Bulletin of the Section of Logic
Volume 31/1 (2002), pp. 47–57
Dorota Rybarkiewicz
IS METAPHOR AN ILLOCUTIONARY ACT?
Abstract
The paper aims to answer the above question basing, on the one hand, on the
pragmatic analysis of metaphors ([5], [6]) and, on the other, on speech acts theories. Having discussed the points at variance I try to show that metaphor is
not an illocutionary act in the sense as, e.g. ”to promise” is. Instead it may be
considered as a special super-force when special conditions are included in the
definition of speech act.
1. Introduction
It is evident that metaphorical meaning depends on a large array of pragmatic factors and the conjecture that the metaphoric phenomena are amenable to a pragmatic theory seems fully justified. No wonder, the development of pragmatic theories of speech acts evoked much hope for the progress
in the investigation of figurative speech. In the paper I try to answer the
question whether the concept of metaphor as viewed in [6] may be considered as one of the illocutionary acts ([7], [9]).
2. Some remarks on metaphor
To avoid vacuity, it is proper to start with some remarks devoted to the
characteristic of metaphor. However, this topic cannot be treated thoroughly here (see[5] [6]); I shall only mention these aspects which are of
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service to the main question. First, the problem is approached from the
perspective that in general terms agrees with the main theses of the inferential analysis of non literal meaning ([10]). Namely, that non-literal
meaning should be analysed by pragmatics. Pragmatics in order to do so
must add to semantics a theory of conversational rules and analysis of context. A speaker can get the hearer to infer what he means on the basis
of assumption that he respects conversational rules but exploits, or uses,
conversational maxims. Further analysis, however, brings some difference,
vital for the pragmatics of metaphor, but rather marginal for the pragmatics of non literal meaning. It concerns the choice of conversational maxim
that is supposed to decide about metaphor. For Grice and Vanderveken it
is the maxim of quality: Speak the truth! In the approach to metaphor we
adhere the maxim exploited is that of relevance: What you say should be
relevant! The main arguments speaking for this choice are as follows: (a)
There are examples of true metaphorical statements; (b) Maxim of quality does not discern irony from metaphor; (c) The sign of metaphor, and
method to create it, is a transposition of a word (s) into some semantically
strange context (see [6]). What prevails then is a semantic anomaly. It is
an indispensable property of metaphor. To this property there corresponds
maxim of relevance. Moreover, the fact that metaphors are evident (truths
or falsehoods) is again connected with relevance - why to say something
that is evident? As Sperber and Wilson put it, the information is irrelevant
but the fact that it was expressed is relevant in case of metaphor.
The maxim of relevance is not the only one applied here since it is
not sufficient to generate metaphorical meaning. The other two are the
rule of resemblance and the rule of trust. Especially resemblance is very
important for metaphors. In the process of understanding (and creating)
a metaphor the speaker is invited to compare. The process of comparison and corresponding to it resemblance is asymmetrical (His brother is a
snake and The snake is his brother are two distinct metaphors although
the same elements are compared). For this reason the term ”resemblance”
has replaced ”similarity”. Let me recall that metaphor has been described
as a two-layer structure. For example, two metaphors the tree cries and
the crying tree, have the so-called verbal layer wherein linguistic expressions concatenate according to syntactic rule but not the semantic ones,
and the cognitive layer, where resemblance relation links, in general terms,
the subject of metaphor and its characteristics, both treated as bundles of
properties (see,[6]).
Is Metaphor an Illocutionary Act?
49
On this basis I further propose to look at metaphor only from the
standpoint of the strategy of its interpretation. The strategy describes the
action of the hearer from the moment they meet with a metaphor to the
”calculation” of its possible meaning. There are three stages distinguished
in this process: 1) Recognition; 2) Reconstruction and 3) Proper interpretation. They correspond both to the three properties of metaphor: transposition, transformation and resemblance; and to the levels of the metaphorical
structure (see [6]). The first stage, recognition, is the recognition of transposition, i.e. semantically non-standard concatenation of words, which, we
may say, is a method of creating a metaphor. In result the speaker violates one of the conversational rules, the rule of relevance, while the hearer
notices the act of violation which indicates to him that the meaning of
such an utterance may be non-standard. To solve the metaphorical puzzle,
however, the rule of relevance must be followed by the rule of resemblance:
the hearer assumes that the utterance states the resemblance. This rule
refers to the necessary change of the hearer approach: from the expected
literal meaning towards less expected metaphorical one, and finally leads
to the second stage, the reconstruction. The reconstruction consists in
discovering the elements of the resemblance relation. The number of the
reconstructed elements varies according to the type of metaphor. In the
final stage, proper interpretation, the hearer appeals to the common properties of the compared elements. Incidentally speaking, the word ”strategy”
is rightly associated with the participation in a game since the interpretation of metaphors requires proceeding according to the rules and involves
some knowledge, experience and intelligence.
Let this rudimentary characteristic suffice as a starting point in the
attempt to see how such a dynamic pragmatic phenomena as metaphor can
be dealt with in terms of speech acts theories.
3. Illocutionary force of a metaphor
M. Warner in [11] claims that as long as a metaphor remains alive, it has
some metaphorical force which should be considered as illocutionary. Similarly, Mac Cormac [4] is a proponent of metaphoric speech acts. For him,
the theory must determine the type of a speech act metaphor performs. The
last two words should be emphasised since not mentioning speakers here has
resulted in the author’s failure to provide legitimate arguments supporting
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Dorota Rybarkiewicz
his thesis. Let us view his arguments for metaphorical illocutionary force.
He resorts to the three Austin [1] types of speech acts, namely, locution,
illocution, and perlocution. However, he alters their clear-enough original
meaning wading, in my opinion, towards more vague ones:
a) Locutionary act is a declarative force of language or an information
transfer. For Austin locution is always to perform the act of uttering
certain noises, it is tantamount to phonetic act which may be (and often
is) connected with phatic and rhetic acts1 .
b) Illocutionary act is the force of what l̆anguage does. Force remains
an enigmatic term in his considerations. For Austin it is performing an
act in uttering something and as such is contrasted with locution. Austin’s
examples illustrate this difference: locution: He said to me ”Shoot her”
(meaning by ”shoot” shoot and referring by ”her” to her; illocution: He
urged (advised, ordered etc.) me to shoot her.
c) finally, Mac Cormac refers to the perlocutionary act as to the influence of utterance upon the audience. Here he is quite close to Austin who
states that locutionary and illocutionary acts may be followed by perlocutionary act which is the result, effect or consequence in feelings, thoughts
or behaviour of the hearer, and which are often intended by the speaker.
In his approach, Mac Cormac focuses upon the latter two forces.
Metaphors are acts that evoke surprise, are instruments generating semantic anomalies, creating our different emotional attitudes. Their illocutionary force is ”what metaphors do” (and not what speakers do). What do
metaphors do? According to Mac Cormac they stimulate emotions, surprise and puzzle us. At this moment it becomes evident that Mac Cormac
misconceives the very notion of illocution: what he calls illocution is in
fact perlocution. The border between the two types of acts wanes and the
author tends to discuss solely metaphors’ perlocutionary character, which
is indisputable.
Thus the initial question concerning the illocutionary status of a metaphorical utterance remains open. In order to bring it to light, more perspicuous approach of Searle and Vanderveken [7] seems to be necessary.
They assume a speech act to be a primary unit of meaning. It usually
consists of an illocutionary force and a propositional content. Illocutionary
1 Phatic act - uttering certain words belonging to certain vocabulary and conforming
to certain grammar, performing phatic act we always perform phonetic one but not vice
versa; rhetic act - the act of using utterance (pheme) with a certain definite sense and
reference (meaning), performing phatic act we need not perform rhetic one.
Is Metaphor an Illocutionary Act?
51
force decides about the function of utterance while propositional content
expresses some sense. Every uttered sentence possesses certain illocutionary force since it is impossible for a human being not to know to what
aim he speaks, for instance, he may intend to inform somebody about
something, to promise, to greet, etc. On the other hand, sometimes propositional content does not appear in an utterance, as in ”Hello!” or ”Wow!”.
Such utterances represent ”pure” illocutionary forces.
As the authors have pointed out, the very syntactic structure of a
sentence uttered elicits the type (or types) of illocutionary force. The
following syntactic features, called illocutionary markers, avail: adverbs,
word order, punctuation or intonation. We may expect that metaphors
considered as illocutionary acts should have some syntactic marker(s). On
closer scrutiny, however, it is visible that the information about figurative
meaning of a sentence is conveyed by some semantical disharmony perceived
in it, as the simple examples show:
The wind is singing.
The idea was born.
Setting the words (”wind”, ”idea”) beyond their standard context of use,
which is one of characteristic features of metaphor, i.e. transposition, results in a semantic change. This lack of a metaphoric marker in the syntactic layer could suggest a negative answer to our initial question. Nevertheless the cogency of this argument may not be satisfactory.
To countenance the above statement as fully justified we must turn to
the definition of illocutionary act proposed by the authors and elaborated
further by Vanderveken in [9] and, specifically, try to solve the following
problems:
1. Is metaphor an illocutionary act? or
2. May the characteristic features of metaphor be reflected within one or
more components of the definition?
3. Can we render the hypothetical metaphoric force by some additional
component?
First let us sketch the core of the authors’ speech act description.
A speech act is composed of an illocutionary force, F ∈ F, F is a set
of illocutionary forces, and a propositional content P ∈ P, P, is a set of all
propositional contents. The set of illocutionary forces F has been further
defined as a Cartesian product of six components:
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Dorota Rybarkiewicz
F = S1 × S2 × S2 × S4 × S5 × S6
Some of them depend entirely on the speaker, i.e., illocutionary point (S1 ),
a mode of achievement of illocutionary point (S2 ) sincerity conditions (S3 )
and their degree of strength (S4 ). Preparatory conditions (S5 ) result from
the state of affairs in the world, and propositional content conditions (S6 )
reflect the language rules.
The set contains five primitive illocutionary forces and others generated from them. To avoid rather a burdensome construction of the original
definition I shall try to explain the gist of it by means of examples, which
I hope would be sufficient to our aim.
1. Illocutionary points of utterance (S1).
Illocutionary point determines, on the one hand, the function of an utterance, on the other hand, it reveals the aim which the speaker connects with
his utterance. Such aims seem to be manifold and may be referred to by
names of the so called illocutionary verbs. The basis of ordering such a
plethora of illocutionary points has been found in the idea of directions of
fit between a language (word) and the world. There exist four directions
of fit:
WORLD ⇒ WORD
words reflect the actual state of the world, they seem to be adjusted to it.
WORLD ⇐ WORD
words bring about the change of the world, the world becomes adjusted to
them.
WORLD ⇔ WORD
words constitute facts, mutual adjustment.
WORLD ∅ WORD
lack of any adjustment.
Every performed illocutionary act must come into one of the four relations with the world. Hence all the illocutionary points (and thus acts)
may be divided into main types called, respectively:
i. (⇒) to assert
when a speaker describes in a propositional content of his act the actual
state of the world;
ii. (⇐1 ) to commit
when a speaker, by the fact he utters a sentence, commits himself to the
future course of action presented in the propositional content;
iii. (⇐2 ) to direct
Is Metaphor an Illocutionary Act?
53
if a speaker by his utterance makes the hearer do what the propositional
content of his act says;
”To commit” and ”to direct” has been distinguished within one direction
of fit in respect of different addressees of the speech act.
iv. (⇔) to declare
if a speaker constitutes facts by saying something, e.g. to baptise, to nominate etc. This sort of utterances enables the performance of some social,
religious or legal acts. Also a broad group of performative sentences are
included here.
v. (∅) to express
if a speaker by means of uttering P expresses some feelings and attitudes.
2. Mode of achievement of illocutionary force (S2).
For example, ”to assure” belongs to assertives with special mode of achievement such that the speaker tries to convince the hearer of the truth of the
propositional content.
3. Sincerity conditions (S3).
They constitute a set of propositional attitudes expressed by the speaker in
his utterance, for example, ”to boast” is to express pride and satisfaction
for something that is related to oneself.
4. Degree of sincerity conditions, (S4) = {..., −1, 0, +1, ...}.
For instance, S4(to suggest) = −1, while S4(to assert) = 0, and S4(to
assure) = +1.
5. Propositional content conditions (S5).
Form a set of propositions determining necessary properties of P e.g. ”to
report” is ”to assert” with S5 that P is past or present with respect to the
moment of utterance.
6. Preparatory conditions (S6).
They determine the state of affairs assumed by the speaker and so ”to
remind” differs from ”to assert” only by having the preparatory condition
attributing forgetfulness to the hearer.
Now the answer to the first question may be settled by a brief inspection of the following examples:
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Dorota Rybarkiewicz
Point
⇒
⇐1
⇐2
⇔
∅
Metaphor
I devoured the newspaper
I shall devour the newspaper
You should devour the newspaper
I declare that I will devour
the newspaper every day
That is great that you
have devoured the newspaper
Literal utterance
I read the newspaper
I shall read the newspaper
You should read the newspaper
I declare that I will read
the newspaper every day
That is great that you
have read the newspaper
It seems that no illocutionary point excludes metaphor. On the contrary, the examples show that metaphors conjoin easily with any type of
point (in this respect, they may resemble propositional content factor).
Likewise metaphors go along with all the remaining compounds of illocutionary force. The facility of metaphors to become any kind of an illocutionary act, refutes the conjecture that metaphor is a kind of illocutionary
act. 2 .
I think that this conclusion is fortunate, as it confirms the intuition
that figurative use of language mirrors in some sense the literal one and
thus it cannot be treated on a par with the above mentioned illocutionary
acts which are only instances of literal speech. The definition cannot be
improved to incomporate metaphor as a separate illocutionary act.
Notwithstanding, we may consider enriching the definition of speech
act so that it embraces metaphor as a super force. This is possible if to S5
we add a special condition: a proposition P is not semantically coherent
but is the basis for meaningful inference, which is to reflect the property
of metaphor, transposition; and to S6 the condition that there is a resemblance between the objects the metaphor refers to perceived y the speakers.
Obviously, these two properties of metaphors included to the components
allow only to separate metaphorical and literal acts and do not provide any
promising basis for the specification of metaphorical illocutionary force.
Maybe it is worthwhile to mention some other pertinent remarks on
this question. Also Cohen [2] notices that it is impossible to explain
metaphor by means of the speech act theory. He points out to another
difference between a metaphor and speech acts. For instance if John says:
”I congratulate you”, he congratulates but if I say: ”John said that he
congratulated me”, I do not congratulate but inform about John’s congratulations. Translation from indirect to direct speech changes the origi2 In
fact the authors declared that they analyse only literal language.
Is Metaphor an Illocutionary Act?
55
nal speech act into another act. The case of metaphor is different in this
respect. When John says, for example, ”I am pumped down”, the utterance may be understood only when so is the metaphor. And if someone
says: ”John said that he is pumped down”, this also may be understood
if the metaphor is. Indirect speech does not influence metaphor, which
means that metaphor resides in proposition, concludes Cohen. Among the
proponents of this view are Hintikka and Sandu [3]. They do not see any
chance to develop the theory of metaphorical speech acts. The source of
their opinion, however, is essentially different from the one represented in
this paper. For them, ”in metaphor we are dealing with a special kind
of non literal meaning of certain expressions” (p.161). Thus they suppose
that to say something metaphorically about somebody is to state something about this person, and this is possible only if the speaker may base
on a metaphorical meaning of one of the expressions, which is not a fact
connected with speech act. Although I agree with them that such a theory cannot be developed, my perspective seems to be inverted: nonliteral
meaning results from special use of language, namely, from non standard
setting of words, the already mentioned transformation (which is not connected with speech act either). The fact that metaphorical meaning comes
from special language use should be emphasised here. Notwithstanding,
I agree with the tacit assumption lying behind the statement of the authors: non literal is not chosen freely.
4. Conclusion
In the light of the above considerations the question what do we do when
we utter a metaphor, is not different from the question what do we do
when we speak literally. The thesis adopted by some authors that ”to
metaphorize” is a special type of illocutionary act, as ”to promise”, ”to
scold” or ”to greet” has been refuted and we showed the contrary, that any
illocutionary act may be either literal or metaphorical since no component
of an illocutionary act in the definition discussed may distinguish them.
As it has been stated, such conclusion seems to follow common linguistic
intuition concerning the status of figurative speech as opposed to the whole
literal language and not its some illocutionary type. Thus the answer to
the question expressed in the title must be negative: metaphor cannot be
treated on a par with any illocutionary act which is only an instance of the
literal speech.
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Dorota Rybarkiewicz
Any attempt to interweave somehow metaphorical into the net of illocutionary acts must preserve its separate status equal to literal. The
possible solution is to treat it as a super-force put on the literal layer of the
whole range of illocutionary acts. Whether all illocutionary acts may be
metaphorical is a question that could be considered elsewhere. The main
hypothesis is that the respective metaphorical versions of different illocutionary acts may be embraced in the theory by adding to the propositional
content conditions, S5, a requirement reflecting one feature of metaphor,
transposition, here formulated as: a proposition P is not semantically coherent; and to the preparatory conditions, S6, the condition referring to
the property of metaphorical resemblance.
The introduced conditions differentiate metaphorical from the literal
but, obviously, may not be considered as necessary to determine a concrete
illocutionary act.
References
[1] J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, Oxford Clarendon
Press, 1962.
[2] L. J. Cohen, Notes on Metaphor, The Journal of Aesthetics
and Art Criticism 34 (1976), pp. 249–260.
[3] J. Hintikka and G. Sandu, Metaphor and Other Kinds of Nonliteral
Meaning, Aspects of Metaphor, ed. J. Hintikka, 1994, pp. 151–187.
[4] Mac Cormac and R. Earl, A Cognitive Theory of Metaphor,
The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, 1990.
[5] D. Rybarkiewicz, Three Aspects of Metaphor, Logica Trianguli,
University de Nantes, no 1 (1997), pp .93–103.
[6] D. Rybarkiewicz, The Structure of Metaphor: Towards a Pragmatic Approach, Logica Trianguli, University de Nantes, no 2 (1998).
[7] J. R. Searle and D. Vanderveken, Foundations of Illocutionary
Logic, Cambridge University Press, 1985.
[8]
D. Vanderveken, Non Literal Speech Acts, Cahiers
d’epistemologie, Universite du Quebec, Montreal, November, 1985.
[9] D. Vanderveken, Meaning and Speech Acts, Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Is Metaphor an Illocutionary Act?
57
[10] D. Vanderveken, Formal Pragmatics of Non Literal Meaning,
Linguistiche Berichte 8 (1997).
[11] M. Warner, Black’s Metaphors, British Journal of Aesthetics
13, no 4 (1973), pp. 367–372.
University of L
à ódź
Department of Logic
Kopcińskiego 16/18
90–232 L
à ódź
Poland
e-mail: [email protected]