by Mark Turner
If we grip an object or otherwise make it impossible for someone else to grasp and manipulate the object, then we prevent anyone else from controlling it. Thus we can say that someone has a firm on first place or that her on the seat in the Senate cannot be broken or that she has the championship all locked up or that he has a lock on her affections.
In all of these cases, the spatial body action of grasping is projected onto situations that are not principally bodily or spatial. Projecting the actor from the source story personifies something in the target story. Suppose we map the body action of taking away onto the event—story of beeomin g unemployed. Then the state of being employed corresponds to a physical object. Enjoying that state corresponds to having the physical object in our grasp. Ceasing to enjoy that state corresponds to having the physical object removed from our grasp. Some— thing causally related to this change of state can be personified as the actor of
BODY ACTION Q. 35
that change. We can say that a machine took our job away or recession took our ob away, thus projecting the actor of take away onto the machine or the recession.
A physical object that we expect will remain reliably within our grasp is also under our control, to the extent that our expectation is correct. If the ob- ject is in our hip pocket or all locked up, we can think of ourselves as having it at our disposal. Alternatively, if we are able to reach the object and see no ob- struction, we imagine ourselves, narratively, as able to grasp it and control it. When someone, to our surprise, removes the object, as when a pickpocket steals our watch or a thief breaks the lock or someone pops out of nowhere to grab the object and run away, we feel that an actor has spatially removed a physical object from within our reliable grasp and control. Thus we can say that the happy little boy bending to pick up the penny baa’ it until the last second when his older sister took it away from him, even though the boy never touched the coin. Parabolically, we can say of someone nearing retirement that his secure old age was stolen from him by a crooked labor union whose president embezzled from the pension fund, even though the employee had not yet reached old age or retired. We can say that the weather took our sailing away from us, even though we had not yet launched the boat. In this case, the weather is personi- fied: the weather is the actor of the taking.
In the story of Odysseus’s shipmates, homecoming is a state to which they look forward. They expect to be able to enjoy that state. Parabolically, it is a physical object within their grasp. The cancelation of the possibility corresponds parabolically to the taking away of an object. An epic story of events, deaths, and dashed expectations is understood by parabolic projection from a simple story of body action in space, in which Apollo takes something away from the shipmates. Apollo acts justly, says Homer. The shipmates had been warned to conduct them- selves respectfully as they journeyed home, but, ignoring the advice of Odysseus, they turned savage and raided a herd of cattle. The cattle belonged to Apollo. They took what was his; in response, he takes what was theirs.
MOVERS AN D MAN I PU LATO RS
We have seen EVENTS ARE ACTIONS guide us in projecting the action—story of a journey. In this projection, states correspond to locations, so that the state of being alive corresponds to being present bore and the state of being dead corresponds to having departed for a different location. Changes of state correspond to changes of location that are caused by spatial movement.
We have also seen EVENTS ARE ACTIONS guide us in projecting the action- story of reaching, grasping, holding, and taking physical objects. In this projec- tion, states correspond to physical objects. We can grasp or fail to grasp a physi-
36 .8 THE LITERARY MIND
cal object; we can lose it or keep it. Parabolically, we can obtain or fail to obtain a state; we can get or fail to get a job; or we can lose a job or keep it.
These are two alternative ways to conceive of a state, as a location or as an object, but they combine and reinforce each other. In our spatial experience, we routinely journey to a point near a physical object in order to grasp it. We must walk to the coffee cup in order to pick it up. The state of having a physical object thus often involves two parts: moving toward it and grasping it. They go together in our experience, and they go together in the parabolic projection of stories of body action. Thus we can say of ajob candidate that he had almost arrived at the point of }Jd'Ui72 g tbejob in band, and feel no conceptual collision, even though we are projecting both movement and manipulation. We journey to an object and grasp it; parabolically, we journey to a state and have it.
In both cases, we project a routine spatial story of body action onto a story that may not necessarily be spatial.
UNDERSTANDING NONSPATIAL EVENTS
EVENTS ARE ACTIONS guides us in understanding a wide range of event—stories by parabolic projection from spatial stories of body action. Sometimes the tar- get event-story is itself a spatial action, with an actor or actors. When a ball is thrown in the direction of a receiver but another receiver intercepts it, this is certainly a spatial action-story, with actors. But through EVENTS ARE ACTIONS, we can project a a'gflerent spatial action-story onto it, one in which the inter- ceptor “takes” the ball “away” from the intended receiver. Of course, the intended receiver never had the ball, so the interceptor does not literally “take” it from him; and of course, the ball may have never been near the intended receiver, and the interceptor may in fact have carried the ball closer to the intended re- ceiver in catching it, so the “away” is also metaphorical. The naturalness of the projection is so deep that it requires some scrutiny before we see that one spa- tial story of action is being projected onto a different spatial story of action. In the tale of the ox and the donkey, it is easy to see that one story is projected onto another; here, it is much harder to see, except under analysis. But the mental instruments are the same.
Sometimes the target event is not an action-story. The small story of what the sun and waves do to the sailor, and the small story of what the rain does to the elms and the lake, are spatial events where the causes are not actors but can correspond parabolically to actors in a spatial action-story.
Sometimes the target event-story is not clearly spatial or even physical. Consider mental events. They are of course physical in the sense that they con- sist of neurobiological events, but we rarely if ever conceive of an idea as physi-
BODY ACTION Q. 37
cal. Usually, we conceive of an idea as neither physical nor spatial. Nor do we routinely conceive of it as a literal actor. But an idea can correspond paraboli- cally to an actor in a spatial action-story. The idea can become, parabolically, an actor performing a spatial action, as when we say, “An idea came to me unbid- den,” “An idea seized me,” or “An idea grabbed hold of me.” We can turn our thoughts parabolically into actors of movement who “elude” us or “outrun our ability to express them.”
So far, we have considered cases where the source story is a spatial story of body action. We have seen that such a source story can be projected onto stories of spatial action with actors, onto stories of spatial events without actors, and onto stories of nonspatial events. We will see in what follows that the scope of projection of spatial stories is much wider still.
A9 4 Ea. FIGURED TALES
Memory would come like a rope let down from heaven to draw me up out of the abyss of not-being, from which I could never have escaped by myself.
Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Thin gs Past
Mind like a floating white cloud Ezra Pound, Cantos Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back
Wherein he puts alms for Oblivion. VVilliam Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida
How all occasions do inform against me.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
The fundamental things apply As time goes by.
Herman Hupfeld
ACTORS ARE BODY ACTORS
EVENTS ARE ACTIONS guides us in projecting a story of action onto any kind of event—story, whether it has actors or not.
The projected action is usually body action. The target event may be spatial or not. We have seen a story of ehewingprojected onto a story of damage in the copy mathine, a story of heating
38
FIGURED TALES Q. 39
projected onto the story of the sailor’s exposure to the elements, a story of tear- ing down projected onto the story of elmtops falling in high winds and rain, a story of a departure involving many actors projected onto a story of death, and a story of one person taking a pljysieal object away from another projected onto the epic story of the deaths of Odysseus’s shipmates.
ACTORS ARE MOVERS
One of the most common uses of EVENTS ARE ACTIONS is to project stories of body motion onto other action—stories. EVENTS ARE ACTIONS thus has a special subset: ACTORS ARE MovERs. It is a general projection. Specific projections de- velop from it. Many of them are common and have become conventional. Sev- eral were noted as separate items by George Lakoff and MarkJohnson.
AcToRS ARE MovERS is a dynamic, flexible, self—reinforcing pattern for pro- jecting stories of body motion onto stories of action. Below is a list of common projections that arise from it. The list is not exclusive—the general projection invites creativity. The list is not obligatory—most of it can be ignored as we recruit what we need and modify or elaborate it. Elements on the list overlap consider- ably and sometimes imply each other. Crucially, the examples on this list are not mere figures of speech. They are not specific to language. They are expres- sions in language of the mental processes I call parable. They all concern the pro- jection of a basic abstract story of movement by an actor under his own power onto a different story of action, whether or not it involves movement. These pro~ jections show up constantly in both everyday language and literary language because they are general cognitive processes indispensable to human thought and action.
Actors Are Actors Moving under Their Own Power She is a moverin the entertainment industry. Action is absolutely necessary but the president appears to be paralyzed. Action Is Motion by an Actor under His Own Power She walked right into a dismal job. She went ahead and gave her opinion. States (of Actors) Are Spatial Locations (That Actors Can Be In) He sees financial security as being fizr ofi"in the distance. We cannot return to former conditions. Being in a State Is Being in a Spatial Location
He is in retirement.
40 .8 THE LITERARY MIND
He le t physics to go into medicine at the age of thirty and stayed there for the rest of his career. Change of State (by an Actor) Is Change of Location (by an Actor) He came out of retirement. He made a lateral career move. Impediments to Action Are Impediments to Motion He’s carrying too many responsibilities to get far. She started to speak, but his glare stopped her. Goals Are Spatial Locations We Try to Reach I finally reached a solution. They stoppedsljort of their goal. Forgoing a Goal Is Forgoing a]ourney to a Spatial Location I was beaded toward a degree in mathematics but then decided that my interests lay in a diflerent direction. She imagined that she wanted to be a lawyer, but when she was nearly tljere, she took a good, hard look at the reality of it and fled. Means to Goals Are Paths to Destinations
No avenues have been found to alleviate the suffering. No one knows how to do this; we need a trail—blazer.
Progress toward the Goal Is Movement toward the Destination
We are getting tljere. I have been held up by all I have to do, but I will be ficrtljer along
S0011.
(bicker Means Are Paths That Can Be Traveled More Cbickly The quickest way to get this is to buy it at the store. Yet I do fear thy nature. / It is too full 0’ th’ milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way. (Lady Macbeth on Macbeth)
Causes of Actions Are Causes of Self-Powered Movement Ambition spurred him to pick up the pace.
The company has ways of making you feel very uncomfortable if you stay in the same position for long.
The pattern is clear. A little looking will uncover many further projections: Effects of Actions Are Effects of Self-Powered Movement (“The prior accord ended up trampled ”), Manner of Acting Is Manner of Movement (“He came to the real~ ization laaltingly”), and so on and on.
FIGURED TALES Q. 41
ACTORS ARE MAN I PU LATO RS
Self-powered movement is one fundamental subcategory of body action. A second fundamental subcategory is literal man ipalation of physical objects. Manipulation— in this literal sense—can involve grasping, pushing, pulling, shaking, and so on. As infants, we observe that we can reach for an object, grasp it, manipulate it, push it, and shake it. We recognize other objects as intentional actors at least in part on the basis of recognizing them as capable of performing these actions.
One of the most common uses of EVENTS ARE ACTIONS is to project stories of bodily grasping and manipulation onto other action stories. EVENTS ARE ACTIONS thus has a second special subset: ACTORS ARE MANIPULATORS. It is a general projection. Specific projections develop from it. Many of them are com- mon and have become conventional. Several of them were noted as separate items by Lakoff and Johnson. Again, the following list of common projections is meant only to suggest possibilities that arise under this general projection; its elements overlap and imply each other. Again, the examples on this list are not mere fig- ures of speech. They are not specific to language but reveal mental processes of parable that show up in both everyday language and literary language because they are general cognitive patterns of projection. In this case, the projections carry a basic abstract story of manipulation onto a different story of action.
Actors Are Manipulators He’s got his fingers into everything. Hana’: ofi" my business! Action Is Grasping I took the opportunity. I finally got my band: on that house. States Are Physical Objects He has the nomination in the bag. Love is hard to /Jola’ on to. Enjoying or Controlling a State Is Grasping the Object He has afirm on the situation. The new contract took my vacation away from me. Change of State Is Change of Grasping
I baa’ the game completely in my grasp but then I let it get away from me.
He t/Jro=wx his chances away.
42 .8 THE LITERARY MIND
Impediments to Action Are Impediments to Grasping
I can’t have thatjob. Bob’s already got it locked up.
Goals Are Physical Objects One Tries to Grasp
He’s headed for thejob of news editor and he is going to get it, and when he does, no one is going to be able to take it away from him. He tried to take the lead.
Forgoing a Goal Is Forgoing Grasping the Object One Wishes to Grasp
Why don’t you put the cruise aside for a while until you can enjoy it? She let that chance go by.
Means to Goals Are Aids to Grasping Ask the supervisor to hold that job for you until you are free to take it.
Persuade the office to set that trip aside for you so that no one else will take it before you can.
Progress toward the Goal Is Improved Positioning for Grasping He is positionin ghimse_lf to snatch thatjob without anyhoa'y’s noticing. Quicker Means Are Qlicker Ways of Grasping
He keeps creeping up on the topic. I think he should ask his boss directly to give it to him.
Causes of Action Are Causes of Manipulating an Object
He was juggling too many projects and finally had to release some of them to other managers.
Again, the pattern is clear. A little looking will uncover many further projec- tions: Effects of Actions Are Effects of Manipulating an Object (“The vice- presidency is upforgrahs becauseJuanita let go of it‘ ’), Manner of Acting Is Manner of Grasping (“He seized the opportunity”), and so on and on.
BODY TALK
The most thorough analysis of a special case of ACTORS ARE MANIPULATORS is Michael Reddy’s foundational study of how we project the story of manipulat- ing objects onto the story of communicating. In his detailed 1979 inquiry, which established both the original perspective and much of the methodology of later cognitive scientific work on conceptual projection, Reddy demonstrated t
hat a story of communication is routinely understood by projection from a story of body action, specifically manipulation. One person, the speaker, puts a physical object, the meaning, into a container, language, and sends it along a conduit to another
FIGURED TALES Q. 43
person, the hearer, who then opens the container, language, to extract the ob- ject, the meaning, so as to have it—that is, to know it. We say “My head is full of ideas thatI am trying to put into words,” “He couldn’t get his ideas across ,” “I got a lot out of the book,” “I can’t extract your meaning,” and so on. In all of these cases, action-stories of manipulation are projected onto action-stories of communication.
ACTORS ARE MOVERS AND MANIPULATORS
Self—powered movement overlaps with manipulation of physical objects. To manipulate an obj ect, we often must go to it, move our arm and hand toward it, grasp the object, and manipulate it. Someone who is “going for the football” is usually moving his entire body in the direction of the ball, moving his hands toward the ball, and intending to grab the ball and manipulate it. Movement and manipulation combine naturally in our experience and in our conceptual categorizing of ourselves and other actors.