Blog Entry #2 – Hickey, and Metaphors

A young lad is out to conquer the world, full of imagination… and bubbles. He inhales deeply. Ready to create the perfect bubble. Counts, 1…2…3. Boom a bubble the size of the titanic erupts from his wand. As it begins to float away he readies his pointer finger. Ready for the best part of the bubble making excursion. The pop. He lifts his finger, and nears the bubble when, out of nowhere, Timmy pops the bubble. Dismay falls upon our poor lad. Leading to the expression of someone “bursting your bubble.”

Or so a child would conceptualize the meaning of this expression. An adult’s view could differ. Maybe thinking of it as more of a bursting of the cartoon bubble seen in comics to portray a characters thoughts. Hickey said that ” Typically in this culture, reason is valued more than emotion.” This lead me to think about how sayings such as “bursting your bubble” can be valued differently within the same culture. Kids think of the world from a different viewpoint than adults do. Leading them to perceive the world differently. Adults have been hardened by the capitalist clock that consumes our everyday lives, and are not able to get that same freedom to think, and adventure as a child is. Which plays into their values differing. A kid would value emotion over reason. While adults stick to valuing reason over emotion. This all is encompassed by the way an individual finds meaning within that metaphor. Different ideals lead to different meaning.

Hickey also hit on the fact that “Everyday metaphors carry a judgement.” Such as saying that someone is “going against the grain.” This could be perceived as a negative, or a positive statement. An older generation might say this to describe the youths new style when dressing, implying that it is not good to go against the traditions of the past. Yet a young person could use this as a positive, to say that getting rid of the old ways is to progress. Each one cast a different judgement on the individuals. One implying that sticking with ideas that work is more beneficial. While the other implies that change is the only way to breed new success.

Hickey also states that “While we’re think of argument as war, and thus defining and revealing it as a conflict to be won, or lost, we conceal other goals of argument, such as mutual understanding.” What he is getting at is that if we get caught up on the literal meaning of the words contained within, we lose out on the other implied statements made within the metaphor. Like if we took “love is a battlefield” literally. Love would come out as something to be won, or lost. (same as with “argument is war”) Leaving out the implied meaning of love being a compromise. A battlefield doesn’t always have to be thought of as a place where armies clash to the death, but rather a place where minds battle in hopes of new understanding. That’s the beauty of these metaphors, they are sort of like art in the way that they can be interpreted differently. Creating all sorts of unique perspectives on how language can be perceived.

Thoughts differ from person to person. Culture differs from person, to person. Language has a unique way of having a universal meaning, that is subject to our individual interpretation based on thoughts, cultural ideals, and values. That’s why a simple metaphor about bubbles can have multiple layers of meaning.