Metaphor and Intercultural Communication

Andreas Musolff, Fiona MacArthur, Giulio Pagani

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781472570468
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistic Semantics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Metaphor and Intercultural Communication examines in detail the dynamics of metaphor in interlingual contact, translation and globalization processes. Its case-studies, which combine methods of cognitive metaphor theory with those of corpus-based and discourse-oriented research, cover contact linguistic and cultural contacts between Chinese, English including Translational English and Aboriginal English, Greek, Kabyle, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, and Spanish. Part I introduces readers to practical and methodological problems of the intercultural transfer of metaphor through empirical (corpus-based and experimental) studies of translators' experiences and strategies in dealing with figurative language in a variety of contexts. Part II explores the universality-relativity dimension of cross- and intercultural metaphor on the basis of empirical data from various European and non-European cultures. Part III investigates the socio-economic and political consequences of figurative language use through case studies of communication between aboriginal and mainstream cultures, in the media, in political discourse and gender-related discourses. Special attention is paid to cases of miscommunication and of deliberate re- and counter-conceptualisation of clichés from one culture into another. The results open new perspectives on some of the basic assumptions of the 'classic' cognitive paradigm, e.g. regarding metaphor understanding, linguistic relativity and concept-construction.

Part One

Metaphor in Translation

1

The Evolution of Translation Trainees’ Subjective Theories: An Empirical Study of Metaphors about Translation

Celia Martín de León and Marisa Presas¹

Introduction

Traditionally, when reflecting on the translation process, metaphors such as TRANSFER, CHANGE or IMITATION are used. Several studies have shown that these metaphors are something more than just ‘a way of saying’. On the one hand, they shape the concept of translation of a specific social group or translation theory (Chesterman, 1997; D’hulst, 1992; Martín de León, 2008); on the other, they serve to structure and express individual translators’ knowledge (Martín de León, 2010).

In the fields of sociology, psychology and pedagogy the concept of implicit or subjective theories is linked to that of everyday knowledge, that is, non-scientific or lay knowledge. It is assumed that subjective theories are unconscious but may become conscious and explicit if the corresponding stimulus is provided. Their main function is to explain the way in which the world functions, as well as one’s own behaviour and that of others (Mandl and Huber, 1983; Scheele and Groeben, 1998).

Translators’ knowledge about translation has been studied from sociological and cognitive perspectives. Both approaches hold that the knowledge translators possess – not only procedural knowledge but also declarative knowledge – determines the characteristics of the final product, the translated text. Sociologists work with an abstract, ‘ideal’ translator in an attempt to discover theoretically based criteria or ‘norms’ (Toury, 1995) that are generalizable and that may be induced from the study of translated texts. Cognitive studies have sought to develop problem-solving models and have focused on, among other aspects, the identification and classification of strategies used by expert and novice translators to solve translation problems. Many of the studies investigating the translation process of novice translators have used Thinking Aloud Protocols which have enabled informants to spontaneously manifest their theoretical concepts of translation. Researchers have paid little or no attention to this form of lay knowledge – which was not the aim of their research − because they consider it to be idiosyncratic, erroneous or incoherent (Hönig, 1997; Krings, 1986).

Within the framework of a research project being carried out by the PETRA² group, we have begun a study of the subjective theories of translation of novice translators. We are particularly interested in determining the structure and content of their theories; how they evolve as a result of the effects of translation practice and the study of scientific theories; and to what extent students apply these theories to solving translation problems. The general principles of the conceptual theory of metaphor (Lakoff, 1993; Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) serve as the basis for our analysis. Our first findings showed that novice translators do in fact have initial subjective theories about translation; that these theories may be structured and articulated through metaphor; and both experience in translating and the study of scientific theories can modify their initial theoretical positions. In an earlier publication we focused our attention on modelling the role of subjective theories in the translation process and analysing the basic tenets of these theories (Martín de León and Presas, 2011). In this chapter we discuss our analysis of the metaphoric expressions used by students to describe the translation process, giving some examples, and present our conclusions concerning conceptual changes in students’ subjective theories of translation as a result of formal learning.

Subjective theory, formal learning and conceptual change

Educational research has found that students in general have difficulty in understanding scientific concepts not only in “abstract” domains like philosophy and mathematics, but also in more “concrete” fields like history or biology (see Vosniadou et al., 2008 for a review). To a large extent, this difficulty may be attributed to the fact that insufficient attention has been paid to the problem of conceptual change (Vosniadou et al., 2008, p. 1). Vygotsky (1962) had already differentiated between ‘spontaneous concepts’ and ‘scientific concepts’ and pointed to the fact that changes and restructuring of spontaneous concepts were brought about as a result of formal education. Over the past twenty years, research into conceptual change has attempted to identify the mechanisms regulating these changes and their implications for curriculum design. Although most of the studies have focused on children and adolescents, their conclusions are applicable to adults as well (Pozo, 2003).

Studies on conceptual change are based on the assumption that students’ initial knowledge is organized into a relatively coherent structure of domain specific knowledge, which has an ontology and a causality (‘framework theory’). Conceptual change is the gradual substitution of the beliefs and presuppositions of subjective theories when they come into conflict with new knowledge that is acquired. The difficulty lies in the fact that a framework theory is a coherent explanatory system which is constructed on the basis of experience that is, moreover, repeatedly confirmed within the context of lay culture. More important still is the fact that students are not aware that others may have different beliefs, or that their beliefs are not true facts about the world but hypotheses that may be tested and falsified. That is why they do not test hypotheses to evaluate their relevance to reality and, if necessary, begin a conscious process of conceptual change (Vosniadou, 2008, p. xviii). Research into the process of acquisition of scientific theories shows that students, unconsciously and over time, use mainly additive enrichment types of learning mechanisms to revise their initial theories. Often these learning mechanisms give rise to so-called synthetic models, which evidence students’ attempts to synthesize two incompatible concepts or pieces of information, one coming from their prior knowledge and the other from knowledge acquired through formal instruction (Vosniadou et al., 2008, p. 9).

Following Posner et al. (1982), the traditional approach to promoting conceptual change within an academic context involves creating ‘cognitive conflict’ in order to provoke students’ dissatisfaction with their preconceptions. The method generally used is to encourage students to verbalize their initial theories. It has been noted, however, that cognitive conflict as a pedagogical strategy, and verbalization of students’ theories in particular, may be counterproductive because it focuses on inappropriate or erroneous prior knowledge that cannot be used constructively in the learning process (diSessa, 1993). More recent research (Potvin et al., 2012) shows that encouraging students to make their initial theories explicit is not counterproductive as long as this is carried out in combination with other strategies used to create cognitive conflict (Clement, 2008), or in association with the development of metacognitive or conscious strategic learning skills, such as the testing of hypotheses (Clement, 2008; Wiser and Smith, 2008).

Research findings in the field of conceptual change are consistent with those of studies carried out in the use of metaphors to explain spontaneous as opposed to scientific concepts. Studies in the use of metaphors in advanced knowledge acquisition (Spiro et al., 1989) and in school educational discourse (Cameron, 2003) conclude that metaphors can play an important role in the process of cognitive restructuring as a result of acquiring scientific concepts, although they may become an obstacle to learning, in particular when great store is set by a metaphor that was useful at one point in time but which is now unable to reflect the complexity of the corresponding domain.

Theoretical and methodological framework used in the analysis of metaphor

The general framework of the conceptual theory of metaphor was used for our study, although theoretical and methodological contributions were incorporated from studies on metaphors in discourse carried out over the past decade. Cognitive linguists (Lakoff, 1987, p. 386; Núñez, 2000, p. 135) have described ‘conceptual metaphors’ as mental operations that enable us to understand the world by establishing systematic mappings of inferential structures between domains of experience that are best known or accessible to bodily experience and others that are more difficult to structure conceptually. Cognitive linguistics holds that these structures orientate experience and action and can be fairly stable, that is, they can function as cultural models shared by a social group and are reflected in their language (e.g. Kövecses, 1986, 2005; Lakoff and Kövecses, 1987). The notion of the cognitive nature of metaphor and its function in orienting experience and action is the keystone of our research since one of our hypotheses is derived from it: that ideas about communication, language and translation implicit in the metaphors used by students influence the way they translate. Also of interest to our study is the extent to which the implicit theories reflected in the metaphors used by students are socially shared, and to which they are unique to individual students and the result of work carried out in the classroom.

That said, we believe that the conceptual theory of metaphor, because it focuses exclusively on cognitive aspects, has tended to overlook linguistic aspects of metaphor on the one hand, and aspects of the communicative situation in which metaphors are produced and interpreted on the other. As regards the linguistic aspects of metaphor, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) consider language to be a secondary element which gives expression to cognitive processes but is not an integral part of those processes: ‘Metaphor is primarily a matter of thought and action and only derivatively a matter of language’ (p. 153). Nevertheless, if we focus our study of metaphor on spoken discourse, linguistic aspects of metaphor can provide important clues for cognitive analysis. For example, Cameron (2003) found systematic differences between how nominal metaphors and verb metaphors were processed in English. It should be noted that there is a conflict between cognitive linguists’ desire to make language secondary and their use of language as their main source of evidence for describing conceptual metaphors (p. 19).

As regards the communicative situation, cognitive linguists’ initial research did not involve the empirical study of spoken discourse but rather phrases obtained as a result of introspection and studied out of context. However, as shown by Cameron (2003), one and the same expression can be interpreted as literal or as metaphorical depending on the context and the communicative situation. The analysis of metaphors must take into consideration all those contextual aspects that have a bearing on the interpretation of an expression as metaphoric, that is, those aspects that determine whether or not a metaphor may be interpreted as such.

Analysis of metaphors

The theoretical and methodological framework of the conceptual theory of metaphor has been expanded in our work to include contributions from the study of metaphors in spoken discourse (e.g. Cameron, 2003, 2007; Cameron and Deignan, 2006; Cameron and Stelma, 2004; Kövecses, 2009; Musolff, 2004; Musolff and Zinken, 2009). Following these authors, the analysis of the linguistic aspects of metaphors is essential if we are to understand how we use metaphors to organize our experiences and how we interpret them (Cameron, 2003, p. 2). Moreover, when analysing metaphors in spoken discourse, the specific context within which they are used must be taken into consideration. The term ‘context’ is used here in the broadest sense and includes physical, social, interactional and linguistic factors, among others (p. 4). Applied linguistics focuses on ‘language in use’, and always takes into consideration the situatedness of the discourse. By taking into account the communicative situations in which metaphors are used, we have assumed a dynamic approach in our study, recording the evolution in the use of specific metaphors or t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Series
• Title
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Foreword  Zoltán Kövecses
• Introduction: Metaphor in Intercultural Communication  Andreas Musolff, Fiona MacArthur and Giulio Pagani
• Part 1   Metaphor in Translation
• Part 2   Universal versus Culture-Specific Aspects of Metaphor
• Part 3   Metaphor, Globalization and Intercultural Communication
• Subject Index
• Name Index
• Copyright