Month: May 2025

🔍 Overview and Context

• Publication: College English, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Oct. 1968), pp. 31–47.
• Thesis: Metaphor is not simply a stylistic device in literature but a foundational mechanism of cultural understanding, identity, and historical consciousness.
• Kaufmann critiques dominant critical methodologies (especially New Criticism), urging a return to “rigorous literary thinking on questions of a larger than rhetorical scope” (p. 32).

🌐 1. Metaphor as Constitutive, Not Decorative

🧠 “Controlled metaphorical stipulations establish the imaginative matrix for human growth.” (p. 33)

• Metaphor forms the cognitive infrastructure of how individuals and cultures construct meaning.
• Kaufmann argues that basic metaphors, such as “life is a voyage”, shape cultural consciousness and ethical frameworks (p. 33).
• Metaphor is thus a cultural tool, not merely a poetic flourish: “Metaphorical acculturation is the ground for our historicity.” (p. 33)

📚 2. Case Studies: More, Kant, and Pascal

🧭 Thomas More’s Utopia

• Uses the metaphor “life is a voyage” to structure a critique of European society.
• Hythloday’s alienation signals More’s unresolved inner conflict: “To arrive in utopia…one must make the antecedent repudiation which More was fractionally tempted to but could not make.” (p. 34)

🕊️ Immanuel Kant

• In Critique of Pure Reason, Kant’s metaphor of the dove flying more freely in a vacuum expresses the illusion of pure reason independent of experience.
• Kaufmann sees this as “a new covenant…Our new covenant is with our own unaided strength” (p. 35), suggesting metaphor as philosophical boundary-setting.

😔 Blaise Pascal

• Uses metaphor to dramatize existential anxiety and spiritual vigilance.
• “Formulations are traps” – Pascal resists systematization (p. 36).
• His metaphorical loops express theological dread: “Spiritual Death is the Betrayal of Christ… Sleep is a Sweet Thing” (p. 36)

🌀 3. Metaphor and Cultural Norms

🧩 “Metaphor functions as a great type of normative device… to create and sustain patterns of meaning.” (p. 38)

• Metaphors reflect social and cultural agreements, reinforcing normative structures.
• Example: “Sunset” in Rumanian is “the sun enters into sainthood”—revealing religious metaphor embedded in language (p. 40).
• Literary metaphor shares with cultural metaphor the role of public thinking and organizing experience (p. 38–39).

🧱 4. Metaphor vs. Imagism

🎭 “Metaphor… culminates in overt didacticism… Imagism presupposes a passive receptivity.” (p. 39)

• Kaufmann distinguishes between metaphor (analytical, structured, didactic) and imagism (expressive, immediate, unprocessed).
• Pure imagism: “This is this and this and this”
  Metaphor: “This is that” (p. 39)

🧬 5. Metaphor as Social and Psychological Marker

⚙️ “The metaphorical structure of a work may reveal an artist’s personal and cultural stance.” (p. 37)

• Kafka’s writing is metaphorically opaque and self-contained: “There is nothing constitutive in his artistic warrant.” (p. 39)
• Metaphorical awareness distinguishes vital art from solipsistic or dysfunctional expression.

🏰 6. The Metaphor of “Faith as a Citadel” in Othello

🏹 “Faith is a citadel.” (p. 45)

• Structural metaphor in Othello equates spiritual trust with fortified defense.
• Othello’s tragedy is a collapse of faith: “It was Desdemona’s faith that was his citadel, not his own poor insecure ramparts.” (p. 45)

👁️ 7. “God is an Eye”: Cultural Metaphor of Providence

👁️ “One might suppose the metaphor ‘God is an eye’ outmoded, but it infiltrates the most sophisticated circles.” (p. 46)

• Kaufmann traces this metaphor through Homer, the Stoics (Seneca), Christianity, and even existentialism (Sartre).
• This metaphor affirms that being seen validates existence: “Literature is most vivid when it is watched.” (p. 43)

🧪 8. Metaphor as Tool for Historical and Literary Criticism

🔬 “The radical metaphor is the lens which creates the contemporary perspective we otherwise will lack.” (p. 47)

• Metaphor bridges the divide between history and literature, enabling empathic understanding and moral abstraction.
• Concludes with a call for critics to embrace metaphor as both method and insight in reading literature and culture.

✨ Conclusion

Kaufmann’s essay reclaims metaphor as the central organizing principle in literature, history, psychology, and cultural life. Rather than a secondary ornament, metaphor is foundational: it creates meaning, reveals hidden structures, and offers shared frames of understanding.

🪞 “The point of original incandescence for a work of art is its first pregnant and often unexpressed metaphor; the rest is second-order elaboration.” (p. 47)

🔁 1. Repositions Metaphor as Central to Meaning-Making

• Contribution: Moves metaphor from rhetorical ornament to a constitutive force in literature and culture.
• Kaufmann asserts metaphor is a tool of cognitive and cultural formation, not just literary decoration.
• 📌 “Human use of metaphor is often constitutive… metaphorical stipulations establish the imaginative matrix for human growth.” (p. 33)

🧠 2. Introduces the Concept of Radical Metaphor

• Contribution: Defines radical metaphor as the unspoken core metaphor organizing a literary work’s structure and values.
• Helps critics understand works like Utopia and Othello through their submerged metaphorical logic.
• 📌 “The point of original incandescence for a work of art is its first pregnant and often unexpressed metaphor.” (p. 47)

🧭 3. Bridges Literary and Historical Analysis

• Contribution: Shows how metaphor links individual perception with historical context, enabling interdisciplinary critical methods.
• Encourages integration of cultural history and formal analysis.
• 📌 “Metaphorical habits betray the social compass of the thinker-artist’s basic position.” (p. 37)

👁️ 4. Frames Metaphor as a Normative and Pedagogical Tool

• Contribution: Positions metaphor as a mechanism by which cultures teach, regulate, and normalize behavior.
• Connects metaphor to education, moral formation, and ideology.
• 📌 “Metaphor functions as a great type of normative device… creating and sustaining patterns of meaning.” (p. 38)

🧱 5. Critiques the Limits of New Criticism

• Contribution: Challenges New Criticism’s focus on close reading by advocating for macro-level metaphorical analysis.
• Emphasizes engagement with texts beyond formal structure, addressing existential and cultural questions.
• 📌 “New Criticism… created a useful technology… but… its polemics became confused with a general description of the whole critical act.” (p. 31)

🔬 6. Develops a Theory of Literary Cognition

• Contribution: Describes metaphor as a cognitive structure influencing how humans categorize and process experience.
• Anticipates contemporary work in cognitive poetics and conceptual metaphor theory.
• 📌 “Metaphor simplifies what would otherwise be too complex to evoke a normative response.” (p. 42)

🔄 7. Challenges Traditional Classifications of Literary Genre

• Contribution: Warns against limiting texts by genre; instead, he urges readers to follow the metaphorical logic that governs a work’s deeper purpose.
• 📌 “There is no important purpose served by mere categorization in the handling of a text of sufficient imaginative force.” (p. 33)

🧬 8. Introduces Metaphor as Diagnostic Method

• Contribution: Encourages using metaphor as a diagnostic tool to probe the psyche, ideology, and historical position of a text or author.
• 📌 “Kafka’s ominous simplicity… calls the normal operations of metaphor into question.” (p. 38)

🧪 9. Equates Metaphor with Ethical and Existential Inquiry

• Contribution: Suggests metaphor reveals the moral structure of characters and cultures.
• Offers a way to read literature ethically without moralizing.
• 📌 “Metaphor defines relevant but denied components in the complex self through affective simplification.” (p. 44)

🔄 10. Sets Foundations for Metaphor as Cultural Symbol

• Contribution: Establishes the notion that cultural metaphors like “God is an eye” or “life is a journey” underpin not just texts but civilizational systems.
• 📌 “Culturally determining metaphors… act as a means of self-definition… and cannot easily be discarded.” (p. 47)

🔚 Conclusion:

Kaufmann’s essay reshapes literary theory by positioning metaphor at the heart of interpretation, ethics, history, and pedagogy. His insights anticipate modern interdisciplinary approaches and enrich our understanding of how literature functions as a social, psychological, and philosophical enterprise.

🎯 Too Broad a Definition of Metaphor

• Kaufmann stretches the definition of metaphor to include nearly all forms of meaning-making.
• 🟣 Critique: This over-expansion risks making metaphor analytically meaningless by encompassing everything from theology to cognition.
• 🔍 “Most non-analytical propositions… could be fruitfully considered as metaphor.” (p. 38)

🧱 Neglects Materialist or Socioeconomic Criticism

• 🟥 Critique: The essay downplays or bypasses economic, class-based, and materialist dimensions of literary production and reception.
• Lacks engagement with Marxist, feminist, or postcolonial readings that would challenge the universality of metaphor.

🔍 Selective Canon Focus

• 🟡 Critique: The examples (More, Kant, Pascal, Shakespeare, Kafka) reflect a Eurocentric and male-dominated canon, limiting the application of his theory across more diverse literatures.
• Absence of non-Western or female voices weakens claims to metaphor as a culturally general process.

🌀 Ambiguity Between Philosophy and Literary Criticism

• 🟠 Critique: Kaufmann often blurs philosophical discourse and literary analysis, making some passages dense and abstract for literary scholars.
• His essay reads at times more like intellectual history than literary criticism.

🧭 Implied Hierarchy of Literary Value

• 🔵 Critique: Kaufmann implicitly favors works that fit his model of “radical metaphor,” potentially excluding valuable texts that are imagistic, nonlinear, or non-didactic.
• Dismisses imagism as artistically inferior: “Imagism… tends to run into the sands of dadaism and other varied forms of artistic solipsism.” (p. 39)

🔒 Metaphor as Ideological Lock-In

• 🟤 Critique: While claiming metaphor liberates thought, Kaufmann also suggests it fixes meaning and represses alternatives.
• This tension (metaphor as both freedom and repression) is underdeveloped and theoretically unstable.

🕵️ Lack of Methodological Transparency

• ⚫ Critique: The essay is rich in insight but lacks clear method—readers may struggle to replicate or apply Kaufmann’s analysis systematically.
• His own metaphorical approach avoids technical formalism, which may hinder pedagogical clarity.

🧬 Absence of Reader Response Consideration

• 🟠 Critique: The essay assumes metaphor operates objectively within texts without acknowledging reader variability or interpretive diversity.
• No discussion of how metaphor may be differently activated across cultural or temporal contexts.

🌍 Metaphor Is Inescapable and Central to Linguistic Thought

• Metaphor is not merely ornamental; it permeates all levels of linguistic theory—from terminology to worldviews.

“Metaphor is not just prevalent in linguistics but utterly pervasive, especially at the theoretical level” (© Langacker, 2016, p. 5).

• Langacker satirizes the “moralistic” view of metaphor as sinful, suggesting its inevitability.

“Let him who is without metaphor cast the first stone” (© p. 4).

🧠 Cognitive Models Depend on Metaphoric Frameworks

• Linguistic thinking draws from source domains like motion, space, genetics, and visual perception.

“Common metaphorical source domains are well represented: spatial motion, plants, genetic relationships…” (© p. 6).

• Terms like “raising,” “tree,” “node,” “focus,” “field” are metaphorical yet deeply embedded in linguistic discourse.

“[W]e find the linguistic landscape to be littered with countless metaphoric terms…” (© p. 5).

🧱 Metaphorical Worldviews Shape Theoretical Divides

• The formalist vs. functionalist divide is understood via isoglosses or dialect chains (discrete vs. continuous metaphors).

“A thick bundle of metaphoric isoglosses separates the two communities” (© p. 7).

• Formalist metaphor: language is a machine or assembly line assembling discrete objects.

“Language was represented as a box labeled G… constructing step by step…” (© p. 8).

• Functionalist metaphor: language as a population or network of interacting, emergent elements.

“They favor population metaphors… like people in a society” (© p. 9).

🔁 Metaphor as Double-Edged Sword: Tool and Threat

• Metaphor can clarify but also confuse: it can lead to misleading questions, conceptual errors, and unproductive debates.

“Metaphor is seductive… it will lead us into temptation” (© p. 10).

• Examples of misguided metaphors include viewing lexemes as containers and the lexicon as a physical store.

“The lexicon is a container for storing lexical items… which in turn are containers…” (© p. 11).

📦 Network vs. ☁️ Field Model: Not Truly Opposed

• Network model (Lakoff, Langacker): meaning as interconnected nodes; Field model (Allwood, Zlatev): continuous range of uses.

“A continuous range of ‘meaning potential’… the union of individually or collectively remembered uses” (© p. 14).

• Langacker shows these metaphors can coexist, e.g., using the mountain range metaphor.

“An element’s range of meanings [is like] a mountain range… peaks in a continuous expanse” (© p. 15).

🧰 Tools, Not Truths: The Proper Use of Metaphor

• Metaphors should be treated as heuristics, not literal truths.

“We must try to be aware of the metaphors we are using, their limitations…” (© p. 16).

• Multiple metaphors provide checks and balances, enhancing insight.

“Alternative metaphors make it easier to distinguish the target from its metaphorical construal” (© p. 27).

🧬 Schema vs. Exemplar Models: Apparent vs. Real Distinctions

• Both models rely on usage-based knowledge, memory traces, and reinforcement of patterns.

“A schema is nothing more than a coarse-grained representation of occurring instances” (© p. 19).

• The exemplar model (e.g., Pierrehumbert) stores individual token memories as “clouds”, but still shows schematicity.

“[A]n exemplar model… each category is represented in memory by a large cloud of remembered tokens” (© p. 17).

• The differences are metaphorical, not substantive.

“There is no fundamental difference” between schemas and exemplar clusters (© p. 24).

⛰️ State-Space and Dynamic Landscape Metaphors

• Langacker suggests visualizing meaning categories as landscapes with valleys (attractors) rather than boxes.

“We take the image of a mountain range and turn it upside down… a landscape with depressions” (© p. 26).

• Both network and exemplar models fit within this dynamic attractor metaphor.

“The height of a peak—or the depth of a depression—corresponds to entrenchment…” (© p. 26).

🧭 Concluding Thoughts: Taming the Metaphoric Mind

• Metaphor is inevitable, yet manageable with awareness, flexibility, and alternative framing.

“If we are never free of metaphor… we can at least operate at a lower level of confusion” (© p. 27).

• Rather than being controlled by metaphor, scholars can use it judiciously as a guide.

“We are not just helpless prisoners of metaphor… it is a tool that we can use…” (© p. 27).

🎯 Overreliance on Metaphor as Cognitive Necessity

• Langacker claims metaphor is inevitable and essential to theory-building, but this may undervalue formal, literal, and empirical models that aim for conceptual precision.
• Critics may argue that such a stance blurs the boundary between analytical reasoning and rhetorical strategy, leading to potential epistemological relativism.

🔄 Self-Contradictory Treatment of Reification

• Langacker criticizes reification (e.g., treating schemas or meanings as static entities) yet himself reifies schemas, networks, clouds, and fields through sustained metaphorical imagery.
• This introduces an inconsistency: metaphor is described as both indispensable and misleading, which weakens the argument’s internal coherence.

🧩 Ambiguity in Model Distinctions (Schema vs. Exemplar)

• While Langacker attempts to reconcile schema and exemplar models, some may find his resolution too conciliatory and conceptually blurred.
• By proposing that “clouds” and “schemas” are ultimately the same, he dilutes the analytical utility of each model, flattening critical distinctions.

🌀 Philosophical Circularity in Metaphor Critique

• Langacker critiques metaphors using other metaphors (e.g., object vs. population, cloud vs. mountain range), creating a kind of meta-metaphorical loop.
• This may result in circular reasoning, where metaphor is both the problem and solution, offering no non-metaphorical ground for judgment.

📏 Lack of Operational Criteria for “Appropriateness”

• The discussion frequently refers to metaphors being “more or less appropriate,” yet no clear metric or framework is provided to evaluate metaphorical adequacy.
• This weakens the methodological rigor of the analysis and may limit its applicability across linguistic subfields or empirical studies.

🛠️ Underemphasis on Empirical Validation

• The article offers philosophical reflection and theoretical comparison, but it lacks empirical data or experimental findings that could ground metaphor use in observable cognitive behavior.
• This opens it to criticism from scholars favoring corpus-based, psycholinguistic, or experimental paradigms.

🔍 Inadequate Attention to Cross-Linguistic Diversity

• While addressing metaphor in linguistic theory, Langacker focuses mostly on Anglophone linguistic traditions, ignoring cross-cultural metaphorical frameworks (e.g., in non-Indo-European languages).
• This undermines claims about universality or inevitability of metaphor in linguistic cognition.

📚 Limited Engagement with Literary and Poetic Metaphor

• Despite the rich analysis of theoretical metaphors, Langacker largely avoids addressing metaphor as it functions in literary, poetic, or socio-political discourse, which could offer richer contrast.
• This may leave the metaphorical spectrum underexplored, especially regarding non-scientific genres.

🧠 Theoretical Significance of Metaphor

• Metaphor remains central across disciplines, especially in literary theory despite shifts from structuralist to postmodern paradigms.
• Structuralist models (like those of the Prague School and French structuralism) emphasized metaphor as a fundamental linguistic operation.

“Metaphor may serve as a good case study and thus as a model of the analysis of the operations of synthesis in general.” (p. 904)

🪞 Structure of Metaphor: Not Unified but Multidimensional

• Metaphor is not a singular structure but a field of heterogeneous possibilities, organized along several independent axes.

“Metaphor… is not a single unified structure, but rather a field of heterogeneous possibilities… limited by border parameters.” (p. 904)

• Sobolev challenges simplified models like tenor and vehicle (Richards) and focus/frame (Black), proposing a tripartite structure:
  Frame – Primary Term – Secondary Term.

🔍 Identification vs Function

• Two central questions:
  1. Structure of Identification – How we recognize a metaphor.
  2. Structure of Functioning – How metaphors operate and affect cognition and emotion.

“It is insufficient to know how metaphors are identified in order to explain the essence of their functioning.” (p. 906)

⚙️ Identification Conditions: Necessary & Sufficient

• Sobolev presents 9 types of necessary conditions (logical contradiction, conceptual incongruity, etc.)
• Sufficient condition: foregrounded similarity between terms.

“In a metaphor… a similarity between the terms… plays a central role in the production of meaning.” (p. 910)

📐 Axes of Metaphorical Analysis (12 Axes Model)

Sobolev introduces 12 axes, each describing different facets of metaphor:

🌈 1. Type of Interaction

From transference (simple projection of attributes) to foregrounding (interactive discovery of meaning).

“All empirical metaphors are situated along the axis… marked as ‘transference’ and ‘foregrounding’.” (p. 913)

🔁 2. Truth vs Success

Some metaphors can be true/false, others successful/unsuccessful in interpretation.

“’The mind has mountains’ is neither true nor false… but the interaction… is definitely successful.” (p. 914)

🔬 3. Type of Similarity

From given (pre-existing) to produced (created by the metaphor).

🧭 4. Purpose of Synthesis

From elucidation (illustrating known concepts) to creation (introducing new concepts, i.e., catachresis).

🧩 5. Form of Similarity

From objective grounding to cultural convention.

🔗 6. Modality of Similarity

From substantial (about objects) to relational (about relationships).

👁️ 7. Cognitive Mode

From intelligible to perceptible (whether metaphor requires visualization or not).

“Metaphors… stress theoretical or abstract analogies… whereas others focus on visual similarities.” (p. 919)

🤝 8. Configuration: Identification vs Juxtaposition

Epiphora (explicit “A is B”) vs Diaphora (juxtaposition, “Petals on a wet black bough”).

🧱 9. Dependence on Conceptual Systems

Metaphors may be linked to conceptual metaphors (e.g., LIFE IS A JOURNEY) or be entirely idiosyncratic.

“To the best of my knowledge, at least half of the most memorable literary metaphors are not [conceptual].” (p. 923)

🌐 10. Transference of Associated Field

Extent to which a metaphor transfers conceptual frameworks.

🚨 11. Degree of Deautomatization

How much the metaphor disrupts ordinary perception (cf. Shklovsky’s defamiliarization).

🔄 12. Symmetry of Predication

Is the metaphor reversible? (“Achilles is a lion” vs. “Lion is Achilles”).

“From the point of view of the status of the attribute… metaphors can vary from symmetrical… to asymmetrical.” (p. 926)

💬 Key Quotations with Citations

🟣 “It does not say and it does not hide, it intimates.” – Heraclitus, quoted by Davidson (p. 913)

🔵 “The pure eidetic concept of metaphor, like pure existence, is not an essence but only a field of possibilities.” (p. 927)

🟠 “Metaphor is a metaphor is a metaphor is a metaphor.” (p. 927)

🟢 “Like an elephant, metaphor is neither a rope, nor a trumpet or a pillar… but in a sense, it can become any of them.” (p. 927)

🔍 1. Structuralism & Post-Structuralism

• Repositioning metaphor after the linguistic turn: Sobolev examines how metaphor functioned as a foundational unit in structuralist models (influenced by Jakobson), and why its significance declined under poststructuralism.

“Literary scholars had been working within the ‘literature as a language’ paradigm… metaphor as one of the two pivotal operations” (p. 903–904).

• Critique of poststructural abandonment: Instead of discarding metaphor in poststructural thought, Sobolev argues that metaphor’s synthetic role in culture makes it even more important within heterogeneous interpretive paradigms.

“The significance of metaphor as a model must only grow… being one of the simplest and most exhaustively studied operations of synthesis” (p. 904).

🧠 2. Rhetorical Theory

• Revives classical notions (e.g. Aristotle’s idea of resemblance) while critically reworking them through modern analytical logic.

“The sufficient condition… is similarity or resemblance” (p. 909).

• Refines the dichotomy between tenor/vehicle (Richards) and focus/frame (Black) by introducing a tripartite model of metaphor (frame, figurative term, theme).

“This structure includes a ‘frame’… and a ‘theme’” (p. 905).

🧬 3. Cognitive Metaphor Theory

• Nuanced critique of Lakoff & Johnson’s “conceptual metaphor” model: Sobolev challenges the idea that all metaphors derive from large conceptual mappings like LIFE IS A JOURNEY.

“Not every metaphor is based on conventional conceptual transference” (p. 923).

• Introduces the degree of dependence on conceptual metaphors as one of several axes, making metaphor analysis more granular and context-specific.

“Most empirical metaphors are located somewhere in between” (p. 924).

🧪 4. Analytic Philosophy of Language

• Engages with thinkers like Black, Davidson, Goodman, and Searle to show the limits of semantic reductionism in metaphor theory.

“To say that metaphor can be called ‘metaphor’ only if it was intended or interpreted as metaphor merely redirects the discussion” (p. 909).

• Argues for pluralism over essentialism: metaphor is not reducible to a single model (e.g. interaction or resemblance), but is a field of structured variation.

“Metaphor is not a single unified structure… but a field of heterogeneous possibilities” (p. 905).

🎨 5. Poetics / Literary Stylistics

• Clarifies poetic metaphor’s distinctiveness from everyday metaphor by mapping how poetic language resists conceptual flattening.

“The meaning of ‘crooked eclipses’ is irreducible to truth conditions… it makes the reader notice numerous similarities” (p. 914).

• Introduces axes of metaphorical structure (e.g., interaction type, similarity type, conceptual scope), useful for stylistic and formal analysis of poetry (e.g., Hopkins, Shakespeare).

“Empirical metaphors are situated along the axis of metaphorical operation… ‘transference’ and ‘foregrounding’” (p. 913).

🌀 6. Hermeneutics

• Separates “identification” from “functioning” to avoid interpretive circularity — enabling more precise metaphoric interpretation.

“It is insufficient to know how metaphors are identified in order to explain the essence of their functioning” (p. 906).

• Expands hermeneutics of metaphor to include cultural competence, reader cognition, and semantic play across contexts.

“The person must be able to identify… conceptual incongruities and contextual irrelevance” (p. 910).

📏 7. Theory of Interpretation / Defamiliarization

• Integrates Shklovsky’s “defamiliarization” into metaphor theory by defining a scale of deautomatization.

“Metaphors… draw attention to their conceptual basis” and can induce “rethinking” (p. 925).

• Shows how even conventional metaphors (e.g., “he is gone”) can vary in deautomatizing power, especially in poetic use.

🧩 8. Semiotics and Pragmatics

• Demonstrates that metaphor cannot be wholly reduced to semantics, pragmatics, or logic alone.

“Metaphors can be related to any and all of these spheres” (p. 908).

• Introduces the multi-modal nature of metaphor—logical, semantic, and contextual—requiring interdisciplinary interpretation.

🧭 9. Typology and Classification

• Develops a multi-axial typology of metaphor — 12 axes including:
  • Type of similarity (given vs. produced)
  • Metaphor’s symmetry
  • Degree of field transference
  • Modality (truth vs. success)

“Its space… structured by several independent axes… creates a possibility of hundreds of metaphorical structures” (p. 926).

🧩 Over-Systematization of Metaphor

• Sobolev’s framework, while comprehensive, risks over-categorizing metaphor into rigid axes and parameters.
• The multiplicity of axes (at least 12) may obscure rather than clarify how metaphors operate in real literary contexts.
• ❗ Critique: Literature’s metaphoric fluidity may not fit easily into such a formalized matrix of analysis.

🔁 Underrepresentation of Reader-Response

• Sobolev places heavy emphasis on formal identification and theoretical function, but pays insufficient attention to reader variation in metaphor interpretation.
• ❗ Critique: Cognitive and affective responses of diverse readers are minimized in favor of structural analysis.

🤔 Ambiguity in Practical Application

• Despite theoretical richness, the application of the 12-axis model can be challenging and inconsistent across varied texts.
• ❗ Critique: The model may be more useful as an abstract heuristic than a consistently applicable analytical tool in literary criticism.

🧠 Critique of Similarity as a “Sufficient Condition”

• Sobolev restores similarity (resemblance) as the core identifying principle of metaphor.
• Critics (e.g., Goodman, Davidson) argue this reinstates a problematic and reductive notion, especially when metaphor creates rather than reflects similarity.
• ❗ Critique: The assumption that similarity is always central can be questioned for novel or experimental metaphors.

🔄 Minimal Engagement with Postmodern and Deconstructive Theories

• While Sobolev acknowledges poststructuralist shifts, he largely reinstates a formalist lens on metaphor.
• ❗ Critique: This neglects deconstructive insights on metaphor’s instability, undecidability, and rhetorical play (e.g., Derrida’s view of metaphor as différance).

🔍 Neglect of Non-Western and Cross-Cultural Metaphor Traditions

• The essay primarily engages with European and Anglo-American metaphor theory (Aristotle, Black, Ricoeur, Lakoff).
• ❗ Critique: Fails to account for cross-cultural metaphor paradigms or literary traditions beyond the Western canon.

🧪 Scientific vs. Literary Metaphors Not Fully Resolved

• Sobolev discusses scientific metaphors but leaves unclear boundaries between literal scientific models and literary metaphorical imagination.
• ❗ Critique: Risks conflating technical analogy with poetic metaphor, weakening analytical distinction.

🧵 Complexity May Undermine Usability

• The high abstraction and technical vocabulary (e.g., “metaphors of juxtaposition,” “defamiliarization axis”) may alienate readers not deeply familiar with rhetorical theory.
• ❗ Critique: Could benefit from clearer integration of concrete literary examples earlier in the essay.

🔷 1. Metaphors and Literal Language: No Special Processing Required

• People process metaphors similarly to literal sentences in most cases.
• ❝It does not appear that metaphor comprehension first involves an attempt at literal comprehension and, when that fails, a metaphoric reinterpretation❞ (Kintsch & Bowles, 2002, p. 249).
• Ordinary metaphors are usually automatically understood, without cognitive overload.
• 🔍 This finding challenges traditional theories that treat metaphor as inherently more complex than literal language.

🔶 2. What Makes a Metaphor Difficult? It’s Not What You Think

• Difficulty is not due to:
  • Semantic distance between words 🔁
  • Word frequency or vector length 🧮
• ❝It is not the case that easy understanding requires a preexisting global relation between the two terms❞ (p. 258).
• Rather, it depends on whether shared semantic neighbors can be found between topic and vehicle.
• ❝Metaphors are easy to process if the argument has a good match among the close neighbors of the predicate❞ (p. 257).

🟣 3. Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA): Mapping Meaning in Space

• Words are represented as vectors in a 300-dimensional semantic space.
• ❝Meaning is a position in this huge semantic space… we can calculate how close or far apart two vectors are❞ (p. 250).
• Sentence meaning is computed by adding vectors, allowing computational modeling of metaphor comprehension.

🟢 4. The Predication Model: Adding Context to Semantics

• The predication algorithm modifies predicate vectors based on context (argument word).
• For example, 🦈 “My lawyer is a shark” highlights “aggressive” traits of “shark,” not the literal ones.
• ❝The meaning of the predicate is a shark is very different from shark in isolation❞ (p. 251).
• This is how LSA simulates human-like metaphor interpretation.

🔴 5. Easy vs. Difficult Metaphors: Experimental Evidence

• Participants rated 13 metaphors as easy and 13 as difficult.
• High agreement on easy metaphors (48% modal agreement) vs. low on difficult ones (21%).
• Even “nonsense” metaphors triggered non-random interpretations.
• ❝Even for what one might regard as pure nonsense, there was still a considerable level of agreement❞ (p. 254).

🔵 6. Model Validation: Matching Human Responses

• LSA-predicated vectors closely matched participant-generated interpretations.
• For both easy and difficult metaphors, the average cosine similarity between model and human responses was ≈ 0.51.
• ❝For difficult metaphors, responses were more varied, but the model produced a vector that was just as close to these varied responses❞ (p. 258).

🟡 7. Cognitive Consistency: Even Diffuse Responses Make Sense

• The model does not break down on difficult metaphors—it generates diffuse but coherent meanings.
• ❝The semantic structure provided a tight constraint for easy metaphors, and only a loose one for hard metaphors❞ (p. 258).
• Human and model interpretations converge because of shared semantic constraints.

🟤 8. Theoretical Contributions to Literary and Linguistic Theory

• Supports Glucksberg’s class-inclusion model and Frisson & Pickering’s underspecification model.
• Offers a computational realization of metaphor interpretation mechanisms in cognitive science.
• ❝We also claim that the results presented here show that LSA provides a useful basis for a psychological theory of meaning❞ (p. 259).

🔺 9. Key Insight: Local Connections Trump Global Similarity

• Metaphors work not by global similarity, but by activating shared contextual features.
• ❝Lawyer and shark are orthogonal… but there are aspects—like vicious or mean—that link the two❞ (p. 258).

🧠 Contribution to Cognitive Literary Theory

• Supports the view that metaphor comprehension uses general cognitive processes.
  ↳ The article aligns with the notion that metaphors are understood in ways similar to literal sentences, challenging the assumption that metaphor requires unique interpretive faculties.

“There exists a considerable and convincing body of research…that indicates that people understand metaphors in much the same way they understand literal sentences” (p. 249).

• Uses cognitive modeling (LSA and predication) to simulate metaphor interpretation.
  ↳ Introduces a formal, empirically tested model showing how meaning emerges through contextual semantic alignment, which cognitive literary theorists find central to interpretive modeling.

“We describe a model of text comprehension…simulate the computations involved, and evaluate the model empirically” (p. 250).

🧬 Contribution to Formalist and Structuralist Theories

• Operationalizes metaphor using structural linguistic units (NOUN1 IS A NOUN2).
  ↳ The study isolates and systematizes metaphor into a rigid syntactic structure, echoing formalist interests in text-intrinsic form and structure.

“Each stimulus sentence was a metaphorical statement of the NOUN1 IS A NOUN2” (p. 253).

• Examines metaphoric meaning independently of reader emotion or authorial intent.
  ↳ The focus on semantic proximity, not subjective interpretation, aligns with structuralist ideals of objectivity in literary analysis.

“The sentence vector should be more closely related to the set of interpretations generated by human comprehenders than to the individual words of the sentence” (p. 252).

🧪 Contribution to Empirical Literary Studies

• Integrates experimental data into literary interpretation.
  ↳ The study used participant data and cosine-based metrics to evaluate metaphor difficulty, marking a shift from speculative literary criticism to quantifiable methods.

“Difficulty ratings ranged from 1.29…to 4.21…responses were more coherent for easy items” (p. 254).

• Establishes reproducibility and statistical grounding in interpretive variation.
  ↳ Demonstrates that metaphor comprehension can be empirically tested, supporting efforts in empirical literary studies to systematize interpretation.

“The difference between the coherence of easy items and difficult items was statistically significant, t(24) = 4.38, p < .01” (p. 254).

🧭 Contribution to Reader-Response Theory

• Explores interpretive variance among readers.
  ↳ The study highlights how reader agreement decreases with metaphor difficulty, resonating with reader-response theory’s emphasis on individual interpretation.

“Faced with items such as ‘Happiness is a ditch’…people didn’t just give up but found some interpretation” (p. 254).

• Suggests that comprehension is shaped by semantic constraints, not just subjective imagination.
  ↳ Even for difficult metaphors, interpretations were not random but guided by the latent semantic structure, refining the reader-response notion of subjective freedom.

“Even though interpretations are diffuse…they are not random. This consistency…may simply reflect word-based constraints” (p. 258).

🧠📐 Contribution to Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson)

• Empirically supports metaphor as a cognitive mapping process.
  ↳ The study shows how metaphors create conceptual relationships by adjusting predicate meanings via contextually relevant features.

“The meaning of the predicate is modified to generate a contextually appropriate sense of the word” (p. 251).

• Adds computational rigor to conceptual blending.
  ↳ By modeling how metaphorical understanding emerges through a network of semantic connections, it extends the conceptual metaphor theory into testable, mechanistic terms.

“The vector computed by the model is equally close to that average of easy and difficult items” (p. 255).

⚙️ Contribution to Computational Literary Theory

• Demonstrates how semantic computation can approximate human interpretation.
  ↳ LSA and the predication model simulate how people derive meaning from metaphor, advancing computational approaches to literary meaning.

“The model vector nevertheless captures the variety of responses produced by the participants” (p. 257).

• Presents a fully realized computational theory of meaning.
  ↳ Unlike traditional metaphor theories, this model allows for quantification and algorithmic generation of interpretation, moving toward AI-assisted literary analysis.

“Our model is a fully realized, computational theory” (p. 252).

🔄 Overreliance on Computational Models

• The study heavily depends on Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) and the predication algorithm, which treat language geometrically.
• Critics argue this abstracts away cognitive nuance and fails to account for non-semantic cues such as pragmatics, cultural knowledge, or emotional tone.
• ❝ “Meaning is reduced to vector math, bypassing richer interpretive dynamics involved in actual reading.” (cf. Gentner & Bowdle, 2001)

📏 Neglect of Syntax and Word Order

• LSA used in the model ignores syntactic structure, computing sentence meaning via summation of word vectors regardless of grammar.
• This approach may oversimplify how meaning is constructed, especially for metaphors relying on syntax-dependent effects.
• Kintsch admits: “Such a procedure neglects important, meaning-relevant information that is contained in word order and syntax.” (p. 250)

🧩 Limited Scope of Metaphor Types

• The study is restricted to simple nominal metaphors (NOUN1 IS A NOUN2), excluding:
  • Verbal metaphors
  • Extended metaphors
  • Metaphors embedded in narrative discourse
• This makes the model less generalizable to rich literary or philosophical texts with layered figurative complexity.

🤖 Assumption of Universal Processing

• The model assumes metaphor comprehension is uniform across individuals, whereas real readers vary due to:
  • Background knowledge
  • Personal associations
  • Linguistic and cultural exposure
• Kintsch & Bowles acknowledge interpretive variation but still evaluate model success by group-level averages, masking individuality.

🔍 Lack of Qualitative Interpretive Depth

• The study’s quantitative focus on cosine similarity lacks insight into interpretive depth, such as:
  • Moral connotation
  • Intertextual echoes
  • Aesthetic or rhetorical effect
• The model evaluates metaphor meaning only by statistical coherence, not by literary or emotional richness.

🧪 Artificial Experimental Context

• Participants completed sentence frames and gave difficulty ratings in a lab setting with isolated metaphors.
• Critics may question ecological validity—metaphors in real texts are processed within broader narrative, emotional, and discursive contexts.

🧠 Cognitive Economy Not Fully Addressed

• The model doesn’t sufficiently address cognitive economy principles, such as why:
  • Some metaphors are retained and others forgotten
  • Some metaphors “click” quickly while others are puzzling or evocative
• The authors touch on this via coherence scores, but the deeper cognitive prioritization mechanisms remain underexplored.

🧬 Ambiguity in Defining “Difficulty”

• The metric for what makes a metaphor “difficult” is partly subjective, relying on participant self-ratings and coherence calculations.
• This leaves room for ambiguity in distinguishing between semantic novelty, conceptual mismatch, and reader confusion.

🕊️ 1. Metaphor as a Theological Necessity

“When we talk about God, the absolute otherness, we have to talk tentatively, that is: in metaphor” (© Holt 2003, p. 3).
💡 Meaning: Metaphors are not optional in prophetic literature—they are essential because human language is inadequate for directly describing the divine.

⚖️ 2. Critique of Reductionism in Traditional Exegesis

“Exegetes… have translated this imagery into plain language… the texts have been demythologised” (© Holt 2003, p. 4).
🧠 Insight: Historical-critical methods often flatten rich, symbolic language, reducing theological depth and eliminating mystery.

🔄 3. Postmodern Responsibility: Avoiding Old Mistakes

“Post-modern exegetes should be careful not to transmit [reductionism]… to literary or reader-oriented study” (© Holt 2003, p. 4).
🔍 Takeaway: Even new approaches must preserve the semantic and poetic power of metaphor instead of simplifying it for clarity.

🧩 4. Bridging Theory and Practice in Metaphor Studies

“Papers on metaphor theory were read after the papers on the use of metaphor… but it has been natural to present… method before practice” (© Holt 2003, p. 4).
📚 Context: Holt introduces a volume combining theoretical frameworks with applied exegesis, especially focused on Jeremiah.

💥 5. Metaphors as Ideological Weapons

“Metaphors are not as harmless as they may seem… metaphors are often weapons in ideological wars” (© Nielsen, in Holt 2003, p. 5).
⚔️ Implication: Metaphors shape belief systems and power relations; their use can reinforce or subvert dominant ideologies.

🔗 6. Intertextual Webs of Meaning

“Texts are not islands… metaphors function as markers in such networks” (© Nielsen, in Holt 2003, p. 5).
🕸️ Understanding: Metaphors link scriptures across books, eras, and themes, guiding theological interpretations and memory.

👁️ 7. Reader-Dependent Metaphorical Meaning

“A metaphor… creates a sense of meaning… between the text and its reader” (© Labahn, in Holt 2003, p. 5).
🧬 Interpretation: Each reading reactivates and reshapes metaphorical meaning, showing the living dynamic between scripture and audience.

🔃 8. Recycled Tropes and Theological Reversals

“Both doom and hope dispossess and repossess rights to the myth of YHWH and Israel” (© Diamond, in Holt 2003, p. 6).
🔄 Effect: Metaphors recur throughout Jeremiah with reversed meanings—symbolizing shifts in divine judgment and restoration.

📜 9. Wisdom Sayings as Metaphorical Frameworks

“A wisdom saying… with a moral code included, or: a metaphor” (© Becking, in Holt 2003, p. 6).
📖 Layer: Proverbs like Jeremiah 31:29 operate metaphorically, reflecting collective theological insights and moral codes.

🐑🦁 10. Shifting Metaphors in Jeremiah’s Babylon Oracle

“Israel… restored… Babylon… turned into sheep… destroyed by God” (© van Hecke, in Holt 2003, p. 6).
🎭 Drama: Pastoral metaphors illustrate dramatic role reversals—God as shepherd or predator depending on justice and judgment.

🌟 11. Call for Ongoing Metaphor-Centered Exegesis

“Metaphor will remain in the centre of our exegetical attention” (© van Hecke, in Holt 2003, p. 6).
🧭 Vision: The article and volume advocate for metaphor to remain central in biblical interpretation and theological scholarship.

📖 1. Reader-Response Theory

“A metaphor… creates a sense of meaning… between the text and its reader” (© Labahn, in Holt 2003, p. 5).

🔸 Contribution:
Holt, particularly through the contributions in the volume she introduces, supports the reader-response perspective by emphasizing that metaphorical meaning is not fixed but dynamically constructed in the interpretive act between text and reader.

🔍 Impact:
The article affirms the reader’s role in meaning-making, highlighting how metaphors come alive differently for each audience and context — a core principle of reader-response theory.

🧠 2. Poststructuralism & Deconstruction

“Metaphors are not as harmless as they may seem… metaphors are often weapons in ideological wars” (© Nielsen, in Holt 2003, p. 5).

🔸 Contribution:
By illustrating how metaphors conceal power structures and multiple meanings, the article aligns with poststructuralist and deconstructionist thought, which sees texts as unstable and filled with ideological undercurrents.

🧩 Impact:
The instability and polysemy of metaphor echo Derridean insights — language doesn’t simply reflect meaning; it produces and displaces it.

📚 3. Intertextuality (Kristeva/Bakhtin)

“Texts are not islands… metaphors function as markers in such networks” (© Nielsen, in Holt 2003, p. 5).

🔸 Contribution:
The article foregrounds intertextuality by demonstrating how metaphors link prophetic texts across the canon (e.g., “Daughter of Zion” from Isaiah to Lamentations), embodying shared and evolving theological narratives.

🔗 Impact:
This strengthens the understanding of the Bible as a dialogical text network, with metaphors acting as relational bridges across literary and theological traditions.

🎭 4. Performance Theory

“The rhetorical performance arena of the literary construct (the Book of) Jeremiah” (© Diamond, in Holt 2003, p. 6).

🔸 Contribution:
Holt’s collection, especially through Diamond’s article, applies performance theory by treating the prophetic text as a staged drama of theological and ideological tensions enacted through metaphor.

🗣️ Impact:
This dramatized reading of metaphor supports literary theory that emphasizes how texts operate performatively — enacting meaning rather than just stating it.

⚔️ 5. Ideological Criticism / Cultural Criticism

“What is needed is… responsible exegesis… metaphors are often weapons in ideological wars” (© Nielsen, in Holt 2003, p. 5).

🔸 Contribution:
By stressing the ideological power of metaphor, Holt links biblical literature to cultural criticism and ideological theory, urging interpreters to see metaphors as vehicles of social and political meaning.

🚨 Impact:
This perspective aligns with Marxist and feminist literary theories, which interpret texts as participating in ideological systems of domination, resistance, and negotiation.

🧰 6. Literary Hermeneutics

“Exegetes… have demythologised… the texts… [reducing] the text’s semantic space” (© Holt 2003, p. 4).

🔸 Contribution:
Holt contributes to hermeneutical theory by emphasizing that metaphor opens, rather than closes, interpretive possibilities. She cautions against rigid literalism and advocates for openness to layered meaning.

🌀 Impact:
This view supports philosophical hermeneutics (e.g., Gadamer), where understanding involves openness to the text’s “otherness” and metaphor becomes a gateway to dialogue.

📜 7. Biblical Literary Criticism

“This volume is intended to add a little to the fulfilment of that wish [keeping metaphor central]” (© van Hecke, in Holt 2003, p. 6).

🔸 Contribution:
The article advances biblical literary criticism by urging scholars to read prophetic texts not as static historical documents but as rich literary creations shaped by symbolic logic and theological imagination.

📖 Impact:
It reframes prophecy as literary art — full of poetic structure, metaphorical density, and narrative strategy — aligning biblical studies more closely with broader literary theory.

⚖️ Overemphasis on Metaphor as Theological Necessity

• While Holt argues that metaphor is indispensable for speaking of the divine, critics may contend that this approach risks marginalizing other literary and rhetorical tools (e.g., narrative, irony, structure) which also convey complex theological ideas.

🔄 Limited Engagement with Broader Literary Theory

• The article engages metaphor within the biblical studies context, but it does not deeply interact with secular or modern metaphor theories (e.g., Lakoff & Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory), potentially narrowing its cross-disciplinary applicability.

🚪 Exclusion of Non-Theological Readings

• Holt’s focus is primarily theological and exegetical; literary critics might argue that this emphasis overlooks political, feminist, or postcolonial readings of prophetic metaphor that could yield alternative insights.

🧱 Assumption of Metaphorical Primacy

• The claim that metaphor is the dominant or most important linguistic mode in prophetic literature could be challenged by scholars who view historical context, poetics, or redaction history as equally crucial.

🔍 Insufficient Critical Distance from Source Texts

• Some may criticize the article for adopting a reverential tone toward the biblical text, lacking the critical distance that literary theory or cultural criticism often demand when analyzing religious literature.

🧠 Ambiguity in Defining Metaphor’s Performative Role

• Though the article introduces the concept of “performative metaphor,” it does not fully theorize what that entails in literary terms, leaving the function and scope of this role somewhat vague.

🌍 Western-Centric Perspective

• Holt’s framework is rooted in Nordic and Western biblical scholarship. Critics from global or comparative religious traditions might argue that it doesn’t account for how metaphor operates differently in non-Western prophetic or sacred traditions.