Discourse dynamics and an emergent view of metaphor systematicity

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Discourse dynamics and an emergent view of
metaphor systematicity

• Lynne Cameron

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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.

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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

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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

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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)

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interacting timescales and levels
individuals in on-line discourse processing
microgenetic
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individuals across time
ontogenetic
individuals in on-line discourse processing
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the discourse event
mesogenetic
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people as members of groups across individuals
socio-cultural groups
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groups across time
phylogenetic
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Metaphor and Interacting scales in the dynamics
of discourse
metaphoreme conceptual metaphor primary metaphor
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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

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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

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the microgenetic scale

• Neurological and physiological systems of
  language and cognitive resources in discourse
  context
• constrained by processing capacity
• driven by intersubjectivity and alterity

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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

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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

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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?

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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)

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Clusters of metaphors
Cluster
Using statistical analysis and visual display
(reported in Cameron Stelma, 2004).
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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 yeah yeah Jo .. and so
they ... therefore couldn't see why you
would. Pat hmh Jo and I think it was more
like that. Pat ... hmh Jo 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.
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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

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• Now, I think thats the trees.
• Youve 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 youre trying to draw.
• Because thats tended to,
• to look like a lollipop hasnt it?

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• 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
• Thats super
• The only thing that Im going to criticise is ..
  
• Louise to herself Lollipop trees
• (Cameron, 2003)

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walk away from in conciliation talk(Cameron,
2007)

• Extract 1
• 1425 Pat it was the republican movement,
• 1426 it was the republican struggle.
• 1427 Jo .. hmh
• 1428 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.

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• 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.

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• Extract 4
• 3295 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 --

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Stabilities of form, content, affect

• used hypothetically to talk about action that
  could have been taken but wasnt
• 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

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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)

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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

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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

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phylogenetic metaphors

• new metaphors for new situations
• emotional baggage
• etymological metaphors
• What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors,
  metonymies, etcwhich after long usage seem to a
  people fixed, canonical and binding.
• Nietzsche

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Metaphor and Interacting scales in the dynamics
of discourse
metaphoreme conceptual metaphor primary metaphor
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metaphor performance in face-to-face spontaneous
talk
socio-cultural group discourse event
microgenetic
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• Im trying to
• Im trying to put words to feelings,
• as they are coming to me,
• if you understand
• Pat Magee, meeting with Jo Berry, 2000
• (Cameron, 2007)

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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)

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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.

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Talk as dialogic

• The speaker breaks through the alien horizon of
  the listener, constructs his (sic) utterance on
  alien territory, against his, the listeners,
  apperceptive background.
• Bakhtin 1981 282

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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

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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)

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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.

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• Pat Im sitting there
• beside the woman
• whose father I have killed
• and at that time
• I was sitting in this wee kitchen
• talking to this woman for the first time
• whose fathers dead
• (Cameron, 2007)
• sitting down as potent metonymy for meeting
• also with spaces, places, walking

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A linguistic metaphor has a history and a future

• Perpetrator (Pat) conversation 1
• theres always a price to pay for it. in terms of
  my humanity
• theres always a price to pay for decisions like
  that
• Victims daughter (Jo) conversation 2
• 665 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

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The discourse event level dynamics of price to pay

• the lexico-grammatical forms change as the
  conversations proceed
• Pat a price to pay
• Pat a price to pay
• Jo the price that you paid
• Pat thats always had a price
• Pat youre going to come face-to-face with that
  price
• Pat theres a price
• Pat but at what price?
• Pat what price?

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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
• theres no way of purging that debt
• ?
• THE NEGATIVE EFFECT OF TAKING UP VIOLENCE IS A
  PRICE TO PAY

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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

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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
• dont expect reducibility across scales