THINKER'S ALMANAC - November 1

How can metaphors influence a person’s thinking about the stock market?

Subject: Language - Agent Metaphors or Object Metaphors

Event:  Metaphors We Live By published, 1980

Love is friendship set to music.  -Jackson Pollock

Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath.  At night, the ice weasels come. -Matt Groening

In the two quotations above, the idea of love is framed very differently, not just in words but in metaphors.

On this day in 1980, the book Metaphors We Live By was published.  In the book, cognitive linguist George Lakoff and philosophy professor Mark Johnson challenge the reader to view metaphors as much more than just a poetic device.  Instead, the authors argue that metaphors are essential to the way humans think and the way they perceive the world.  To illustrate, one 2007 study looked at language used to describe the stock market.  The metaphors used were identified as either agent metaphors or object metaphors.  Agent metaphors animate the market as a living being, saying, for example, that “the Nasdaq climbed higher” or “The Dow fought its way upward.”  Object metaphors, in contrast, describe the market in terms of inanimate objects or forces, saying, for example, that “the Nasdaq dropped off a cliff.”  More than just linguistic flourishes or vivid imagery, Lakoff and Johnson argue that these metaphors influence our thinking and frame our perceptions.  In the 2007 study, for example, investors who examined market data were more likely to predict a stock would continue to rise if the data were described using agent metaphors -- as in the stock “climbed.”  Object metaphors -- as in the stock “increased” -- did not have this kind of influence (1).

                                                                Image by Mediamodifier from Pixabay 

The message here is that language is not simply a method of expressing thoughts; instead, the relationship between language and thought is much more nuanced.  Perhaps the philosopher Bertrand Russell said it best:  “Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.”

Nothing in language is as powerful as metaphor.  As Aristotle said, “It is metaphor above all else that gives clearness, charm, and distinction to style.”  Through the alchemy of metaphor, writers transform ideas into concrete, vivid images that make readers imagine and feel.  When you use figurative language like metaphors and similes, you set the tone and frame the argument. Positive imagery makes your reader feel and imagine good emotions; negative imagery makes your reader feel and imagine negative emotions.

Shake the dust off a tired idea; use a metaphor or simile to polish it up and make it look and sound brave and brand new. 

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  How do agent metaphors differ from object metaphors, and why does this distinction matter?

Challenge - Metaphors Be With You:  Generate a list of abstract ideas, such as greed, trust, or ambition.  Then, do a search for some quotations on one of your abstract ideas.  Look for quotations that use metaphors to bring the abstract ideas to life with concrete, showing images.  For example, the American lawyer and orator Robert G. Ingersoll said, “Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.” Select your favorite metaphor and explain how the metaphor makes the abstract idea more concrete.

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

November 1, 1866:  On this day, the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky met a very important deadline.  Based on the terms of his contract with his publisher, Dostoyevsky would either deliver his completed novel on November 1, 1866 or his publisher would be given complete rights to his works, without compensation, for the next nine years.  Clearly entering into such a contract was a gamble, but then Dostoyevsky had a reputation as a gambler.  After all, the reason he agreed to a contract with such stark terms was because he was desperate for money to pay off his gambling debts.  When Dostoyevsky began work on his novel on October 4, 1866, he had just 26 days to finish.  To assist him, he hired a stenographer, a woman named Anna Grigorievna whom he would later marry.  They met daily.  Dostoyevsky dictated the story to Grigorievna, and on November 1st, two hours before the deadline, the complete manuscript was delivered to the publisher.  The title of Dostoyevsky’s novel is appropriately The Gambler, and its plot revolves around several desperate characters winning and losing at the roulette table.  Art imitates life as the author’s addiction to roulette is the focus of his novel’s plot (2).

Sources:  

1-O’Mahony, Proinsias.  “Market Metaphors Can Lead Investors Astray.”  Irish Times 20 Sept. 2016. 

2-Nissley, Tom.  Reader’s Book of Days.  New York:  W. W. Norton, 2014:  315.