Discourse dynamics and an emergent view of metaphor systematicity

1. Discourse dynamics and an emergent view of metaphor systematicity Lynne Cameron

2. 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.

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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)

6. interacting timescales and levels individuals in on-line discourse processing microgenetic

7. individuals across time ontogenetic individuals in on-line discourse processing

8. the discourse event mesogenetic

9. people as members of groups – across individuals socio-cultural groups

10. groups across time phylogenetic

11. phylogenetic socio-cultural groups the individual ontogenetic linguistic metaphor systematic metaphor microgenetic the discourse event Metaphor and Interacting scales in the dynamics of discourse metaphoreme conceptual metaphor primary metaphor

12. 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

13. 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

14. the microgenetic scale • Neurological and physiological systems of language and cognitive resources in discourse context • constrained by processing capacity • driven by intersubjectivity and alterity

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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?

18. 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)

19. Clusters of metaphors time Cluster Using statistical analysis and visual display (reported in Cameron & Stelma, 2004).

20. Example cluster Pat ...(1.0) got a distortedpicture 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 frommy 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.

21. 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

22. Now, I think that’s the trees. You’ve 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 you’re trying to draw. Because that’s tended to, to look like a lollipop hasn’t it?

23. 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 That’s super… The only thing that I’m going to criticise is .. Louise to herself: Lollipop trees (Cameron, 2003)

24. 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 biggerpicture.

25. 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.

26. 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 awayfrom 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 --

27. Stabilities of form, content, affect • used hypothetically to talk about action that could have been taken but wasn’t • 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

28. 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)

29. 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

30. 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

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

32. phylogenetic socio-cultural groups the individual ontogenetic linguistic metaphor systematic metaphor microgenetic the discourse event Metaphor and Interacting scales in the dynamics of discourse metaphoreme conceptual metaphor primary metaphor

33. metaphor performance in face-to-face spontaneous talk socio-cultural group discourse event microgenetic

34. I’m trying to – I’m trying to put words to feelings, as they are coming to me, if you understand Pat Magee, meeting with Jo Berry, 2000 (Cameron, 2007)

35. 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)

36. 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.

37. Talk as dialogic The speaker breaks through the alien horizon of the listener, constructs his (sic) utterance on alien territory, against his, the listener’s, apperceptive background. Bakhtin 1981: 282

38. 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

39. 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)

40. 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.

41. Pat: I’m 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 father’s dead (Cameron, 2007) • sitting down as potent metonymy for meeting • also with spaces, places, walking

42. A linguistic metaphor has a history and a future Perpetrator (Pat) – conversation 1 there’s always a price to pay for it. in terms of my humanity there’s always a price to pay for decisions like that Victim’s 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 ... partlylosing some of your humanity

43. 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: that’s always had a price Pat: you’re going to come face-to-face with that price Pat: there’s a price Pat: but at what price? Pat: what price?

44. 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 + there’s no way of purging that debt  THE NEGATIVE EFFECT OF TAKING UP VIOLENCE IS A PRICE TO PAY

45. 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

46. 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 • don’t expect reducibility across scales