The Poetics of Mind. Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding

537 Pages·1994·10.146 MB·

by  Raymond W. Gibbs

The Poetics of
Figurative Thought, Language,
and Understanding
Raymond W Gibbs, Jr.
f
The poetics of mind
The poetics of mind
Figurative thought, language,
and understanding
RAYMOND W. GIBBS, JR.
University of California, Santa Cruz
gl CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 irp
40 West 20th Street, New York, ny 10011-4211, usa
10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia
© Cambridge University Press 1994
First published 1994
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gibbs, Raymond W.
The poetics of mind : figurative thought, language, and
understanding / Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-521-41965-4 (hardback). - ISBN 0-521-42992-7 (pbk.)
1. Psycholinguistics. 2. Figures of speech. 3. Thought and
thinking. 4. Poetics. I. Title
P37-5-f53g5 1994
4Oi'.9~dc2O 93-38232
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
isbn 0-521-41965-4 hardback
isbn 0-521-42992-7 paperback
Contents
Acknowledgments page vii
Chapter i
INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW 1
Chapter 2
THINKING AND SPEAKING LITERALLY 24
Chapter 3
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE UNDERSTANDING:
A SPECIAL PROCESS? 80
Chapter 4
METAPHOR IN LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT 120
Chapter 5
UNDERSTANDING METAPHORICAL EXPRESSIONS 208
Chapter 6
IDIOMATICITY 265
Chapter 7
METONYMY 319
Chapter 8
irony 359
Chapter 9
THE POETIC MINDS OF CHILDREN 399
V
Contents
Chapter 10
IMPLICATIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS 434
References 455
Name Index 499
Subject Index 509
vi
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to a large number of colleagues and friends who
have contributed to my development as a cognitive scientist.
I want first to thank David Rumelhart, Herb Clark, and George
Lakoff for acting as wonderful, yet very different, mentors
over the past 15 years. My intellectual and personal debt to
these fine people is enormous.
Many other people influenced my thinking during the writ­
ing of this book. Although I list them together, each person's
contribution is individually appreciated: Larry Barsalou, Chris­
tina Cacciari, Dedre Gentner, Richard Gerrig, Sam Glucksberg,
Mark Johnson, Boaz Keysar, Barbara Malt, Greg Murphy,
Andrew Or tony, Yeshayahu Shen, Gerard Steen, Eve Sweetser,
and Mark Turner. Special thanks to Larry Barsalou, Richard
Gerrig, and Sam Glucksberg for their helpful comments on an
earlier draft of this book.
Support for some of the work described in this book came
from the National Institute of Mental Health and the Academic
Senate of the University of California, Santa Cruz. I thank my
colleagues at the University of California, Santa Cruz, for all
their support. My undergraduate and graduate students de­
serve special notice for their intelligence, hard work, and en­
thusiasm in collaborating with me on some of the research
discussed in this book. My gratitude goes to Tamiko Azuma,
Dinara Beitel, John Bolton, Darin Buchalter, Cooper Cutting,
Suzanne Delaney, Bill Farrar, Gayle Gonzales, Mike Johnson,
Melissa Keppel, Jeff Kishner, Sachi Kumon-Nakamura, Julia
Kushner, Rob Mills, Jessica Moise, Rachel Mueller-Lust,
vii
Acknowledgments
Annette Nagaoka, Solange Nascimento, Nandini Nayak, Jen­
nifer O'Brien, Kerry Pfaff, David Smith, Michael Spivey, Lise
Strom, and Jeff Sykes.
Many thanks to Julia Hough for her advice and support
during the writing of this book. Her reading of an earlier draft
substantially improved the final product. The entire staff at
Cambridge University Press have been wonderful through­
out the preparation of this book. A special tip of the hat to
Julie Holloway for her assistance in proofreading the manu­
script.
Finally, I must express my appreciation and affection to my
parents, Raymond and Dorothy Gibbs, and to Guy Van Orden
and Lydia Kearney. Fuzz the cat has been a constant source of
encouragement.
PERMISSION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
"Metaphors," from Crossing the Water, by Sylvia Plath, © Ted
Hughes i960, is reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publish­
ers, Inc.
"I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed," by Emily Dickinson, is reprinted
by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst Col­
lege from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. Thomas H. Johnson,
Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
© the President and Fellows of Harvard College 1951, 1955, 1979,
1983.
"The Phenomenology of Anger," from The Fact of a Doorframe:
Poems Selected and New, 1950-1984, by Adrienne Rich, © Adrienne
Rich 1984, © W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1975,1978, is reprinted
by permissions of the author and W. W. Norton & Company.
"I Need You" (David Stewart/Annie Lennox), © D'N'A' Ltd. 1987,
administered by BMG Songs, Inc., is used by permission.
"The Road Not Taken," from The Poetry of Robert Frost, ed. Ed­
ward Connery Lathem, © Robert Frost 1944, © Henry Holt and
Company, Inc., 1916,1969, is reprinted by permission of Henry Holt
and Company, Inc.
"Messenger," from Goshawk, Antelope: Poems, by David Smith, ©
University of Illinois Press 1979, is reprinted by permission.
"This is Just to Say," from William Carlos Williams, Collected Po-
viii
Acknowledgments
ems, 1909-1939, vol. 1, © New Directions Publishing Corp. 1938, is
reprinted by permission.
"The Mind Is an Ancient and Famous Capital," by Delmore
Schwartz, is reprinted from Last and Lost Poems of Delmore Schwartz,
ed. R. Phillips (New York: Vanguard Press, 1979), by permission of
Robert S. Phillips, literary executor for the Estate of Delmore
Schwartz.
ix
Chapter 1
Introduction and overview
Why should poetic imagination matter to cognitive science?
An old but still prevailing view among students of mind holds
that thought and language are inherently literal. Even though
people can and do speak figuratively, the ability to think, imag­
ine, and speak poetically has historically been seen as a spe­
cial human trait, requiring different cognitive and linguistic
skills than those employed in ordinary life. This traditional
conception of mind has imposed serious limitations on both
the scholarly study of mental life in cognitive science and the
humanities and on everyday folk conceptions of human ex­
perience. We see the mind as a mirror of some God-given re­
ality that can be best described in simple, nonmetaphorical
terms, language that more closely reflects underlying "truths"
about the world. Figurative or poetic assertions are distinct
from true knowledge, a claim first made by Plato in his fa­
mous critique of poetry. To think or speak poetically is to adopt
a distorted stance toward the ordinary world, one that is held
in disdain by most philosophers, scientists, and educators.
This book advances the idea that the traditional view of mind
is mistaken, because human cognition is fundamentally
shaped by various poetic or figurative processes. Metaphor,
metonymy, irony, and other tropes are not linguistic distor­
tions of literal mental thought but constitute basic schemes by
which people conceptualize their experience and the external
world. Since every mental construct reflects an adaptation of
the mind to the world, the language that expresses these con­
structs attests to the continuous process of poetic thinking.
i