Abstract
Imagine a poet comparing hawthorn (a wild flower shrub) to water. What are the similarities between the two? Suppose someone tells you that the ocean is like a harp. What can she possibly mean? How can a harp be similar to the ocean? In each of these cases, there seem to be no similarities between the two objects. Yet, in the poem White Hawthorn in the West of Ireland, Eavan Boland boldly likens hawthorn to water: “I drove West// ... past splashes of coltsfoot,// I assumed// the hard shyness of Atlantic light// and the superstitious aura of hawthorn.// All I wanted then was to fill my arms with// sharp flowers,// to seem, from a distance, to be part of// that ivory downhill rush ...// ... So I left it// stirring on those hills// with a fluency// only water has. And, like water, able// to redefine land. ...”; and in his classic poem Seascape, Stephen Spender compares the ocean to a harp: “There are some days the happy ocean lies// Like an unfingered harp, below the land.// Afternoon gilds all the silent wires// into a burning music for the eyes.” Each of these metaphors is quite unconventional and strikes a jarring chord when we encounter it at first. But after the metaphor is assimilated, we are left with beautiful, fresh and vivid imagery. In fact much of the beauty of these two poems comes from the novelty of their metaphors.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Bibliography
Andersen, M.: 1967, ‘An Impression’, in S. Rozental (ed.), Niels Bohr: His Life and Work as Seen by His Friends and Colleagues, North-Holland, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, pp. 321–324.
Berger, P. L. and Luckmann, T.: 1966, Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in Sociology of Knowledge, Double Day and Co. Inc.; Anchor Book Edition 1967.
Black, M.: 1962, ‘Metaphor’, in M. Black (ed.), Models and Metaphors, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, pp. 25–47.
Black, M.: 1979, ‘More about Metaphor’, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 19–45.
Boland, E.: The Hawthorn in the West of Ireland, appeared in The New Yorker, March 27, 1989, p. 111.
Camac, M. K. and Glucksberg, S.: 1984, ‘Metaphors Do Not Use Associations Between Concepts, They are Used to Created Them’, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 13(6), 443–455.
Cassirer, E.: 1955, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Vol. 1–3, translated by R. Manheim, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn.
Collins, A. and Gentner, D.: 1987, ‘How People Construct Mental Models’, in D. Holland and N. Quinn (eds.), Cultural Models in Language and Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.; Chap. 10 (pp. 243–265).
Dretske, F. I.: 1981, Knowledge and the Flow of Information, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Fass, F.: 1989, ‘Met*: A Method for Discriminating Metonymy and Metaphor by Computer’, Technical Report CSS/LCCR TR 89–15, Center for Systems Science, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada.
Gentner, D. and Stuart, P.: 1983, ‘Metaphor as Structure-Mapping: What Develops’, BBN Report No. 5479, Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc., Cambridge, Mass.
Goodman, N.: 1976, Languages of Art, 2nd ed., Hackett Publishing Co., Indianapolis, Ind.
Goodman, N.: 1978, Ways of Worldmaking, Hackett Publishing Co., Indianapolis, Ind.
Gordon, W. J. J.: 1961, Synectics: The Development of Creative Capacity, Harper and Row, New York, NY.
Gruber, H. E.: 1978, ‘Darwin’s “Tree of Nature” and Other Images of Wide Scope’, in J. Wechsler (ed.), On Aesthetics in Science, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., pp. 121–140.
Halford, G. S. and Wilson, W. H.: 1980, ‘A Category Theory Approach to Cognitive Development’, Cognitive Psychology 12, 356–411.
Hausman, C. R.: 1983, ‘Metaphors, Referents, and Individuality’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 12, 181–195.
Hausman, C. R.: 1989, Metaphor and Art: Interactionism and Reference in Verbal and Nonverbal Art, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
Hesse, M. B.: 1974, The Structure of Scientific Inferences, University of California Press, Berkeley, Calif.
Hoeller, S. A.: 1982, The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead, The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, Ill.
Hofstadter, D. R.: 1985, ‘Analogies and Role in Human and Machine Thinking’, in D. R. Hofstadter, Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern, Basic Books, Inc., New York; Chap. 24 (pp. 547–603).
Holland, D. and Quinn, N. (eds.), Cultural Models in Language and Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Hubel, D. H.: 1988, Eye, Brain and Vision, Scientific American Library, W. H. Freeman, New York, NY.
Indurkhya, B.: 1991a, ‘On the Role of Interpretive Analogy in Learning’, New Generation Computing 8, 385–402.
Indurkhya, B.: 1991b, ‘Modes of Metaphor’, Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 6(1), 1–27.
Indurkhya, B.: 1992, Metaphor and Cognition, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
Johnson, M.: 1987, The Body in the Mind, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.
Johnson, M. G. and Malgady, R. G.: 1980, ‘Towards a Perceptual Theory of Metaphoric Comprehension’, in R. P. Honeck and R. R. Hoffman (eds.), Cognition and Figurative Language, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 258–282.
Jung, C. G.: 1963, Memories, Dreams and Reflection, edited by Aniela Jaffe, translated by Richard and Clara Winston, Random House, Inc. (Vintage Books), New York, NY.
Kant, I.: 1787, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Norman Kemp Smith, unabridged edition, St. Martin’s Press (1965), New York, NY.
Kelly, M. H. and Keil, F. C.: 1987, ‘Metaphor Comprehension and Knowledge of Semantic Domains’, Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 2(1) , pp. 33–51.
Kittay, E. F.: 1987, Metaphor: Its Cognitive Force and Linguistic Structure, Clarendon Press, Oxford, U.K.
Koestler, A.: 1964, The Act of Creation, Hutchinsons of London; 2nd Danube ed., 1976.
Krausser, P.: 1974, ‘Kant’s Theory of the Structure of Empirical Scientific Inquiry and Two Implied Postulates Regarding Things in Themselves’, in L. W. Beck (ed.), Kant’s Theory of Knowledge, D. Reidel Publishing Co., Dordrecht, Holland, pp. 159–165.
Kuhn, T. S.: 1957, The Copernican Revolution, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Kuhn, T. S.: 1962, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, 2nd enlarged ed., 1970.
Lakatos, I.: 1976, Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery, edited by J. Worrall and E. Zahar, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
Lakoff, G.: 1987, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M.: 1980, Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Lakoff, G. and Turner, M.: 1989, More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.
MacCormac, E. R.: 1985, A Cognitive Theory of Metaphor, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Malgady, R. G. and Johnson, M. G.: 1980, ‘Measurement of Figurative Language: Semantic Feature Models of Comprehension and Appreciation’, in R. P. Honeck and R. R. Hoffman (eds.), Cognition and Figurative Language, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 239–258.
Martin, J. H.: 1988, A Computational Theory of Metaphor, Ph. D. Dissertation, Computer Science Department, University of Calif. at Berkeley, Berkeley, Calif.
McCabe, A.: 1983, ‘Conceptual Similarity and the Quality of Metaphor in Isolated Sentences Versus Extended Contexts’, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 12(1), 41–68.
Miller, A. I.: 1978, ‘Visualization Lost and Regained: The Genesis of the Quantum Theory in the Period 1913–27’, in J. Wechsler (ed.), On Aesthetics in Science, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., pp. 73–102.
Neisser, U.: 1976, Cognition and Reality, W. H. Freeman and Co., San Francisco, Calif.
Ortony, A.: 1979, ‘The Role of Similarity in Similes and Metaphors’, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 186–201.
Ortony, A.: 1980, ‘Some Psycholinguistic Aspects of Metaphor’, in R. P. Honeck and R. R. Hoffman (eds.), Cognition and Figurative Language, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 69–83.
Partee, B. H.: 1979, ‘Montague Grammar, Mental Representations, and Reality’, in P. A. French et al. (eds.), Contemporary Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp. 195–208.
Petrie, H. G.: 1979, ‘Metaphor and Learning’, A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 438–461.
Piaget, J.: 1936, The Origin of Intelligence in the Child, trans. by Margaret Cook (1953), Penguine (1977), New York, NY.
Piaget, J.: 1937, The Construction of Reality in the Child, trans. by Margaret Cook (1954), Ballantine Books (1971), New York, NY.
Piaget, J.: 1945, Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood, trans. by C. Gattegno and F. M. Hodgson (1951), W. W. Norton and Company (1962), New York, NY.
Piaget, J.: 1967, Biology and Knowledge, trans. by B. Walsh (1971), The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.
Piaget, J.: 1970, Genetic Epistemology, translated by E. Duckworth, Columbia University Press, New York, NY (W. W. Norton edition, 1971).
Pinker, S.: 1985, ‘Visual Cognition: An Introduction’, in S. Pinker (ed.), Visual Cognition, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, pp. 1–63.
Popper, K. R.: 1959, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Hutchinson, London.
Popper, K. R.: 1962, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, Basic Books, New York: 2nd ed. 1965; Harper and Row: 1968.
Ricoeur, P.: 1978, ‘The Metaphorical Process as Cognition, Imagination, and Feeling’, in M. Johnson (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor, University of Minnesota Press (1981), Minneapolis, Minn., pp. 228–247.
Rosch, E.: 1978, ‘Principles of Categorization’, in E. Rosch and B. B. Lloyd (eds.), Cognition and Categorization, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 27–48.
Schön, D. A.: 1963, Displacement of Concepts, Humanities Press, New York.
Schön, D. A.: 1979, ‘Generative Metaphor: A Perspective on Problem-Setting in Social Policy’, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 154–283.
Scientific American: 1986, The Mind’s Eye, readings from Scientific American, W. H. Freeman and Co., New York, NY.
Stratton, G. M.: 1897, ‘Vision without Inversion of Retinal Image’, Psychological Review IV(5), September 1897.
Tourangeau, R. and Rips, L.: 1991, ‘Interpreting and Evaluating Metaphors’, Journal of Memory and Language 30, 452–472.
Tourangeau, R. and Sternberg, R. J.: 1982, ‘Understanding and Appreciating Metaphors’, Cognition 11(3), May 1982, 203–244.
Turbayne, C. M.: 1962, The Myth of Metaphor, revised edition with an appendix by R. Eberle ‘Models, Metaphors, and Formal Interpretations’, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, SC (1970).
Ullman, S.: 1985, ‘Visual Routines’, in S. Pinker (ed.), Visual Cognition, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., pp. 97–159.
Verbrugge, R. R.: 1980, ‘Transformations in Knowing: A Realist View of Metaphor’, in R. P. Honeck and R. R. Hoffman (eds.), Cognition and Figurative Language, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 87–125.
Waggoner, J. E.: 1990, ‘Interaction Theories of Metaphor: Psychological Perspectives’, Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 5(2), 91–108.
Weiner, E. J.: 1984, ‘A Knowledge Representation Approach to Understanding Metaphors’, Computational Linguistics 10(1), January–March 1984, 1–14.
Wheelwright, P. E.: 1962, Metaphor and Reality, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Ind.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Indurkhya, B. (1994). Metaphor as Change of Representation: An Interaction Theory of Cognition and Metaphor. In: Hintikka, J. (eds) Aspects of Metaphor. Synthese Library, vol 238. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8315-2_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8315-2_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4385-6
Online ISBN: 978-94-015-8315-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive