Although metaphor is often known as a “cliché” poetical device, many metaphors are so “normal” they are barely recognisable. In this article, I show there is a tension between the way basic metaphors entrenched in society, culture and language often stem from structures we ultimately want to resist (i.e. for the sake of the climate crisis, or other societal issues such as gender-based violence). And yet, by re-appropriating these metaphors in creative ways, we may be able to find space to overcome them.
When appealing to large audiences, such as in campaigns or protests, an effective way to grab the audience’s attention is to refer to well-known expressions or commonly shared experiences. In fact, this is one of the essential ideas behind branding and marketing – developing something audiences recognise and identify with. In activism contexts, referring to familiar expressions can be done in creative, subversive, and ironic ways, which challenge dominant narratives in society that activists often seek to resist. In this article, I’m going to talk about how metaphor can be our best friend or our best foe in these contexts.
A metaphor for climate activism
@olifro.st
The poster above was created by the activist and influencer, Oli Frost (@olifro.st). By ironically comparing “world leaders” to items in a shop sale which “must go,” the slogan calls to mind the sense that the integrity of global politicians regarding climate action is as empty as the shop shelves after “Black Week”. So, if you find yourself sniggering (perhaps in agreement), why is that so? On what level do we identify with the language?
For many of us, the things we feel to be most problematic about society are often those that are most familiar to us. The deeply materialistic values that drive the success of shop sales year on year is a good example. But at the same time, such things are often inseparable from the expected, unremarkable aspects of our lives; they are “normal” parts of life, and yet many of us believe that, ultimately, values like this are incompatible with a truly sustainable world.
I’d like to argue that using metaphor in activism is one way we can navigate the tension between simultaneously confronting and challenging societal norms. It can help to so in ways that are both useful for campaigning and also satisfying to the extent that using metaphor can bring us a certain amount of relief through irony, creativity and humour.
What is metaphor? Thoughts on its remarkable but also unremarkable nature
Metaphor, and its close figurative friend simile, tend to be known for their use in poetry or literature. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” (Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare) is one of the most famous opening lines in poetry of all time. The style of this language is much more decadent than what we would generally use day-to-day, even if we were speaking to someone we think is incredibly beautiful.
Now, take the concept of a “career ladder.” This an extremely “everyday” expression, but it is also metaphorical. The metaphor it conveys relies on the culturally embedded notion that people in positions of power occupy higher places (i.e. at the top of the ladder), whereas those who are powerless remain at the bottom. By extension, culture often dictates that having more of something (e.g. money in one’s career) is better. In the same way, something that is better or good is often placed up, whereas something that is badis often placed down (think, for example, of religious imagery, where God typically dwells in the sky, whereas Satan dwells below the earth). These associations are all metaphorical – they reveal relationships that exist between objectively unrelated topics, but that we draw on for making sense out of our thoughts and experiences. For example, nothing about being placed high up intrinsically suggests superiority. Yet, in Western cultures, we have grown to associate higher rankings as better ones. Interestingly, theories of metaphor stemming from cognitive science tell us that this comes down to the fact that the human body is vertically aligned: our heads (with which we consider ourselves to do “serious” mental work) are at the top of our bodies, and our feet (with which we do manual work such as journeying from one place to the next) are at the bottom.
Since these kinds of metaphorical associations are so natural to us – so entrenched in the ways we think and speak – we are almost unconscious of them. Therefore, it can be difficult to recognise their “metaphoricity” and disentangle the one association from the other. Think about the relationship between space and time, for example. The way we talk about “moving forward in time” is – although hardly noticeable – another metaphor that shows we conceptualise time in terms of movement through space.
Of course, not all these basic (that is, “everyday” or non-poetic) metaphors apply to everyone, every language, or every culture. Personally, I am speaking from the position of an able, female, native English speaker, who’s grown up in a major city in England. It’s important not to generalise and disregard the ways in which other bodies, other cultures, other genders, other beings, see the world in different ways – ways that are, unfortunately, not given enough time and recognition in society (nor in the academic field of metaphor studies, to that matter)[1].
This is an extensive topic that I would love to talk about more. However, in this article, my focus is on the fact that very often basic patterns of speaking and thinking, which are metaphorical by nature, are rooted in values and structures that are unconducive to a healthy world. And yet, by reappropriating these metaphors, we may find ways to overcome them. I think this can be useful and reassuring for those of us who have activist hearts and souls.
Metaphor and thought
I work as a Cognitive Linguist at the University of Oslo. Decades of research collaborations between cognitive scientists and linguists across the world have revealed that metaphor is inseparable from the way we think. In other words, it is a fundamental part of cognition.
In 1980, Professors George Lakoff and Mark Johnson published their seminal work, Metaphors We Live By, to explain this very idea: metaphor is one of the most important ways the human brain organises thoughts. Therefore, Lakoff and Johnson provided their Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT).
CMT follows that “conceptual metaphors” are the kinds of associations we make in the brain between two distinct domains of experience (such as those between good and up I mention above), and which connects these domains in a relationship of comparison. Although the connection starts in thought (that is, at the conceptual level), it emerges in communication, like in language or visual art. As a result, we end up with what metaphor scholars call linguistic metaphors such as, “she’s very high up in her career” or “shattering the glass ceiling”. The “glass ceiling» is another metaphor famous for its implicit criticism of “invisible” sexist hierarchies in the workplace, which prevent women from moving upwards in their career. The U.S. Democrat, Hillary Clinton, has been known to use this metaphor on several occasions in her public addresses[2].
According to CMT, these kinds of linguistic metaphors reflect more basic “conceptual” metaphors that exist at the level of thought, such as high status is up, or gaining power/becoming successful is moving upwards[3]. Theorists claim that these thoughts are motivated by our embodied experience in the world. Embodied experience means the experience we derive from physically interacting with our environment (the objects, materials, plants, people, places, weathers, etc.) that as human bodies, we interact with on a day-to-day basis.
Embodied and social experience shapes our relationship with the world in an extremely profound sense. So, for example, as children, we are shorter than adults and expected to defer to them. Cognitive descriptions of metaphor theorise that repeated embodiedcorrespondences, such as between the action of looking upwards to adults who we are taught to consider our social superiors, underpin conventional metaphorical expressions in language[4] such as to “look up to” someone, in the sense of “admire” or “respect”. More generalised metaphorical correspondences also emerge in this way, such as those discussed above between other kinds of superiority and higher places (e.g. career success or spiritual superiority, such as the way many religions talk about God).
Emancipatory metaphors
Now, returning to activism, and how the above relates to communication in activist contexts.
Some of the most important research from a cognitive linguistics perspective on the use of metaphor in activism contexts has been conducted by Manuela Romano from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain. Spain is a place where communication and conversation is always happening. In comparison to countries like Norway, people in Spain speak very fast, very loudly, a lot, and in a very alive kind of way. Protests in Spain also carry this kind of communicative energy. The chants reverberate in the streets. I used to live in Madrid and every year I attended the International Women’s Day march. It was an enormous event – so loud, so diverse, so empowering.
One of Romano’s recent papers[5] has dealt with metaphors used in feminist protests across Spain in response to a particular legal case concerning the gang rape of a young woman in 2016 in Northern Spain. The rapists were a group of men who identified as La Manada (translated to wolf pack or gang). They wore wolf tattoos which identified themselves as belonging to this group. They also had a group called Manda on the instant messaging application, WhatsApp. Such practices relate to other recent right-wing male supremacist groups and ideologies, such as “incel” (involuntary celibates) culture[6].
The reappropriation of the term by feminists transferred it from destructive connotations to creative and empowering connotations by becoming a symbol of women’s freedom.
In her paper, Romano shows that the use of the word manada by the rapists is already metaphorical (it compares the gang group to a wolf pack). However, the interesting point is that in the feminist protests against this legal case, protesters creatively appropriated this label to define themselves as a sort of sorority counter-group. They also called themselves a manada. But in contrast to the rapist group, their kind of pack was defined by a sisterhood solidarity, standing in anger and in rage against the violence of the original male group. In this way, the oppressed group (the women) appropriated and recontextualised the original metaphorical label (manada) to position themselves against the oppressors in an act of self-emancipation. The metaphorical term thus evolved. Following the legal debate and extensive media coverage across Spain of the rape tribunal, through to the protests and marches in the city streets, manada acquired new meaning and, arguably, acquired a new discourse status in Spanish society. The reappropriation of the term by feminists transferred it from destructive connotations to creative and empowering connotations by becoming a symbol of women’s freedom.
So, going back to the Black Friday example discussed above, we can also see a case of creative reappropriation here. Through reappropriating the classic marketing slogan, the author, Frost, finds a way to metaphorically twist the phrase (by appending, “all world leaders must go”). Calling to mind concepts, narratives or experiences, such as those related to Black Friday or La Manada, allows activists to name and thus confront the very ideologies they want to challenge. Then, by reappropriating and recontextualising the original label for a new purpose, the activist finds a new way – opens up a new cognitive space – for reclaiming, dismantling and thereby replacing the oppressive connotations of the original slogan with new connotations – connotations that symbolise a better, perhaps emancipated, alternative.
Small words for big changes
We’ve seen that metaphor is as much an everyday phenomenon as a poetical one. Metaphorical language and experience is unique, as it reflects different identities, values and beliefs. Nevertheless, there are certain metaphors that have become part of highly ordinary expressions and experiences, such as relating to career progression or religious ideas. Then, there are other times in which metaphors that are familiar but that nevertheless resonate with oppressive structures or systems can be consciously grasped and reclaimed by those who want to make essential changes in society.
I am not writing this article to provide a list of “good” or “bad” metaphors, nor “helpful” or “unhelpful” ones for climate campaigning. Rather, I have tried to show that some metaphors reflect linguistic doxas, but that metaphors are also flexible communicative resources. So, starting with metaphors we resist and adapting them for our own purposes might provide new and creative ways of confronting the damage we feel (and know) so deeply to be enacted towards our planet.
To deal with a problem as all-consuming as the climate crisis, sometimes it might help to begin with naming the origins, the perpetrating industries, or the political systems and institutions that sustain us in this vicious crisis. Counter-intuitively and ironically, overcoming the crisis can also begin with facing it head-on.
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References
El Refaie, E. (2019). Visual Metaphor and Embodiment in Graphic Illness Narratives. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190678173.001.0001
Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I. (2002). MIND-AS-BODY as a Cross-linguistic Conceptual Metaphor. Miscelánea: A Journal of English and American Studies, 25, 93–119.
Kövecses, Z. (2005). Metaphor in Culture: Universality and Variation. Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By (W. a new Afterword, Ed.). University of Chicago Press. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992.html
Littlemore, J. (2019). Metaphors in the Mind: Sources of Variation in Embodied Metaphor. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108241441
Romano, M. (2022). Occupying the streets, occupying words. Reframing new feminisms through reappropriation. Discourse & Society, 33(5), 631–649. https://doi.org/10.1177/09579265221093649
[1] A great book about the way variation in our experiences and our physical bodies affects our use and understanding of metaphor is by Jeannette Littlemore (2019). Lisa El Refaie (2019) has also written an illuminating book about the ways experiences of illness can shape our metaphorical relationship with the world. See References below.
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAq8Mvs5I5Q
[3] Using small capitals is a field convention in metaphor studies to indicate potential conceptual metaphors.
[4] I am primarily concerned with the English language here, although much important research is dedicated to comparing metaphors across languages and cultures. See, for example, Ibarretxe-Antuñano (2002) and Kövecses, (2005).
[5] (Romano 2022).
[6] See https://crestresearch.ac.uk/resources/a-short-introduction-to-the-involuntary-celibate-sub-culture/.
Niamh A. O’Dowd is Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oslo. Her research focuses on uses of figurative language and multimodality in climate activism and awareness discourse, including their effects on public perception and understanding, and the relationship of figurative communication with narrative.
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PHOTO: Olaf Sunde Christensen
KLIMAAKSJON / NORWEGIAN WRITERS´ CLIMATE CAMPAIGN // NWCC 