Cornelia Müller

The Dynamics of Metaphor: Foregrounding and Activating Metaphoricity in Conversational Interaction

The idea of a dynamics of metaphor emerged with advances in psycholinguistics and applied linguistics research. Today, different fields understand how a metaphor might be dynamic in different ways. For psychologists, dynamics mosdy refers to retrieving or comprehending metaphorical concepts as an online process of an individual; for applied linguists on the other hand, dynamics addresses the forms of metaphor in use extending over a discourse or a conversational interaction; and for neurologists, dynamics refers to the dynamic activation of neural webs. In this article we will attempt to bring together the psychological and linguistic perspective. We propose that an analysis of the embodied dynamics of metaphor shows how metaphoricity dynamically unfolds over time in a conversational interaction (this is a pattern which extends linearly in time) and how at the same time it may be graded, i.e. showing different degrees of metaphor activation (these are simultaneous patterns realized at one given moment in time). We propose to merge a cognitive linguistic take on metaphor with a sequential analytical approach to conversational interaction. In this dynamic view (Müller 2008a), metaphor activation is both an interactive and individual process. We will suggest that metaphor activation is observable as a multimodal salience structure, which consists of verbal, gestural and verbo-gestural metaphors that are foregrounded to various degrees. Degrees can be empirically determined through a descriptive analysis of foregrounding strategies employed by participants in a conversational interaction. We will furthermore propose that, in cognitive terms, this dynamic foregrounding of metaphoricity over the course of a conversation goes along with a constantly moving focus of attention (cf. also Chafe 1994, 1996). Foregrounding of metaphoricity also implies an embodied experience of metaphor and thus activation comes with an affective or experiential quality. The core assumption is: if metaphoricity is being foregrounded it is also activated ideally for both the speaker and the listener. We illustrate this proposal with microanalyses of naturalistic conversations and we present a descriptive method for analyzing metaphor foregrounding processes as interactive, cognitive, and ultimately emotional processes.

The “Negative-Assessment-Construction” – A multimodal pattern based on a recurrent gesture?

Abstract This paper offers an analysis of a multimodal pattern of negative assessment, which takes as the starting point a particular recurrent gesture: the Throwing Away gesture. Recurrent gestures are characterized by a stabilized form-meaning pairing. In the case of the Throwing Away gesture, form and meaning are grounded in an “Away-Action-Scheme”: i. e., a socially shared, sedimented experience of removing unwanted objects at, on, or approaching a speaker’s body. Based on a cognitive-linguistic analysis of the gesture and its use in five different verbal contexts, we suggest that the Throwing Away gesture enters a verbo-kinesic construction that consists of the “Throwing Away Gesture + particles/negation/N/V/ADV”. The meaning of the verbo-kinesic construction is grounded in an embodied frame of experience in Fillmore’s sense: i. e., a schematized scene involving mundane actions, here ‘removals of unwanted objects’ (e. g., ‘Away-Action-Scenes’). Referring to Goldberg’s “Scene Encoding Hypothesis”, we propose that the “Negative-Assessment-Construction” designates scenes essential to human experience. With this focus, the paper puts forward a gesture-first account on verbo-kinesic constructions and suggests a possible candidate for such a multimodal pattern.

Audio-visual metaphors of the financial crisis: meaning making and the flow of experience

This paper advocates a perspective on metaphors in audio-visual media that conceives of these as processes of meaning making, i.e., as dynamic embodied conceptualizations, constitutively bound to the flow of experience. This involves experience in a double sense: as immediate affection through an audio-visually orchestrated form of movement experience and as sensory-motor experiences of metaphoric source domains. Drawing on an interdisciplinary (linguistic and film analysis) method, this study presents an analysis of a German political TV report on winners and losers of the financial crisis. The goal of this case study is twofold: to reconstruct the complexity of metaphoric meaning making in audio-visual media and to illustrate a theoretical claim: that metaphors in audio-visual compositions emerge dynamically from sensory and affective experiences.

Cinematic Metaphor: Experience – Affectivity – Temporality

Monografien Kognition und Reflexion: Zur Theorie filmischen Denkens. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2018 Cinematic Metaphor: Experience – Affectivity – Temporality. Von Cornelia Müller und Hermann Kappelhoff in Zusammenarbeit mit Sarah Greifenstein, Dorothea Horst, Thomas Scherer und Christina Schmitt. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2018 Frontlines of Community: Hollywood Between War and Democracy. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2018 Genre und Gemeinsinn: Hollywood zwischen Krieg und Demokratie. Berlin/ Boston: De Gruyter, 2016 The Politics and Poetics of Cinematic Realism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015 Realismus: das Kino und die Politik des Ästhetischen. Berlin: Vorwerk 8, 2008 Matrix der Gefühle. Das Kino, das Melodrama und das Theater der Empfindsamkeit. Berlin: Vorwerk 8, 2004 Der möblierte Mensch. G. W. Pabst und die Utopie der Sachlichkeit. Ein poetologischer Versuch zum Weimarer Autorenkino. Berlin: Vorwerk 8, 1995

Gesture and Sign: Cataclysmic Break or Dynamic Relations?

The goal of the article is to offer a framework against which relations between gesture and sign can be systematically explored beyond the current literature. It does so by (a) reconstructing the history of the discussion in the field of gesture studies, focusing on three leading positions (Kendon, McNeill, and Goldin-Meadow); and (b) by formulating a position to illustrate how this can be achieved. The paper concludes by emphasizing the need for systematic cross-linguistic research on multimodal use of language in its signed and spoken forms.

„Etwas bis zur Vergasung tun“ — Sprachtabu als kollektive Trauerarbeit?

Die Redewendung ‚etwas bis zum Vergasen tun, uben‘1 ist ein Beispiel fur ein politisch motiviertes Sprachtabu. Ein Sprachtabu, das sich in der Folge der kritischen Aufarbeitung des Nationalsozialismus in der Bundesrepublik gegen ein sprachwissenschaftliches Votum etabliert, das einen Zusammenhang der Redewendung mit der Ermordung von mehreren Millionen Juden in den Vernichtungslagern der Nationalsozialisten aus sprachhistorischen und sprachstrukturellen Grunden zuruckweist. Die metaphorische Redewendung ‚etwas bis zum Vergasen tun, uben‘ wurde aufgrund der nicht zu vermeidenden Assoziation mit der Vergasung von Juden unaussprechbar, sie wurde tabuisiert und gehorte fortan nicht mehr einem aufgeklarten kritischen Sprachgebrauch an. Interessanterweise hat sich das Sprachtabu gegen die sprachkritischen Ermahnungen der germanistischen Sprachwissenschaft so weit durchgesetzt, das es in den neunziger Jahren Einzug in die Worterbucher des Deutschen gehalten hat.