METNET

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METNET DISCOURSE AND METAPHOR (I) Paul
Chilton Centre for Research in Language and
Communication University of East Anglia
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• How are metaphors integrated in discourse
  processing?
• How are metaphors integrated in discourse
  analysis?
• Problems in metaphor identification
• A discourse processing model
• Two cases
• 1 post-cold war containment texts (Chilton
  1996)
• 2 Tennyson poem, Now sleeps the crimson
  petal
• (Steen 2002)
• A model of discourse processing (implied in the
  above)
• processing discourse is in the mind not text
• The tier model if discourse processing
• problem of the hermeneutic tier
• Issues for Conceptual Metaphor Theory

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1 Kennans Long Telegram, 1946 (2) All this
indicates that Soviet party line is not based on
any objective analysis of situation beyond
Russia's borders that it has, indeed, little to
do with conditions outside of Russia that it
arises mainly from basic Inner-Russian
necessities They have always feared foreign
penetration, direct contact between Western world
and their own, feared what would happen if
Russians learned the truth about world without or
if foreigners learned truth about world
within... (3)(b) efforts will be made to
advance official limits of Soviet power... other
points may at any time come into question, if and
as concealed Soviet political power is
extended... (3)(d) Soviet policy toward
backward peoples based on theory of vacuum
will favor Communist-Soviet penetration. Thus we
may expect to find Soviets asking for admission
everywhere to trusteeship arrangements...
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• 1 Kennans Long Telegram, 1946
• Historical context post-World War II
• Soviets occupy much of Eastern Europe
• Truman wonder what to dohow to conceptualize
  the situation and how to respond. Cognitive
  uncertainty kin the State Department.
• George Kennan US chargé daffaires in Moscow
  embassy
• winter 1946 Kennan sent a long telegram to US
  State Department
• copies circulated around government offices by
  Secretary of State Byrnes, and US diplomatic
  missions overseas
• became basis of US foreign policy doctrine of
  containment
• containment doctrine lasted from 1946 to 1990s
  and beyond

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Why analyse this text? Historians claim it was
significant influence on US foreign
policy Granting this, what was special about the
taxi? How did it work? Analyst need not assume
in advance that metaphors are significant Guiding
questions what makes the global text coherent
conceptually? are metaphors a contributory
factor? do they generate inferences? do they
lock into cognitive frames that give them
ideological/cultural coherence for the speech
communit? in particular are there sustained
metaphors? cf. Werths megametaphors
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(2) All this indicates that Soviet party line
is not based on any objective analysis of
situation beyond Russia's borders that it has,
indeed, little to do with conditions outside of
Russia that it arises mainly from basic
Inner-Russian necessities They have always
feared foreign penetration, direct contact
between Western world and their own, feared what
would happen if Russians learned the truth about
world without or if foreigners learned truth
about world within... (3)(b) efforts will be
made to advance official limits of Soviet
power... other points may at any time come into
question, if and as concealed Soviet political
power is extended... (3)(d) Soviet policy
toward backward peoples based on theory of
vacuum will favor Communist-Soviet
penetration. Thus we may expect to find Soviets
asking for admission everywhere to trusteeship
arrangements...
7
Can we identify metaphors in this kind of
text? We can start by considering propositional
structure (cf. Steen and others) The formal
procedure is similar to Steens but adopts a
layout that makes it easier to see relationships
between elements of propositions, across
propositions.
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All this indicates that Soviet party
line any objective analysis of situation is not
based on beyond Russia's borders
(It) (indicates) that It conditions
outside of Russia has, indeed, little to do with
(it) (indicates) that it basic
inner-Russian necessities arises mainly from
They foreign penetration, direct have always
feared contact between Western world and
their own, (they) (have always) feared what
X would happen if Russians the truth
about world without learned or
if foreigners truth about world within...
Learned. .efforts will be made to X
official limits of Soviet power advance other
points may at any time come into
question, if and as concealed
Soviet is extended political power
Soviet policy toward backward Communist-Sov
iet penetration will favor. Thus peoples we
clause may expect to find Soviets
admission everywhere to trusteeship asking for
arrangements...
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This does not seem to isolate relevant
metaphors, on the principle of semantic anomaly
between arguments and predicates
(clash) metaphors do occur in PRED column but
these are conventionalised and do not seem to
relate to textual coherence e.g. be based on,
arise from, come into question Note, however
that several of these have to-do with causal
relations or explanations, and their rather
vague non-logical nature may reflect something
of the nature of the text's inferential
processes However, they are not to do with the
conceptual content of Argts and Preds, and cant
in themselves lead to an global conceptual model
of the text Consider presupposed propositions
.
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All this indicates that Soviet party
line any objective analysis of situation is not
based on beyond Russia's borders E
situation Russias borders beyond
Russia borders have (It) (indicates)
that It conditions outside of Russia has,
indeed, little to do with E conditions Russia
outside of (it) (indicates) that it basic
inner-Russian necessities arises mainly from E
necessities inner-Russian (be) They foreign
penetration, direct have always feared contact
between Western world and their own,
(they) (have always) feared what
X would happen if Russians the truth
about world without learned or if E
truth world without about E world (Russia)
without (outside of) foreigners truth about
world within... learned. E truth world
within about E world (Russia) within
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This is a little more interesting because it
reveals the existential presuppositions about the
text world constructed by the LT. But there is
nothing that can be called metaphorical, at least
that can be detected by looking for semantic
anomaly. However, the discourse analyst should be
suspicious about the recurrent and clearly
patterned antithetical conceptual elements These
lexical recurrences are smeared across the
entire text, not necessarily in any syntactic
pattern Question is there an Image Schema or
Cognitive Frame driving this conceptual content?
And if so can they be regarded as metaphorical?
i.e. are they involve in some metaphorical
mapping? Lexical scanning of text suggests
candidate schemas, leading to hypothesize CONTAI
NER e.g. border, inner, outer FORCE e.g.
pressure, force, drive, exert FLUIDS e.g.
flow, stream, current.. MACHINES e.g. apparatus,
drive, mechanical PATH e.g. path, toward,
along, forward
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• In what sense might we have metaphor here?
• e.g. CONTAINER turns out to be mapped onto
  RUSSIA and more generally onto COUNTRY
• CONTAINER image schema is spatial, the preps and
  adverbials in the text are spatial
• Countries are not three dimensional physical
  containers
• CONTAINER focuses on some properties
  rather than others
• May not be recognised as metaphors, because
  the mapping has become historically
  conventionalised in IR discourse
• The conceptual relevance of CONTAINER schema is
  supported if it coheres with other image
  schema/metaphors
• A second approach to identification of relevant
  metaphors
• consider the possible lexical manifestations of
  image schemas (and other Cog Frames) across the
  text, independent of propositional organisation

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CONTAINER IMAGE SCHEMA, Long Telegram All
this indicates that Soviet party line is not
based on any objective analysis
of Inside boundary outside situation
beyond Russia's borders that it has, indeed,
little to do with conditions
outside of Russia that it arises mainly
from basic Inner-Russian necessitiesthey Have
always feared foreign penetration, direct
contact between Western world and
their own, feared what would happen
if Russians learned the truth about world
without or if foreigners learned
truth about world within... (3)(b)
efforts will be made to advance official
limits of Soviet power... other points
may at any time come into question, if and as
concealed Soviet political power is extended
14

• Question
• How to operationalise this kind of identification
  with a corpus and concordancer?
• Work with an a priori set of lexical items that
  typically manifest the elements of an image
  schema structure
• e.g. in, inside, within, core / border, limit,
  line/out, outside
• Has this been done?
• Next step Check for other candidate image
  schemas
• FORCE, PATH
• In fact, analysing the text in the format adopted
  leads to identification of coherent overlaps
  between different image schemas
• FORCE is lexically linked with pressure exerted
  by FLUIDS
• FLUIDS linked with PATH and CONTAINER
• FLUIDS mapped metaphorically onto POWER
• MACHINE also mapped onto POWER concept
• MACHINE mapped onto PATH
• This network provides inferencing space for
  conceptualizing doctrine of containment

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PERSON CONTAINER FORCE PATH values inside
mechanics
source feelings boundary
hydraulics obstacle Beliefs
outside
goal SU Once a given party line
line has been laid
down, the whole Soviet government
machine, including the mechanism of
diplomacy, moves inexorablyalong the
prescribed path,like a
persistent toy automobile wound up and
headed in agiven direction,
stopping only when it meets
some unanswerable force. The individuals
who are components of this machine are
unamenable to argument or reason which
comes to them from outside sources.
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PERSON CONTAINER FORCE PATH SU The
Kremlins main concern is to make sure that
it has filled every nook and cranny
available to it in the basinof world
power. But if it finds
unassailable barriers in its
path, it accepts these philosophically The main
thing is that there should always be
pressure, unceasing constant pressure
toward the desired  goal...  
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INFERENCES DRAWN. PERSON (US) CONTAINER FORCE
PATH In these circum- stances it is
clear that the main element of any United States
policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of
long-term, patient but firm And vigilant
containment of Russian expansive tendencies.
..  In the light of the above, it will clearly
be seen that the Soviet pressure
against the free institutions of the
western world Is something that can be
contained by the adroit and vigilant
application of counter-force at a series of
constantly shifting...points
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Soviet Union Soviet Union Soviet Union
person containr forces path

insecure needs a container insecure needs a container insecure needs a container cause power-oriented

mentally sick moving (flowing driven, etc.) moving (flowing driven, etc.) moving (flowing driven, etc.)

treat clinically exerting pressure

on perimeter on perimeter on point

counterforce needed counterforce needed counterforce needed
contain the patient contain the expanding power (fluid, etc.) contain the expanding power (fluid, etc.) contain the expanding power (fluid, etc.)
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• OBSERVATION 1 inferencing
• The interlinked conceptual metaphors provided a
  conceptual framework in which policy makers could
  makes sense of a complex and unknown geopolitical
  situation and draw inferences about policy and
  action
• Possible chain of inference
• -- countriescontainers entails
  inside/outside/boundary
• -- CONTAINER combined with PATH entails
  expansion, penetration, contraction
• -- power fluid evokes Cog Frame to do with
  FLUIDS, entailing
• fluid in a container exerts pressure, fluids
  can escape containers, or cause containers to
  expand, fluids can flow into other containers
  ( countries)
• fluids exerting pressure have to be held in
  their container by counter-pressure
• Also possibly evoked Countries bodies/persons
  containers
• Plus cognitive frame what to do with irrational
  (insane) persons contain them by force
• In general inferencing is done in SD and then
  you map back into TD

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• OBSERVATION 2 discourse, metaphor and
  literalization
• Discourse in sense of discourse developing over
  time, and as not confined to one communication
  event
• Multiple events the LT, discussions in State
  Department and other US offices, the X-Article
• LT and X-Article show the metaphorical origins
  of the term containment
• The term containment is eventually not
  perceived as metaphorical in the speech community
  where it becomes current, Cf. Richard Rorty on
  metaphor
• Cognitive discourse analysis retraces the
  process

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• 2 METAPHOR IDENTIFICATION IN POEMS
• Steens approach (five steps) has effect of
  fragmenting metaphorical coherence processes
• Steen does, however, acknowledge that more
  complex combinations of metaphors need to be
  accounted for
• The approach here partly coincides with
  Steens, but
• makes assumption that a discourse processor will
  continue interpretation of the poem in search of
  conceptual coherence, enriched coherence
• under relevance constraints
• i.e. when trade-off between processing effort
  and cognitive effects reaches a value set by
  processors needs or wants
• Steens five steps seem to limit the process to
  isolated metaphorical expressions whose relevance
  to the texts coherence is not established
• my main question, as for Kennan texts What are
  the image schemas and Cog Frames that enable an
  analyst to construct an optimally coherent
  conceptualization of the text?

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Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the whiteNor
waves the cypress in the palace walkNor winks
the gold fin in the porphyry fontThe fire-fly
wakens waken thou with me.Now droops the
milkwhite peacock like a ghost,And like a ghost
she glimmers on to me.Now lies the Earth all
Danaë to the stars,And all thy heart lies open
unto me.Now slides the silent meteor on, and
leaves A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in
me.Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,And
slips into the bosom of the lakeSo fold
thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip Into my bosom
and be lost in me.
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Steens metaphor identification test Now sleeps
(4) the crimson (0) petal (0), now (0) the white
(0)Nor waves (3,4) the cypress (0) in the
palace (0) walk (0)Nor winks (4) the gold (3)
fin (0) in the porphyry (0) font (0)The
fire-fly (0) wakens (0) waken (1) thou with
me.Now (0) droops (1) the milkwhite (2) peacock
(0) like a ghost (4),And like a ghost (3,4) she
glimmers (4) on to me.Now (0) lies (2) the
Earth (0) all Danaë to the stars (0),And all thy
heart (1,2) lies (3,4) open (4) unto me.Now (0)
slides (4) the silent (0) meteor (0) on, and
leaves (1) A shining (0) furrow (4), as thy
thoughts (1) in me.Now (0) folds (2) the lily
(0) all her sweetness (3,4) up,And slips (2,4)
into the bosom (4) of the lake (0)So fold (4)
thyself, my dearest (0), thou, and slip
(3,4) Into my bosom (1,0) and be lost (4) in me.
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Problem here is not that the 14 content words
(out of 45) are not metraphors, the problem
is content words dont seem to be involved in
metaphor the metaphors identified dont seem to
contribute much if anything to the
conceptualisation of the poems meaning The
problem therefore is how to identify relevant
metaphors, i.e. relevant to the conceptual
coherence of the text as a whole The flaw seems
to be that the 5-step approach is entirely
bottom-up and sequential (though Steen elsewhere
appears to recognise that the procedure ahs to be
move between different levels) BUT it is worth
looking at the propositional content for a moment
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the crimson petal, sleeps now the white
(petal) (sleeps) now the cypress nor
waves in the palace walk the gold
fin nor winks in the porphyry
fontthe fire-fly wakens thou waken
with me.the milkwhite peacock
droops now (the peacock) (be
milkwhite) (the milkwhite peacock) (be) like a
ghost and she glimmers on to
me (she) (be) like a ghost the Earth
lies now (the Earth) (be) all
Danaë and to the stars all thy heart
lies (all they
heart) (open) (be) unto me the silent meteor
slides on now (the silent
meteor) afurrow leaves and (a
furrow) (be) shining as thy thoughts (a
shining furrow) (leave) in me.the
lily all her sweetness folds up now (the
lily) slips and into the bosom of
the lake (the
lake) (bosom) (has) So my
dearestthou thyself fold and (my dearest
thou) slip into my bosom
(I) (bosom) (have) and (my
dearestthou) be lost in me
CONJ/ADJ
ARG2
PrepP
ARG1
PRED
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• Observations on the propositional analysis
• This type of layout of the propositional
  structure makes it very easy to make a number of
  observations
• the propositional structure is scarcely
  relevant to cohesion and coherence
• connectives are limited to and which ids
  evidently not logical conjunction
• The only temporal adv is now and this
  contributes minimally temporal sequence
• there are no temporal conjunctions the tenses
  are all in simple present, even for non-stative
  verbs, with an odd kind of commentary
  meaning
• It is hard to see how a coherent conceptual
  structure (meaning) for the poem can be processed
  on the basis of the sequence of propositions
• However, readers presumably assume coherence in
  the text, so how does the reader get it?
• --- non-syntactic links (rhetorical
  parallelisms)
• --- cognitive frames needed for lexical
  processing
• --- image schemas, whose elements may lexically
  instantiated
• non-content expressions, spatial prepositions
• --- uses pragmatic competence to enrich literal
  meaning by implicature Focussing on the second
  half of the poem

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Parallelisms metaphorical mappings in vertical
columns the Earth lies now (the
Earth) (be) all Danaë and to the stars
all thy heart lies (all thy
heart) (be) open unto me the silent meteor
slides on now (the silent
meteor) afurrow leaves and (a furrow) (be)
shining thy thoughts (a shining
furrow) (leave) as in me. the
lily all her sweetness folds up now (the
lily) slips and into
the bosom of the lake my
dearestthou thyself fold and (my
dearestthou) slip
into my bosom (my dearestthou) be lost
in me NB spatial non conten words
un/to and in/to
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In other words, we have potential metaphorical
mappings between Earth thy
heart Lily folds up sweetness into bosom of
lake Thou fold thyself into my
bosom But this still does not provide a
coherent meaning unless we include Danae in the
analysis This can only be done by assuming
meaning of Danae is in its cognitive frame
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the Earth lies (the Earth)
(be) all Danaë to the stars all thy heart
lies (all thy heart) (be)
open unto me female
(implicature) (implicature) male,
Zeus speaker the lily
all her sweetness folds up (the
lily) slips into the bosom
of the lake my dearestthou thyself fold (
my dearestthou) slip
into my bosom (my dearestthou) be lost
in me male (implicature)
(implicature) female speaker
Cog Frame Zeusin form of gold starspenetrates
Danaeimpregnates god
mortal male female
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Image schemas contribute to multiple
mappings UP DOWN Zeus, male, sky, me/thou
Danae Earth, female, me/thou CONTAINER Outsid
e through boundary inside Zeus, male,
me/thou slip/slide into Danae, lake, female,
me/thou lily slips into lake General
point Combination of non-propositional
parallelisms, image schemas, the Zeus-Danae
schema, the male-female schema, implicated
concepts... May produce conceptual coherence that
accounts for the general air of eroticism in the
poem. This does not exhaust the interpretive
potential. Theoretical relevance Analysis
requires combination of propositional analysis,
analysis of non-propositional mapping potential,
cognitive frames, image schemas
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CONCLUDING IDEAS Towards a theoretical
framework of metaphor identification in
discourse
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Discourse Processing Model The tier
model Phonological tiers segmental
structure syllabic structure prosodic
structure Jackendoff (2002), tiers in conceptual
structure descriptive tier (roughly ARG, PRED,
quantifiers) referential tier (referents,
anaphora, realis/irrealis) information
structure (topic/focus)
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• Discourse Processing/Analysing Tiers?
• Discourse processing tiers
• Parse sentences phono-syntax
• Interpret ellipsis, gapping, embedding structures
  etc.
• Identify referents and resolve anaphora in
  discourse space
• Propositional tier (logical form)
• Conceptual tier
• Call up cognitive frames/image schemas to
  conceptualize lexical meanings
• Activate metaphorical mappings
• all under constraint of coherence/relevance

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• The process is open ended the relevance criteria
  depend on situation and cognitive needs of the
  discourse processor
• Analysis may continue interpretive process into
  what could be called
• the hermeneutic tier
• recognition of metaphor depends on their
  coherence with global text meaning constructed
  by the reader
• but the global text meaning constructed by the
  reader depends on the meaning of the metaphors
• This is the hermeneutic circle ---
  identification of metaphor depends on their
  contribution to coherence/ coherence depends on
  identification of metaphormore like a spiral
• How far reader spirals depends on relevance
  for specific purposes, either in every speech
  events or in analysis mode
• e.g. might stop when connection is made with
  belief systems, values systems or ideological
  systems in a culture

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• Implications for Conceptual Metaphor Theory
• CMT lacks link to discourse
• e.g. Moral Politics give NO analysis of text,
  yet makes important statements about CMs as
  constraining different discourses (cf
  Foucaults sense of term discourse here)
• Questions?
• What sort of revisions are need to construct a
  dynamic discourse processing model of CMs?
• What kind of metaphors do discourse processors
  process?
• Given that analysts can engage in an open-ended
  process of metaphor identification, how much
  processing do ordinary language users do, in
  which situations, for what purposes?

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• CMT needs to make clearer distinctions and
  investigate
• CMs (conceptual metaphors) vs MEs (metaphorical
  expressions)
• (i) CM level consists of
• --- ability to do cross-domain mapping
  (competence)
• --- some stable mappings -- some innate, or
  early development? --- Ability (competence) to
  do m-entailments (inferencing)
• --- a constrained set of SD inputs image
  schemas, cog frames?
• (ii) metaphoricity in discourse
• --- entrenched metaphors that can be
  re-activated by co-text stimuli (e.g.
  pressure, containment)
• --- activation spectrum under coherence and
  relevance for a particular discourse some
  potential mappings may be activated, others
  not
• --- schema-frame recovery (border, invokes
  inside/outside)
• --- novel metaphors
• new SD-TD correspondences
• new m-entailments of old mappings ---
  mega-metaphors
• implicated schemas and mappings recovered
  under expanded coherence/relevance constraint
  at hermeneutic tier

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References G. Steen (2002) Identifying Metaphor
in Language A cognitive Approach, Style, Fall
P. Chilton (1977) The Poetry of Jean de La
Ceppède A Study in Text and Context, Clarendon
Press, Oxford. P. Chilton and G. Lakoff (1995)
Metaphor in Foreign Policy Discourse in C.
Schäffner and A. Wenden (eds.), Language and
Peace, Dartmouth, Aldershot P. Chilton (1996)
Security Metaphors Cold War Discourse from
Containment to Common European Home, Peter Lang,
Berne and New York.