Discourse dynamics and an emergent view of metaphor systematicity

Lynne Cameron

Starting points Metaphor cannot be discretely analysed or

understood through its linguistic, cognitive, socio-cultural parts because language, thought and culture are inextricably intertwined.

A comprehensive theory of metaphor needs to combine different disciplinary perspectives to understand the total ecology of metaphor use.

Cognition and language use unfold continuously in real time.

A dynamical view of language use

Human language, thinking, action can best be understood as complex dynamical systems.

agents /elements of many different types relations among agents / elements of many

different types agents/ elements and relations among them

are always changing the environment is part of the system system is open

Change in complex dynamical systems

change can be continuous change can be sudden and dramatic –

self-organisation; phase shifts emergence of new patterns of behaviour

through phase shifts and self-organisation

across timescales and levels that are stabilities with degrees of

variability

A dynamical view of metaphor Metaphor performance is a ‘dynamic

ensemble’ that does not exist separately from embodied language use, cognition, feelings and emotions, socio-cultural influences.

It is not reducible to its linguistic, bodily, cognitive, affective, socio-cultural components, but is only explained by understanding how these components interact in real time = discourse dynamics

(in analogy with reaching, Thelen and Smith 1994, p. 279)

interacting timescales and levels

individuals in on-line discourse processing

microgenetic

individuals across time

individuals in on-line discourse processing

ontogenetic

the discourse event

mesogenetic

people as members of groups – across individuals

socio-cultural groups

groups across time

phylogenetic

Metaphor and Interacting scales in the dynamics of discourse

the individual

microgenetic

ontogenetic

phylogenetic

linguistic metaphor

the discourse event

systematic metaphor

socio-cultural groups

metaphoremeconceptual metaphorprimary metaphor

interacting scales and levels

different scales have different types of elements and relations among elements

therefore, need different types of investigation

but, show similar types of system dynamics adaptive change self-organisation and emergence

The phenomena of metaphor in the microgenetic moment:

process metaphor – metaphorically-processed language linguistic metaphor – language that has the potential for

metaphorical processing across a discourse event:

metaphor shifting systematic metaphor – set of connected linguistic metaphors

framing metaphors – around key idea or theme metaphor clusters interplay of metaphor, metonymy and other figures, literal language

at the socio-cultural, speech community level: metaphoreme conceptual metaphor primary metaphor

across socio-cultural history, phylogenetic: metaphors reflecting change in society etymological metaphor

the microgenetic scale

Neurological and physiological systems of language and cognitive resources in discourse context constrained by processing

capacity driven by intersubjectivity and

alterity

microgenetic metaphor process metaphor

empirical event evidence would be neurological or explicit

reference largely inaccessible from discourse data

linguistic metaphor operationalisation of theoretical construct evidence is lexical accessible from discourse data

The discourse event level

human systems, cognitive and linguistic resources, in interaction influenced by history, culture,

gender… directed by discourse purposes affected by immediate past and

future discourse

discourse event level: systematic metaphors

sets of connected linguistic metaphors, collected and labelled across discourse event(s) emergent groupings temporary stabilisations, open to

further change how to validate the psycholinguistic,

socio-cultural reality of these?

discourse event level: metaphor clusters in reconciliation conversations emerge

at scales of 5 intonation units and 20 intonation units

indicate possible critical points in discourse, where something difficult is being done interpersonally or ideationally

often involve interplay of several different metaphors

(Cameron & Stelma, 2004)

Clusters

of metaphors

Using statistical analysis and visual display (reported in Cameron & Stelma, 2004).

time

Cluster

Example cluster Pat ...(1.0) got a distorted picture of me.

perhaps, I don't know... I don't know.

Jo .. I think maybe they were just thinking,they wouldn't see a need to meet any of their victims.

Pat yeahyeah

Jo .. and so they ... therefore couldn't see why you would.Pat [hmh]Jo [and] I think it was more like that.Pat ... hmhJo and they could see,

... how from my healing journey,if I could build a bridge with you, that would ...(1.0) help me.but they couldn't see --... perhaps there was even a need for a journey.

the socio-cultural group level

multiple human systems in interaction in multiple discourse events constrained by group history, language

resources, values, conventions the emergence of metaphoremes –

bundles of stabilised (but flexible) features of affect, lexico-grammar, pragmatics

Now, I think that’s the trees.

You’ve got a visual memory of what you saw ...

Now to actually get your trees right,

what do you have to do?

Look out of the window at THESE trees ... to see

how the branches and twigs grow out of the tree,

and then go back to your memory

of the tree that you’re trying to draw.

Because that’s tended to,

to look like a lollipop hasn’t it?

When I was a very young teacher

and I kept saying to a little girl,

will you please stop doing lollipop trees,

and then I went to visit her home.

And all along the street …

the trees all looked like little lollipops …… moves to another student

That’s super…

The only thing that I’m going to criticise is ..

Louise to herself: Lollipop trees

(Cameron, 2003)

walk away from in conciliation talk(Cameron, 2007)

Extract 11425 Pat it was the republican movement,1426 it was the republican struggle.1427 Jo .. hmh1428 Pat that caused your pain.1429 but I can't walk away from the fact that it was --1430 ...(1.0) I was directly, 1431 Jo [hmh]1432 Pat [responsible] too for that.1433 Jo .. [[hmh]]1434 Pat [[I can't]] hide behind the --1435 you know the --1436 ... sort of,1437 the bigger picture.

Extract 2 2612 .. I was at a pretty low ebb.2613 ... and I was actually at that stage --2614 er,2615 ...(1.0) prepared to walk away from the struggle.2616 simply because I was --2617 er,2618 ...(1.0) what X --2619 totally fatigued and mentally drained.

Extract 3 2807 .. we thought,2808 they're never going to forgive.2809 ..(2.0) you know,2810 this is one job,2811 we'll not be able to walk away from.2812 and live a comfortable life again.

Extract 43295 that sense of --3296 er,3297 obligation to,3298 that you have to carry on.3299 ... you know,3300 you can't walk away from this.3301 ...(1.0) but there's --3302 there's so many republicans.3303 I know,3304 that are carrying that pain.3305 ...(1.0) and er it's --

Stabilities of form, content, affect

• used hypothetically to talk about action that could have been taken but wasn’t

• things that might have been walked away from were difficult, traumatic

• not walking away was the more difficult option

• verb not inflected• adverb (simply, never) adds to sense of

difficulty

socio-cultural group level: metaphoreme metaphoreme: …not walk away from…

an emergent stability with variability in the dynamics of the language

a bundle of stabilised features or preferences: lexico-grammatical, pragmatic, affective, cultural

emerges through self-organisation of systems from microgenetic to discourse event and / or socio-cultural group levels

evidence from discourse event and corpus(Cameron & Deignan, 2006)

socio-cultural group level: conceptual metaphor

conceptual metaphor theoretical construct fixed, stable mapping between

conceptual domains abstracted from language evidence

primary metaphor theoretical construct abstracted from conceptual metaphor

the phylogenetic scale

changes in social systems over time influenced by changing socio-cultural

factors, political change, technological innovation

reflected in language and ideas constrained by language and

conceptual frameworks paradigm shifts

phylogenetic metaphors

new metaphors for new situations emotional baggage

etymological metaphorsWhat then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonymies, etc…which after long usage seem to a people fixed, canonical and binding.

Nietzsche

Metaphor and Interacting scales in the dynamics of discourse

the individual

microgenetic

ontogenetic

phylogenetic

linguistic metaphor

the discourse event

systematic metaphor

socio-cultural groups

metaphoremeconceptual metaphorprimary metaphor

metaphor performance in face-to-face spontaneous talk

socio-cultural group

discourse event

microgenetic

I’m trying to – I’m trying to put words to feelings,as they are coming to me,if you understand

Pat Magee, meeting with Jo Berry, 2000(Cameron, 2007)

talking-and-thinking ‘thinking for speaking’

a special kind of thinking carried out while speaking that is “intimately tied to language” (Slobin 1996: 75).

at the microgenetic level, the nature of the specific language influences how actions can be thought about while speaking

‘talking-and-thinking-in-interaction’ (Cameron 2003)

The dynamics of talk

language use is really a form of joint action. … It is the joint action that emerges when speakers and listeners – or writers and readers – perform their individual actions in coordination, as ensembles.

Clark, 1996: 3.

Talk as dialogic

The speaker breaks through the alien horizon of the listener, constructs his (sic) utterance on alien territory, against his, the listener’s, apperceptive background.

Bakhtin 1981: 282

The ‘system’ emerges from the dialogic dynamics of use

Language lives only in the dialogic interaction of those who make use of it.

Bakhtin 1984: 183

microgenetic ~ discourse event level metaphor shifting dynamics of linguistic metaphor fuzzy

boundaries; spreading metaphoricity; shifting exploiting the flexibility of the metaphor Vehicle

The introduction of Vehicle terms into the text seemed to create a kind of centrifugal cognitive force that opens up potentially endless links to other concepts … (Cameron, 2003: 191)

Vehicle re-deployment use same Vehicle with different Topic

Vehicle development repetition relexicalisation explication contrast

(Cameron, in press)

microgenetic ~ discourse event

interplay of metaphors, metonymy and literal language e.g. Vehicle literalisation through bridge terms

Jo ...(1.0) [and] I --and I saw very clearly....(1.0) that the -- .. the end of that journey,would be,.. sitting down and,... talking to the people who did it.

Pat: I’m sitting therebeside the woman whose father I have killedand at that time I was sitting in this wee kitchentalking to this woman for the first timewhose father’s dead

(Cameron, 2007) sitting down as potent metonymy for

meeting also with spaces, places, walking

A linguistic metaphor has a history and a future

Perpetrator (Pat) – conversation 1there’s always a price to pay for it. in terms of my humanitythere’s always a price to pay for decisions like that

Victim’s daughter (Jo) – conversation 2665 Jo [you] said that,666 ...(2.0) the price that er --667 ... you paid,668 for taking up violence,669 was part --670 ... partly losing some of your

humanity

The discourse event level dynamics of price to pay

the lexico-grammatical forms change as the conversations proceed:

Pat: a price to payPat: a price to payJo:the price that you paidPat: that’s always had a pricePat: you’re going to come face-to-face

with that pricePat: there’s a pricePat: but at what price?Pat: what price?

emerging systematic metaphor at discourse event level

the price to pay + the bottom line + put a line under the past+ there has to be some form of account

taken+ there’s no way of purging that debt

THE NEGATIVE EFFECT OF TAKING UP VIOLENCE IS A PRICE TO PAY

emergent metaphoreme at socio-cultural group level

price + pay metaphorical price + share, cut non-metaphorical price + high either

(Deignan 2005: 207)

constrains use at meso and micro scales

affects socio-cultural patterns

Metaphor analysis in a dynamical perspective identify scales and levels of discourse that are

contributing to your discourse data be clear about the particular metaphor

phenomena that you are looking for select methods to fit scales expect change, fluidity, variability and have

rigorous ways to deal with it be clear when you remove the dynamics look for emergence, self-organisation across

scales don’t expect reducibility across scales