Figurative Language in Emotional Communication

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Figurative Language in Emotional Communication

• Fussell Moss, In Social Cognitive
  Approaches to Interpersonal Communication
• Chapter 6

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Figurative Language Is

• Ubiquitous
• No more difficult to understand in context than
  literal language
• Fundamental to the way people conceptualize the
  world

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This chapter
Explores the production of figurative language
as it occurs in the communication of emotional
states.
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REVIEW OF THE RESEARCH LITERATURE

• Two basic research strategies have been used to
  examine figurative language in descriptions of
  emotional experiences.

1. In laboratory settings Ss describe emotions
specified by the researcher
2. In clinical settings actual dialogues between
patients therapists
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Ortony proposed (1975)

• metaphor is used to fill gaps in the lexicon
• to provide succinct ways of stating ideas that
  are difficult to capture in literal terms
• to add vividness or intensity to a message

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Autobiographical oral Emotional Descriptions
(Fainsilber Ortony , 1987)

• Found metaphor was used more often to describe
  subjective feeling states than to describe overt
  actions stemming from these states.
• Found figurative language was used more to
  describe intense emotional states than milder
  ones.

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SOME ADDITIONAL FINDINGS ON METAPHOR

• In writing about emotional experiences ( i.e.,
  pride shame)
• Experienced writers used more metaphor than did
  inexperienced writers
• both groups used more metaphors for feelings than
  actions

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Metaphor Use Some Findings

• Metaphor use varies as a function of the type and
  intensity of the emotion being expressed
• Ss used more metaphor for describing intense
  emotional experiences
• especially for sadness and happiness
• These finding go along with Ortonys idea that
  metaphor is to convey intensity

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Metaphor Use

• Most prevalent in descriptions of feelings (as
  opposed to cognitions and behaviors)

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Examples of figurative language for describing
emotions (p. 118)

• I felt like a coiled spring
• Dont want to blow my top
• I want to put somebody through the wall
• I feel like I am going to burst

• Trapped by emotion
• I was red hot with anger
• Id like to crush him
• My stomach was twisted in knots

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Figurative Language in Conversations about
Emotions

• Most of this research is based on conversations
  in clinical settings
• Substantial uniformity has been found in the
  figurative language used to describe experiences
  of depression
• the most common expressions involved suffocating,
  falling down a pit, drowning, or being in a dark
  tunnel

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Researchers use of the concept metaphor
Note that researchers have tended to use the
concept of metaphor broadly, to include idioms,
similes, cliches, and so forth (p. 121)
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Other clinical themes

• falling apart
• at loose ends
• anger as heat
• anger as insanity

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Figurative Language Use in Standardized Emotional
Experiences

• Do people produce similar expressions for
  similar underlying affective experiences?
• How accurately can listeners identify the
  intended meaning of an emotional expression?
• How does figurative language use vary with
  social factors such as speaker and listener
  gender?

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The Experimental Paradigm
In order to discover whether or not there are
patterns, e.g., to how people express similar
emotions, standardized situations were studied.
Movie clips portraying people undergoing
emotional experiences were used
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The Movie Clip Procedure

• Ss were shown video clips
• Ss were to describe to another person --who had
  not seen the video clip -- a video characters
  emotional state

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First Study Using Video Clips
Procedure Ss were asked to describe the
emotional experiences of characters in 3 movie
clips to listeners who had not seen the clips
Roughly, the episodes to describe were
1. Panic 2. Anger 3. Elation
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1st study
Messages were transcribed and coded for the
number of literal and figurative adjectives and
phrases describing emotional states
Results Ss used figurative language less than
expected
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2nd 3rd Studies
To examine whether the low rate of metaphor use
in study 1 was due to ( an artifact of)
instructions, 2 more studies were conducted.
Studies 2 3 Speakers were to describe
different instances of the same emotional state.
Ss viewed film clips with varying intensity of
sadness
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Studies 2 and 3
In study 2, 26 female students described the
depressed emotional states to a female partner
(p. 125)
In study 3, male and female speakers described
the clips to either a male or female partner who
had not seen them.
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Analysis of studies 2 3
The conversations were transcribed and coded for
emotion-related content and figurative language
use (p. 126)
Results Speakers used an abundance of figurative
expressions when their task was to characterize
distinct instances of sadness.
These results were consistent with the hypothesis
that figurative language is used to differentiate
among variations of a single emotional state
rather than to differentiate one emotional state
from another.
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RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN LITERAL FIGURATIVE
SPEECH (p. 127)

• Speakers did not use figurative expressions in
  lieu of literal ones but rather in addition to
  them
• Every description contained at least a few
  literal terms for sadness
• Often, figurative expressions followed literal
  descriptions, suggesting that figurative
  expressions are intended as clarification

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LITERAL THEN FIGURATIVE DESCRIPTION (p. 128)

• She would go from crying to screaming to crying
  to screaming. So, she was kinda--she wasnt all
  there.
• He has something annoying him. I mean, its
  just like eating away at him.

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RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PROPERTIES OF EMOTIONAL
STATES AND FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE USE

• Independent ratings of video clips on Osgoods
  Semantic Differential are related to the
  figurative language used to describe each
  emotional episode
• Not yet analyzed

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THE ROLE OF CONVERSATIONAL INTERACTIVITY

• Procedure
• In half the pairs (interactive condition),
  listeners interacted freely with the speaker.
• In the other half (non-interactive condition),
• the listener listened silently to the
  descriptions.

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RESULTS

• As predicted, more words of description were
  generated to interactive listeners
• Speakers in the interactive condition, produced
  more figurative language
• However, the rate of figurative language per
  total words did not differ between the conditions

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FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE IN THE INTERACTIVE
CONSTRUCTION OF MESSAGES (p. 131-132)

• Conversational interaction allows for
  collaboration in the construction of messages
• E.g., Describer And then finally she just
  broke down and
• Listener just started crying
• Describer just started crying

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Effects of speaker and listener characteristics
on Figurative Language Use

• PROCEDURE Examined perspective-taking in
  affective communication by asking male and female
  speakers to describe the film clips to male and
  female hearers.
• MEASURES The total number of words, sentences,
  and speaking turns by both speaker and listener
  were computed.

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Effects of speaker and listener characteristics
on Figurative Language Use (p. 133)

• RESULTS The amount of descriptive information
  provided for each clip varied substantially as a
  function of listener but not speaker gender.
• For all clips, both male and female speakers
  used significantly more words to describe a
  characters emotional state to a male as opposed
  to a female addressee.

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SOME LIMITATIONS TO THE PARADIGM

• Limited examples of sadness or depression or . .
  .
• Conversations were not videotaped and so the data
  do not take into account nonverbals

• Ss were not feeling the emotions--only describing
  them
• Dyads were unacquainted--the closeness of
  interactants might matter