How metaphor and narrative interact in stories of forces of nature

Fuchs, Hans U.; Contini, Anamaria; Dumont, Elisabeth; Landini, Alessandra; Corni, Federico

doi:10.4324/9780429459191-7

Cited by 10 publications

(28 citation statements)

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“…In the later episode, they share the understanding that the paper sheets and piece of fabric will make a lateral trajectory they can both follow. Fuchs et al (2019) and Haus (2018) interpreted similar assemblages of forces and children. Human and non-human are coming into being differently: the children become different as they understand the forces, just as the material enacts the flight-float-fall experience.…”

Section: Paper Tissue Is Flyingmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…The metaphors of togetherness and its opposite, being apart, act in two directions, reinforcing each other. Where Fuchs et al (2019) look at cold in tension and polarity with hot, here the sand, when it is dispersed, is in polarity with being together (together ↔ dispersed). The children being together informs the perception of the sand and the perception of the sand informs the sense of being together (Annamaria Contini, personal communication, 2018 Haus's (2018) studies, as well as Lenz Taguchi's (2014: 79) revised understanding of materiality which suggests that sand can be 'playing with the child's hand, body, eyes and perceptive and productive bodymind'.…”

Section: Sand and Children Are Together (And Apart)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Two dialogical theorisations of children’s encounters in more-than-human worlds involving metaphor

Lawrence

2021

Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood

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This article generates two dialogical theorisations of young children’s encounters in more-than-human worlds involving metaphor. The first theorisation devises metaphor as an entry point into the dialogues of more-than-humans and includes rare attention to metaphors as multimodal intra-action. The second theorisation provides an alternative to Linell’s view that relation with non-humans would be merely a metaphorical extension of dialogue, ‘as if’ they were human. Instead, a new model recognises the potential for dialogue as a relational engagement with otherness in a more-than-human-centric approach. The theorisations underpin interpretations of a range of early childhood play episodes with protagonists: sand, paper, tissue and plastic. The materials are beyond any assumed instrumental interaction waiting to be acted upon by humans; rather, they can be in social and material worlds, meeting places, of more-than-humans intra-acting. Penny Lawrence has proposed attending to the quality of relation in dialogues. The significance of these theorisations is for more-than-human study of any encounter to take account of the potential for dialogue, and for studies of dialogue to take account of the more-than-human. In particular, the processes of blending in multimodal metaphorical co-constitutive processes offer notable insights into intra-actions within more-than-human dialogues.

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Section: Paper Tissue Is Flyingmentioning

confidence: 81%

Section: Sand and Children Are Together (And Apart)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Two dialogical theorisations of children’s encounters in more-than-human worlds involving metaphor

Lawrence

2021

Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood

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“…In narratives of forces acting and interacting over time in a given physical or social setting, we make use of these embodied imaginative structures [17,44]. Metaphors are embedded in the narrative flow of stories, which helps to us understand their meaning more profoundly than if they occurred separated from a larger context.…”

Section: Embodied Imaginative (Figurative) Structuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embodied Simulations of Forces of Nature and the Role of Energy in Physical Systems

2021

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We experience (perceive, act upon and react to, and conceptualize) dynamical processes in nature as agentive. Expressed differently, we experience events as resulting from activities and interactions of Forces of Nature (such as wind, light, heat, fluids, electricity, substances, and motion) that are conceived of as powerful agents acting and interacting in physical environments. An example would be sunlight creating heat in the Earth’s surface layers, and this heat using the atmosphere as a heat engine whose output are the winds on our planet. In the physics of dynamical systems, these forces are characterized in terms of intensive and extensive quantities (i.e., electric potential and electric charge in the case of electricity). The aspect of power is formalized with the help of a generalized energy principle and the rules relating power/energy to intensive and extensive physical quantities. Concrete processes depend upon properties of physical materials (in and through which forces are active) such as (thermal, electrical, etc.) capacity or conductivity. In this paper, we demonstrate how we can create Embodied Simulations and Forces-of-Nature Theater performances, where children act as forces such as water, heat, electricity, and motion. The embodied logic of the physical play teaches children about the logic of our explanations of physical processes.

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“…Webs of interconnected metaphors used for understanding larger-scale phenomena such as melting iron for casting machine parts or riding a bicycle up a hill, form medium-scale imaginative structures. But there are still larger-scale forms that populate our mind-namely, narratives or stories (Fuchs 2015;Fuchs et al 2018). They help us deal with the perception of largescale events such as a forest fire, a winter storm, growing and harvesting crops, designing and constructing a bridge, or the birth of a child.…”

Section: Narrativementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In other words, does something emerge that is not a simple sum of metaphoric expressions and relations? Can natural and technical scenes be framed narratively (see Fuchs 2015;Fuchs et al 2018)?…”

Section: Stories Of Forces Of Nature: Narrative Framing Of Natural Scmentioning

confidence: 99%

Primary Physical Science for Student Teachers at Kindergarten and Primary School Levels: Part I—Foundations of an Imaginative Approach to Physical Science

Corni

Fuchs

2020

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This is a theoretical paper in which we describe the motivation for and the design of a novel primary physics course for student teachers at kindergarten and primary school levels that uses cognitive tools such as metaphor, analogy, and narrative. The course has been taught in the master's program in teacher education at three Universities over the last 5 years. It is based upon a model of the experience of forces of nature that draws upon four existing frameworks in physics, narratology, cognitive linguistics, and a theory of the development of cognitive tools. In short, the course is created upon the foundations of an imaginative, metaphoric and narrative, approach to physical science in general and to forces of nature in particular. Student teachers who learn science based upon this model can more directly relate to how children themselves experience nature and become confident narrators of stories of forces of nature. We describe the notion of Force of Nature ("The Gestalt of Force of Nature") and explain what we mean by cognitive tools ("Cognitive Tools: Tools of Imagination") before showing in what sense modern macroscopic physics is both metaphoric and narrative at its core ("An Imaginative Approach to Physical Science"). In "A Systemic Imaginative Approach to Primary Physics", we give an outline of what is needed in order to apply the approach to a course for primary physics for student teachers. In the final section, we will discuss some questions and challenges raised by this approach and show that it is a viable avenue to bringing together science and the humanities, both for research and for teaching.

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How metaphor and narrative interact in stories of forces of nature

Cited by 10 publications

References 1 publication

Two dialogical theorisations of children’s encounters in more-than-human worlds involving metaphor

Two dialogical theorisations of children’s encounters in more-than-human worlds involving metaphor

Embodied Simulations of Forces of Nature and the Role of Energy in Physical Systems

Primary Physical Science for Student Teachers at Kindergarten and Primary School Levels: Part I—Foundations of an Imaginative Approach to Physical Science

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