Metaphor, Language(s) and Thought

Dr. Marianne Turner, Monash University

Today I was looking at a list of oxymorons. It was a playful list that had been made for English language learning purposes. There were entries like jumbo shrimp, civil war, plastic glasses, and deafening silence.

As I looked at the list, the role of metaphor in oxymorons really struck me. The oxymoron was related to the figurative meaning, not the literal one. Take jumbo shrimp. There is no contradiction if we only consider the crustacean. The metaphor lies in the slang use of the term shrimp.

And, as Guns N’ Roses so aptly sang, “what’s so civil about war, anyway?” The metaphorical use of the word civil is certainly rather optimistic: that a community of people (civilians) are cultured and polite (civil), to each other.

Plastic glasses? Names can become figurative in that they outlive the material from which they are originally – or uniquely – made.

Deafening silence? A change from loud noise to sudden silence is not really deafening, but we get the message.

Metaphorical use of language is colourful, creative and fun. However, ‘old’ creativity – metaphors that have been embedded in language for a long time – tend to pass us by as mundane. For example, when I wrote earlier that the role of metaphor really ‘struck’ me, nobody would think I was being particularly creative with my language.

When we are moving across languages, boring (dead) metaphorical expressions in one language can spring to life when directly translated into another language; for example, the literal translation for the Spanish ‘te has pasado tres pueblos’ – you have passed three villages – means that you have gone too far. There are so many instances of this in different languages.

However, we do have things in common in that we use our daily experience to talk about abstract ideas. Food for example: He couldn’t stomach such a lie. Temperature: He makes my blood run cold. Parts of the body: I’m heading to the shops. If metaphors are in the same category across languages, they can be easier to work out. 年年有鱼 or ‘every year has fish’ in Chinese means a surplus every year, and is not too difficult to work out. This is not always true, of course. I would not have guessed that dikacangin ‘or being peanut-ed’ in slang Indonesian means to be ignored!

It is logical that the more similar metaphors are across languages, the easier it is to directly translate what you want to say. If I want to say ‘to take into account’ in Spanish, I can use the same metaphorical expression: 'tomar en cuenta'. If I want to say it in Japanese, I cannot use a direct translation, so I need to say it a different way. ChatGPT just told me that there were three different options - 念頭に置く, 考えに入れる, and 考慮する with a disclaimer: ‘Each phrase has a slightly different nuance, so the best choice depends on context!’

The ‘deadest’ metaphors

Looking at dead metaphors across languages is a way to make them more visible, and also breathe life into them again in a different language. However, there is one domain where they are so taken-for-granted that it takes a little while longer to see them. This domain is grammar.

Essentially, grammar is abstract use of literal language. I remember learning ‘ich habe hunger’ for the first time in German, and thinking it made so much sense. I have hunger – it’s something that I possess. We don’t say this in English but we do say ‘I have done my teeth’. So ‘done my teeth’ is something that I possess.

But we do not have hunger. We are hungry. There is a reason for the lack of possession here: it fits with a ‘this is this’ way of thinking. For example:

The bear is:

 ~ brown

~ running

~ fast

~ frightening

These four words: brown, running, fast, and frightening are all what the bear is. We give them different categories – adjectives, verbs – but we treat the words as things, or attributes of the bear.

Another example is our use of the word might. This is taught in English classes as a modal verb: he might do his homework. This metaphor comes from the word ‘might’, which means ‘strong’. We still use it in this way (a mighty warrior). He might do his homework means that he is strong enough to do his homework.

The more we uncover metaphors in the way we structure language, the more we can see – and help others see – similarities and differences between languages beyond ‘grammar’. 

You don’t really need a textbook for this, just an enquiring mind and people around you who speak other languages and have similarly enquiring minds. Uncovering metaphors is a fascinating voyage of discovery about how we think across languages. And useful too when it comes to learning!