a means by which success is achieved, in the form of a metaphorical vehicle

This means that driving a Lexus equals individuality and leads to a successful life.

Toshiba “man best-est friend”. The picture shows a large TV

placed in a large dog’s basket. At the bottom of the advertisement there is a slogan: “it’s that kind of love”

conventional metaphor: “inanimate is animate”, but involves a more specific conceptualisation in which the TV in understood in terms of a dog.

Element of comparison: the basket, the chewing bone, and the headline ( man best-est friend).

TV and the dog= one and the same element, but is not an object , but a friend and companion.

Metaphors= personifications

Metaphor in politics

Politicians frequently recur to conceptual metaphors not much to clearify abstract concepts but especially to emphasize neutral images and evaluate them: the hearers will be perceiving them as more dramatic, or more glorious if it’s a positive event, and their attention will be caught for a longer time.

M.L. King: “I have a dream” The first one is a part of Martin Luther King’s speech at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington

D.C., on 28th August, 1963. The famous speech delivered by Martin Luther King is a strong example of metaphor in

politic. The metaphors, in this case, make the text persuasive and they have also the function to catch the attention of the public.

“I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.”

This metaphor makes a strong image that represents the historical moment of the

Emancipation Proclamation signed by Lincoln (symbolic shadow we stand today). It also represents the hope and the feelings of the Negros that are abstract concepts, King try to make us feel hope, fear, pain.

.

“But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an shameful condition.”

Manacles and chains connect something concrete to something abstract, which is a strategy used a lot in political speech, to give an explication to something hard to understand.The second one is a metaphor constructed in a poetic way for made a strong image of discrimination and poverty in a Nation completely materialistic.

“In a sense we've come to our nation's Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.”

To cash a check: business domains in politic, which is one of the strategy more used in politicArchitects: indicate the Constitution as a palace built brick by brick, and the writers as the architects so the minds creators of that

-

“This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”

Insufficient funds: business domains in politic, which is one of the strategy more used in politicConcrete words for abstract concept[…]

“Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.”

Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning Life as a journey is one of the most used metaphor in a lot of subjects The whirlwinds political power as physical force, so people power as a natural catastrophe that could be destroy and change the situation in not peaceful way.

Kennedy v.s. Nixon debate “Mr. Smith, Mr. Nixon. In the election of 1860, Abraham Lincoln said the question

was whether this nation could exist half-slave or half-free. In the election of 1960, and with the world around us, the question is whether the world will exist half-slave or half-free, whether it will move in the direction of freedom, in the direction of the road that we are taking, or whether it will move in the direction of slavery.”

- Half-slave or half-free nation: this is maybe more a metonymy than a metaphor, because we’re talking about a slave nation, when who’s a slave can be only a citizen, but in this case we see that metaphor and metonymy are deeply related, because we are using a personification of a human condition to explain the state of things which the entire nation is in.

- The direction of freedom-The road we are taking. The direction of slavery: here we are talking about life as a journey, one of the most abused and so well-known metaphor. This is an example of a metaphor used to simplify e and clarify a more abstract concept: talking about making decisions as taking a road, going towards the achievement of a goal as moving towards a direction is way to narrativize something ordinary like making life choices: we’re talking about a nation, so everything has to be magnified.

“I think it will depend in great measure upon what we do here in the United States, on the kind of society that we build, on the kind of strength that we maintain.We discuss tonight domestic issues, but I would not want that to be any implication to be given that this does not involve directly our struggle with Mr. Khrushchev for survival. Mr. Khrushchev is in New York, and he maintains the Communist offensive throughout the world because of the productive power of the Soviet Union itself. The Chinese Communists have always had a large population. But they are important and dangerous now because they are mounting a major effort within their own country. The kind of country we have here, the kind of society we have, the kind of strength we build in the United States will be the defense of freedom. If we do well here, if we meet our obligations, if we're moving ahead, then I think freedom will be secure around the world.”

Society that we build: here we have society-as-building metaphor. Taking buildings as the source domain helps to emphasize how complex the working of a society is. “Build” gives the idea of something set up with labor, energy and pains, which is now a strong construction.Similar discourse we can make for strength we built.Struggle with Mr. Kruscev: this is an example of a metaphor used to talk about politic as WAR, since political power is always conceptualized as physical force, is easy for us to concretize how this exercise of power works.

[…]“Because economic growth means strength and vitality; it means we're able to sustain our defenses; it means we're able to meet our commitments abroad. I'm not satisfied when we have over nine billion dollars worth of food - some of it rotting - even though there is a hungry world, and even though four million Americans wait every month for a food package from the government, which averages five cents a day per individual. I saw cases in West Virginia, here in the United States, where children took home part of their school lunch in order to feed their families because I don't think we're meeting our obligations toward these Americans. I'm not satisfied when the Soviet Union is turning out twice as many scientists and engineers as we are.” […]-Economic growth: here the target domain, commonly not easy to understand, is economics, and the source domain we draw the metaphor from is the world of nature and plants, to exemplify the stage of life we find ourselves into in reference to the economic sphere.-Sustain our defenses: again the conceptual domain of war is chosen to underline how difficult the situation is, like they all have to equip themselves as they have a battle to fight. Moreover, he chooses a verb like “sustain”, that typically refers to human or living beings, to put the accent on the fact that the situation is delicate, and they have to nourish it every day to maintain it alive.-Hungry world: here we have again an example of personification, in which the world is treated as if it’s human. Food, as we saw before, is another common source domain, as it is something that we all know very well ever since the dawn of time, and referring to it helps people to get how the world is not only actually starving, but it is also in a metaphorically way, longing to have its food, and so, one of its main right (the life one) respected.

“The reason Franklin Roosevelt was a good neighbor in Latin America was because he was a good neighbor in the United States. Because they felt that the American society was moving again. I want us to recapture that image. I want people in Latin America and Africa and Asia to start to look to America; to see how we're doing things; to wonder what the resident of the United States is doing; and not to look at Khrushchev, or look at the Chinese Communists. That is the obligation upon our generation. In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt said in his inaugural that this generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny. I think our generation of Americans has the same rendezvous. The question now is: Can freedom be maintained under the most severe tack - attack it has ever known? I think it can be. And I think in the final analysis it depends upon what we do here. I think it's time America started moving again.”

-F. Roosevelt was a good neighbor: speaking of a Roosevelt as a (good) neighbor makes easy to understand that the evaluation of Kennedy about the previous president is positive, and using the word “neighbor” refers to a more domestic sphere, that the American citizen may now well than nouns more specifically political: everyone knows how a good or a bad neighbor does, so they can easily understand what the judgment of the candidate is.-Rendezvous with destiny: this is a more sophisticated metaphor, that helps maintaining the tone of the discourse high, narrative, using not only a loan word, but a noun that also comes from a specific area, the military ones, when we call rendezvous a meeting between two aircraft or spacecraft vehicles. The world started to mean then an arranged meeting of any kind, and here is chosen to make the narration more intense and fascinating, to create suspense and on open finale, that will generate curiosity and interest.

Bibliografia:

Kövecses Z., Metaphor, United States, Oxford,2002 Figurative language, pdf https://pure.ltu.se/portal/files/66489/LTU-DT-0542-S

E.pdf

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/JFK-Speeches/1st-Nixon-Kennedy-Debate_19600926.aspx

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm