Semantics_Part 3

V. Metaphors & IdiomsVI. Other Aspects of Meaning

A. Pragmatics--Politeness --Greetings & Farewells

B. Presuppositions

Note: The textbook discusses metaphors on pp. 188-190; however, I’ll be paying moreattention to this topic than Finegan does, plus a few other topics; and I will not cover mostof the topics on the remaining pages of Chapter 6 of the textbook (and won’t test you onthat material).

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V. METAPHORS & IDIOMS

Much of what we say in everyday language use is in some sensemetaphorical--i.e., nonliteral. A few examples:

We need to hit the road now Bob has a chip on his shoulderIt’s raining cats and dogs. Such examples are only a drop in the bucket

Metaphors, then, deal with non-literal uses of language. The termmetaphor itself means ‘beyond [literal] meaning’ (<Gk. meta- ‘beyond’+ -phor ‘carry’)

Many metaphors become used so frequently by the speakers of a givenlanguage that people may not be aware of them. These metaphors are called idioms.

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Idioms (and other metaphors) are non-literal because you cannot puttogether the literal meanings of each element of the idiom and arrive atthe meaning of the idiom in the context in which it occurs. Here are several more everyday idioms in English:

It's old hat to them.I was completely tongue-tied.The green-eyed monster has struck Kevin again.Kim was only saying that tongue in cheek.Mary really put her foot in her mouth this time.William is down in the dumps again.Eat your heart out, John!I'm going to give that guy a piece of my mind!Melissa is falling in love again!

The senator is a lame duck.

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Idioms may have the same structural characteristics as literal phrases-e.g.,

--old hat and lame duck are simple NPs composed of A + N--put her foot in her mouth follows the special syntactic constraints on the verb put: V ___ NP PP (this says that put must be followed by both an NP (direct object) and a PP.--falling in love consists of a progressive verb form (the –ing form) + PP, a

sequence often found in literal verb phrases such as: falling into water, falling through space, falling from a window

However, idioms are less flexible than literal phrases; you cannot makelexical substitutions in them and still have an idiomatic meaning. Consider (next slide):

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Mary really put her arm in her mouth this time.

I'm going to give that guy a piece of my cheek/nose

William is down in the landfill/garbage heap again

Eat your stomach out, John!

The senator is a lame chicken

With these examples we can see that idioms are in some sense frozenexpressions, though it is certainly not impossible for new idioms tobe born from existing ones, since speakers of languages are creative and and sometimes innovative.

For example, if I should happen to say:

That's not old hat for them, it's new hat! (probably stressing new)

you will likely interpret my creative use of new hat as the idiomaticopposite of old hat—’something that is familiar and routine’—andnot as the literal meaning of the NP new hat –’a hat that has neverbeen worn’.

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How do Idioms Arise?

It is likely that many idioms arise from the description of literal actsor events and this description is subsequently transferred to encompass abroader variety of situations.(Recall that the meaning of the term metaphor is ‘to carry across’, ‘to transfer’.)Consider:

--Burying the hatchet (ending mutual animosity). This was an actual ritual that arose among some North American native tribes when two warring groups agreed to end hostilities by the symbolic burying of a hatchet and then the expression got transferred/extended to mean any sort of reconciliation.

--Getting to first base (with someone), an idiomatic extension of the literal expression in the game of baseball which subsequently got transferred to romantic relationships.

--There’s some rough water ahead. This idiom derives from the world of navigation in which sailors would have been scanning the horizon or the river for signs of danger.It then got extended to speak of any situation that may pose a peril or difficulty in the future.

Many metaphors take the syntactic form of:

NP-is/are-NP NP-is/are-A

[verb tense may vary]

--The senator is a lame duck--My life is a black hole--1970’s fashions were a nightmare--His roommates are pigs--That idea was half baked from the start--Juliet is the sun (<Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet)

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PROVERBS

Proverbs, which are found in many languages, are a special type ofmetaphor. Consider these common ones in English:

There’s no use crying over spilled milkA stitch in time saves nine .

Every cloud has a silver lining A rolling stone gathers no moss Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched It never rains but it pours Curiosity killed the cat A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush It takes two to tango You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink

Many proverbs could be interpreted literally, but almost alwayssuch statements are made for the purpose of instructing the young orcommenting on some aspect of life or the human condition.

Because of their purpose, they are not meant to be interpreted literally. It is in this sense that proverbs are also metaphors.

It is fascinating to look at proverbs across cultures. I don’t have time topursue the topic here, but if you are interested in doing so on your own,here is a great reference work devoted to proverbs worldwide:

Mieder, Wolfgang (1986). The Prentice-Hall Encyclopedia of World Proverbs.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

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SOME SOURCES OF METAPHORICAL LANGUAGE THAT ARE USED IN EVERYDAY SPEECH

Many common idiom-type metaphors refer to notions relating tolocation or direction or movement through time and space.

These are so embedded in our language that you have to thinkabout it to recognize that they are in fact metaphors. For example:

--I’m really getting going on my term paper--Let's put the past behind us--You've taken a big step forward…congratulations!--He's going downhill, fast.--The stock market was up today.--You're way out in left field (this is strongly culturally tied to the game of baseball)

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Another common way to form idiom-metaphors is to speak of abstractthings as if they were tangible:

--I don't grasp your meaning.--Can you run that idea by me one more time?--I can't hold the thought any longer.--They spat on our value system.--He hijacked my idea and presented it as his own.

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Food and words associated with food or food preparation often getdrafted into use as metaphors that become idioms:

--He's really cooking now! (said, for example, of an athlete hitting peak performance)

--I've put that project on the back burner.--My parents are going to boil over when they hear this!--I'm still stewing over it.--That sure smells fishy to me.--There's something rotten in Denmark.--What a foul-smelling scheme.--My boss really knows how to dish out criticism

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Militaristic terms and terms relating to violence and death are frequentlythe source of metaphorical language:

--He's gone ballistic.--That exam was a killer.--My feet are killing me.--I’m just dying to find out.--My roommate’s going to murder me when she finds out!--Scientists are mounting a two-pronged attack on this problem--We’re waging warfare against infectious diseases.--The writer aimed too high, and missed her audience.--Team X annihilated Team Y last night.

A most interesting book on metaphors in daily life is George Lakoff & Michael Johnson(1980). Metaphors We Live By. Univ. of Chicago Press.

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People sometimes get carried away with metaphorical language, and endup with images that don't fit together very well. These are called mixed metaphors, figurative language that has goneastray:

--A leopard can’t change its stripes--A heart as big as gold--It’s like throwing the house out with the bathwater.--It’s as easy as falling off a piece of cake.--You can’t change the spots on an old dog.--You can’t go in there cold turkey with egg on your face.And my personal favorite (from a scientific journal):

--This research area is so virgin that no human eye has ever setfoot in it.

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TRANSLATION PROBLEMS

Idioms often pose translation problems, since most languages do not share thesame inventory of idioms.

Or, even if two languages have an idiom to express a certain idea, the idiomsare likely to be constructed quite differently. Consider the following:

English Let the cat out of the bag vs.

Spanish Descubrir el pastel (literally,‘to discover the cake’)

English He/she is not the brightest light in the chandelier vs.Spanish No tiene dos dedos de frente (literally,‘he/she doesn’t have two fingers of forehead’)

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Another possibility: one language may have an idiom where another languagehas only a literal expression:

Eng. Idiom: to bury the hatchetSpan. Literal: dejar de pelear (‘to stop fighting’)

Eng. Idiom: The real McCoySpan. Literal: Lo auténtico (‘that which is authentic’)

Eng. Idiom: to bite off more than one can chewGer. Literal: sich übernehmen (‘to overexert oneself')

Eng. Literal: he failed (flunked)Span. Idiom: se colgó ('he hanged himself')

Eng. Literal: seduced and abandonedBreton Idiom: chomet e-barzh ar poul (‘left in the puddle’)

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Word-by-word translation of idioms results only in nonsense, so skilledtranslators must know their two languages very well indeed. If not, theremay be some fairly absurd results. Here are a few examples:

--A German vacuum machine manufacturer used the following translation intoEnglish when marketing its product in the U.S.: Nothing sucks like a Miele.

--When Coca-Cola first started marketing in China, Chinese ideographs that corresponded to the phonetic words in Chinese were used: ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, these ideographs translate into Chinese as 'bite the wax tadpole’or (depending on dialect) 'female horse fastened with wax'.

Upon discovering the mistake, linguists were consulted to find a better phoneticcorrespondence with the English, and came up with ko-kou-ko-le,translating roughly as 'happiness in the mouth’ or ‘tasty in the mouth’.

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In Taiwan the translation of Pepsi's slogan Come alive with the Pepsi Generationwas interpreted by many Taiwanese as 'Pepsi will bring your ancestors back fromthe dead’.

Ford's Pinto car was introduced into Brazil in the 1970s, and had very poor sales. The company eventually learned that in Brazilian Portuguese slang, pinto means'tiny male genitals'. And in U.S. Southwest Spanish slang, pinto means 'jailbird'.

Chevrolet's Nova from about the same era was introduced into South America andsimilarly experienced poor sales. Evidently marketing executives had not realizedthat in Spanish no va means 'it doesn't run'. They renamed it the Caribe.

Source: Encyclopedia of Bilingualism & Bilingual Education (1998), p. 236.

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VI. SOME OTHER ASPECTS OF MEANING

As discussed earlier, words and phrases do not always mean exactly whattheir dictionary definitions would lead you to believe.

Sentences, too, may mean things other than whatever their literal ornon-literal sense may convey.

Competent speakers understand these "additional” meanings withouthaving to have this pointed out to them.For example, let's say two people are roommates, and one turns to theother in the kitchen and asks:

Can you take out the trash?This appears on the surface to be a simple Yes/No question. However, most speakers of English will recognize that this is not a questionbut something else. What?It is a command, whose "real" meaning is: Take out the trash (please).

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If things are going smoothly between the two, the person addressed willlikely respond to this question not with yes or no but with okay, sure, in a minute, in a little while, and then follow through by takingthe trash out

On the other hand, if things are not going so well between the two, theaddressee may well elect to interpret the question literally, retort with aNo, I won’t, or Do it yourself, and walk off.

However, let’s assume a more harmonious situation in which the addresseeresponds cooperatively to this indirect command by removing the trash.

Then what the first speaker has accomplished with his or her utterance is toprompt the roommate to take a certain action.

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VI.A. PRAGMATICS

This takes us into the research domain of what linguists (and philosophersof language) call pragmatics, which may be defined as:

the study of the factors that govern many of the linguistic choices we make in social interaction, and the effects of our choices on others.

Pragmatics thus investigates the many aspects of communicativemeaning—speakers' intentions, motives, expectations, etc.These go beyond word or sentence meanings. Note: pragmatics < Gk. pragma 'deed'; related to the verb prattein 'to do'

Pragmatics recognizes that although speakers may in principle sayanything they want, they do not in fact do so, being constrained by aspectrum of social, psychological, and cultural factors.

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POLITENESS

In the trash take-out situation, we see that the first roommate elected to

formulate as a question the directive about taking out the trash.

Why did the first roommate do this?

Because we are taught (as children) in our culture that it is not polite to

give direct orders to people—especially to those whom we consider to be

our peers/colleagues, or people who are older or have higher status

(e.g., parents, grandparents, authority figures, etc.).

The second roommate understands the same rule, and so took the

"question" in the spirit in which it was intended--i.e., as a directive (politely

stated).

Speaking indirectly is one of the ways in which English-speakers express

politeness (but this strategy is by no means unique to English speakers).

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PRONOUNS & POLITENESSPoliteness may also be conveyed some through the pronoun system of a language. Such languages as German, Spanish, French, Italian (and there are many others) make a distinction between a familiar or informal ‘you’ and a more distant, formal,and polite ‘you’:

Informal/Formal ‘you’German: Du/SieSpanish: Tu/UstedFrench: Tu/Vous Italian: Tu/Lei

The choice of one or the other form can have quite a different pragmatic effect:--The informal forms (on the left) all suggest a degree of intimacy, affection, and/or

equality of status. Using the informal forms with another speaker with whom one is notvery familiar or with a person of higher status can be interpreted as rude,impolite, or even aggressive.

--The formal forms (on the right) are indicative of social distance, formality andor politeness.

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POLITENESS EXPRESSIONS

Another example of pragmatic effects: languages differ in how suchpoliteness terms as thank you are to be you used.

In North American/English linguistic culture, if your host at a dinnerparty offers you a piece of cake for dessert and you wish to take it, yousay Thank you.

If the same thing happens at a French dinner party, you need tosay something like J'en veux bien or Oui, volontiers.

If you express the French equivalent of ‘thank you’—merci—you wouldactually be declining the offer.

GREETINGS & FAREWELLS

Expressions of greeting or farewell also differ cross-culturally andcross-linguistically. Here a a few examples from English and Chinese:

--In English (at least in North America), it is customary to greet another person (whom you know) with Hi, how are you? What have you been up to lately?

--In Chinese, such questions may seem overly inquisitive or even nosy. A more customary greeting would be Have you had your meal?

--In English, customary polite leave-taking forms are Goodbye or See you.--In Chinese, I’ve got to leave or I’m going are customary.

Although these things could be said in English in similar contexts, they sound abrupt.

So these are some of the pragmatic things one needs to learn about anotherlanguage, in addition to all the usual linguistic dimensions.

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VI.B. PRESUPPOSITIONS

The final aspect of meaning I will discuss is that of presupposition. Thiscan be defined as:

the assumptions, beliefs, life experience, and learned interactional habits that speakers bring with them when they converse.

Here’s an example of what this means:Scenario: two strangers are introducing themselves to one another. It is highly unlikely that the following exchange would take place:

Speaker A: It’s good to meet you.Speaker B: I'm very pleased to meet you, too. By the way, have you seen

the flashlight?

Why does this sound odd?

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Because the definite article the before flashlight here presupposesthat the listener was already aware of the existence of a flashlightand therefore might know where it is stashed. But the two people have just met, so one would not expect sharedexperience or knowledge of the existence of a flashlight nearby.

However, if we replace the flashlight with a flashlight in this samesentence, it seems much more plausible in the context of two strangersmeeting for the first time (and, say, the the lights suddenly go out).

In this example you can see the presupposition that may be encoded in alinguistic item as small as the definite vs. the indefinite article.

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Now consider these sentences:

(i) Even Katy could run the length of this track(ii) Katy could run even the length of this track

Each sentence has a different presupposition in it. What are they?

(i) presupposes that Katy is not much of a runner.(ii) presupposes that Katy is an excellent runner and that the track is

exceptionally long.

These presuppositions are encoded in that one word even, which clearlyhas the capacity to affect substantially the meaning of a sentence,depending upon where it is placed in the sentence.

An interesting property of presuppositions is that sentences seemdeviant (strange) if they violate one of their own presuppositions: Consider:

*(iii) Even Katy, an Olympian runner, could run the length of this track.

When the information is given that Katy is an Olympian runner, thepresupposition encoded in even (i.e., that Katy is not much of a runner) isviolated. So this sentence in its entirety seems deviant because it contradicts

itself.

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Just as our commonplace way of speaking includes many metaphors thatwe are barely aware of, so too is our speech often larded with presuppositions.

A word like even, as we have just seen, usually signals a presupposition.

But there are perhaps less obvious ways of doing presuppositions. Consider:

1. When did Caligula stop beating his wife?2. Iraq has stopped stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.3. When did you stop reading my mail?

What is the major presupposition in each of these?

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1. When did Caligula stop beating his wife? Presupposition: Caligula used to beat his wife.2.Iraq has stopped stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. Presupposition: Iraq had been stockpiling such weapons.3.When did you stop reading my mail?

Presupposition: you have been reading my mail.

These sorts of questions lie at the heart of what are called in legalterminology leading questions whereby attorneys will sometimes try to coaxa witness into saying or admitting something—e.g.,

Why were you in in San Francisco on the night of October 9?

What is the presupposition here?What would be a more neutral way of asking this question?

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Speakers and listeners rely on presuppositions all the time, in quite ordinaryconversational utterances. Consider the statement:

Peter’s father-in-law has gone back to work

On a rather close investigation we could unpack a number ofpresuppositions in it, including:

--There is a person named Peter known to both speaker and hearer--Peter is married and has a father-in-law--Peter’s father-in-law had been working in the past--There was some circumstance that had caused Peter’s father-in-law to

stop working for a while

Clearly it would be tedious to have to think about all these presuppositionsas we converse with one another, and we don’t.

Rather, as we speak and comprehend others' utterances, we unconsciouslybring to bear on the conversation our knowledge of the world in generaland our particular knowledge of our culture and of persons and events associated with our interlocutor.

We constantly scan for information to make discourse coherent andcomprehensible to us. We may feel at a loss and uncomfortablewhen we don’t know what the presuppositions are, or when theydo not make sense to us.

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This is why we may have tremendous difficulty understanding, say,the speech of schizophrenics—much of the normal cueing material interms of presuppositions and customary interactional patterns may notbe there.

The next slide shows a “conversation” I had once with a schizophrenicperson who was living in my household.

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AN ATTEMPT AT A CONVERSATION WITH A SCHIZOPHRENIC INDIVIDUAL

LT: Derrin, you're spending too much time in the bathroom. Are you coming out soon?

D: The queen is with her jacks.LT: What queen are you talking about?D: Jesus, she's hosing down the llamas, they're screaming.LT: Why is she doing that? D: There's a green light now, they're going to eat me!LT: Who??D: (shouts obscenities)

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Research on schizophrenic speech has been showing that, contrary tolong-held ideas about it, it is not "childlike," nor is it necessarilysyntactically ill-formed (though sometimes it is).

Rather, it is marked by the lack—to the "normal" person—of cohesionamong sentences, which stems from the lack of shared presuppositionsbetween the schizophrenic and the normal speaker about how the worldworks.