Critical Theory: Metaphor (1) – A2 (Unit 4: Further & Independent Reading)

What is metaphor?

Write down both a definition of metaphor, and an example.

The Standard View of Metaphor

Words or phrases with “hidden” meanings; we readers have to search for or “decipher” the hidden meanings.

I.A. Richards

Metaphors divided into two parts

1) Vehicle – the words/phrases used

2) Tenor – the “hidden”/metaphorical meanings of the “vehicle.”

NOTE: According to this logic, “vehicle” and “tenor” are surely metaphors for discussing metaphors...

Critical Theory: Metaphor (1) – A2 (Unit 4: Further & Independent Reading)

Does this model work?

Why/how is this metaphor?

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

Why/how is this not metaphorical?

There’s the tree.

Critical Theory: Metaphor (1) – A2 (Unit 4: Further & Independent Reading)

“TREE”

How does language “hook onto the world”?

How are you able to understand “There’s the tree”?

Critical Theory: Metaphor (1) – A2 (Unit 4: Further & Independent Reading)

“TREE”

SignifiedSignifier

One view:

All language is metaphorical; but words that have the surprise or “magic” of metaphor can be counted as “live” metaphors, while metaphors that pass unnoticed are “dead metaphors” (e.g., “table leg”).

Critical Theory: Metaphor (1) – A2 (Unit 4: Further & Independent Reading)

Two aliens, Bouba and Kiki, have just arrived on Earth. They look like this:

But which one’s Bouba, and which is Kiki? Decide, then discuss,

briefly, with a partner

The Bouba-Kiki Effect

Bouba Kiki Kiki Bouba

95%-98% of people

opt for this one. But why?...

Some brain scientists think that the human mind is able to make links

between things that do not have

obvious connections...

In “Bouba-Kiki,” we think that people

make a connection between the harsh

“K” sounds of “Kiki” and the cutting or

jagged shape.

The same scientists wonder if this ability

to make new and strange connections between unrelated

things (“cross-domain mapping”) might explain our

ability to make metaphors.

Two views that differ from Richards, but agree with Bouba and Kiki...

Donald Davidson

Metaphor is not a matter not of meaning (“tree = )

Metaphor is a matter of language in use

Metaphor works by association

That is, words can over ever have their “literal” meaning – think about

the relationship of “tree and

or “table leg” and

But “live” metaphor happens when familiar words are used in strange ways.

Richard Rorty (influenced by Davidson)

The physical, real world IS “out there,” but our relationship to it is made in and by language. The “world does not speak Newtonian” just because Newton’s science was better than Aristotle’s.

Therefore, metaphor is invention/innovation. Creativity is the act of “redescription” or “remetaphorization.”

Critical Theory: Metaphor (1) – A2 (Unit 4: Further & Independent Reading)

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Critical Theory: Metaphor (1) – A2 (Unit 4: Further & Independent Reading)