Literary and Nonliterary Aspects of Metaphor Author(s): Gerard Steen Source: Poetics Today, Vol. 13, No.

4, Aspects of Metaphor Comprehension (Winter, 1992), pp. 687-704 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1773294 Accessed: 09/04/2010 15:11
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and NonliteraryAspects of Metaphor Literary

Gerard Steen
Literary Studies, Free University, Amsterdam

Abstract The difference between literary and nonliterary metaphor, from a psychological point of view, has received more attention since the early 1980s. In particular, Dedre Gentner's structure-mapping theory of metaphor has been the basis for a number of stimulating insights in this matter. The present contribution aims to develop these views in light of the newly advanced empirical study of literature. In particular, a systematic distinction is made among linguistic, psychological, and social aspects of metaphor in order to identify a number of issues pertaining to literary metaphor more clearly than was possible before the advent of such empirical studies. An encompassing discourse view of these aspects is presented, which facilitates a discussion of the relations between metaphor and analogy, between the cognitive structure and the function of metaphors, and between metaphor and various types of discourse. 1. Introduction: Metaphor in Cognitive Psychology and in the Empirical Study of Literature Dedre Gentner (1982, 1983) has offered an interesting account of structural and processing differences between literary and nonliterary metaphors based on the view that there are different structural properties to literary and nonliterary metaphors, which are also reflected in their processing. In particular, Gentner has found that literThis research was carried out with the financial support of NWO-contract 301180-023 of the Dutch Foundation for Scientific Research, for "Metaphor in Literature." I wish to thank Dedre Gentner for making available to me the stimuli and results of her rating experiment, mentioned in Gentner (1982). I am also indebted to Elrud Ibsch and Lachlan Mackenzie for their comments and suggestions. Poetics Today 13:4 (Winter 1992). Copyright ? 1992 by The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics. CCC 0333-5372/92/$2.50.

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ary metaphors seem to be typically richer than, for instance, scientific metaphors, which, by contrast, are typically clearer than literary metaphors. She claims that literary metaphor is therefore usually understood as having an expressive function, whereas scientific metaphor is thought to have a predominantly explanatory function. As these distinctions are matters of degree, this is a fruitful starting point for further investigations into the structure and function of metaphor in literature and in other types of discourse. Gentner's suggestions accord well with recent developments in literary theory. Traditionally, literary critics have approached metaphor from an interpretative rather than a psychological perspective, but now attempts are being made to break away from this approach and to establish connections with psychology and the social sciences at large. For example, Mark Turner (1987; cf. Lakoff and Turner 1989) has extended the perspective of cognitive linguistics to an analysis of literary metaphors. More fundamental and far-reaching from a literarytheoretical point of view, however, is the recent advent of an empirical study of literature (e.g., Schmidt 1980; cf. Ibsch, Schram, and Steen 1991). In that framework, the critical-theoretical interpretation of literary texts has been abandoned as the central aim of investigation and has been replaced by psychological explanations of the cognitive processes that underlie the understanding of literary texts as literature by all kinds of readers. At heart, this is a theory of literature as discourse, incorporating textual, psychological, and social aspects of literary reading with a view to achieving social-scientific description and explanation. My own work aims to describe the role of metaphor in this context (e.g., Steen 1989, 1991). Although I cannot do justice here to the complexities of the theoretical issues involved, what follows is a sketch of the basic idea. Siegfried Schmidt (1980) has proposed that there are two conventions characteristic of literary discourse, the so-called aesthetic and polyvalence conventions. These can provide a theoretical framework in which to explain Gentner's findings. Since both aesthetic quality and polyvalent meaning are intimately tied to the role of metaphor in literary texts, one might expect, from the point of view of literary theory, that metaphors would notably demonstrate the conventions of literary reading rather than those of nonliterary reading. Gentner's findings constitute an initial confirmation of these general expectations. In her terms, the cognitive structure of literary metaphors is typically richer than the cognitive structure of scientific analogies: relatively more, and more diverse, attributes and predicates characterizing the vehicle domain are mapped onto the topic domain in literature than in scientific writing. This can be explained by appeal to the opposition between the discursive conventions of polyvalence and

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monovalence underlying literary and nonliterary discourse, respectively. Gentner connects this difference between literary metaphors and scientific analogies to the distinction between what she calls "expressive metaphor" and "explanatory analogy," respectively. In this connection, Schmidt's view of the aesthetic function (as opposed to a factual function) of literary discourse may be easily extended to metaphor: Gentner's "expressive metaphor" has an aesthetic function, while her "explanatory analogy" has a factual one. At first glance, these independent theories, one derived from cognitive psychology and the other from the empirical study of literature, apparently lead to similar conclusions about the place of metaphor in literature. Gentner's structure-mapping theory has much to offer the literary theorist interested in the nuts and bolts of analogical reasoning as it occurs during metaphor comprehension. However, the discourseoriented approach to literature of the empirical researcher can also illuminate some aspects of metaphor processing that remain unaccounted for by Gentner. My purpose here is to discuss some aspects of Gentner's structure-mapping approach to literary metaphor from a discourse perspective in order to point out the compatibility of these approaches and to clear up some misunderstandings and problems. 2. Reformulations: FromStructure-Mapping to DiscourseTheory The aim of this section will be to cast Gentner's (1982) insights in a different mold by applying the discourse-theoretical distinctions invoked above. I define "discourse" as the use of linguistic objects (texts, metaphors) by real people (readers) in particular socially constructed contexts (for instance, in literary versus scientific text comprehension). From this starting point, I propose the following reformulations of Gentner's contribution. Gentner places metaphor and analogy on a par and relates them to what she believes are their natural communicative habitats, literature and science (ibid.: 107). However, I will argue that this is a misleading and problematic division of labor, given the scope of the terms metaphor and analogy. Gentner's sense of parity is aptly expressed by her assertion that "many (perhaps most) metaphors are predominantly relational comparisons, and are thus essentially analogies" (Gentner 1983: 162). First, "essentially" suggests that analogies are in some sense more important than metaphors, which was not the point of departure in Gentner (1982). However, her assertion also implies that metaphors are somehow different from analogies, which, unfortunately, is not further elaborated (but cf. Gentner 1983: 162; see also the discussion below in section 3). Both implications can be approached from an angle that will allow us to formulate the relationship between metaphor and analogy as a more systematic one.

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Let us assume that metaphors and analogies involve non-literal comparisons, which in turn need to be distinguished from literal comparisons and abstractions (Gentner 1983: 159-62; cf. Gentner and Clement 1988). Indeed, one of the merits of the structure-mapping theory is its having formulated these three kinds of domain comparisons as points along a continuum (cf. Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Moreover, the systematic relationship among comparison, analogy, and literal or non-literal meaning has also been asserted by Andrew Ortony (1979), George Miller (1979), and Keith Holyoak (1982). Thus, there seems to be a fair degree of consensus about the relationship among these concepts. However, I prefer to retain a terminological distinction between the formal or linguistic expression of a non-literal comparison, on the one hand, and its cognitive representation, on the other. That is, (linguistic) metaphors involve non-literal (psychological) comparisons, or analogical reasoning, somewhere in their processing (cf. Ortony 1979), but it is less felicitous to say that (linguistic) metaphors are non-literal comparisons (or analogies). On the other hand, a statement such as the hydrogen atom is like the solar system (1) does indeed involve analogy, but in linguistic terms it still remains a metaphor or, more correctly, a simile, rather than an analogy. The distinction that Gentner (1982) wants to capture with the systematic opposition of metaphor and analogy can be explained more fruitfully in another way. In fact, Gentner's shifting terminology, from "literary metaphor" to "expressive metaphor" and from "scientific analogy" to "explanatory metaphor," actually suggests the real nature of the problem. These shifts imply a conflation of two distinct aspects of discourse: (1) the type of discoursein which (linguistic) metaphor occurs, that is, literary or scientific discourse, and (2) the cognitive function that may be attributed to of within a discourse, that is, explanation or type particular metaphor refer to "charged expression" will hereafter (I (charged) expression. as "evocation" in order to distinguish this cognitive function of metaphor from the general function of all language as that of expression.) Allow me to elaborate briefly on these notions. The concepts of scientific and literary discourse are socially constructed, that is, defined as domains of discourse in which people can participate by means of various capacities or roles: as readers or as producers of texts, for instance. Types of discourse are defined at a macro-social level through aesthetic and polyvalence conventions or, on the contrary, through factual and monovalence conventions. These conventions embody the aims, needs, and abilities of people as they participate in a particular domain of discourse. However, explanation

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and evocation are terms that define the cognitive functions of metaphors used within these domains of discourse. The capacity of metaphors to explain and to evoke may be explicable by reference to the factual and monovalence conventions, on the one hand, and the aesthetic and polyvalence conventions, on the other, but, as is also shown by Gentner, this connection is not necessary. One may nevertheless expect a correlation between the cognitive function and the discourse status of metaphors. Moreover, the distinct cognitive function of metaphors as explanatory or evocative presupposes the cognitive structure of metaphors as analogies. Therefore, it is incorrect to call the scientific phenomenon "analogy" and the literary one "metaphor": the differences that Gentner is trying to capture need to be formulated in other terms. In this reformulation I will make use of the discursive aspects of linguistic objects, people, and social contexts introduced above. I propose that the linguistic level of analysis pertains to the identification of non-literal meaning that is based on resemblance; such metaphorical expression is described by means of terms like metaphorand analogy (called "simple analogy" in Gentner 1982: 108), referring to the rhetorical figures traditionally so called (other such concepts being simile and extended comparison, to name only two). The psychologicallevel, or that of individual behavior, pertains to domain comparison; this is analyzed in terms of the conceptual activity of non-literal understanding, which is presumably based on analogical reasoning. Conceptual clarity and richness may be the result of these processes, the cognitive function of which may be to explain or evoke ideas. Other cognitive functions of metaphor that belong in this category are persuasion (see, e.g., Bosman 1987; Graesser, Millis, and Mio 1989), giving information, and so on. Finally, there is the social level, or the context in which literary or nonliterary communication is achieved. An investigation of this aspect of metaphor amounts to its description in terms of whatever conventions prevail in a particular kind of discourse. Although we are predominantly concerned with literary and scientific discourse here, journalistic, political, and other types of discourse would serve as well. In sum, we have distinguished four different discursive aspects of metaphor in literature and other types of discourse (see Table 1). This simple picture becomes much more complicated when we add such features as simile and extended comparison to the first column, imaginable to the second, persuasive and informative to the third, and journalistic, religious, political, and so on to the fourth. Indeed, other parameters may need to be added to the dimensions. For instance, there are at least two distinct linguistic parameters besides the one pertaining to the classification of figures of speech: grammatical scope of the metaphor (Dirven 1985; Graesser, Millis, and Mio 1989) and de-

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Table1 Discourse Dimensions of Metaphor linguistic metaphor analogy psychological structure function rich clear evocative explanatory social

literary scientific

gree of deviance from conventional usage (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). Also, two other psychological parameters that have to be considered besides the cognitive ones of structure and function are the affective and moral parameters: affective features could be "beautiful," "pleasant," "subtle," and so on, while examples of the moral parameter could be "critical" and "political" (Johnson and Taylor 1981; Bosman 1987). All of these parameters may contribute to the literary or nonliterary character of a metaphor. These suggestions are supported by my own empirical work in two metaphor-rating studies (Steen [in press]). In one study, 96 metaphors from English-language literary and journalistic texts were rated on a semantic differential containing thirty metaphor attributes, ranging from "clear" and "explanatory" to "beautiful" and "political." In the other study, 164 Dutch metaphors from literary and journalistic sources were rated on a similar semantic differential. Both studies yielded evidence for the identification of a number of the discursive aspects discussed above by means of factor analysis. In particular, the largest metaphor factors could be identified as pertaining to conceptual clarity or difficulty, positive or negative affective value, and polite or impolite communicative manner. Moreover, literary metaphors turned out to differ from journalistic ones on all of these counts: they were typically rated as less clear, more positive, and less polite than journalistic metaphors. Thus the approach summarized in Table 1 is supported by empirical evidence. Solutions 3. Confirmations:Discourse-Theoretical Problems to Structure-Mapping
3. 1. Explanatory Analogies ThatDo Not Explain

The suitability of the discourse approach laid out in the previous section is further evinced by its capacity to account for two other, rather odd phenomena which are in the structure-mapping theory: the existence of "explanatory analogies" that are not one-to-one relationships (Gentner 1983: 158), and the observation that the mapping rules for "metaphors" are apparently less regular than those for analogy (ibid.: 162). From a discourse-theoretical point of view, both types of devi-

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ance are produced by the confused distinction between metaphor and analogy based on discourse status and cognitive function, as shown above, rather than on the more fruitful distinctions among linguistic, psychological, and social levels of analysis. I will briefly indicate the discourse-theoretical alternative to the first problem before we turn to the second, which raises a more fundamental issue. In a note, Gentner acknowledges that there are exceptions to the rule that "most explanatory analogies are 1-1 mappings," in which the number of nodes projected from the base equals the number of nodes at the receiving end in the target domain (ibid.: 158n). These exceptions are probably the less clear mappings discussed in Gentner (1982), such as the Freudian series of metaphorical correspondences among "faeces," "baby,"and "penis" in connection with anal eroticism. The case for this correspondenceincludes linguisticevidence: the phrase "to give someone a baby," showingthe correspondencebetween babiesand evidence that faeces are the infant'sfirst gift, and gifts; phenomenological that money, as a later gift, comes to be equated with faeces; and evidence from shared attributesand first-orderrelations,such as that faeces, penis and baby are all solid bodies that forciblyenter or leave through a membranouspassage. (Ibid.: 126) Here, analogical clarity is less than optimal, and therefore, explanatory or predictive power is low(er). These are the "scientific analogies," which are indeed "metaphors," in Gentner's (1982) title. From my perspective, this is confusing. For one thing, if the linguistic example is a metaphor at all, it is so for a different reason, that is, solely on account of its linguistic surface structure. It is irrelevant to our linguisticjudgment that such metaphors have a relatively rich and a fairly unclear cognitive structure, which is Gentner's criterion for calling them metaphors. This cognitive structure does, however, bear on the cognitive function of evocation or explanation, but not in the way that Gentner proposes. Instead, such rich but less than clear metaphors in scientific discourse may indeed be suggestive of some explanatory function, but this is presumably due to their presence in scientific discourse, where they may at the same time suggest an evocative function on account of their cognitive structure. This analysis is thus better able to account for the odd existence of "explanatory analogies" that cannot be called "explanatory" in the strict sense of precisely predicting the implications for one domain on the basis of another. This analysis can do so by separating the structural aspect of the analogy (which is not explanatory but rich) from both its cognitive function (which may be expressive as well as explanatory) and its social status (which is presumably explanatory, given the discursive purpose of scientific texts). It is the relative weight of the aspects of cognitive structure and social status that determines whether a predominantly

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evocative or explanatory function is attributed to the metaphors in question. Observe that this approach also leaves room for the opposite question, which is more interesting to the literary scholar: Can metaphors in literature-rather than "literary metaphors"-also have an explanatory function? Consider these remarks by Gentner on a related issue: "Literary metaphors differ in clarity. Any attempt to generalize about expressive versus explanatory analogy must take into account writers like Shakespeare and Donne, whose analogies are often elegantly worked out" (ibid.: 123). Two comments are in order here. First, the opposition that Gentner employs between explanation and charged expression or evocation, which in her approach is almost inherently tied to the language games of science versus literature, can, in my opinion, only be seen as a relatively recent historical development: the distinction made between literature and science on the basis of language was less easily drawn in the days of Shakespeare, and it was not until nearly the end of the seventeenth century that philosophers like Hobbes and Locke warned against the use of unruly metaphors in science. Moreover, even today, some types of discourse, such as New Journalism, literary criticism, and certain kinds of anthropology and history, exhibit a considerable overlap of function. Both literature and science, therefore, have room for other cognitive functions of metaphor besides their typical contemporary ones of evocation and explanation, respectively, both synchronically and diachronically. This also means that, from a literary-historical perspective, it is not merely individual genius that needs to be taken into account, as Gentner appears to suggest in her remarks, quoted above. The poetics of the period as a whole are fairly crucial as well, including the poetics in relation to the role of metaphor in science. In other words, some metaphors may have an explanatory function indeed, even though they are part of literary texts. The literary character of metaphor is not restricted to evocation. If Gentner admits all this in principle (ibid.: 127), the influence of such discourse types and genres, including their historical development, is nevertheless not adequately demonstrated.
3.2. Metaphor and IrregularMapping: TheCognitive View

Another advantage of the framework of discourse is revealed when we turn to the apparent problem of the irregular mapping rules for "metaphor," as opposed to the regular ones for "analogy" (Gentner 1983: 162). Given the generally acknowledged overlap between metaphor and analogy, Gentner has presented a remarkable puzzle here, and one that is further complicated by Gentner's failure to make her view of the relation between analogy and metaphor explicit. In the passage under consideration, two aspects of metaphor are highlighted

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in comparison with analogy. First, metaphors are often just attribute/ attribute comparisons, or "mere appearance matches." One example that Gentner gives is using such a statement as she's a giraffe (2) to convey that "she" is tall. Gentner asserts of such metaphors, "Although they can be appealing and locally useful, their explanatory power is sharply limited" (ibid.: 161). The second aspect of metaphor in relation to analogy is that, if metaphors can be analyzed as analogies, then "the mapping rules tend to be less regular than those for analogy" (ibid.: 162). Gentner is apparently alluding here to both the rich scientific (Freudian) metaphors, which are deemed to have a literary quality in that respect, and to rich literary metaphors by Shakespeare and Donne. Before we examine the notion of regularity to which Gentner appeals in her work, it may be useful to point out, first, that there is a neglected relation between the two aspects of metaphor highlighted above, "mere appearance matches" and less regular analogical mappings. It is not that "mere appearance matches" cannot be analyzed as analogies; they can be, but they do not result in interesting analogies. The above-mentioned example of the giraffe in (2) may be analyzed as she:tall:: giraffe:tall. (3) As will be realized, (3) confers the notion of "typical height" from the giraffe onto the female: there is no literal comparison here, for "she" cannot be as tall as a giraffe. George Miller (1979) as well as Robert Sternberg, Roger Tourangeau, and Georgia Nigro (1979) have also studied such appearance matches from an analogical perspective. Therefore, I see no reason to exclude "mere appearance matches" from the realm of analogy. Gentner excludes these from analogy on the basis of their lacking predicates, which have to be mapped from one domain to another. Why this crucial distinction is drawn between the function of predicates and the function of attributes is not made clear. That attribute/ attribute comparisons are not regarded by Gentner as requiring analogical reasoning is probably due to the apparently trivial nature of analogy in her example, as compared with other instances. However, attribute selection for mapping is not at all trivial in less conventional cases (see Sternberg, Tourangeau, and Nigro 1979). Gentner's denial of "mere appearance matches" as analogical is also presumably related to her criterion for regular mapping, that is, the notion of systematicity. Without going into technical details, we can at least describe "the systematicity principle." According to Gentner (1983), there is a tacit preference for coherence in analogy: "A predi-

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cate that belongs to a mappable system of mutually interconnecting relationships is more likely to be imported into the target than is an isolated predicate" (ibid.: 163). Thus, in the atom is a solar system (4) two sets of interconnected predicates characterizing the solar system are mappable to the atom:
a. DISTANCE (sun, planet) b. ATTRACTIVE FORCE (sun, planet) c. REVOLVES AROUND (planet, sun) d. MORE MASSIVE THAN (sun, planet). (5)

Gentner explains as follows: One symptom of systematicityis that changing one of these relations affects the others. For example, suppose we decrease the attractionbetween equal. Thus relations (a) and (b) are interrelated.Again, suppose we reverse relation (d) to state that the planet is more massivethan the sun; then we must also reverserelation(c), for the sun would then revolvearound the planet. (Ibid.) Given these interconnections, such predicates have a good chance of being mapped together from one domain to another. Both unconnected predicates and attributes (e.g.,
HOT, YELLOW, GASEOUS)

sun and planet; then the distance between them will increase, all else being

are less

easily mapped or ignored altogether. As such, this suggestion seems highly plausible, but it is not complete. The strained relation between attribute/attribute comparisons and analogical comparisons in Gentner's sense was also noted by Yeshayahu Shen (1991), who has proposed a sophisticated integration of Sternberg's and Gentner's theories of both the representation and the processing of metaphor. Shen argues that Gentner's proposal is unable to account for those metaphors that potentially include predicates within their domains, but which require attribute mapping all the same. Thus, in (6) Tom is a tortoise BEING SLOW has a greater chance of getting mapped from the tortoise to Tom than the predicate of EATING VEGETABLES. Referring to the approach by Sternberg, Tourangeau, and Nigro (1979), Shen introduces a diagnosticity constraint, which orders properties (attributes as well as predicates) according to their relative salience within their respective domains. Shen concludes that, if properties are equally diagnostic, then the systematicity principle determines which properties stand a greater chance of getting mapped, all other things being equal. Thus, on Shen's account, attribute mappings also require analogical reasoning, and their role in metaphorical mapping is governed by a con-

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straint other than the systematicity principle, namely, the diagnosticity constraint. From this perspective, let us return to Gentner's statement that metaphors have less regular mapping rules. There are two observations to be made. First, it may be the case that, for some metaphors, there are no predicates involved in the mapping because these are either absent or of low diagnosticity. In that case, however, systematicity in Gentner's sense would not be in question since, in her theory, it applies only to analogies and predicates: hence, systematicity here could not be any greater or less than elsewhere, for there is no standard for measurement. While Gentner would also have to deny that analogy itself was involved in the case of attribute/attribute comparisons, this position could be rejected on the grounds of the work done by Ortony, Sternberg, Miller, and Shen (cited above). From such a perspective of a partly revised structure-mapping theory, then, "metaphors" are not less regular than "analogies"; they are simply not systematic at all. However, one further aspect of this argument needs to be mentioned: there is no reason, as far as I can see, why attributes could not also be characterized in terms of systematicity. The representation of tortoises as slow, for example, could be easily expanded to include such entailments as their being inefficient, vulnerable, less attractive, and so on. In that sense, slowness is probably a preferable candidate for mapping than the tortoise's color, brown or green. Systematicity (and, in that sense, regularity) might then be involved after all. For one thing, it might indeed contribute explanatory power to such a metaphor if the entailments constitute the whole point of uttering the metaphor in the first place, as in a context where (6) is a reply to a question like Why was Tom not chosen for thejob? (7)

This view might also add to the reasons for "slowness" being of higher diagnostic value than "brown"or "green." The conclusion of the previous paragraph would then have to be revoked since "mere appearance matches" could also involve systematicity. In sum, from a cognitive point of view, there is no reason to believe that "metaphors" require different or less regular mapping rules than "analogies." First, their possible employment of attributes rather than predicates does not alone distinguish them from analogies, as attribute comparisons involve analogical reasoning too. Second, to account for hierarchies of mapping preference, Gentner's principle of systematicity alone does not suffice. As Shen has demonstrated, we also need a diagnosticity constraint; regularity in mapping is thus not determined only by systematicity, which is Gentner's basis for claim-

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ing that metaphors are less regular. And third, such a hybrid model as that proposed by Shen eliminates the need to define systematicity as a principle applying exclusively to predicates, as Gentner does: attributes may involve relations of entailment too. These are three grounds on which Gentner's claim that metaphors are different from and less regular than analogies is seriously undermined. The connection between metaphor and literature cannot be established on the basis of this criterion either. TheDiscourse and Irregular View 3.3. Metaphor Mapping: The previous section addressed the regularity of mapping in the case of metaphor from the point of view of systematicity. However, there is another aspect to be discussed, which Ellen Winner (1988) has noted in commenting on Gentner's work: Evidence that physical attributesare more likely to be involved in literary metaphorsthan in scientificanalogiesis providedby a study (Gentner 1982) in which people rated these figures in terms of clarity(the precision of mapping between topic and vehicle)and richness(the sheer quantityof properties mapped).Good scientificanalogieswere rated as high in clarity, bad ones as high in richness. In contrast,good metaphorswere not differentiated from bad ones by clarityratingsbut were rated as richer than bad metaphors. If richer mappingstend to include physicalproperties (which, although not provenby this study,seems likely),we can only conclude that physical properties of the vehicle are more likely to be transferred when given a literary metaphorthan a scientificanalogy. (Ibid.: 37) Note that, in Winner's terms, "good metaphors" mean "literary metaphors": these were not established as equivalent by Gentner herself in her rating experiment, where she distinguished between good and bad scientific and literary metaphors. However, Winner's emphasis on the different roles played by physical properties in literary and in scientific metaphor does not go against the grain of Gentner's argument, as can be seen in Gentner's own statement: "It may be that surface sensory attributes and first-order relations figure more strongly in expressive analogies than in explanatory analogies" (Gentner 1982: 122-23). Let us therefore continue our consideration of these suggestions. Immediately following her remarks quoted above, Winner turns to the issue of preferred mappings, which we discussed in section 3.2: "The problem becomes, then, how we know when to map a vehicle's physical attributes onto the topic and when to map a vehicle's functional relations" (Winner 1988: 37). Her solution to this conundrum is twofold. First, she refers to a pertinent article by Jaime Carbonell (1982), according to whom "we may assume that the mapping is relational unless we only know about physical properties of the vehicle" (Winner 1988: 37). This solution captures the general intuition that

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most metaphors work by ignoring primary attributes, such as animacy, shape, or color, and by focusing on relational (or predicational) characteristics as criteria for the intended metaphorical correspondence. (This might raise a question, though, about cases in which only the physical properties of objects are known, e.g., Shen's example of the tortoise.) However, Winner's objection to this proposal is basically the same as Shen's, that is, that sometimes we do have both types of information, yet we still map only the physical attributes. Winner gives the example of someone flying over a bare mountain top on which he could see a bulldozer creating a landing strip, a sight that produced the painful association of a dentist working on a large molar. And, of course, we have to admit that this type of metaphor is just as legitimate as the other. The second part of Winner's solution, therefore, is to invoke the role of context, which guides our selection of the kind of mapping to be performed: to put it bluntly, if we are interested in attributes, we map the attributes; if not, we map the functional relations. This is where her argument concludes. Note that Winner's solution cannot incorporate the diagnosticity constraint proposed by Shen, which is rather a disadvantage. The diagnosticity constraint may be relatively less contextually determined than Winner's invocation of discourse topic, but it can account for a good deal of the predictability of mapping preferences. However, Shen would, in turn, probably have to agree that in actual practice domains for comparison, such as Sternberg's, are constructed with an eye toward a certain discourse context, which is Winner's point. This situation would lead to elevating the relative importance of certain properties over others for the particular non-literal comparison in question. Therefore, the notion of discourse context still cannot be evaded when Shen's theory is applied to practice. My own response to Winner's and Shen's proposals would be to take this discussion one step further and examine all of the discourse context, including the relevant discourse expectations that I examined in relation to the aesthetic and polyvalence conventions for literary discourse. Readers know when they are reading a literary text, and if they are familiar enough with the kinds of conventions that apply to that type of (con)text, they will be likely to interpret metaphors in the appropriate way, either relationally or rather more physically. From this perspective, readers may not even need to choose between these two kinds of mapping in the case of literary discourse, but can simply perform both of them, realizing as much meaning as possible. As a result, the richness that seems irregular from the perspective of systematicity can appear to be highly regular from the perspective of the polyvalence convention. Note that neither Shen nor Winner questions the goal of reaching one basic interpretation, which in my opinion

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is precisely what limits the value of their suggestions for literary discourse. This proves how ingrained the monovalence convention is for ordinary discourse, and how important it is to have a type of discourse which subverts this typical practice of using monovalence as a default option for coherence. For literary discourse, all that one has to do is shift the criterion for the determination of regularity (in the sense of predicting reader behavior with regard to non-literal analogical mapping) from monovalent coherence (or systematicity) to polyvalent coherence (or richness). In sum, one might postulate a tolerance for the mapping of as many (related or unrelated) predicates and attributes as possible in the case of literary metaphor, and, by contrast, an intentional search for highly systematic mapping in the case of scientific metaphor. Put differently, there could be a search for richness in literature and a search for clarity in science. This suggests not one but two kinds of regularity, both of which are at least partly based on discourse conventions (polyvalence and monovalence) rather than on the structure of metaphor itself. One convention highlights systematicity, while the other highlights quantity, but since both aspects are found in all metaphors, discourse attitude may also be a determining factor in the ordering and the relative importance of those structural features. In other words, I can accept the idea that "physical properties of the vehicle are more likely to be transferred when given a literary metaphor than a scientific analogy" (Winner 1988: 37). However, we are not concerned here with literary metaphor, but with metaphor in literature, which is treated as literary by the reader. Indeed, one might wonder if a general literary-reading attitude might not promote the perception of richness over clarity, and vice versa: Could not a scientific-reading attitude likewise promote the perception of clarity over richness? (This is certainly suggested by Gentner's [1982] conclusion with regard to scientific metaphor.) If so, perhaps metaphor in literature is sometimes turned into literary metaphor-indeed, by our very own perceptions. The difference between the cognitive and discourse approaches to the regularity of mapping rules for metaphor can be summarized as follows: In the cognitive approach, the goal of understanding metaphor is implicitly assumed to be monovalence, which is typically exemplified by metaphor in a null context. In the discourse approach, however, macro-conventions and contextual motivations are allowed to play a role too, and only after these parameters have been set can the predictability (or regularity) of the mapping of properties from one domain to another be analyzed. It turns out that there are at least two criteria for predictability in that connection: one may be diagnosticity and systematicity, with an eye toward monovalence, and another

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may be sheer richness, with an eye toward polyvalence; the former being characteristic of nonliterary understanding and the latter, of literary understanding. Both are reader-oriented perspectives, but they may be presumed to affect the assessment of metaphors as either clear or rich. 4. Types of Discourseand Functions of Metaphor The influence of such discourse conventions on the perception of the structure of metaphors is also indicated by Gentner's (1982) discussion of (8) Juliet is the sun. This is a "less regular metaphor," in Gentner's opinion, for she notes what she calls a "shift of ground." She writes that (8) works by first appealing to an opposition between the sun and the moon, which is then followed by a reference to an opposition between a maid and a mistress. Here is the full context of (8): But, soft! what light throughyonder windowbreaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is alreadysick and pale with grief, That thou her maid art far more fair than she: Be not her maid, since she is envious; Her vestallivery is but sick and green, And none but fools do wearit; cast it off. andJuliet,II, i) (Romeo Gentner's interpretation makes use of two analogies: first, Juliet does for her lover what the sun does for the day, namely, brings light; and second, Juliet does to her mistress what the sun does to the moon, that is, makes envious and finally vanquishes through superiority. Gentner's discussion of the Shakespearean metaphor amounts to a critique of its overall low degree of clarity, which suggests a need for one, unified underlying analogy. I surmise that it is precisely Gentner's short-circuiting of Shakespeare's playing on unity and variation that betrays her scientist's mind in confrontation with literary metaphor. The transition from the first metaphor to the second may seem somewhat tortuous and surprising, but in context can be deemed fairly effective. The second metaphor is again fairly clear, but it may be somewhat less systematic than Gentner would like: "For example, in the maid/mistress domain the fact that a mistress envies her maid need not necessarily imply that the maid should cast off her livery; there are many equally plausible possibilities" (ibid.: 124). The density of this passage as a whole, it seems to me, is characteristic of literary, as opposed to scientific, discourse, which

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wants its passages well worked out and unequivocally expressed; while this may also add to the literary aspect of the metaphor, it does not make its basic structure more or less systematic. Thus the importance of the regularity of richness for literary reading is at least not to be dismissed lightly. Some misconceptions on Gentner's part ought to be redressed here in order to clarify how a discourse approach would deal with these matters. For example, Gentner claims that "precisely defining" the relationships among various aspects of the base and the target in a rich, but unclear and unsystematic, literary metaphor "does not seem to be important, or even appropriate; they are intended to be appreciated without too much analysis" (ibid.: 122). Observe that this is quite a normative statement, specifying appropriate behavior in terms of culturally sanctioned intentions. From the perspective of a discourse approach, it begs the question of both the existence and the range of such a norm. My own position on this issue is different from Gentner's. The function and effect of the precise meaning of a particular metaphor in literature, it seems to me, is heavily dependent on the way that critics view their profession, on the particular poetics of each author, and on the manner and degree of the public's literary socialization. Indeed, authors have been attacked for sloppy writing at times, which means that critics did take the precise meaning of a metaphor into account. And it need not be only critics who read metaphors that way. Note that, if Gentner's poetics do not coincide with other people's poetics, this does not necessarily mean that either of them is wrong; it only goes to show that literary discourse has its own intricate rules and regulations that may, indeed, be highly normative, but whose social and historical range and diversity are still relatively unexplored terrains from an empirical perspective. There is another passage from Gentner (1982) that bears on the same point: The suggestion,then, is that in expressiveanalogy,a rich collectionof associations is valued; while in explanatoryanalogy,an abstract,well-clarified, coherent systemof relationsis valued.This fits with Boyd'sobservationthat for science analogies,furtherexplicationand analysisis taken as a community enterprise,while literarymetaphorsare often passedaroundas wholes, their dissectionleft to critics. (Ibid.: 123) What we have here is a mistaken analogy: in my opinion, scientific analogies are related to scientists as literary metaphors are to literary critics, and both types of metaphor or analogy can be "passed around as wholes" by the public. Again, whether this happens or not in either case depends on a number of factors: the role of the expert, the importance of the metaphor and the text in which it occurs, and the segmentation or fragmentation of the public. In particular, the di-

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verse interests of specific groups within the general public determine if one category of metaphors is treated differently from the other, in literature as in science. The case of Salman Rushdie is only an extreme example of the potential variability of the effect of large-scale metaphor in the field of literature, just as the vehement debate over the computer-model metaphor of the human mind is an extreme example from the domain of science. What we need is a sociology of discourse, that is, of the classes, roles, and objectives of those who participate in each type of discourse. Moreover, distinctions have to be made among the various stages of a metaphor's impact: in literary reading, ordinary and quick reception is probably different from repeated reception, which in turn may be different from study or from criticism. If one wants to compare the function of a scientific metaphor with that of a literary metaphor, one will have to follow through with this comparison at all of these levels. It may very well be that, at the level of quick and automatic comprehension, their impact does not differ at all. At the most extended level of study, however, their functions may indeed differ, with monovalence and polyvalence as well as facticity and aestheticism acting as arbiters of their success in science or literature, respectively (cf. the conclusion of Gentner 1982). As long as we lack empirical evidence, however, all that we say remains only speculative.
References
Bosman, Jan 1987 "Persuasive Effects of Political Metaphors," Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 2(2): 97-113. Carbonell, Jaime 1982 "Metaphor: An Inescapable Phenomenon in Natural-Language Comprehension," in Strategies for Natural Language Processing, edited by W. Lehnert and M. Ringle, 415-34 (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates). Dirven, Rene 1985 "Metaphor as a Basic Means for Extending the Lexicon," in The Ubiquity of Metaphor, edited by W. Paprotte and R. Dirven, 85-120 (Amsterdam: John Benjamins). Gentner, Dedre 1982 "Are Scientific Analogies Metaphors?" in Metaphor:Problemsand Perspectives, edited by D. S. Miall, 106-32 (Brighton, UK: Harvester Press). 1983 "Structure-Mapping: A Theoretical Framework for Analogy," Cognitive Science 7(3): 155-70. Gentner, Dedre, and Catherine Clement 1988 "Evidence for Relational Selectivity in the Interpretation of Analogy and Metaphor," in The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, edited by G. H. Bower, 307-58 (New York: Academic Press). Graesser, Arthur C., K. Millis, and Jeff Mio 1989 "Metaphors in Persuasive Communication," in Comprehensionof Literary Discourse: Results and Problems of InterdisciplinaryApproaches, edited by D. Meutsch and R. Viehoff, 131-54 (Berlin: de Gruyter).

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Holyoak, Keith 1982 "An Analogical Framework for Literary Interpretation," Poetics 11(2): 10526. Ibsch, Elrud, Dick Schram, and Gerard Steen, eds. 1991 Empirical Studies of Literature: Proceedings of the Second International Conference, Amsterdam 1989 (Amsterdam: Rodopi). Johnson, Joel T., and Shelley E. Taylor 1981 "The Effect of Metaphor on Political Attitudes," Basic and Applied Social Psychology 2: 305-16. Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson 1980 Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Lakoff, George, and Mark Turner 1989 More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Miller, George A. 1979 "Images and Models, Similes and Metaphors," in Metaphor and Thought, edited by A. Ortony, 202-50 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Ortony, Andrew 1979 "The Role of Similarity in Similes and Metaphors," in Metaphor and Thought, edited by A. Ortony, 186-201 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Schmidt, Siegfried J. 1980 Grundrifi der empirischenLiteraturwissenschaft.Vol. 1, Der gesellschaftliche Handlungsbereich Literatur (Braunschweig/Wiesbaden: Vieweg). Shen, Yeshayahu 1991 "Constraints on Mappability in Metaphor Comprehension," in Ibsch, Schram, and Steen 1991: 147-55. Steen, Gerard J. 1989 "Metaphor and Literary Comprehension: Towards a Discourse Theory of Metaphor in Literature," Poetics 18: 113-41. 1991 "Empirical Research on Metaphor in Literature," in Ibsch, Schram, and Steen 1991: 157-66. In press Understanding Metaphor in Literature (London: Longman). Sternberg, Robert, Roger Tourangeau, and Georgia Nigro 1979 "Metaphor, Induction, and Social Policy: The Convergence of Macroscopic and Microscopic Views," in Metaphor and Thought, edited by A. Ortony, 325-53 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Turner, Mark 1987 Death is the Mother of Beauty: Mind, Metaphor, Criticism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Winner, Ellen 1988 The Point of Words: Children's Understanding of Metaphor and Irony (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).