Varieties and Directions of Interdomain Influence in Metaphor

Abstract

We consider the varieties and directions of influence that the source and target domains involved in a conceptual metaphor can have on each other during the course of understanding metaphorical utterances based on the metaphor. Previous studies have been restricted both as to direction of influence and as to type of influence. They have been largely confined to the "forward" (source to target) direction of influence, and they have concentrated on the transfer of features or propositions and (to some extent) the highlighting of aspects of a domain. By contrast, this article stresses the importance both of other varieties of influence (e.g., transfer of queries and uncertainty effects) and of "reverse" influence (target to source). We seek to curb the natural tendency to think that, because metaphor involves an overall move from source to target, therefore all inter-domain influences in the course of understanding go in that direction. The bulk of the article explores the theoretical issues involved. These issues have arisen out of a reasoning-based approach to metaphor, seeking to make best use of information from metaphorical utterance, context, source and target domains, and known metaphorical mappings, by applying a complex overall reasoning process. The article briefly explains the thorough implementation of reverse influence in a computer program for metaphorical reasoning called ATT-Meta, although the theoretical considerations are relevant to all disciplines concerned with metaphor. We make some suggestions for further computational and psychological research on metaphor.2

Affect Transfer by Metaphor for an Intelligent Conversational Agent

“…The background to the work on the conveyance of affect via metaphor comes from the authors' approach to, and partially implemented system (ATT-Meta) for, the processing and understanding of metaphor in general [1,2,22]. This is a more ambitious aim than the mere recognition of a metaphor or the classification of a metaphor into one of a number of different metaphor classes or conceptual metaphors (see [13]).…”

Affect Detection and an Automated Improvisational AI Actor in E-Drama

“…In other work, we have conducted research on metaphor in general (see, e.g. [24,25]), and are now applying it to the e-drama application, and conversely using the application as a useful source of theoretical inspiration.…”

“…Our intended approach to metaphor handling in the EMMA affect-detection module is partly to look for stock metaphorical phraseology and straightforward variants of it, and partly to use a simple version of the more open-ended, reasoningbased techniques taken from the ATT-Meta project on metaphor processing [24]. As an example of stock phrase handling, insults in e-drama are often metaphorical, especially the case of animal insults ("you stupid cow", "you dog").…”

“…Our work on metaphor outside the e-drama research is focused on an approach and system called ATT-Meta [24]. This approach is heavily dependent on detailed utterance-meaning analysis and on rich knowledge bases and reasoning processes, and is currently unsuitable for direct use in the edrama system.…”

“…This concerns various types of information that we propose are transferred by default in metaphor generally, irrespective of the particular metaphorical view or views taken by the utterance (e.g., whether it views a mind as a physical container or a company as an animal). We have proposed in other work [24,25] that -amongst various other types of information -emotional attitudes, value judgments and propositions concerning reduced functionality are transferred from source to target. We call the particular transfer principles involved view-neutral mapping adjuncts (VNMAs).…”