CHAPTER 4 METAPHORS IN LANGUAGE AND GESTURE
4.5 Different Types of Cross-Modal Temporal Patterning
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present this abstract concept to the listeners. In the current data, we can find the metaphor
LIGHT INTENSITY IS AN OBJECT in gesture exclusively. The speaker enacts the metaphor
with an object gesture. In this case, LIGHT INTENSITY is seen as a discrete object with a
boundary, so that the speaker can present the concept to the listeners by the object gesture.
In general, almost all the sources included in the current data can map to various targets.
These sources are OBJECT, SPACE, ACTIVITY, PATH, FICTIVE MOTION, and CONTAINER.
We use a small number of sources to comprehend and talk about a great variety of abstract
concepts in daily communication. On the other hand, the targets involved in the
many-source-to-one-target correspondence are TIME, MENTAL ACTIVITY, SPEECH CONTENT,
SEQUENCE, and DEGREE. When we employ different sources to conceptualize a
target-domain concept, different aspects of the target could be profiled.
4.5 Different Types of Cross-Modal Temporal Patterning
In order to see the collaboration between language and gesture, the temporal
relationship between speech and gesture in expressing metaphors is examined. The present
study focuses on the stroke phase which is the relevant part to conveying information in a
gesture. There are three kinds of temporal patterning of speech and gestures: a stroke
synchronizes with the associated word (the synchronizing gesture); a stroke comes before the
associated word (the preceding gesture); and a stroke comes after the associated word (the
following gesture). The distribution of each kind of gesture is shown in Table19.
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Table 19. Temporal patterning of speech and gestures
Temporal Patterning Group
Total
Language-Gesture Gesture-Only
Synchronizing Gesture Frequency 93 116 209
% Within Temporal Patterning 44.5% 55.5% 100.0%
% Within Group 84.5% 84.7% 84.6%
Preceding Gesture Frequency 14 21 35
% Within Temporal Patterning 40.0% 60.0% 100.0%
% Within Group 12.7% 15.3% 14.2%
Following Gesture Frequency 3 0 3
% Within Temporal Patterning 100.0% 0.0% 100.0%
% Within Group 2.7% 0.0% 1.2%
Total Frequency 110 137 247
% Within Temporal Patterning 44.5% 55.5% 100.0%
% Within Group 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
In each group, synchronizing gestures comprise the majority (84.5% in the L-G group
and 84.7% in the G-only group). Example 6 in Section 3.5 is an instance of the synchronizing
gesture. The speech
zīqiān and the gestural stroke (the forward movement in Panel 3 in
Figure 6) produced at the same time to realize the metaphor THE FORMER IS THE FRONT.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*******-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-|
F: ..大學之前的那個...兩個你都認識啊..不是啊..就現在那個之前的兩個你都認識啊
Figure 6. THE FORMER IS THE FRONT in gesture
(1) (2) (3)
(4)
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It is reasonable that most of the gestures temporally synchronize with speech, since it
would be difficult to interpret the hand movement without the affiliated word semantically
associated with the gesture.
(21) 1 M: 所以他們那時候就是反對說..捷運開過來..他說雖然說...(0.4)那個..房租會..漲價
|~~********-.-.-.-.|
2 ...(0.3)但是我們的..水準就會..降低...(0.4)這樣
Figure 21. LOWLIVING STANDARD IS DOWN in gesture
There are several instances of preceding gestures (12.7% in the L-G group and 15.3%
in the G-only group) as shown in Example 21. The speaker mentions that the living standard
will become worse if the MRT connects to a community. The metaphor LOW LIVING
(1) (2) (3)
(4) (5) (6)
(7) (8)
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STANDARD IS DOWN is expressed verbally by the word
jiàng dī ‘lower’ (Line 2). The
speaker presents the metaphor with a preceding gesture by moving down his right hand three
times (Panels 3 to 7 in Figure 21). The gestural stroke is performed as the speaker utters
shuěizhŭn jiù huì ‘living standard will’ (Line 2), which is prior to the lexical affiliate jiàngdī
of the gesture.
The following gestures are not common in each group of metaphoric expressions (2.7%
in the L-G group and 0.0% in the G-only group). Example 15 in Section 4.1 contains the
following gesture. The speaker’s manual movement represents the image of pouring water
into a container (Panel 3 in Figure 15). This gesture is a following gesture, because it is
performed after the speaker utters the associated speech
zhuāng shuĭ.
|~~~**-.-.|
F: ...然後台北也會..因為台北地勢低窪..[盆地..裝水]@@
Figure 15. TAIPEI BASIN IS A CONTAINER in gesture
(1) (2) (3)
(4)
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With regard to the synchronization between speech and gesture, the differences
between the language-gesture group and the gesture-only group are statistically
insignificant.10 The temporal patterning that speech accompanies synchronizing gestures is
quite common in conveying metaphors. Since speech plays an important role in interpreting
idiosyncratic gestures, speech and gesture should be in close temporal synchrony. Moreover,
results concerning the temporal patterning of speech and metaphoric gestures may allow us to
see the collaboration of the two modalities. In the next chapter, there is a discussion about the
collaboration of speech and gesture vis-à-vis the theoretical hypotheses about speech-gesture
production.
4.6 Summary
This chapter examines the linguistic and gestural representations of metaphors from
different aspects to see people’s habitual expressions of metaphors. The distributions of
metaphor types show that entity metaphor is the most frequent choice for speakers to
manifest metaphorical expressions and it is likely to be realized in gesture exclusively. The
source-domain concepts utilized by these metaphors include basic entities (object and
container), concepts relating to space, and physical actions (fictive motion, force, activity)
which are concrete, clearly delineated, and familiar to us. Among these sources, the most
frequent sources are OBJECT and SPACE. OBJECT is apt to be employed as the source domain
10 The Chi-square test for the distribution of the temporal patterning of speech and gesture in the L-G group and that in the G-only group yields χ2.95(2) = 4.028 (p-value = 0.133).
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of metaphors in the gesture-only group, and SPACE is used more frequently in metaphors in
the language-gesture group. The target domains comprehended through metaphors involve a
great diversity of concepts, including GROUP, MENTAL ACTIVITY, (physical) ACTIVITY,
DEGREE, SEQUENCE, SPEECH CONTENT, STATE, and TIME which have at least five tokens
.
The targets can be the basic ideas and many other abstractions. In general, the target-domain
concepts do not overlap with the source-domain concept, providing evidence for the
unidirectional characteristic of cross-domain mapping. Except for FORCE which only appears
once in the current data, all the other sources can be employed to conceptualize multiple
targets. We use a small number of source-domain concepts to reason out a large number of
more abstract concepts in ordinary communication. A single target is not restricted to be
understood in terms of a single source. Several targets (e.g., time, mental activity, speech
content, sequence, and degree) can be realized via many different sources, suggesting that we
are able to use different ways to make sense of abstract concepts. Regarding the habitual
expressions of metaphors, the two groups of metaphors reveal quantitative differences. On
the other hand, the temporal patterning of speech and gesture shows no statistical difference
between the two groups of metaphors. The stroke of a metaphoric gesture is inclined to
synchronize with the accompanying speech. The temporal synchronization of speech and
gesture in conveying metaphor may provide a way for us to see the relationship between the
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language and gesture during the process of production. Discussion of the speech-gesture
production and their collaboration will be presented in the next chapter.
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97
CHAPTER 5
GENERAL DISCUSSION
The purpose of the present study is to investigate the habitual expressions of metaphors
and the collaboration of language and gesture in conversational discourse. The present study
focuses on two groups of metaphors: the metaphors concurrently expressed in language and
gesture and the metaphors conveyed in gesture exclusively. Cross-modal manifestations are
analyzed regarding the metaphor types, the source-domain concepts, the target-domain
concepts, and the metaphorical correspondences between source and target domains. Results
concerning the two groups of metaphors are combined and discussed together in this chapter,
since there are merely quantitative differences between them. Also, the present study surveys
the temporal patterning of speech and gesture in conveying metaphors. From the temporal
patterning and the collaboration of language and gesture, we see how the current data
supports the theoretical hypotheses of speech-gesture production. Section 5.1 discusses the
findings about the expressions of the metaphor types. Section 5.2 discusses the results
concerning the source and target domains in metaphoric expressions. Section 5.3 discusses
the correspondences between the two domains. Section 5.4 pays attention to the temporal
patterning and collaboration between speech and gesture with regard to the theoretical
hypotheses about speech-gesture production. Section 5.5 is a summary.
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5.1 The Habitual Expression of Metaphor Types
The present study investigates the metaphor types realized in face-to-face
conversations. Seven kinds of metaphors are found in the current data, including causation
metaphor, complex metaphor, conduit metaphor, container metaphor, entity metaphor,
fictive-motion metaphor, and orientation metaphor. Expressions of these metaphor types can
be found in past research on language and gesture. In fact, past studies on English and
Chinese shows there are expressions of body-part metaphors (c.f., Kövecses 2002; Lin 2003)
and personification metaphors (c.f., Lakoff & Johnson 1980c; Kövecses 2002; Chui 2011).
Nonetheless, these two types of metaphors are absent in the current data. Unlike the previous
research which merely utilized qualitative analysis, the present study surveys the occurrence
of cross-modal representations of metaphors. The current data shows that entity metaphor is
the most frequent metaphor type (77.8%), orientation metaphor takes the second place
(17.4%), and the remaining metaphor types only comprise a small portion (4.8%) of the total
of 247 metaphors (see Table 5 in Chapter 4). When we conceive concepts in terms of entity
metaphor, we are able to “refer to them, categorize them, group them, and quantify
them—and, by this means, reason about them” (Lakoff & Johnson 1980c: 25). Entity
metaphors serve various purposes, so they are widely used in everyday life. In some cases,
spatialization is an essential part of a concept (e.g., HIGH STATUS), and it is hard for us to
imagine any alternative way to reason about the concept (Lakoff & Johnson 1980c: 18). It
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seems we cannot avoid using orientation metaphor to talk about HIGH STATUS in Chinese
either. Likewise, it is natural for us to use spatial terms to talk about temporal concepts. We
expressed
shàng lĭbài to indicate
LAST WEEK, and it is difficult to figure out anon-metaphorical expression to represent this concept in Chinese. Hence, orientation
metaphors which are related to several spatial orientations are habitually expressed in daily
conversations. Results from current data agree with one of McNeill’s (1992) claims in his
study on metaphoric gestures in narratives. It was asserted that entity metaphor and
orientation metaphor are “instantly available” (McNeill 1992: 163).11 He also stated that
Chinese lacks the gestures in which abstract ideas are represented as bounded and supported
objects. However, the present study denies such a view. The gestural imagery to represent
ideas as the bounded objects held in hand(s) is not rare in the current data. This kind of
gestural expression is classified as the entity metaphor in the present study (c.f., the object
gesture for the metaphor SPEECH CONTENT IS AN OBJECT in Example 7 in Chapter 4).
Within the entity metaphors, 73.4% (141 out of the total of 192 entity metaphors) of them
involve the gestural representation of a bounded object supported in hand(s).12 This finding
based on the current data then opposes McNeill’s assertion that the image of a bounded and
supported object is not a major source of metaphoric expressions in Chinese culture.
11 McNeill’s (1992: 163) original words were: “[c]onduit and spatial metaphors are instantly available.” The conduit metaphor defined by McNeill is parallel to entity metaphor (rather than conduit metaphor) in the present study, since McNeill’s definition did not involve the important feature of the conduit metaphor—the process of sending. His spatial metaphor is the orientation metaphor in the present study.
12 Regarding all the 247 metaphoric expressions, 57.1% of them involve the gestural representation of a bounded object supported in hand.
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5.2 The Sources and Targets in the Expression of Metaphors
Different source-domain and target-domain concepts are investigated in the present
study as well. The present study categorizes these concepts and counts the frequency of each
kind of source and target. In the past studies on Chinese, different sources (e.g., body-part,
space, journey, etc.) and targets (e.g., emotion, time, love. etc.) have been discussed; however,
none of the studies provide an investigation of the possible sources and targets of conceptual
metaphor in face-to-face conversations. Among the studies in English, Kövecses’s (2002)
research offers an organized survey of the potential sources and targets for metaphors. He
collected the metaphoric expressions from English dictionaries and proposed several common
sources and targets. However, quantitative evidence was not included in his study.
The sources provided in Kövecses’s study are compared with the sources found in the
present study. Seven kinds of source-domain concepts are found in the current data:
ACTIVITY, CONTAINER, FICTIVE MOTION, FORCE, OBJECT, PATH, and SPACE. Kövecses
proposed thirteen common sources of metaphors (see Table 1 in Chapter 2). Several sources
offered by him are also found in the present study, such as forces, movement (associated with
FICTIVE MOTION), direction (relate to SPACE) and games and sports (relate to ACTIVITY). The
basic entities are not in Kövecses’s list, but he suggested metaphors can be based on further
sources including physical objects, containers, and several others. Some of the sources given
by Kövecses are not available in the current data, such as the attributes (health/illness,
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heat/cold, and light/darkness) and the elaboration of basic entities (animals, plants, machines,
and so forth). All the data analyzed in the present study comprise the metaphoric expressions
in gestures. It is likely that the current data lack the sources which are difficult to be realized
in gesture (e.g., light/darkness) or the sources which need effort to be gestured (e.g., the
imagery of holding an object in hand is not sufficient to depict machines). Even though the
sources found in the present study are not as many as those Kövecses offered, most of them
parallel the sources in his research. Furthermore, results based on the current data (see Table
7 in Chapter 4) show that OBJECT is commonly employed in metaphoric expressions (77.8%
of the total 247 metaphors); next to OBJECT is SPACE (which accounts for 13.8%). The other
five kinds of sources comprise the remaining 8.4% of all the 247 instances. The present study
examines the correspondences between the sources and the metaphor types as well. Except
for ACTIVITY, which can be used in conduit metaphor and complex metaphor, the other
sources are associated with a single metaphor type: OBJECT to entity metaphor, SPACE and
PATH to orientation metaphor, FICTIVE MOTION to fictive-motion metaphor, CONTAINER to
container metaphor, and FORCE to causation metaphor.
There are a variety of targets, and the present study merely lists and discusses the ones
that have at least five tokens (see Table 10 in Chapter 4). Eight kinds of targets are focused on:
DEGREE, GROUP, MENTAL ACTIVITY, (physical) ACTIVITY, SPEECH CONTENT, SEQUENCE,
STATE, and TIME. These targets are compared with the targets proposed by Kövecses (2002)
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in his studies on metaphors in English (see Table 2 in Chapter 2). Kövecses roughly classified
the targets into psychological states (emotion, desire, morality, and thought), social groups
and process (society, nation, politics, economy, human relationship, and communication),
personal experiences (time, life, death, and religion), events, and actions. In general, the
targets found in the present study are consistent with the targets (e.g., psychological states,
social groups, time, and events) offered by Kövecses. Some targets found in the current data
(e.g., SPEECH CONTENT, SEQUENCE, and DEGREE) are not included in Kövecses’s list, but
these abstract targets are also fundamental concepts in our lives. According to the current data
(see Table 11 in Chapter 4), the targets that are commonly conceived through metaphors
involve STATE (15.0% out of the total of 247 tokens), TIME (13.0%), and PHYSICAL
ACTIVITY (10.5%). Kövecses’s investigation did not present how the targets are conceived
through different types of metaphor. Yet, the present study examined the correspondence
between the targets and the six metaphor types. In the current data, concepts like TIME,
MENTAL ACTIVITY, SPEECH CONTENT, SEQUENCE, and DEGREE are found to be
conceptualized via multiple kinds of metaphors. On the other hand, concepts like STATE,
PHYSICALACTIVITY,and GROUP are only found in entity metaphors.
Through his survey of the sources and targets in English, Kövecses further concluded
that his findings reinforce the view that conceptual metaphors are mostly
unidirectional—metaphorical correspondence goes from concrete to abstract domains.
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Regarding the present study, the sources and targets do not overlap with each other (except
for ACTIVITY). In the current data, the metaphorical correspondences generally follow the
direction from the more concrete domains to the more abstract domains. Though ACTIVITY
can serve as the source and the target, it does not contradict the notion that metaphorical
correspondences are unidirectional. When ACTIVITY is a source, it is used to conceptualize
MENTAL ACTIVITY or COMMUNICATION. When ACTIVITY is a target, the source employed
in a metaphor is OBJECT rather than MENTAL ACTIVITY or COMMUNICATION. The current
data then supports the view that the direction of the correspondences between sources and
targets is not reversible.
5.3 The Correspondences between the Source and Target Domains
Past studies have shown that a source may map to different targets. In Lin’s (2003)
study on Southern Min, the body parts in the BODY domain were found to conceptualize
OBJECT, SPACE, and TIME domains. Liu’s (2010) research showed that the source domain
JOURNEY can realize LOVE, DREAM PURSUIT, CULTURE PRESERVATION, and so forth.
Likewise, studies (Lakoff & Johnson 1980c; Kövecses 2002) in English provide different
metaphors that shared the same sources. For example, the source domain OBJECT can map to
NONPHYSICAL ENTITIES, EVENTS, and ACTIONS (Kövecses 2002: 35); SPATIAL
ORIENTATIONS can map to CONSCIOUSNESS, QUANTITY, STATUS (Lakoff & Johnson 1980c:
15-17); CONTAINER can map to LAND AREAS, VISUAL FIELDS, and STATES (Lakoff &
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Johnson 1980c: 29-32). Although past studies have offered different instances of the
one-source-to-many-targets correspondences, they do not provide evidence from a
quantitative perspective. The present study surveys the frequency of the source-to-target
correspondences in metaphors in daily conversation. Results based on the current data are in
line with previous research. All the sources which have at least two tokens—OBJECT, SPACE,
ACTIVITY, FICTIVE MOTION, CONTAINER, and PATH—can correspond to various targets (see
Tables 13 and 14 in Chapter 4). In the current data, OBJECT maps to 52 kinds of targets, and it
is usually used to conceptualize STATE, PHYSICAL ACTIVITY, GROUP, TIME, SPEECH
CONTENT and many other targets. The source SPACE corresponds to 10 kinds of targets, and
it is commonly employed to conceiveconcepts like TIME, SEQUENCE, DEGREE,and so forth.
PATH is used to realize four kinds of targets. FICTIVE MOTION maps to three kinds of targets,
ACTIVITY and CONTAINER respectively map to two kinds of targets. In the current data,
OBJECT is used to conceive most kinds of targets. This may be due to the fact that OBJECT
serves various purposes (e.g., quantifying, identifying aspects, categorizing, etc.) to help us
reason about abstract concepts. We also utilize SPACE to conceptualize many targets, which is
in agreement with Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980c: 17) claim that most of our basic concepts
can be organized in terms of orientation metaphor. We can find a small number of
source-domain concepts are utilized to conceive numerous target-domain concepts. In
Kövecses’s (2002: 20) words, “[t]his is an extremely simplified world, but it is exactly the
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simplified nature of this world that enable us to make use of part of it in creating more
abstract ones”.
Most of time, a single abstract concept is not completely or exactly defined by a single
concrete concept. Lakoff and Johnson (1980b) suggested that an abstract concept is usually
conceptualized in terms of more than one concrete concept. Different metaphors will define
different aspects of an abstract concept. Study on Chinese has provided evidence for this view.
Yu’s study showed that EMOTION can be conceptualized through FIRE, GAS, and spatial
orientations. It was also found TIME is conceived in terms of MOTION, SPACE, and PATH.
Both Wang (2010) and Lai (2011) collected the expressions of LOVE metaphors from pop
songs in Mandarin/Southern Min. It is found LOVE could be realized by OBJECT,
CONTAINER, ANIMAL, PLANT, JOURNEY, SPACE, and so forth. Studies in English also
provide a great amount of evidence for the many-sources-to-one-target correspondences. For
provide a great amount of evidence for the many-sources-to-one-target correspondences. For