Metaphors of self and communication: English and Cantonese

Abstract

This paper articulates contrasting root metaphors, American and Cantonese, that motivate communication. Cantonese colloquial sayings point to metaphors for the person based on the human body, an interdependent self in communication with other socially organized bodies, contrasting with the American metaphor of the self as an abstract ideal trying to free itself from biological and social restrictions through communication. The paper argues that our understanding of thought and communication has been constrained by the conduit metaphor and the metaphor of the colonized self that must be freed through communication. Consideration of alternative metaphors may help us rethink our assumptions.