CASE STUDY 1: SEARLE

Reddy investigated the prevalence of the CONDUIT metaphor in everyday lan-guage and claimed that it is nearly impossible to talk about lanlan-guage without using CONDUIT metaphors.10 The intriguing question now would be whether the CONDUIT metaphor also occurs in scientific discourse. In an attempt to test whether it is possible for scholars to free themselves from such folk theories, I scanned Searle’s text specifically for metaphorical expressions that fit into the framework of the CONDUIT metaphor. Indeed, I did find a set of textual

6 See Lakoff 1987: 118.

7 In a similar way, Kövecses 2003 investigated the concept of emotion and the folk and expert the-ories related to it.

8 Reddy 1993.

9 See Lakoff – Johnson 1980: 10.

10 See Reddy 1979: 177.

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tions of the CONDUIT metaphor in Searle’s text. The following examples illustrate the pervasiveness of reifications of LANGUAGE in the form of CONTAINER metaphors, which constitute the basis of the CONDUIT metaphor.

(1) The only descriptive content carried by the expression […].11

(2) The syntactical representation of the semantic facts will not always lie on the surface of the sentence.12

(3) Where there is in a given language or in any language an upper bound on the expressible […].13

(4) So what I shall do in my analysis of illocutionary acts is unpack what con-stitutes understanding a literal utterance […].14

If words can “carry” meanings, they need to have an inside and an outside and meaning must be imagined as tangible, containable, and movable. Example 2 also illustrates this aspect. Stating that there is “an upper bound on the expressible”

suggests that words can be filled with meaning; that they are containers. Example 4 is concerned with how the receiver extracts the ideas from the utterance that contains them. These examples demonstrate that the CONDUIT metaphor involves ontological metaphors.

The domain LANGUAGE is structured further by structural metaphors. The following examples suggest the conceptualisation that COMMUNICATION IS SENDING or PHYSICAL TRANSFER.

(5) We have seen that in a fully consummated reference the speaker identifies an object for the hearer by conveying to the hearer a fact about the object […].15 (6) The speaker’s ability to supply an expression […].16

(7) The speaker presents the hearer with an actual instance of the universal […].17

11 Searle 1969: 92.

12 Searle 1969: 30.

13 Searle 1969: 20.

14 Searle 1969: 47.

15 Searle 1969: 115.

16 Searle 1969: 86.

17 Searle 1969: 116.

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(8) It is the identifying description which provides the vehicle for saying what is meant in the reference.18

The verbs “convey”, “supply” and “present” have basic physical meanings relating to the transmission of concrete objects. The notion of physical transfer is also evoked by the noun “vehicle” in example 8.

The metaphorical expressions discussed so far are deeply ingrained in everyday language. Their metaphoricity would largely be taken for granted by the author and, for the most part, go unnoticed by the reader. However, Searle’s text also comprises more explicit metaphors, namely LANGUAGE USE IS A GAME, which is illustrated by the following quote:

We are in a position of someone who has learned to play chess without ever having the rules formulated and who wants such a formulation. We learned how to play the game of illocutionary acts, but in general it was done without an explicit formulation of the rules.19

Searle uses further explicit analogies between languages and games to underpin his theory that languages, just like games, are goal-directed and based on rules and conventions. Interestingly, there is a set of everyday linguistic expressions that fit into the framework of the LANGUAGE USE IS A GAME metaphor.

(9) My strategy is to play along with the terminology […].20

(10) The role that the word plays in an utterance of the sentence […].21 (11) Nor does the maneuver with the notion of exactness offer any help […].22 The expression “to play along with the terminology” suggests that SPEAKERS ARE PLAYERS IN A GAME. This correspondence stresses that communication requires a productive and a receptive part – just like there are typically several antagonists in a game. In example 10, the linguistic unit itself is the player in the language game. The word “maneuver” implies that communication is target-oriented; speakers use a specific tactic when communicating in order to achieve certain conversational goals. Accordingly, utterances in a conversation are moves

18 Searle 1969: 88.

19 Searle 1969: 55.

20 Searle 1969: 176.

21 Searle 1969: 74.

22 Searle 1969: 9.

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or even manoeuvres in a game. The general goal in the language game is to have one’s intentions understood by the addressee and understanding the addresser’s intentions respectively.

The two conceptual metaphors yielded by the analysis of Searle’s text seem very unlike each other at first as they draw on two different source domains. However, playing games and sending and unpacking objects can be subsumed under the same general source domain: HUMAN ACTIONS AND ACTIVITIES. In both cases, a source-path-goal image schema is involved, which highlights that com-munication requires a giver (the speaker or the writer), a recipient (the listener or the reader) and the transfer of linguistic content. Despite having a similar focus, each of the two metaphors highlights a different aspect of communication. While the GAME metaphor foregrounds the goal-directedness and the dependency on rules and conventions, the CONDUIT metaphor stresses the process of transferring mental content. The two conceptual metaphors provide a refined image of one aspect of the domain LANGUAGE, namely its communicative function. In the same way that Searle’s speech act theory is only one perspective on the concept language, the metaphors used to describe his linguistic theory are only capable of providing an insight into a limited set of aspects concerning language. The aspect of how human beings acquire their ability to use language and the aspect of grammar, i.e. the internal rules of the language system, cannot be accounted for by these two conceptual metaphors.