Metaphor as a Model for Cultural Understading?europe.ulb.be/attachments/article/8/Walravens .pdfBy way of example: War metaphors in English and German football radio commentary Research

Metaphor as a Model for Cultural Understanding?

Jan Walravens, PhD

Professeur à l’Université libre de Bruxelles

Chargé de mission auprès du CeMPA

et de la Haute École Francisco Ferrer

Main sources used

Gannon, M. & R. Pillai (2010) Understanding Global Cultures, Sage.

Herrmann, J & T. Sardinha (2015) Metaphor in Specialist Discourse, John Benjamins.

Myhill, J.(2006) Language, Religion and National Identity in Europe and the Middle East, John Benjamins.

Van Doorslaer, L. et al (2015) Interconnecting Translation Studies and Imagology, John Benjamins.

ULB 12-14 December 2016

SURVEY

‘Definition’

Academic applications of metaphor and an example

Metaphor as a ‘model’ for understanding culture

France

Finland

Belgium

Conclusion


‘DEFINITION’Metaphor is ...

a mapping between two conceptual domains

a cross-domain mapping present in linguistic forms, conceptual structures and communicative functions

contextual and multifaceted, hencedifficult to identify in a reliable way!

Example: John is a weasel!

(Herrmann & Sardinha , p. 8)


Smart weasels


Metaphors are making headway in AcademiaThere are many sails to the ship of Metaphor Studies:

Psychology (counseling vs academic psychology)

Writing (academic prose, news, fiction ...)

Football radio broadcasts(English vs German)

Research articles in biology

Popularization of science for the general public

This list is not exhaustive ... !

(Herrmann & Sardinha, p. 9)


By way of example: War metaphors in English and German football radio commentaryResearch by Elmar Thalhammer

•Quantitative and qualitative analysis •Radio: spontaneous and unplanned•Corpus of E and G soccer metaphors •100,000 words for each corpus

Examples :

Zwantzig Meter, eine Rakete.It’s a midfield battle.Famagusta erweist sich nicht als Kanonenfutter.They move it forward in Barnsley territory.Richtige Offensivkanonen werden uns weiterbringen.He (a player) has been in a war since halftime.

(in Herrmann & Sardinha, pp. 101-130)


Your conclusion:

Who is who?

Destruction/Death/Possession Strategy to gain advantage


Conclusion of the study

Destruction/Death/Possession Strategy to gain advantage


The danger of stereotyping: Brussels is (like) a hellhole!

About stereotypes:

They represent a distorted view,

based on supposed x-istics,

of individuals from a group,

leading to unwarrantedconclusions.

They are an easy way to classify

a multitude of (strange) stimuli.

They can be used descriptively!

(Gannon & Pillai, pp. 20-21)


How to respond to clichés about a culture/community/group?

“going low”:peeing on your foe

“going high”: investigative reporting


Stereotypes can easily be used against themselves:they (always) go over the top!

A native born ... A native born ...


Yet, stereotypes are (mostly) used against the other

living apart together... the war of the sexes...


There is a thin (?) line between:

(Charles) the stereotype (Charles) the metaphor


Getting to the heart of the matter:

Can metaphors be a potentially relevant academic tool?


Metaphor as a model: methodological approach(Gannon & Pillai, pp. 20-21)

How to avoid or minimise stereotyping when using metaphors?

careful review by natives

careful review by long-termresidents

consensus as norm

put other metaphors to the test

select the most ‘revealing’ items

use selective wording (some/many/tend to ...)

use metaphor as a map and an initial guide

see metaphor as a starting point for discussion


Three cases(from Gannon & Pillai, 2010)

French wine

Finnish sauna

Belgian lace


Case 1: French wineWine making is quite a simple business. Only the first 200 years are

difficult.(Philippine de Rotschild)


What wine does to the French...Two key elements of the metaphor

(spiced with clichés)

1.Pureness:

Viniculture is an art and a science

Fine wine = 2,000 years of civilisation

There is a ‘mystery’ that defies chemical analysis

‘God loves the French the best’ (Charles Péguy)

Massive destruction of vineyards (1865-1895) was overcome

The soil of France is as ‘pure’ and as special as the nation


What the French do with wine...

2.Classification:*Stratification of wines = stratification of (social) ‘classes’

(e.g. Vins de table = classes populaires)

*Creating order: labelling, codification...

(e.g. Napoleonic Code)

*Combined with savoir-vivre (form over substance)

(e.g. Stress on style, image...)

*The Cartesian legacy. Descartes: the intellectual father of the French preoccupation with form (De Gramont, 1996)


Going north...


Case 2: Finnish saunaIf sauna, tar or alcohol doesn’t help, you are sick to die.

(Finnish adage)


History

Origins:

-a culture ‘born in the forest’

-at the mercy of nature

-in harmony with nature

Foreign control & Independence:

-Sweden (as of 12th century)

-Russian Empire (as of early 19th century)

*but with a fair degree of autonomy as a grand dutchy

-1917: an independent nation

-1918: civil war between the Reds & the Whites

-After the civil war: redistribution of farmland property followed by economic success

-Cold War: outside Soviet sphere

*national leaders discussed politics in ... sauna


SaunaIf you want to experience heaven and hell simultaneously,

go to a Finnish sauna (advertisement)

A regular event:

With family

With friends

With visitors

With business associates

Among politicians

A ritual inspired by:

Togetherness

Quietude

Small talk

Negotiating

Equality (no symbols of social status; gender equality)


Society

Sauna symbolises gender equality:

Mixed picture: sexes together in sauna and separated! (Go case by case...)

‘Leading role’ of women in society (politics and business)

Ancient tribes: male and female leadership

Female vote: 2nd in the world (after New Zealand)

Female vote & right to stand for election: 1st in the world

Egalitarian education:

Excellent PISA results (Program for International Student Assessment)

Education is free (up to the doctorate level)

High standards for teacher training (combined with good salaries)

Focus on ‘traditional methods’ (e.g. chalkboard rather than PowerPoint)

Strong teacher-student and student-student interaction


The rest is silence...

Comfort with quietude (silence also has ‘meaning’):

Thinking

Reflecting

Pondering before acting

Respecting privacy (whilst being together!)

Being in harmony with social & physical environment

No need to use words like please or promise

Comfort with quietude = harmony with -nature

-one’s self

-others


...and back south again


Case 3: Belgian laceWe must continue to be pioneers in the construction of a united Europe.

(Baudouin, 5th King of the Belgians)


Belgium is as complex as its renowned lace (Gannon & Pillai, p. 393)

o Just as the gifted lacemaker takes fine threads from many spindles and weaves them into a fabric with a beautiful but strong pattern, so too history, geographic position, and religion have woven the Belgian culture into a diverse an complicated design, similar to all of Europe. (p.373)

o As a lace-making center, Flanders established itself as a prominent industrial region within Europe (late 15th century). (p.375)

o The (lace) design incorporates a delicate balance of lace and space. (p.375)

o The texture and pattern of the lace have regional characteristics. In Brugge ... the texture is delicate and the patterns are ornate, whereas in St. Hubert the thread is coarse and the design simpler. (p.376)

o ... lace ... encapsulates the beauty of this land of contrasts where different cultures coexist in relative harmony, ... where cooperation and harmony win out over competition and the people are quietly proud of their traditions and heritage. (p.376)


along the same lines ...

• Just as each region of Belgium has a distinctive ... texture to its lace, so too are ... row houses ... decorated distinctively, reflecting the tastes of their owners. (p.379)

• As lace makers have a range of motions with which they pull from their bobbins and weave their threads around the brass pins, so too the Belgians seem to have similar ranges in their varied activities. Still, rarely does a Belgian stray far from the group by taking an extreme position. Belgium is generally a country of consensus, compromise, and cooperation. (p.381)

• A final area of contrast in Belgian culture is that between their love for art and beauty and their sense of practicality. Obviously most lace is beautiful and artistic, but it is also designed to adorn clothing and linens rather than to be simply admired. (p.384)

• Before the lace makers arrange the spindles and thread to begin weaving a piece of lace, they first design the pattern on cardboard and carefully punch brass pins in the cardboard pattern to guide the thread during weaving. Similarly one manifestation of high uncertainty avoidance [Hofstede] is that Belgians have regulations and customs that act as brass pins to guide behavior in most situations. (p.388)


Heading for a conclusion...

...but treading carefully



Câteaux


Terroir


The good life

production tasting



Sweating it out...

...and cooling off free as a bird



Let me lace you up!


Questions raised...

• Do our ‘parallel examples’ suggest that metaphors offer a weak and unreliable tool to understand and come to terms with cultural identity?

• Could this be an effect of globalisation?

• What is the present status of ‘national identity’ ?

• Should we discard Metaphor Studies as a potential tool to enhance (inter)cultural understanding?


... (provisional) answers offered

• Clearly, Metaphor Studies – which are intrinsically multidisciplinary – could benefit from a discipline (or disciplines) that would

set stereotypes and metaphors apart

‘objectify’ the use of metaphors

create a solid academic context of reference

provide a firm framework for study/research

offer a sound academic platform for teachers


Image Studies (Imagology) and Translation Studies to the rescue(based on Van Doorslaer et al)

• There is a sound basis for crossfertilization between TS and Imagology. Both disciplines have a research history stemming from descriptive and diachronic viewpoints that prevent themfrom using static approaches or positing … essentialist views of cultures … Change and hybridity are two important features of the objects both disciplines study: translation and images. In recent decades, TS has shown a growing interest in national and cultural characterization and stereotyping. (p.2)

• Imagology can offer TS a methodological apparatus … that can reinforce its multidisciplinary character.

• Imagology aims to deconstruct ethnotypes using a threefold approach (p.3):

Textual analysis Contextual analysis Intertextual analysis


The global & the local

• Perceptions of time and space put forward in the discourse on globalization are powerful rhetorical devises that can prevent us from noticing the obviousdiscrepancies with respect to cultural distance in our everyday lives. (p.7)

• Experts in a range of disciplines … continue to be called on for their knowledge of certain countries, despite the exceptional increase in information from these countries brought about by globalization and internet access. The way people frame things cannot be ignored, despite the attraction of … more flexible ways of framing offered by globalization. (p.6)

• Images and stereotypes still continue to be framed by the nation and hence it would be unwise to ignore its impact. (p.8)


Recognising national identities…

National ideologies and cultural borders are still with us, and indeed play a far more prominent role in contemporary “identity politics”, exclusionism and xenophobia than avant-garde theorists and artists seem to realize. In addition, they are part of a heritage which is still an informing and self-replicating presence in our present-day cultural ambience. A sense of nationality and ethnicity, with its attendant stereotyping, still informs our daily lives and … remains an important criterion in categorizing human activity and cultural practices. (p.1)


…but to what extent?

• “De l’universalité de la langue française”:

French was the supreme vehicle for the expression of reason… The morphology of French was closest to that of natural logic, and its‘clarity’ offered the best instrument yet devised for the articulation of human reason whose form was universal. (Rivarol, 1784)

• French is a language which is simple without baseness, noble without bombast, harmonious without fatigue, precise without obscurity, elegant without affectation, metaphorical without conscious effort; a language which is the veritable expression of a perfected nature. (Bonard, 1796)

(Quoted in Myhill, p.122)


Gabriel de BroglieChancelier de l’Institut de France

(2014)

• Jacques de Lacretelle, qui écrit : « La place privilégiée du français vient de ce qu’il a toujours offert au monde quelque chose de clarifié ».

• L’expression « quelque chose de clarifié » est peut-être plus importante que le mot plus général de la clarté. Clarifié désigne une action. C’est en effet ce caractère souvent célébré comme le génie de la langue française qui lui a permis, pendant quelques siècles, de succéder au latin, même avant le latin au grec, je veux parler des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles.

• Des quantités d’écrivains et de professeurs ont insisté sur ce caractère du français. Cette continuité, cette force aussi engendrent, avec le poids de la littérature qui nous précède, un français moderne héritier non seulement de la clarté mais d’une conséquence de la clarté, qui est l’abstraction. Le français moderne est une langue plutôt abstraite. Mais surtout le français tend à l’abstraction du langage. Il possède des qualités d’expression, de transmission, de précision et de synthèse qui ont fait qu’il a été pendant quelques siècles la langue mondiale de la diplomatie.


Interpreting (translating!) metaphor is, essentially, a matter of finding a balance between

EMOTION ...and REASON


CONCLUSION

Metaphors can offer enriching insights into culture when they are put intocontext:

Historically

Geographically

Socially

Politically

Linguistically

...

Two academic disciplines par excellence seem to offer an appropriate framework:

Translation Studies and Imagology



Documents

Metaphor as a Model for Cultural Understading?europe.ulb.be/attachments/article/8/Walravens .pdfBy way of example: War metaphors in English and German football radio commentary Research