Estetisk-filosofiska fakulteten
MariAnne Cederholm
Metaphors in Minangali and English A comparative study
Engelska D-uppsats
Termin: Vårterminen 2011 Handledare: Solveig Granath
Karlstads universitet 651 88 Karlstad Tfn 054-700 10 00 Fax 054-700 14 60 Information@kau.se www.kau.se
Abstract
Titel: Metaphors in Minangali and English: A comparative study
Författare: MariAnne Cederholm Engelska D, 2011 Antal sidor: 66
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to present a comparative study of metaphors in two diverse languages in different parts of the world. The two languages are English and Minangali, the latter a language spoken in the northern part of the Philippines. Metaphors in these two languages were compared to see how they differ or overlap in areas such as emotions, death and dying, biological urges and family matters. Subcategories for emotions were anger, love, worry, relief, for biological urges hunger, thirst, tiredness, and for family matters courtship and marriage, pregnancy and barrenness. The source of metaphor in Minangali was limited to 230 metaphors, out of which 38 were looked at in more depth. A number of 146 English metaphors were chosen from Metalude, a metaphor homepage under the auspices of Dr. Andrew Goetly of Lignan University in Hongkong, from idiom collections in books and on the Internet, as well as from the Oxford English Dictionary Online. A comparison of underlying conceptual metaphors in the two languages showed that some areas in the Minangali society seem to carry more weight than others, for example, the area concerning fertility and barrenness, while an area with many metaphors in English is anger. English speakers seem to talk more about anger (45 metaphors found compared to 5 in Minangali) while having a family seems more crucial in the Minangali setting. Naturally, taboo metaphors would not easily be found in the material, but in Minangali it is, for example, appropriate to talk about stomach worms, while metaphors involving such are not common in English. In most cases of the conceptual metaphors compared, however, there seem to be considerable overlaps and similarities between Minangali and English.
Nyckelord: Minangali figures of speech, metaphor, idioms, target, source, anger, death, marriage, pregnancy, barrenness
Table of contents Table of contentsTable of contents Table of contents
1. Introduction and aims ... 1
2. Background ... 3
2.1 Metaphor ... 4
2.2 Some other figures of speech ... 9
2.2.1 Simile, personification, hyperbole and understatement ... 9
2.2.2 Metonymy ... 9
2.2.3. Euphemism ... 10
2.2.4. Litotes and irony ... 10
2.2.5 Idioms ... 10
2.2.6 Proverbs ... 11
2.3 Metaphor and culture ... 11
3. Material and methods ... 13
3.1 Minangali ... 13
3.2 Material ... 14
3.3 Methods ... 15
4. Analysis and results ... 17
4.1 Emotions ... 18
4.1.1 Anger ... 18
4.1.2 Love ... 21
4.1.3 Worry ... 23
4.1.4 Relief ... 24
4.2 Death and dying ... 26
4.3 Biological urges ... 29
4.3.1 Hunger ... 29
4.3.2 Thirst ... 30
4.3.3 Tiredness ... 30
4.4 Family matters ... 31
4.4.1 Courtship and marriage ... 31
4.4.2 Pregnancy and barrenness ... 34
5. Discussion ... 36
6. Conclusion ... 38
References ... 40
Appendix A ... 43
Appendix B ... 48
Appendix C ... 65
1. Introduction and aims 1. Introduction and aims1. Introduction and aims 1. Introduction and aims
Even though body language plays an important part in communication, humans usually communicate through spoken language, sometimes reduced to writing. This ability to communicate through spoken and written language puts them in a different category than other creatures. Foley (2009:49) makes a comparison between communication with regard to humans and chimpanzees. Humans, he claims, with their bigger size of a brain, communicate by means of "a complex vocal-auditory system of signs and rules of their combination, i.e.
language", while chimpanzees do this through seemingly unorganized calls. In fact, Foley claims that "[t]o be human and to be language bearing is inseparable" (2009:74). Chomsky suggests that a possible pre-programmed basic knowledge, including constraints in the use of it, could be a core universal system of language in humans. He names this core Universal Grammar (UG), accrediting variations in human languages to what can, and what cannot, be constrained in the language, i.e. the place of the constraints in a language will lead to different patterns, resulting in different languages (Aitchison 1999:27-29; Lakoff & Johnson
1999:478).
Human language seems to be filled with so-called figures of speech, which appear to be a universal part of human languages (Alm-Arvius 2003:18). Aleksander Szwedek (2010) highlights a distinction between the physical and the non-physical world and talks about objectification, claiming that "understanding phenomena in terms of physical objects [...] is a primeval and fundamental mechanism in metaphorization". He points to the fetus in week 8 of pregnancy, when touch and the neural system develop, and asserts that an object's most
fundamental property is "density (mass) as experienced by touch" (Szwedek 2010).
Furthermore he suggests that this basic feature of an object might be found at the very earliest and deepest level in the neural system, naming it "the ultimate experiential basis". Szwedek (2010) goes on to exemplify such experiences of mass by looking at metaphors pertaining to thoughts, identifying how theses metaphors can be compared to touchable items. Thoughts can be scattered, like objects, they can be collected or have weight, a thought can be pregnant and it can strike, similar to the behavior of animate beings (Szwedek 2010). Maybe the
perception of the little baby in the womb, who feels the wet, the soft, the wall, the heartbeat of the mother and the waves in the water from someone speaking outside the mother's body, could be linked to Szwedek's objectification theory? McElhanon (2006:47), in addition, wonders whether such experiences could have existed before concepts and therefore presumably be culture free. Brooks & Warren (1952:362) commented already in the 1950s
that human beings prefer the concrete, to the extent that this notion of physical solidity has settled in the human mind.
Our bodies and their functions are universal. Does that mean that our metaphors are universal too, or are they culture specific? Lakoff & Johnson (2003:274) take the stand that metaphors can be both: "There appear to be both universal metaphors and cultural variation"
(italics in original).1 Kövecses (2005:294), on the other hand, makes the claim that, "[t]he mind is equally the product of culture and embodiment, or, even more precisely, the three are likely to have evolved together in mutual interaction with each other" (italics in original). He concludes that the question about universality and variation, both between languages and within them, might be "one of the most complex and challenging problems in the study of metaphor and in the understanding of cultures" (2005:294).
There seems to be an intricate relationship between specific cultural allusions in some metaphors and universal tendencies in others. In the light of this, the following study aims to shed more light on the use of metaphor, through investigating metaphor in two unrelated languages. These two are English and the non-Indo-European Austronesian language Lower Tanudan Kalinga, also called Minangali. The Minangali metaphors are, together with other Minangali figures of speech, available on the web.2 One would assume that closely related languages would make use of the same metaphors due to their common background. Hence, to look for similarities but also variations, I would need to investigate two languages that are not related, such as Minangali and English. How do Minangali conceptual metaphors compare to English ones and to what extent do the metaphors overlap and differ? My aim is to do a qualitative study of Minangali metaphors and compare them with English ones, to see if, or how, they are connected. I will focus on how metaphors can reveal conceptualizations in the two languages and look at variations in the choice of source metaphors in Minangali and English. The main material used consists of 230 available Minangali metaphors, out of which 38 were chosen for a closer look. The number of the English expressions in the study was 146. The low number, especially with regard to the Minangali figures of speech, naturally limits my study. As a result, only certain aspects of metaphor can be highlighted. My results can therefore not be generalized. In addition, if more languages than two had been used in this comparative study, I might have ventured to use the notion universal metaphors, but I will refrain from doing so in this case. Further research would be needed.
1 Lakoff & Johnson's 2003 book Metaphors We Live By is identical with the 1980 edition with the same title, except that an afterword has been added in the 2003 edition.
2 www.sil.org/asia/philippines/online/kml/figures/index.html
2. Background 2. Background2. Background 2. Background
After an introductory paragraph where I explain the concepts of scheme and trope, I will briefly explain the different figures of speech that appear in the complete web-based
Minangali list,namely metaphor, simile, hyperbole, metonymy, personification, euphemism, litotes and irony. I will also add some information about the definitions of idiom and
proverbs. As metaphor is the focus of the paper, it will get the most attention.
Traditionally, the field of rhetoric has used figurative language in persuasive speech and writing, dividing rhetorical figures into schemes and tropes. Schemes, e.g. alliteration such as in fine friend, were considered to "alter the formal structure of language to create stylistic effects, without altering the meaning" (Crystal 2005:70,74).3 Alm-Arvius (2003:11, 175) reminds us that schemes involve rhythmic repetitions with echoic properties, like in run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Repetitions are also used in many idioms and
proverbs as mnemotechnical devices (Alm-Arvius 2003:176). An example of the latter is one for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth. This proverb refers to the number of magpies seen on a particular occasion (Speake 2008:239). Alliteration can also be called initial rhyme, such as in through thick and thin (Alm-Arvius 2003:49,176) and justice delayed is justice denied (Speake 2008:v). Repetitions at the end of words, like in Little strokes fell great oaks (Speake 2008:188) and When the cat's away, the mice will play (Speake 2008:47), are called end rhyme. Like repetitions, initial and end rhyme facilitate memorization.
Although schemes have been said to alter the structure but not the meaning (Alm- Arvius 2003:189), this remains a controversial standpoint, since some would suggest that changing the form inevitably changes the meaning (Crystal 2005:70). The deliberate
structuring of a sentence, in for example an "aesthetically attractive" formulation in a poem, will reinforce the message of it (Alm-Arvius 2003:175).
The other figure in the field of rhetoric, the cover term trope, encompasses both metaphor and other figures of speech. Tropes are thought to bring about a change in the meaning (Crystal 2005:70). Today, linguists prefer using the expression figures of speech to trope (Crystal 2005:70).
3 The 2005 edition of Crystal's The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, Second Edition, is a reprint of the 1997 edition.
2.1 Metaphor 2.1 Metaphor2.1 Metaphor 2.1 Metaphor
Human speech and writing are permeated with the figure of speech called metaphor, in which a person uses something familiar to describe something unknown. According to Gulz
(1992:1), people seek understanding; that is part of who we are. Lakoff & Johnson (2003:ix;
244) put forth the notion that people use metaphor daily in thinking and in talking,
consciously and unconsciously, and Gibbs (2008:3) points to this as well: "a huge body of empirical work from many academic disciplines [...] clearly demonstrates the ubiquity in metaphor in both everyday and specialized language". Metaphors are therefore not just
decorations, but appear to be the very base of language: “metaphor and the mental processes it entails, are basic to language and cognition" (Goatly 1997:1). Cacciari &Tabossi (1993:xi - xii) mention the term substratum, where historical meanings of figurative language affect people's cognition, even when they are no longer aware of the original meaning of the figure.
Gibbs (2008:4) further claims that metaphor has its origin in a multifaceted interaction between a person's brain, body, language and culture, as human beings have a lot in common, like bodies, experiences and mental capacities. Using the human body as their starting point, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their 1980 book Metaphors We Live By introduced their Conceptual Metaphor Theory. This theory highlights how thinking is embodied, i.e.
grounded, in our physical experience of the world and how our experiences in the world, past and present, transfer to our understanding in the form of conceptual metaphors. The actual spoken metaphors, "linguistic metaphors", reflect and are based on underlying conceptual metaphors (Gibbs 2008:202). Two such conceptual metaphors take as their starting point the fact that our bodies show our states of mind. When we are happy we walk upright with a spring in our steps. Reversibly, when we are sad, our bodies show it through hanging heads and stooping postures. These bodily experiences are transferred onto our thinking through the conceptual metaphors HAPPY IS UP and SAD IS DOWN (Lakoff & Johnson 2003:15).
AFFECTION IS WARMTH is another conceptual metaphor that most likely has its source in the experience of connecting affection to the warmth of an embrace. Affection in terms of warmth, rather than coldness, is a natural outcome of an embodied experience. Such a primary metaphor occurs automatically and is most likely universal (Kövecses 2008:3).
According to Kövecses (2007:3), we cannot choose this kind of primary metaphors, universal primary metaphors, as they are an outcome of global primary experiences. Grady (1997:24) uses the term primary scenes, which he defines as "minimal [...] episodes of subjective
experience, characterized by tight correlations between physical circumstance and cognitive response" which are also universal.
One example of a metaphor is the common North American expression Hold your horses, meaning 'be patient', 'slow down', originally referring to a carriage driver who needed to slow down his horses (Terban 1996:94; Longman Idioms Dictionary 1998:175). Today horse-drawn vehicles are still used in specialized areas like horse racing or among groups like the Amish, but usually a person does not consciously refer to either physical horses or
physical reins to hold them, when using an expression like hold your horses. This metaphor is still quite easy to understand, as people can still see a horse and cart from time to time, in a film or in real life. There are other, less obvious metaphors, as in I'm clearing out my room of all the flotsam and jetsam, where flotsam originally referred to the wreckage in the water after a shipwreck, and jetsam to things thrown overboard to make a ship lighter (Terban 1996:65).
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) suggests a figurative synonym for flotsam and jetsam:
'odds and ends'. In metaphor the meaning of a word, or a group of words, widens, while some of their original meaning is suppressed (Alm-Arvius 2003:21). The persons clearing out their rooms are not throwing out old debris to make a boat lighter. That particular meaning is suppressed. Rather the word jetsam is widened to include things not needed in a room.
Lakoff & Johnson (2003:5) define metaphor in the following way: "The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another" (italics in original), while Lakoff (2007:267, 309) underscores that the center of a metaphor deals with conceptualization of one mental domain, manifested in metaphorical language of another.
Metaphor usually refers to a comparison between a source domain and a target domain4 (Kövecses 2010:4), where the source usually is more concrete than the target (Kövecses 2010:17). Grady adds that source concepts include more sensory content than the target ones (Grady 1997:134). The source domain is also often well known, but not always. For example, when we say that a person is a lion, we might not have seen an actual lion. But somehow the resemblance is at work (Grady 1997:219). Conceptual metaphors occur when we try to explain abstract and difficult concepts through ideas well known to us (Gibbs 1993:60) and they have one direction, from source to target, from concrete to abstract (Kövecses 2010:29).
In a metaphor like the heart of the problem, the source is a body part, the heart, while the target is the core of the problem (Kövecses 2010:18). The body part heart seems more
concrete than the abstract concept of a core of a problem. In another example, stonefaced, the
4 The concepts source and target (or topic) in metaphor are used by cognitive scientists, while the same concepts are sometimes called vehicle and tenor in literary theory (Pinker 2007:240).
source is a stone and the facial expression of a person the target. The hard stone is a solid physical source, while the facial expression, although not totally abstract, still is more so than a stone-hard rock. In the expression to leave no stone unturned, 'to try every possible
expedient in order to bring about a desired result' 5, the source is the turning over of many stones to look for something, and the target the diligence in not giving up, instead trying every option to obtain a certain result. In this example, the notion that the source is more concrete than the target is quite obvious. The turning over of actual stones, the source, is an easy image to relate to, while the target, trying to achieve a certain result through using every option, is much more abstract and can include a multitude of choices. Kövecses (2010:28) suggests that one reason why one target often connects to several sources is that the latter might be needed to describe different aspects of the former.
Common source domains of metaphor could be: "the HUMAN BODY, HEALTH AND ILLNESS, ANIMALS, MACHINES AND TOOLS, BUILDINGS AND CONSTRUCTION, PLANTS, GAMES AND SPORT, COOKING AND FOOD, ECONOMIC TRANSACTIONS, FORCES, LIGHT AND
DARKNESS, HEAT AND COLD, and MOVEMENT AND DIRECTION", while targets often include:
"EMOTION, DESIRE, MORALITY, THOUGHT, SOCIETY, RELIGION, POLITICS, ECONOMY, HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS, COMMUNICATION, EVENTS AND ACTIONS, TIME and LIFE AND DEATH"
(Kövecses 2010:28).6
One aspect of metaphor is thus that the source domain is concrete and the target domain abstract; another is that the metaphor focuses on, highlights, some of the components of the target (usually the most essential ones) and other components are backgrounded, hidden (Kövecses 2010:103; Evans & Green 2006:303). To be able to understand a target better, we need more than one source domain to give the full structure to the concept, as the examples
BEING HAPPY IS BEING OFF THE GROUND, BEING HAPPY IS BEING IN HEAVEN and HAPPY IS UP, show (Kövecses 2010:96-103). Source domains could be memories from the experiential domains of the person (Lakoff & Johnson 2003:247), like the source in the metaphor "I just can't swallow that claim" (italics in original) (Kövecses 2010:7). Such images from source domains, so pervasive we do not even notice them, transfer over to people's thinking through what is called mapping, "a set of conceptual correspondences between elements of the source and target domains" (Kövecses 2010:327). For example, if one calls a person feather-brained, 'foolish, giddy', one does not imply that the person has actual feathers on his or her brain.
Rather, there are certain conceived similarities that map over from the fowl to the human. In
5 Unless otherwise indicated, word meanings in the present paper are from the Oxford English Dictionary Online.
6 Small capitals are used in the literature for both sources and targets of metaphor.
this case it might be the smallness of the brain, implying that mental capacities are lacking.
The giddiness might have its source domain in the image of what happens to a chicken after it has lost its head: it runs around in circles, unable to find direction (cf. Running about like a headless chicken 'acting in a panic-stricken and undirected manner' Speake 2000:65).
According to Alm-Arvius (2003:21) the target domain has a tendency to relate to attitude, like in the example "That man is a fox" (italics in original), where slyness, characterized by
cunning, is attributed to the fox and mapped over to the man. The mappings might be like threads between the source and the target, physical neural connections connecting for example the two parts, affection and warmth, of the conceptual metaphor AFFECTION IS WARMTH. In this conceptual metaphor neurons are co-activated in the part of the brain handling emotions, as well as the part of the brain where temperature management is located (Lakoff & Johnson 2003: 256,259; Dodge & Lakoff 2005:57). Other words for this phenomenon are blending or conceptual integration (Lakoff & Johnson 2003:261).
Cognitive linguistics represents a collection of approaches (Evans & Green 2006:xx) and the study of metaphor is a fascinating, difficult, never-ending challenge (Kövecses 2005:294). There are an estimated number of 69097 languages in the world, of which around 20788 still have not yet been written down, so there is no lack of opportunities to make new discoveries within the realm of metaphor and other figures of speech. Even among the languages that are already written down, there is a substantial lack of research on figures of speech. Moreover, novel figures of speech in all languages are continually being brought into existence, confirming the notion that language change is natural and happens over time:
"Language [...] gradually transforms itself over the centuries" (Aitchison 1991:4). Some of these novel metaphors will branch out from already existing ones, while some will be new, as, for example, those taken from the new technology that surrounds us. An example of a novel metaphor is cited by Lönneker-Rodman (2007: Metaphor slide #13) and is a lexical extension of a conventional metaphor: Your theory is constructed out of cheap stucco, where the
underlying conceptual metaphor is THEORIES ARE CONSTRUCTED OBJECTS and the novel metaphor is the reference to cheap stucco, implying that the theory will not last, as the material is cheap and easily breaks. Lakoff & Johnson (2003:251), on the other hand, claim
7 www.ethnologue.com
8 http://resources.wycliffe.net/statistics/graphics/maps/3-
Number_of_Languages_with_Likely_Need_of_Bible_Translation_with_No_Program_in_Place.pdf
http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/introduction.asp (Full statistics on the number of languages that have written form are not available.)
Personal communication, Sept 3, 2011, Helena Engkvist, Director, Folk&Språk/ Wycliffe Sweden, www.folk.se
that even novel, innovative metaphors are not new, but that they too originate in common metaphorical thought.
Mühlhäuser (1995:281) draws our attention to the dilemma that what is literal to an English speaker may well be a metaphor in another language. He gives examples from the Papua New Guinean language Enga, which has several words for 'exist'. One of these can be used in connection with women and with bees. Mühlhäuser (1995:284) wonders whether this would indicate a similarity with the English expression she is a busy bee? What it certainly indicates, however, is that boundaries between what is literal and what is metaphorical differ between languages. Furthermore, Mühlhäuser (1995:286) challenges things like the family tree metaphor of historical linguistics, calling it a "cultural artefact". His theories suggest that we need to keep in mind that by using language, we all make choices by the words we
employ: "In the absence of immaculate perception, human beings interpret the world through culture-specific metaphors" (Mühlhäuser 1995:281). Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941) had thoughts in this direction in his controversial Whorfian hypothesis. This hypothesis, also called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, claims, according to Crystal (2003:500), that "our conceptual categorization of the world is determined [...] by the structure of our native language". Mühlhäuser (1995:287) stresses that more metaphorical systems need to be investigated, and the time to do so is short, as languages are disappearing from the surface of the earth. According to Mühlhäuser (1995:287), there might even be solutions to world problems hidden in this research. Goddard agrees, stating that humankind in new conceptual systems might find fresh alternatives to the way we see problems (Goddard 1996:147).
Lakoff & Johnson's (2003:243) outline of the conceptual metaphor theory has affected several scientific fields besides linguistics, such as philosophy, mathematics, politics, clinical psychology and cognitive science. The metaphors people use will reveal for example how they perceive a relationship or an action and will ultimately have an impact on people's behavior. It matters how one looks at one's marriage, for example. Is the perception of it a battleground or a haven? And does one see a particular political party as liberating or oppressive? People's choice of metaphor will have an effect on both themselves and their surroundings (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003:243). Gibbs (2008:5) concludes that there is no single theory that covers the intricacies of metaphor. Instead he talks about the paradox of it. While metaphors are both innovative and sensitive to culture, they are also deeply entrenched in common human experiences (Gibbs 2008:5).
2.2 Some other figures of speech 2.2 Some other figures of speech2.2 Some other figures of speech 2.2 Some other figures of speech
The borders between different figures of speech are fuzzy. Depending on definition, most figures of speech could be said to involve some kind of metaphorical strand. Having discussed some of the main features of metaphor in section 2.1, I will here present some additional figures of speech, the ones, besides metaphor, that appear in the web-based list of the 444 Minangali figures of speech, part of which is used as data in the present study.9 I plan to keep to the classifications made in the list, but will add definitions of idiom and proverb.
2.2.1 2.2.12.2.1
2.2.1 Simile, personification, hyperbole and understatementSimile, personification, hyperbole and understatementSimile, personification, hyperbole and understatement Simile, personification, hyperbole and understatement
Simile is probably the most well known figure of speech. In a simile, the comparison includes like or as (as in he is like a giant, she ran like a deer). In personification, on the other hand, human attributes are ascribed to things or ideas (Crystal 2005:70). Kövecses (2010:328) defines personification as understanding things in terms of humans. Why are you here, all alone, the trees whispered, is an example of personification, where the trees are given the human attribute of being able to whisper. A figure of speech, where exaggeration is at work, is hyperbole. We are all ears (Alm-Arvius 2003:135) does not mean that there is a body full of ears, but the hyperbolic expression points to the intensity of the listening. The opposite of hyperbole, understatement, often comes with a tint of irony: I wouldn't mind some peace and quiet for a change (Alm-Arvius 2003:137).
2.2.2 Metonymy 2.2.2 Metonymy2.2.2 Metonymy 2.2.2 Metonymy
Metonymy, in the words of Alm-Arvius (2008:8) a kind of "descriptive shortcut", is a part- whole relationship with a contiguous element. In metonymy an attribute is used for the whole, and these have to be related. One entity in metonymy then stands for another within the same conceptual domain, while in metaphor one thing stands for another in a different conceptual domain. Thus, two domains are involved in metaphor, while only one is present in metonymy (Lakoff & Johnson 2003:265). Examples of metonymy are Heaven spoke, Downing Street intervened and we won the championship, which are all part - whole relationships. Heaven could stand for God (in heaven), Downing Street for the British government (the Prime Minister has his official residence on Downing Street) and when Sweden's soccer team wins, Swedes feel that they all win, we representing the whole country. Evans & Green (2006:320) propose that there is a chance that all metaphors might ultimately originate in metonymy.
9 www.sil.org/asia/philippines/online/kml/figures/index.html
2.2.3. Euphemism 2.2.3. Euphemism2.2.3. Euphemism 2.2.3. Euphemism
The figure of speech called euphemism is commonly used when there is some stigma (or taboo) attached. These subjects can be for example "offensive, indecent or alarming"
(Matthews 1997:119). In such a case one would use another word rather than the
offensive/indecent or alarming one, as in she was promoted to glory, as a euphemism for death. Death is one of the subjects that many people do not want to talk about. There are many euphemisms used for leaving this world: kick the bucket, sleep with the fish, pass away, go to be with the Lord, join one's husband or wife, etc.
2.2.4.
2.2.4.2.2.4.
2.2.4. Litotes and ironyLitotes and ironyLitotes and irony Litotes and irony
Litotes is a type of understatement involving the use of apparent double negative for
expressive purposes. In litotes the negative is used in an ironic way, like in That wasn't at all a bad dinner, which in this case means that it was a good dinner (Matthews 1997:211). In irony, on the other hand, one thing is said but usually the opposite meant, as in That's just what I needed, said for example when something breaks (Matthews 1997:187).
2.2.5 Idioms 2.2.5 Idioms2.2.5 Idioms 2.2.5 Idioms
An idiom is said to be a sort of metaphorical expression, "a sequence of words which is semantically and often syntactically restricted", also called "ready-made utterances" or
"habitual collocations" (Crystal 2003:225-226). Some examples of idiomatic expressions are smell a rat and turn up one's nose at something (Speake 1999:327,246). The Greek word idioma used to refer to a person's native language, while modern linguistics limits the meaning of idiom to a specific usage of a group of words (Speake 1999:v). An idiom
functions as a unit and one cannot normally change words in it. One can say: It's raining cats and dogs, but one cannot say: It's raining a cat and a dog, and mean the same thing (Crystal 2003:226). Johnson-Laird (1993:vii) claims that it does not seem as if logicians created idioms, and Gibbs (1993:75) agrees that idioms are complex. To the people in whose languages the idioms appear, however, the meanings of them are perfectly clear. The idiom He's just pulling your leg, for example, is transparent to an English speaker, implying that the person is trying to make a joke. Etymologically the expression stems from the 18th century, when for example a robber made people trip by putting out a leg or a cane, which facilitated the robbery (Terban 1996:153). Crystal (2005:105) defines an idiom as "a pattern to be learnt
as a whole, and not as the 'sum of its parts'" while Speake (1999:v) claims that an idiom is a fossilized part of language where the component words are not given literal meanings. Gibbs (1993:57), on the other hand, believes that idioms can be analyzed and the different parts looked at, to find metaphorical senses contributing in the interpretation of the idiom.
2.2.6 Proverbs 2.2.6 Proverbs2.2.6 Proverbs 2.2.6 Proverbs
Proverbs differ somewhat from idioms, being "nuggets of popular wisdom, expressed in the form of succinct sayings" (Crystal 2005:53). These figures of speech are frequent in many cultures. One collection, written over time and by a number of authors, is found in the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament (Dillard & Longman III 1995:237). A couple of proverbs from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible are: A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger (Proverbs 15:1) and He who ignores instruction despises himself, but he who heeds admonition gains understanding (Proverbs 15:32). A proverb is often a moral lesson, as in: A stitch in time saves nine (Speake 2008:302).
2.3 Metaphor and culture 2.3 Metaphor and culture2.3 Metaphor and culture 2.3 Metaphor and culture
In her article "Anger and Grief in the Japanese, Swedish and American Cultures - The role of metaphor in conceptual processes", Gulz (1992:1) claims that human beings, in order to explain things, in particular emotions, use structures of some kind. A conceptual metaphor is a participant in a cognitive process, such as an idea, a plan, a standpoint, the forming of an attitude, etc. (Gulz 1992:2). Gulz tries to shed light on which aspects of the conceptions of emotions are culturally bound and which are more universal in nature. She considers individual differences between individuals and cultures and believes that there are some emotional concepts that are common to all children, regardless of what culture they grow up in, concepts that are created because humans have certain capacities in common (Gulz 1992:3). However, flexibility is also a human trait, which makes people able to shape themselves, adapt and adjust, e.g. to different living conditions (Gulz 1992:3). Maybe a certain conceptual metaphor is connected with a specific thought pattern (Gulz 1992:4)?
Letting out of anger might for example be connected to different conceptual metaphors, maybe taught by specific cultural settings. If a person uses an outburst to let go of anger, the conceptual metaphor PRESSURE THAT SOMETIMES MUST BE RELEASED might be at hand (Gulz 1992:4). In contrast, another person could be convinced that it is harmful to let go of the anger in such a way, and that it is better to rein in one's feelings. In this case the conceptual
metaphor at hand might be LETTING GO OF A DANGEROUS ANIMAL, which is something that should be avoided (Gulz 1992:4). Two persons could thus have different "metaphorical framing" (Gulz 1992:5), which would make them perceive a situation in different ways. In Japan, for example, it is more virtuous to hold back anger (Gulz 1992:6). In her article, Gulz refers to several empirical studies, most of which would agree that certain general conceptions are universal, for example that emotions are strongest initially and then gradually wane
(1992:6). A psychological study showed that individuals from different cultures paired pictures of various emotions with certain stories in a similar fashion, while another study confirmed that specific colors seem universally connected to certain emotions (Gulz 1992:6).
Metaphors such as up and down appear not to vary significantly in different cultures (Gulz 1992:6). In Gulz's (1992:7) comparison between Japanese, American and Swedish cultures with regard to anger, she highlights common stereotypes, for example that the Japanese are more controlled in showing emotions, Americans more explicit and Swedes somewhere in- between. Gulz's (1992:8) findings point to a general stream of conceptual metaphors similar in all three languages, where anger is heat in a container, followed by an explosion when expressed, or anger being an angry animal which needs to be bridled to be controlled.
Porter (1977:148) tells us about the figurative uses of, for example, the noun nawa, 'breath', in the Tboli language in the southern part of the Philippines. Figurative speech is frequently used in the language. An expression like Guingolu, 'I heard it', is for example often replaced with Betang bè klinguhu 'It fell on my ear', and the figurative expression Benkasem, 'Open it up', is often used instead of the more straight forward Tulónem, 'Tell it'. The word for breath, nawa, is extensively used in metaphorical expressions concerning emotions,
characteristics and expressions involving verbs. Love is called 'big breath', sadness is 'heavy breath', and 'broken breath' denotes desolation (Porter 1977:148). A 'divided breath' means disunity. 'Blocked breath', bnukù nawa, where the blockage, bnukù, is the junction between sections of the bamboo lengths, has the meaning of bitterness or unforgiveness (Porter 1977:148). To 'hold back breath' represents self-control, a person with a 'restricted breath' is short-tempered and to be brave is to have 'thick breath' (Porter 1977:149). To 'say breath' means to think something (Porter 1977:150).
Goddard (1996:149) notes that it is "well-known that in many languages the nearest equivalents to English terms like happy, afraid and excited apparently involve reference to a person's insides, or to an internal body-part like the stomach (in Yankunytjatjara), the heart, or the liver". "Indeed", says Porter, [in Tboli] "'nawa' is pretty much equivalent to 'heart' in
English. It is the seat of emotions since it represents the essence of life. You stop breathing and you are dead." 10
Yu (2008: 247-261) compares facein Chinese and English and brings up the
discussion about universality. The hypothesis by the author is that although the body and its experiences play a major role in metaphorical mappings, what is actually chosen from the multitude of bodily experiences to become a metaphorical mapping in a specific culture depends on the cultural filter it passes (Yu, 2008:253). If, on the other hand, cultures share the same understanding, they are more likely to develop similar metaphors.
3. Material and methods 3. Material and methods 3. Material and methods 3. Material and methods
This paper aims to compare metaphors in the non-Indo-European language Minangali and the Indo-European language English. By selecting targets that are expressed metaphorically in the two languages, metaphors can be compared and contrasted as to what conceptualizations underlie them. Two related languages would most likely use similar metaphors, if the cultural background is similar, but what if the languages are not related?
In section 3.1 below follows a short description of the language situation in Mangali, the place in the Philippines where the Minangali metaphor collection originates. In section 3.2, the material used is presented, while in section 3.3 methods used in the investigation are explained.
3.1 Minangali 3.1 Minangali3.1 Minangali 3.1 Minangali
Minangali is officially counted as a variety of the language Lower Tanudan Kalinga, one of the indigenous languages of the Philippines.11 Lower Tanudan Kalinga has around 11,000 speakers.12 Minangali is the variety spoken in the town of Mangali, which is the biggest town in the area. According to Machlan, the people of Mangali call Minangali a language, not a variety.13 Some other varieties of Lower Tanudan Kalinga are listed in Appendix C. Lower Tanudan Kalinga is an Austronesian language (Northern Philippines subgroup), found in the mountainous areas of the Northern Philippines (see map in Appendix C). A Minangali
10 E-mail correspondence March 2011, Doris_Porter@sil.org
11 There are 171 defined living indigenous languages in the Philippines and SIL has been involved in linguistic research in 94 of them. (E-mail correspondence, Nov 17 2010, Glenn Stallsmith, Associate Director for Academic Services of SIL Philippines, Incoming Director)
12 http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=PH (Kalinga, Lower Tanudan)
13 E-mail correspondence, Jewell Machlan, September 2010
wordlist can be found and listened to on the Internet.14 Some of the words on the wordlist will appear in the list of figures of speech.
3.2 Material 3.2 Material 3.2 Material 3.2 Material
The primary material in this study is taken from a web-based listing of 444 figures of speech in the Minangali language, where 230 figures of speech defined as metaphors were chosen for investigation.15 Out of these, 38 were selected for a closer study (the number includes a few euphemisms). It goes without saying that this list contains only a fraction of the figures of speech in the language. Machlan (unpublished ms) started to elicit the 444 figures of speech in November of 2000, after she had lived in the area for three years. The collection of the figures of speech was done during a time period of five and a half years and was a team effort by Jewell and Glenn Machlan and seven Minangalis, four men and three women, ranging in age between the early 30's and mid 60's.16 An Idioms Party was organized, during which figures of speech were contributed. After the session Jewell categorized the material, and more items continued to pour in. As a basis for her classification, she used Marlin Leaders' article "Eliciting Figures of Speech" (1991). During my own investigation of Minangali metaphors, requests for clarification were posed to Jewell and Glenn Machlan via e-mail, and questions to native speakers via text messaging.
The figures of speech in the web-based Minangali collection are divided into eight subgroups: metaphor, simile, hyperbole, metonymy, personification, euphemism, litotes and irony. These, as well as idioms and proverbs, were briefly defined in section 2 above, with the exception of metaphor, which was treated at some length. This investigation is based on 38 of the 230 figures of speech classified as metaphors, including as some euphemisms.
The primary source for metaphors in English has been Metalude, a metaphor
homepage under the auspices of Dr. Andrew Goatly of Lignan University in Hongkong.17 In Metalude a researcher can look up lexical items or search by root analogy-metaphorical patterns (conceptual metaphors). To be listed as a root analogy in Metalude, certain criteria have to be met. There must be at least six lexical items realizing the particular analogy, and at least 200 tokens of the item must appear in the Cobuild Bank of English/WordsOnline
14 http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/html/10125/1772/olson.html
15 SIL linguist Jewell Machlan has a special interest in figures of speech, and has collected the list of 444 of them in the Minangali language.
16 E-mail correspondence, Glenn Machlan, November 2010
17http://www.ln.edu.hk/lle/cwd/project01/web/home.html(Metalude)
corpus.18 Idiom Connection, an Internet compilation of English idioms, was also used.19 Other sources of metaphors in English briefly looked at have been the Metaphor and Metonymy Index in Metaphor and Emotion (Kövecses 2007:216-223) and the Metaphor and Metonymy Index in Metaphor by the same author (2010:369-375). The Online Oxford English
Dictionary was used to search for definitions of keywords in metaphors. In addition, the Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, the Longman Idioms Dictionary and the Scholastic Dictionary of Idioms were consulted in the search for English metaphors. The idiom dictionaries were leafed through, and idioms that seemed to be connected to the targets being investigated, marked. A total number of 146 metaphors (including some euphemisms) were finally selected for the study.
3.3 Methods 3.3 Methods3.3 Methods 3.3 Methods
First the 230 metaphors in Minangali were carefully read through and requests for
clarifications sent via e-mail to the compilers of the list and via text messaging to a native speaker of the language. In the Minangali list of figures of speech, the word image is used for source and topic for target. Although all the figures of speech on the list are now numbered, there was no number index among the indexes when I started my investigation. Hence I had to go through the metaphors one by one, sorting them into tentative groups. Later, though, when asked, the volunteer at the SIL office in Manila, who had set up the Internet list of Minangali Figures of Speech, was happy to create a number index for the compilation.20 This saves time when searching for a certain figure of speech and will be helpful for future users of the list.
So, now the following index categories are available in the Internet compilation of Minangali Figures of Speech: Minangali figure (written in Minangali), Meaning in English, Literal English, Topic, Image, Type and Number. Under Topic, Image and Type there are further subcategories. Beneath the heading Type, for example, different figures of speech can be found (See 2 above). A couple of these, metonymy and euphemism, have their own groups of keywords. Moreover, as I was looking for a way to find e.g. all the metaphors for thirst in my Minangali list of figures of speech, I returned to the person at the Manila SIL office who had helped set up the number index in the Internet list. From him I learnt that Google could be used in this search, by writing the word I was looking for, like thirst, followed by the word site, then a colon and finally the link to the list:
18 http://www.ln.edu.hk/lle/cwd/project01/web/introduction.html
19 http://www.idiomconnection.com
20 E-mail correspondence, Ian McQuay, SIL Manila, May 15, 2011
'thirst site:www.sil.org/asia/philippines/online/kml/figures/'. Using this method would take me directly to the different places in the Minangali list of Figures of Speech where the word thirst would appear. This was a handy tool to discover.
Second, targets of Minangali metaphors were identified and divided into groups. Due to the small number of Minangali metaphors, some of the groups consisted of only one or two. Therefore groups with somewhat larger numbers of metaphors, mainly between 2 and 13, were selected. Two groups (Worry and Thirst) ended up consisting of only one Minangali metaphor each. The target groups and subgroups that will be discussed in the result section are: Emotions: Anger, Love, Worry; Death and dying; Biological urges: Hunger, Thirst, Tiredness; Family matters: Courtship and marriage, Pregnancy and barrenness.
Next, English metaphors with similar targets as the metaphors in the Minangali groups were identified. As mentioned in 3.2, the English metaphors were mainly collected from the metaphor homepage Metalude, the web-based collection Idiom Connection21, the Oxford English Dictionary Online, as well as from idioms dictionaries such as the Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, the Longman Idioms Dictionary, the Scholastic Dictionary of Idioms and A
Thesaurus of Traditional English Metaphors. Then the different metaphorical expressions in Minangali and English were compared, to see to what extent the underlying conceptual metaphors agreed, or differed. The results are presented in section 4.
The Minangali figures of speech are listed in Appendix A, while the English ones are found in Appendix B. In the results, figures of speech are referred to using a letter and a number. Minangali ones are listed with the letter M and a number, e.g. M20, and the English ones are listed as E36, etc.
One advantage in my study has been that I have had access to the people who compiled the Minangali material, and I have even been able to ask questions to a native speaker, one of the contributors to the Minangali list of Figures of Speech. For example, looking through this list on the Internet, I discovered figures of speech in the metaphor collection that seemed to be similes, as the words like or as were present in the English translations. However, when I checked with the main compiler, she informed me that
sometimes she had added like or as in the English translation, even though those words were not present in the Minangali expressions. To discover whether a figure really should be categorized as a simile rather than a metaphor, I was told to look for the word isu, 'like', in Minangali. Subsequently, as I looked through the list of metaphors where the English word
21 www.idiomconnection.com. Accessed June 2011
like was found, only two metaphors turned out to be similes, #142 and #379. An example of hyperbole (and euphemism) among the metaphors was also discovered, #163. This figure talks about a young man who sings out his worries on a trail. The lyrics of the song include a threat to throw oneself away, i.e. commit suicide, which is a euphemism but also hyperbole, as he is "truly not planning to" [commit suicide] (Machlan).22
4. Analysis and results 4. Analysis and results4. Analysis and results 4. Analysis and results
The Minangali source of metaphors was naturally more limited than the much bigger source available in English. After all, Minangali has only around 11,000 speakers and the language has only been written down since the 1980s (Appendix C), while English has over 600,000 words and has been written down for over a thousand years (OED homepage). So, as one would expect, the numbers of English figures of speech in the tables below are much higher than those of Minangali. The total number of available Minangali metaphors was 230, out of which 38 were chosen for the study, while 146 English metaphors were used (both groups including some euphemisms). When creating my categories, the aim was to have at least two figures of speech with the same target, but it turned out this was not always possible. A survey of the categories is presented in Table 1 and Table 2. Table 1 shows the number of figures in each target category for both Minangali and English, while Table 2 shows the numbers in each subcategory, also for both languages in the survey.
Table 1. Survey of the number of figures of speech investigated for each target category.
Target Minangali English
Emotions 10 83
Death and dying 7 19
Biological urges 5 18
Family matters 16 26
Total 38 146
22 E-mail correspondence, Jewell Machlan June 4, 2011
Table 2. Survey of the number of metaphors investigated for each subcategory.
Target Minangali English
Emotions Anger 5 45
Love 2 14
Worry 1 12
Relief 2 12
Death and dying 7 19
Biological urges Hunger 2 2
Thirst 1 4
Tiredness 2 12
Family matters Courtship and Marriage
3 15
Pregnancy and barrenness
13 11
4.1 Emotions 4.1 Emotions4.1 Emotions 4.1 Emotions
4.1.1 Anger 4.1.1 Anger4.1.1 Anger 4.1.1 Anger
Anger is a strong emotion that can sometimes lead to fighting. In the medieval physiological scheme the human frame was considered to consist of four different humors: melancholy, phlegm, blood and choler. The blood was the hot, moist element according to this scheme, while fright was expressed as the blood curdling/running cold: Her screams were enough to curdle the blood (curdle 'turn milk into a solid substance'; E86). The anger, on the other hand, reflected such a boiling of the blood that the person might get out of control; hence it was dangerous to make one's blood boil ('infuriate somebody'; E3). Minangali uses this underlying conceptual metaphor ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER (Kövesces 2010 [2002]:369) for a person who gets so angry he challenges others to fight: His blood has boiled (M2). An English equivalent is Every time I see that man he makes my blood boil (E142). In English one can also say that someone's blood is up when a person is in a fighting mood (E130).
Temperature is an important ingredient in anger: EMOTION IS TEMPERATURE/ HEAT
(Kövesces 2007 [2000]:218). Metaphorically, the angrier a person gets, the hotter they
become. Ways of expressing anger in English in this manner are to be hot under one's collar (E4) and to have a hot temper (E148). It is important not to become too hot, as then one would have to take one's shirt off (to cool down or prevent overheating) (E102). Keeping cool is best: I tried to keep my cool (E103). Losing one's cool is not a good idea (E96).
Temperature can also suddenly rise: Tempers flared over who was entitled to the sunken treasure (E149); She flared up when she found out I'd been gambling (E115). Flames of fire as the source in a metaphor for anger is also used in Minangali: We shouldn't make a small thing flame up, as by blowing or putting paper or grass in ('we shouldn't make a small dispute seem more serious than it is'; M41).
If the temperature continues to rise there is a risk of overheating and overflow:
EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION IS OUTFLOW (Metalude). One canboil over with rage (E5). In Minangali they speak of anger as smoke coming out of one's head: My head is smoking (M1), while in English steam, white heat and heat are used: I was steamed up over t he fact that my friend lost the keys to my apartment (E134); The woman was steaming mad when the
customer service representative was rude to her on the telephone (E135); In the white heat of the moment we made regrettable comments (E8) and He apologized for shouting at her in the heat of the moment (E6). However, before the heat, steam or smoke gets out of the container, i.e. liquid turns to gas, something can be at boiling point: The crowd was at boiling point, and the police started firing teargas (E7). When finally the lid of the container flies off (and the anger flows out), it can be described as blowing a fuse (E106), hit the ceiling (108), hit the roof (E109), blow one's stack (E110), blow one's top (E111), blow up (E113), fly off a handle (E117) and even go into orbit (E121).
EMOTION IS INSANITY (Kövesces 2007 [2000]:218) is another underlying conceptual metaphor found in my English examples: I often get mad at my friend when he is late (E120);
The boy's mother threw a fit when she heard about his problems at school (E125); I freaked out when I discovered that my reservation had not been made (E119) and Our boss was mad as a hornet when we saw him yesterday (E140). "Mad as a hornet" could also be an example of the conceptual metaphor ANGRY BEHAVIOR IS AGGRESSIVE ANIMAL BEHAVIOR (Kövesces 2007 [2000]:216). Another example of this conceptual metaphor could be the following: My father was foaming at the mouth when I told him that I had damaged his car (foaming like a mad dog; E118). Furthermore, the expressions: The man's angry words stirred up the crowd and made everybody angry (E130) and The man stirred up a hornet's nest (E131) might be examples of the conceptual metaphor EMOTION IS PHYSICAL AGITATION (Kövesces 2007 [2000]:218).
Angry outbursts can sometimes be likened to a person being a container with a lid and when the heat, anger, inside the person rises and overflows and the lid or top flows off, an outburst follows. Because the outcome of such an event is unpredictable, two of the
underlying conceptual metaphors could be EMOTION IS A CAPTIVE ANIMAL (Kövecses 2010 [2002]:371)or ANGRY BEHAVIOR IS AGGRESSIVE ANIMAL BEHAVIOR (Kövecses 2007 [2000]:216). When this "angry animal" is being released into an emotional outburst,
regrettable things might follow suit, hence this angry person might be fit to be tied, 'hopping mad' (so mad he or she ought to be tied? E143). Angry feelings can also be let out by venting one's spleen as in I was able to vent my spleen at the manager of our apartment for the problems that she was causing (E189).
When a person becomes angry enough, they might metaphorically go on a warpath (E145) or pick a fight with someone (E139). They might then find a person with a chip on his shoulder (a practice from the 1830's in which a chip is placed on one person's shoulder for the other to knock off; E133) and might raise his hand against him ('hit'; E144). The underlying conceptual metaphor now at hand could be EMOTION IS WAR (Kövesces 2007 [2000]:218).
To hit someone in anger, by words or deeds, can in English be described as to lash out at somebody (E101), lash out and hit somebody (E102), take a whack at (E128), take a punch at, as well as strike out at someone (E129). A place can be under fire (E123) as people have taken up arms (E127) and they might be doing hand-to-hand combat (E132). In Minangali a person whose blood has boiled wants to fight (M2).
There are two underlying conceptual metaphors with regard to anger in the Minangali examples that were difficult to find in English. The first one was ANGER IS HAVING ITCHY BLOOD (made-up example), found in the example their blood became itchy (They want to fight someone from another village; M4). Later on in the study an expression in English with regard to this conceptual metaphor was found, namely to itch for a fight23 The other
underlying conceptual metaphor relating to anger, used in Minangali but harder to find in English, was ANGER IS DARK LOOK (made-up example): Mary's face was dark this morning (Mary looked angry this morning; M3). I searched the OED, Metalude and Idiom Connection for both dark face and dark look, without results. Later on in the study, however, I found out that it is possible to give a dark (angry) look to someone in English. In Australian English it is possible to be dark at a person when angry, but this is a metonymy, as it refers to the
reddening of the face for the anger (Kövecses 2007 [2000]:39).
23 http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/12/07/131879902/coming-up-president-obama-s-news-conference
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