The practice of metaphor in conversation: an ecological integrational approach

Abstract

In this study an integrational linguistic approach to metaphor is used in the context of an ecological psychology study of novel metaphor creation by adults in a structured conversation setting. This paper forms an example of the proposed complementarity of integrational linguistics (Harris, 1981) and ecological psychology (Gibson, 1979; Jones and Read, 2023) by providing a study of novel metaphor that eschews the traditional “coded carrier of message” assumptions about language, as well as the traditional “knowledge is mental representation” assumptions of representationalist cognitive psychology. Instead, novel metaphor is presented as the sine qua non of the creation of signs in the process of communication, and that creation is proposed to be founded on the perception of invariants across different naturally occurring kinds of objects and events (cf., Read & Szokolszky, 2016). The practice of metaphor is taken as a special case of perceptually guided kinematic semiology. This study describes the practice of metaphor by adults in a structured experimental situation designed to present metaphoric resemblance and to encourage the practice of metaphor with guiding verbal instructions. Such a study allows explication of the integrational method as applied to structured conversational settings. Although the conversation and context were designed to draw attention to metaphoric resemblance and to encourage verbal metaphor, not everyone practiced metaphor, showing that the practice is not determined by context. When metaphor was created, the form often mirrored the perceptual invariants available to the perceiver, i.e., motion or stationary resemblances. No one created exactly the same metaphor even in this consistent context, which emphasizes the creative aspect of metaphor as a prototype of sign creation, with its core properties of novelty, enhanced interest and noticeableness. I make the following central points: communicating by creating and integrating signs is the foundation of language; metaphor is the prototype of the creation of signs, the creation of novel metaphor in conversation is a practice that enhances communication, even in structured experimental settings; and conversation can be studied as the ongoing process of sign integration, that is, as perceptually guided kinematic semiology. The current study shows that metaphor as a practice in conversation is closely coordinated with the perception of metaphoric resemblance and the request to talk about objects and events that are alike metaphorically. Finally, it is argued that direct perception is the best approach on which to found an account of metaphor in communication.