Figurative Language Communicates Directly PDF

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology / Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale ISSN: 1196-1961 © 2021 Canadian Psychological Association 2021, Vol. 75, No. 2, 228–233 https://doi.org/10.1037/cep0000254 Figurative Language Communicates Directly Because It Precisely Demonstrates What We...

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology / Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale ISSN: 1196-1961 © 2021 Canadian Psychological Association 2021, Vol. 75, No. 2, 228–233 https://doi.org/10.1037/cep0000254 Figurative Language Communicates Directly Because It Precisely Demonstrates What We Mean Herbert L. Colston1 and Raymond W. Gibbs2 1 Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta 2 Independent Scholar, Santa Cruz, California We often believe that figurative language refers to speakers saying what they do not really mean. After all, metaphors, idioms, irony, and other varied figures of speech are presumed to communicate something beyond what they literally state. Yet this traditional view mistakenly assumes it is sometimes possible to directly, and precisely express one’s meaning, through the use of so-called literal language. Under this view, figurative language is primarily employed, sometimes quite deliberately, for special rhetorical reasons, such as to be polite, to be memorable, to be vivid, or to express ideas that simply can’t be easily formulated into literal speech. This article takes issue with many of these long-held beliefs within the multidisciplinary study of figurative language. Figurative language works efficiently, and is mostly produced and understood without special effort, because it precisely demonstrates what we mean. This quality of figurative language makes it an ideal vehicle for capturing our complex figurative thoughts and enables others to experience what we are thinking and feeling. In many respects, figurative language works so well because it communicates directly given there is simply no alternative method which meets people’s adaptive cognitive and social needs. Public Significance Statement Many people think literal language, where the words used tightly fit the meaning expressed (as in, “I am really busy”), is direct, where figurative language, where the words used have a different literal meaning than the broader actual meaning expressed (“My plate is really full”—meaning I am really busy) is indirect. This paper argues that figurative language actually is direct. The broader actual meaning of “My plate is full” (meaning that I am really busy) comes from the deeply experienced similar feeling of having too full a plate, and too full a schedule. Keywords: figurative language, demonstration, direct communication, social needs, cognitive needs Consider the following authentic comment from a conversation heard by both authors. Some friends were discussing the personality of a colleague, who they all admired and liked. But several friends also noted that their colleague often spoke quite directly and very critically when commenting on other people’s scholarship. Everyone still recognized that the colleague cared about and sympathized with other people, despite his severe criticism of them at the same time. One person in the group summarized their feelings by saying, “Yeah, he’s a sensitive asshole.” Although figurative language is often believed to communicate indirectly, the comment “Yeah, he’s a sensitive asshole,” quite directly expresses the group’s contradictory impressions of their colleague, and does so in a succinct and hilarious (everyone laughed) manner. Figurative language, unlike most so-called direct, literal speech, is capable of conveying complex ideas in ways that can also elicit humor, a sense of group solidarity, and even greater appreciation for their friend’s personality flaws. Our aim in this article is to defend the idea that figurative language communicates directly, contrary to the traditional view. People speak and write figuratively because they see no alternative method for expressing the cognitive, social, and affective complexities of how we think about ourselves and the world around us. Many forms of figuration come into being, and continue to flourish in discourse, because of their extraordinary ability to express a range of meanings, pragmatic effects, and emotional/aesthetic attitudes in a particularly direct manner. Figurative language is special because it often concretely demonstrates, and not merely describes, what people are thinking and aiming to communicate through appeal to bodily experiences (e.g., feeling physically and/or emotionally sensitive and the role that “assholes” play in bodily functioning). This possibility opens up different avenues for interpreting previous research findings and new ways of studying the role that figuration has in human meaning-making activities. We also would like to express our gratitude for the influence from our fellow colleague on figurative thought and language, Albert Katz. Our thoughts on these matters have deep roots in Albert Katz’s research and writings on figurative language (e.g., Colston & Katz, 2004; Katz et al., 1998). This article was published Online First May 27, 2021. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1256-0892 Herbert L. Colston Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Herbert L. Colston, Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E7, Canada. Email: [email protected] 228 FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE COMMUNICATES DIRECTLY The Limits of Direct Expression Figurative language, and the meanings it conveys, is often viewed as “indirect” within linguistics, psychology, and philosophy. Consider, for example, the following list of figurative expressions and their rough literal paraphrases: Figurative expression Literal paraphrase Can you pass the salt? (indirect request) John kicked the bucket (idiom) Strike while the iron is hot (proverb) Barry was a bulldog at meetings (metaphor) A fine friend you are (sarcasm) Pass me the salt John died Take advantage of a situation when you can Barry acted aggressively at meetings You’re a bad friend There are always difficulties in paraphrasing the meanings of figurative language, a fact that has not stopped psycholinguists and others from trying to do so when conducting experiments. But the traditional assumption is that figurative language offers “indirect” means for communicating messages which can be paraphrased more literally or directly. Figurative language offers additional aesthetic and social benefits, such as making a speaker’s message more polite (e.g., saying “Can you pass the salt?” as opposed to the more direct, and possibly less polite, “Pass me the salt”). One of the most longstanding challenges in experimental psycholinguistics has been to explore exactly how people learn, produce, and understand the so-called indirect meanings conveyed by figurative language. A tremendously large literature now exists showing the possible costs and benefits in using figurative language given its presumed status as a bearer of “indirect” meaning (Colston, 2015; Gibbs & Colston, 2012). Part of the reason why figurative language is viewed as “indirect” is because it is assumed to contrast with literal, semantic meanings. Figurative meaning, therefore, is part of pragmatics to the extent that it requires sufficient contextual information, and various other rich pragmatic background knowledge, in order to be understood. Consider, again, the indirect request “Can you pass the salt?” The literal, semantic interpretation of this expression refers to a serious question about a listener’s ability to engage in a specific action of picking up and handing over the salt shaker. It is figurative, pragmatic interpretation of “Pass me the salt” is understood given a person’s reading of the context in which the question was made, namely, two people sitting together eating dinner together where it is quite possible for one person to want more salt on his/her food. This contextual information presumably drives the comprehension process to go beyond what the speaker’s question says to determine the imperative she actually implies for the listener to understand. Many early theories of indirect language usage mirror this account by suggesting that indirect meaning should ordinarily be more difficult to interpret than statements that convey speaker’s messages more directly (e.g., the “standard pragmatic model”—see Gibbs, 1994, Gibbs & Colston, 2012 for discussions of this idea). However, the long history of experimental psycholinguistics has shown that people do not necessarily take more time or effort to infer so-called indirect meanings than direct meanings (again, see Gibbs, 1994; Gibbs & Colston, 2012). Indirect messages can be as easy, or even easier, to interpret than messages stated directly given supporting linguistic and social context. Indirect requests, for example, are 229 easier to understand when they concretely specify the main potential obstacle that listeners face in complying with the request (Gibbs, 1986). “Can you pass the salt?” is faster to understand in a context where the listener’s ability to pass the salt is the greatest possible obstacle in complying with the request than in situations in which the listener’s willingness to comply is most at question (e.g., “ Would you mind passing me the salt?”). In this manner, different forms of indirect requests are quite specific in their contextuallyappropriate meanings in a way that direct requests (e.g., “Pass the salt”) are not. Many so-called direct forms of linguistic expression actually require a good deal of pragmatic, contextual information in order to be properly understood. For example, the statement “John cut the grass” seems quite direct in what it aims to communicate (i.e., John mowed the lawn), and would typically be classified as an ideal example of conveying a literal, direct message. But as Searle (1980) once argued, most literal expressions require deep pragmatic knowledge to be successfully interpreted. The verb “cut” in “John cut the lawn” does not imply any particular sort of cutting, such as with a scissors or jackknife, or via a larger mechanical device such as a lawn mower (and yet in some contexts, in some historical periods, it may refer to a type of cutting associated with using a scythe). Listeners readily infer this deep background knowledge about appropriate method for “cutting” the grass and also engage in metonymic reasoning to infer that “the grass” refers specifically to the grass that makes up a lawn or lawn area. Similar complex inferences are required to understand that “the salt” in “Pass me the salt” is the material contained in a specific device (i.e., a salt shaker) on the table where the interlocutors are presently sitting. Pragmatic and figurative (e.g., metonymic) inferences of these sorts often underlie people’s understanding of linguistic statements that are presumed to reflect literal or direct meaning. These observations about the pragmatics of literal speech, often viewed as paraphrases of figurative expressions in psycholinguistic experiments, provide another reason to doubt traditional models of figurative language understanding which presume that literal, semantic analyses are always automatically examined before any pragmatic information or processes are recruited. The Complexity of Figurative Meanings Figurative language typically communicates a range of meanings that are not easily conveyed by so-called literal or direct equivalents. The expression “John kicked the bucket” is thought to simply express the idea that “John died,” yet “kick the bucket” in contexts of dying refers to a particular form of dying (e.g., sudden, usually unexpected death) that is partly the reason why the verb “kick” is employed in this phrase because it implies a fast, sudden action (Hamblin & Gibbs, 1999). Some idioms, especially those motivated by enduring conceptual metaphors, communicate a rich set of metaphorical and metonymic meanings that simply can’t be expressed through direct statements which are usually more vague in their meanings (Gibbs & O’Brien, 1990). For instance, people understand the idiomatic expression “John blew his stack” to mean something far more precise than what is accomplished by the literal paraphrase “John got angry.” People typically infer that “John blew his stack” conveys the idea that John got angry involuntarily because of some internal pressure, exhibited his anger in a violent manner, and in a way that is not easily taken back once 230 COLSTON AND GIBBS expressed (Gibbs, 1992). This set of metaphorical inferences emerges from the recruitment of the conceptual metaphor ANGER IS HEATED FLUID IN THE BODILY CONTAINER that partly motivates the creation and continued use of this conventional metaphor. In fact, people take longer to comprehend “John blew his stack” in contexts that violate one of the metaphorical entailments (e.g., contexts in which John intentionally displayed his anger) than in contexts in which the different entailments (e.g., the cause of the anger, the intentionality of the anger display, and the irreversibility of the anger display) were all quite evident (Gibbs, 1992). These findings also demonstrate that idioms are not frozen “dead” metaphors, but can convey rich metaphorical meanings that simple paraphrase statements (e.g., “John got very angry”) are unable to communicate Gibbs and Blackwell (2012). The sarcastic phrase “A fine friend you are” communicates much more than simply “You are not a good friend,” because of the way sarcasm/irony enables speakers to mock the assertion made (e.g., the speaker mocks the presumed belief that the listener is not a good friend given that person’s recent behavior; Colston, 2015). The proverb “Strike while the iron is hot” conveys a very concrete image of one circumstance in which it is good to immediately act in a decisive manner. The specificity of the concrete event (e.g., striking iron at exactly the right moment to alter its shape) metonymically stands-for a wider range of situations in which it is good to act immediately to achieve some important life goal. People are easily able to draw these larger set of messages when reading proverbs, but do not do so nearly as much when reading literal paraphrases (e.g., “Take advantage of a situation when you can”) (Gibbs et al., 1997) Various so-called indirect forms of contradiction, such as Dickens’ famous opening line “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” as well as other self-contradictory statements like “bittersweet,” “passive aggressive,” and “sensitive asshole,” all concisely demonstrate contradictions in ways that so-called direct language can not do. Trying to describe a contradiction using a direct language (e.g., “He is both passive and aggressive”) describes something about the speaker’s thoughts but do not demonstrate what the speaker precisely means. Commenting that someone is a “sensitive asshole” refers to two specific bodily sensations and parts, which via metaphor (“sensitive”) and metonymy (“asshole”) are concretely juxtaposed to express the idea that this person is, perhaps surprisingly, both of these things (e.g., sensitive in the emotional sense and difficult to deal with in the interpersonal sense). Hyperbole is another figurative form whose brevity serves to stealthily leverage meaning in ways difficult to achieve nonfiguratively (Colston & Carreno, 2020). A speaker might lament, for example, the level of relationship activity to a romantic partner by commenting, “We never go anywhere, we never do anything!” Using hyperbole in this manner draws the listener’s attention to the discrepancy between expectations and reality (i.e., between expected versus actual levels of relationship activity) by inflating that discrepancy (i.e., saying the couple “never” goes places together outside the house when in reality they go out infrequently). This technique emerges from a standard rule in human perception— if you wish to draw attention to something, make it distinctive (Colston & O’Brien, 2000). A ready means of making something distinctive is to make it big (following the primary metaphor IMPORTANCE IS BIG). In making transparent their desire for the discrepancy to be noticed, speakers also demonstrate their main motivation in using the hyperbole, namely, to get another person to recognize some disparity and possibly do something to remedy the situation (Colston, 2015; Colston & Keller, 1998). Conveying such a strong means of complaint is much harder to do nonfiguratively (e.g., “We don’t go places or do things as often as I would like and I am very unhappy about this”), because such speech does not demonstrate what a speaker thinks. The use of hyperbole, in this case, demonstrates exactly, and succinctly what the speaker wants the listener to understand. One reason, among many, that figurative language is presumed to communicate indirectly is because of the belief that meanings are primarily propositional in content (e.g., “Can you pass the salt?” simply means “Pass the salt”). But the use of figurative language affords a range of pragmatic, social, affective, and aesthetic responses that are also a major part of why people speak using metaphor, idioms, proverbs, irony, and so on. To take one case, repeating a speaker’s utterance can communicate ironic effects (e.g., “Yeah right, the American moon landings were obviously a CIA hoax!”). These ironic restatements serve to dispel what another speaker just said (e.g., “The American moon landings were a CIA hoax”), but go further to insinuate that the speaker should have known better and not made the error in the first place (Colston, 2000). The shaming power of ironic restatements is weakened, though, when a direct statement is employed (e.g., “That’s not true and you should know better than to assert it”). Ironic restatements demonstrate that a statement is in error (i.e., by putting the statement on the table for consideration, with transparent pretense, to allow its incorrectness to stand out against accepted fact in the background context), rather than explaining how the statement is in error. Metaphor is often regarded as expressing vague meanings when compared to language that is more concrete, literal, objective, and direct (see Gibbs, 1994 for discussion of this long-standing belief). Yet metaphorical discourse, similar to other facets of figurative language, expresses rich meanings and impressions that closely correspond to the figurative conceptions that people wish to speak about (Colston, 2015; Gibbs, 1994; Gibbs & Colston, 2012; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Consider the human emotion love. It is difficult for people to easily describe what love is and feels like (e.g., “I love you very much” is fine, but it only vaguely describes what the speaker feels). Metaphor can demonstrate, and not just describe, what we think and feel about love. For example, the 17th-century Spanish poet Francisco Quevedo wrote an amazing poem titled “Defining Love” that expressed some of the contradictions about love experience (Olivares, 1993). His poem outlined a series of metaphorical contrasts. Love is “ice that burns, it is frozen fire, it’s a wound that hurts and is not felt.” Love is also “a liberty locked up in prison, that lasts until the last convulsion, an illness which spread if it’s cured.” These contrasts aptly capture some of the novel metaphorical ways by which people sometimes experience love in all of its contradictory complexities. The mixing of metaphor in “Defining Love” is not at all incoherent, as people often conceive of complex topics (e.g., human emotions) in multiple metaphorical ways (Gibbs, 2017). These mixed metaphors (e.g., “ice that burns” and “frozen fire”) convey something of the concrete specifics of love experiences in oxymoronic ways that possible literal alternatives would never be able to do. The metaphors in “Defining Love” do not completely capture everything of people’s love experiences, but are still evocative of rich understandings that are both quite precise and still vague FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE COMMUNICATES DIRECTLY enough to encourage readers to create their own personal conceptions for what love is all about. Figurative language is not indirect in its meanings and expressions given the significant, yet still complex, precision it affords thinking and speaking. Figurative language is special in the ways it reveals what we think and hope to communicate because different forms of figuration reflect specific types of human conceptualizations, ones that are not readily addressed via nonfigurative means. For example, a speaker may construe some interpersonal situation as demanding a comment that highlights an alteration or outright violation of expectations given his or her dislike of that deviation. In such as case, stating something that is ironic or hyperbolic may seem most suitable for the context. But irony and hyperbole highlight differences differently. Hyperbole inflates it to bring attention to the deviation, while irony exposes what should have happened given prior expectations. The exact form of figuration people employ, and these are also mixed together within single utterances, depends on how individuals are thinking about the topic and the particular communicative intentions they may have at any moment in time. The complexity of figurative language does not make this form of discourse always more difficult to interpret, even when compared to simple, so-called direct or literal paraphrases when presented in context (Gibbs & Colston, 2012). There are cases and contexts in which certain figurative expressions may be more challenging to comprehend, such as when reading novel poetic metaphors or when a person leisurely reads a literary text. Still, the common idea that figurative language communicates meaning indirectly and is understood via more indirect processing steps (e.g., the classic standard pragmatic model) is simply not true. Figurative Demonstrations Through Embodied Simulations What makes figurative communication direct is the fact that different figurative forms demonstrate, and not merely describe, what speakers mean. Demonstrating through language, or gesture, involves creating bodily images that other people can feel and understand through embodied simulation processes. People are driven to express their thoughts and feelings using linguistic and bodily tools (e.g, gesture, posture, tone of voice) that most closely correspond to their embodied figurative conceptions. At the same time, people construct imaginative, embodied reenactments of what some specific discourse must be like to participate in given their own bodily capacities and experiences (Bergen, 2012; Colston, 2019; Gibbs, 2017; Gibbs & Colston, 2012). This includes imaginatively enacting some of the characteristic elements of people’s figurative thoughts and meaning intentions. People do not first process language via purely linguistic analyses and only later experience different pragmatic, social, affective, and aesthetic effects. Instead, embodied simulation processes concretely, directly, demonstrate what some other person may be feeling or thinking (Gibbs & Colston, 2019). The products of imaginative simulation process represent the embodied interpretation of linguistic meaning. Consider the simple statement “John couldn’t grasp the concept of infinity.” A “concept” is an abstract entity and it seems odd to think that one could physically “grasp” something that 231 does not physically exist. But various experimental studies have revealed that people perform embodied simulations when interpreting verbal metaphors (Gibbs, 2017). For example, studies show that having people first make a hand movement, such as reaching out to grasp something, subsequently facilitates the speed with which they comprehend a metaphorical phrase such “grasp the concept” (Wilson & Gibbs, 2007). When people were asked to form mental images for metaphorical action phrases, such as “tear apart the argument,” their reported imagery exhibited significant embodied qualities of the actions referred to by these phrases (e.g., people conceive of the “argument” as a physical object that when torn apart no longer persists; Gibbs et al., 2005–2006). Simulating what some action (e.g., grasping a concept, tearing apart the argument) may be like requires brain processes related to people actually performing that action (e.g., research on “mirror neurons”–Gallese & Lakoff, 2005). In fact, sensorimotor brain activation has been observed during the comprehension of abstract and figurative use of language, such as metaphors and idioms. Reading an abstract transfer statement (e.g., “give the news”) activates the motor system exactly as does reading concrete transfer expressions (e.g., “give the pizza”; Glenberg et al., 2008). When people read metaphorical action phrases, such as “grasp the concept,” there was nearly identical activation in motor areas of the brain as when participants saw literal action statements (e.g., “John grasped the straw”; Desai et al., 2011). Listening to taste metaphors (e.g., “She looked at him sweetly”) or auditory metaphors (e.g., “Her limousine was a privileged snort”) also showed increased activation in relevant somatosensory brain areas (Citron & Goldberg, 2014). These findings are consistent with the idea that people interpret figurative and abstract language partly through imaginatively participating in the actions referred to. There remain ongoing debates over when and how embodied simulations may operate during language comprehension (Gibbs, 2017; Gibbs & Colston, 2019; Zwaan, 2014). But there is sufficient experimental evidence for us to suggest that embodied simulations play some role in using figurative discourse. Our claim is that people can experience complex figurative meanings directly because of embodied simulation processes. By recreating for themselves in an embodied, imaginative manner what figurative actions may be like, people come into direct contact what speakers and writers may be thinking or feeling through their language performances. In sarcastic verbal irony for instance, where a speaker purports to happily appreciate something (“Yipee, now I can take the rest of the afternoon off!”), when their true feelings are angry frustration (i.e., having a huge amount of work dumped on them), listeners can directly experience the contrast in perspectives being demonstrated. The embodied specificity of much figurative language makes it a superior way to express what people mean compared to many forms of so-called direct language (e.g., paraphrases of figurative expressions). Embodied simulation processes cascade as people read texts or engage in lengthier conversations which efficiently, directly, demonstrate what some other person is dynamically experiencing. These dynamic, sensory imaginings do not merely describe a person’s cognitive conceptions and social aims, but demonstrate these for others to understand and appreciate. 232 COLSTON AND GIBBS Conclusion Figurative language is not indirect. Different types of figurative speech, in varying manners, communicate directly because they concretely demonstrate, and do not merely describe, the figurative complexities of what people mean when using figurative language. This possibility offers a novel way of thinking about, and studying, figurative language use. First, if figurative language is more than indirect, ornamental speech, then greater focus is needed on the close correspondences between different forms of figuration in language and in thought. Not only does linguistic metaphor emerge from entrenched patterns of metaphorical thought, but so too does metonymy, idioms, proverbs, forms of irony, oxymora, and so on also reflect different combinations of figurative thought in action. Figurative language research would do well to more concretely explore the relationship between figurative language use and understanding with varying forms of figurative thinking. Second, the reasons for employing figurative language are complex and include different cognitive, social, affective, and aesthetic motivations. Figurative language, as with all language, works not just to convey speaker meaning, but to derive the social impact of what a person is saying. There may be a tight link between people’s figurative thinking and the social impact they wish to attain with their different forms of figuration. Future experimental studies would also do well to further investigate more on how figurative forms accomplish diverse social aims through specific embodied simulation products. Embodied simulations offer a concrete, sensory impressions of what people wish to express their figurative discourse, including creating, affirming, and maintaining social connections, managing social status in social hierarchies and networks, as well as building and honing a sense-of-self which aligns with socially derived expectations. Figurative language may not communicate all that speakers may think and intend to communicate. At the very least, though, figurative discourse provides others an entry through embodied simulation processes to people’s distinctive, precisely concrete forms of figurative thinking Résumé On pense souvent que le recours au langage figuré signifie que le locuteur n’énonce pas ce qu’il croit vraiment. Après tout, les métaphores, les expressions idiomatiques, l’ironie et d’autres figures de style sont présumées servir à communiquer autre chose que ce qu’ils affirment littéralement. Pourtant, ce point de vue traditionnel présume à tort qu’il est possible d’exprimer directement et précisément des idées au moyen du langage propre. Selon ce point de vue, le sens figuré est principalement employé, parfois assez délibérément, à des fins rhétoriques particulières, par exemple, pour énoncer des propos polis, mémorables, saisissants, ou pour exprimer des idées qui ne peuvent être facilement formulées au moyen du sens propre. Le présent article conteste nombre de ces croyances de longue date au sein de l’étude multidisciplinaire du langage figuré. Le langage figuré est efficace et il est le plus souvent produit et compris sans effort particulier, car il montre précisément ce que locuteur veut exprimer. Cette qualité du langage figuré en fait un véhicule idéal pour saisir nos pensées figurées complexes et permet aux autres de comprendre ce que nous pensons et ressentons. 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