Book review: Marianna Bolognesi and Ana Werkmann Horvat,The Metaphor Compass

There is a consistent interest in metaphor studies since the introduction of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980), which established solid grounds for metaphor studies within cognitive linguistics, but left some issues unexplained. Based on this context, The Metaphor Compass aims to ‘provide a tool for metaphor scholars and students’ to ‘navigate the complex kingdom of metaphor studies’ (p. 1). The book is divided into eight sections, organized in four parts.

Part I (Metaphor and linguistic diversity) addresses the cross-lingual/cultural universality and variability of metaphor on both the linguistic (Chapter 1) and conceptual level (Chapter 2). On the linguistic level, metaphoric expressions found in varied languages add evidence to the claim that ‘metaphors are a hallmark of natural languages’ (p. 8). However, not all metaphoric expressions are shared across languages and cultures, due to the fact that linguistic metaphors can be motivated not only by universal embodied experience, but also cultural conventions of a certain community or even complete arbitrary conventions. On the conceptual level, it seems that the universality and variability of metaphors are intertwined. Even those (quasi-)universal metaphoric structures (primary metaphors) which are attributed to universal embodied experience can show variability with respect to socio-cultural factors such as gender, age, and cultural background.

Part II (Metaphor and cognition) first briefly introduces a shift in understanding the differences and similarities between the processing of literal and metaphoric meaning (Chapter 3). Specifically, the literal meaning was assumed to be processed ahead of the metaphoric meaning, but later it was proposed that the literal and metaphoric meaning are often processed simultaneously and in similar ways. Furthermore, this chapter explores in more detail three variables that might influence how a metaphorical expression is understood, namely, conventionality, aptness, and deliberateness. For example, conventional metaphors would be processed by the categorization strategy, that is, understanding the target of the metaphor in terms of a superordinate category that contains both the source and the target. By contrast, novel or unconventional metaphors are more likely to be processed by comparison, which means a horizontal alignment between the source and the target, as well as between relevant features to be mapped from the source to the target. In addition, contextual clues might influence whether a metaphor is processed via categorization or cross-domain mapping. Afterward, the variability of metaphorical meaning processing between L1 and L2 speakers is discussed (Chapter 4). On the basis of defining metaphorical competence as ‘the ability to comprehend and use metaphors in L1 and L2’ (p. 94), an overview of metaphor processing analyses (including their own empirical studies) is provided concerning a range of topics: metaphoric sub-competences and their measuring methods; differences between processing of conventional metaphorical meanings in L1 and L2; variations of metaphor processing performed by L2 speakers with different proficiency levels. In sum, L2 speakers often find a problem in comprehension of metaphoric expression, which vary in their degree of semantic transparency and meaning compositionality.

Part III (Metaphor and communication) concentrates on ‘the variability of communicative intents’ that ‘is reflected in the variability of genres and modalities’ (p. 101). Chapter 5 explores the primary aspects involved in metaphor variability in monomodal and multimodal communication by first discussing metaphor variation across textual genres in view of metaphor frequency and constructed topics. Then, a terminological distinction was made separately between monomodal and multimodal metaphors based on whether a metaphoric expression is perceived through more than one sensory modality, as well as between mono-semiotic and poli-semiotic metaphors by whether a metaphor is represented by multiple semiotic systems. An example provided by the authors is that an artwork with written words and pictorial signs can be regarded as monomodal because it is perceived only through vision, but poli-semiotic because it contains signs in both textual and pictorial systems. Afterward, the authors review recent literature on metaphor expressed beyond the linguistic system of signs, and introduces procedures used to determine the metaphoricity of a picture (VisMIP) or film (FilMIP). For instance, VisMIP (Visual Metaphor Identification Procedure, Šorm & Steen, 2018), is grounded in the assumption that there is comparability between metaphors expressed in pictures and in language. It includes seven steps starting from viewing the picture to establish a general understanding, to identifying incongruities among units in an image (e.g. an action is congruous within the context), and to determining whether such incongruities must be understood by cross-domain comparisons with other things. If so, then the picture may be labeled for metaphoricity. Chapter 6 further elaborates the separation and interface between modes of metaphor expression and metaphor conceptualization by focusing on metaphors expressed in images, the most frequently explored semiotic system in the past decades. A peculiarity of pictorial metaphoric expressions, the incongruity that an image presents to the viewer, is compared with the incongruity of linguistic metaphors. Furthermore, since incongruity is a signal that marks deliberateness, this chapter extends the concept of metaphoric deliberateness to images to substantiate the comparability between metaphorical expressions in language and pictures.

Part IV (Metaphor and creativity) starts from discussing creativity in thinking and language (Chapter 7), and then narrows down to metaphorical creativity (Chapter 8), a key manifestation of linguistic creativity. Chapter 7 provides a literature survey to explain how creativity has been defined and measured, and applies the Model of Creative Thought (Eagleman and Brandt, 2018) to linguistic creativity, which are achieved by three types of cognitive operations: bending, breaking, and blending. In addition, this chapter also illustrates the interface between these operations and metaphors in the generations of creative language, with an example of creativity of mixing metaphors in poetry. In Chapter 8, creativity in metaphoric expressions is examined in terms of the following aspects: the variability of creativity in metaphoric expressions, the factors that influence the degree of creativity, and the ways creative metaphors are used in language and their effects on metaphor comprehension.

In general, The Metaphor Compass displays four directions of metaphor studies over the past several decades, with a common thread running through the discussions, namely, metaphor variability. Metaphor variability is attributed to linguistic diversity, language background differences, genre- and semiotic-variety, and the multifaceted nature of creativity. For instance, the metaphorical association between a specific color and its emotional connotation differs across languages and cultures. Native English speakers are more likely to associate sadness with the color blue, which may be explained by the expression feeling blue. Speakers of other languages may not establish the association because there is no equivalent expression in many other languages. Overall, this book serves as a link between previous and future metaphor studies. The first two directions indicate the traditional topics of metaphor research, including the relations between metaphor and linguistic diversity, and cognition. Besides, a critical reflection is made on the dominant theoretical approaches and suggestions for future research. For example, the authors point out that ‘there is a pressing need to study lesser-known languages’ (p. 186), and expect more rigorous explorations into the processing and acquisition of metaphorical language. The latter two sections represent more recent issues, including relations between metaphor and communication, and linguistic creativity. Researchers are invited to explore different modes of metaphor expression and differences in the cognitive mechanisms, and to probe into cognitive processes involved in creative metaphor generation.

It is worth noting that this book may indicate future trends of metaphor studies. Metaphor studies have gone through three waves, respectively featured by introspection, corpus-based/driven research, and genre analysis. This book, especially the last two chapters, could herald a central topic in a new wave of metaphor research: metaphors in varied modes and semiotic systems. Inspirations could be drawn from socio-linguistics that humankind has entered an age of ‘translanguaging’ (García & Wei, 2014). What differentiates the translanguaging view from traditional multimodality theories is its emphasis on the integrality of semiotic resources in multiple modalities. Specifically, communication relies on a single integrated ‘repertoire’ which incorporates linguistic, semiotic, and sociocultural resources, and that meaning construction is achieved collaboratively and simultaneously, rather than separately, by these resources. Multimodal metaphor research has been conducted to explore how metaphorical meanings are constructed separately by semiotic resources in various modes. However, metaphor, as a key meaning construction device, could be further researched by exploring the ways of collaborative metaphoric meaning co-construction by resources in various semiotic systems of communication and from specific sociocultural contexts. Specifically, the meaning construction of a poli-semiotic metaphorical expression may be constructed on the basis of interactions among linguistic, pictorial, and socio-cultural resources. For instance, the metaphorical emotion-color association is grounded in cultural-specific knowledge, and is expressed through language and pictorial signs, thus co-constructing the meaning of emotion as color metaphor.

Overall, The Metaphor Compass substantiates ‘the fact that metaphor is so overwhelmingly present in our lives and everyday communication’ (p. 187). It is a successful exemplar of the cardinal directions of metaphor studies ranging from traditional topics to recent issues discussed in the field, thus contributing to linking previous studies and future directions.