Understanding of Metaphor
Date Issued
2009
Date
2009
Author(s)
Ku, Hsiu-Lin
Abstract
The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the basis of the understanding of metaphor. I suggest that the notion of tone, one of the ingredients of meaning, can explain it. ome philosophers appeal to the notion of similarity or proper-sharing to explain what makes metaphor intelligible. They think what we get from a metaphor is a kind of metaphorical meaning, which is distinct from the literal meaning of a sen¬tence, and similarity is the basis to reach it. In Chapter 1, I argue that this approach to metaphor is misleading and cannot completely account for metaphor, because (i) it mistakenly presumes that the content we get from a metaphor is definitely distinct, and also solely derived, from the literal meaning, and (ii) the notion of similarity is not theoreti¬cally appropriate to account for metaphor, for the judgment of the similarity between two objects is consequent to the understanding of metaphor. n Chapter 2, I criticize Josef Stern’s proposal for another perspective to think of the intelligibility of metaphor. Stern suggests what we need in the study of metaphor should be a logical analy¬sis of the underlying structure of interpreting a metaphor. By virtue of the facts that there is not only one interpretation for a single metaphor and that the relations between the expressions and the resulted metaphorical content seem to be multiple, we shall not keep our attention finding a single correct relation, but on the frame of this ability of interpreting a metaphor, which is in his view what distinguishes meta¬phor from the literal. The rule-like operator ‘Mthat’ is designed to represent such a frame. I shall point out that such framework for interpreting a metaphor is sim¬ply collecting the elements involved in the understanding of metaphor, which fails to explain the intelligibility of metaphor, in particular, the metaphoricity, as the core of the understanding of metaphor. n Chapter 3, I criticize Samuel Guttenplan’s proposal of semantic descent account of metaphor. Guttenplan thinks that we have semantic ability to get something from non-linguistic objects to bear on another thing. Specifically, non-linguistic objects can also predicate something else as normally linguistic terms do; Guttenplan dubs this as ''qualification by object.'' In understanding a metaphor, the expression in the metaphorical sen¬tence leads us to the object referred (Guttenplan dubs this as semantic descent) and then we take the object to predicate the subject. Although semantic descent account seems to approach to the basis of the understanding of metaphor, I still doubt its achievement, for what it appeals is a repeat that we have the ability to get the metaphorical insight, and this is not enough to explain for what enables the generation of metaphorical insight. n Chapter 4, I propose the view that the basis of the understanding of metaphor lies in our grasping of tone, one of the ingredients of meaning. The tone of an expression has evocative power to arouse a language user’s mood about the use of the expression. And if two expressions can evocate the same mood on language users, I call these expressions are consonant in tone. The consonance of the tones between the predicator and the subject bumps out the metaphorical insight, that is, it is the basis of the understanding of metaphor. n Chapter 5, I try to respond to Davidson’s challenge to the effect that there is no cognitive content of metaphor. I argue that Davidson’s reasons to deny the metaphori¬cal insight as the content of metaphorical sentence are dubious, and that his formulation of metaphor as simply a kind of effect, which is similar to what we experience when watching a picture, is hardly an account of the understanding of metaphor. In particular, if my suggestion in Chapter 4 is successful (i.e. the consonance of tone explains the understanding of metaphor), then surely the metaphorical in¬sight can be lodged as the content of metaphor, since the tone is also one of the ingredi¬ents of the meaning of the expression.
Subjects
metaphor
similarity
Mthat
qualification by object
semantic descent
tone
consonance of tone
metaphorical meaning
Davidson
Guttenplan
Stern
Type
thesis
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