Postgraduate "Work In Progress" Seminar

Metaphors can be recognised as offering an indirect way to achieve understanding of phenomena we find hard to comprehend or cannot express directly. However, claims about what is involved in the process of creating and interpreting metaphor, and the nature of what is produced, vary widely between different metaphor theories and linguistic traditions. According to traditional models, metaphorical meaning is conceived simply as a transformation of antecedent literal meaning in relation to an already present object. This way of understanding metaphor takes it to be an embellishment of discourse, but one that is unable to cover truth. But there are a number of theories that challenge this conception and attribute creative capacity to metaphor, claiming that it is possible that the use of metaphor can result in an instance of something that did not previously exist.

If it is the case that metaphor is able to exceed the boundaries of what is in an objective sense, reaching beyond facts and objects to redefine the world as a whole, whether it does this re-constituting the world, in the sense of introducing something wholly new, or by shedding new light on antecedently existing, but unavailable elements, is a matter for debate. It is the more radical, creative theories that Lucy will investigate, in order to establish whether certain kinds of metaphors can in fact be considered as, in some way, genuinely productive of meaning, and, if so, what kind of innovation this implies. And it will be seen that in the theories under consideration, the dichotomy between world constitution and world disclosure does not maintain; if a metaphor is to be truly innovative it will, in an important sense, both disclose and constitute reality.

The talk will be followed by discussion and drinks at The Dirty Duck. All are welcome.