Likewise, Aristotle considered metaphors a sign of language mastery and genius, but he also deemed them ornamental, appropriate for poetry but too enigmatic for philosophical or scientific discourse. On the contrary, Max Black articulated an influential alternative to traditional views of understanding metaphors. Having rejected Aristotle’s comparison as too simplistic, Black argued that metaphor is a communicative phenomenon operating not at the level of mere word meaning, but at the (ostensibly) deeper level of conceptual structure. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) put forward that metaphors establish the modal method through which the mind represents concepts that are not sensorial or perceptual in nature. Their conclusion is:

“Metaphor pervades our normal conceptual system. Because so many of the concepts that are important to us are either abstract or not clearly delineated in our experience (the emotions, ideas, time) we need to get a grasp on them by means of other concepts that we understand in clearer terms (spatial orientation, objects). This need leads to metaphorical definition in our conceptual system” (1980, 115).

Conceptual Metaphor has been the prime concern for translation scholars, academicians, and students. Scholars have tried to map and analyze conceptual metaphorical aspects in poetry and novels for a long time. But somehow, they face a series of confusions regarding the meanings of some conceptual metaphorical phrases. As Newmark (1988) holds, whilst the central problem of translation is the overall choice of a translation method for a text, the most important particular problem is the translation of metaphor. Conceptual Metaphor is often fully employed in literary texts and it is regarded as a challenge to ESL students and academicians.

According to Tone Aksberg Bjerkmo Johansen (2007), the process that constitutes a conceptual metaphor is when the knowledge of one field is epitomized onto another field. Conceptual Metaphors are normally used when expressions that represent our thoughts in a conventional way are being systematically used in everyday language. An example of conceptual metaphor is a metaphoric concept such as “Theories are buildings,” where we can partially conceptualize “Theories” in terms of “Buildings.” According to Lakoff and Johnson, metaphor has the tendency to highlight and hide certain aspects of the target concept. Another example is “A relationship is a journey,” which ascertains that the metaphor is measuring the progress in a relationship, but it does not give any idea of how this progress can be achieved. Metaphor is only a partial mapping as “not all the features of the source have analogs in the target,”

According to Apps (1995), metaphors have proven useful after examining different approaches to learning in adult education. Young (1996) states that, “Metaphors form visual constructs through which we associate, interpret and organize thought. They dominate and delimit our consideration of experience and phenomena. Because one’s metaphor of teaching and learning interacts with fundamental issues such as the nature of knowledge and the nature of persons, it impinges directly on the way pedagogical decisions are made” (p. 79).

Postman and Weingartner (1969) suggested that many adult educators conceptualize teaching and learning through the use of metaphors. Winner and Engel (1980) used a matching task where the classification of one item in terms of recurring similarity to another item was scored as metaphorical. Furthermore, Vosniadou and Ortony (1983) asked their participants to complete similarity statements, including similes. The expressions tested “were often constructed idiosyncratic metaphorical expressions instead of actual natural language expressions.”

Waggoner, Messe, and Palermo (1985) found out that the recollection and the construction of meaning for both literal and metaphorical expressions depends on the supporting contexts, such as extended and appropriately structured stories. Stones (1989) used short stories with familiar concrete nominal metaphors as targets and he found out that participants perform better when they are asked to paraphrase rather than explain the meaning of the metaphor. However, this has one drawback for children, as the meta-cognitive abilities that paraphrasing required usually develop late in childhood. Thus, such reasons could prevent participants from scoring well in the task.

For students who do not have a cultural orientation of the western background, metaphors from English Linguistics or English Literature textbooks might create confusion. According to Brown, “cultural knowledge” is too vast to teach in the context of English Literature, thus, ESL students should be taught “explicit strategies for making inferences from language” (1990, 11-17). Furthermore, Murray (1985, 7) states that without the inculcation of such strategies, students will interpret the texts according to their own background. Murray’s recommendations are based on the “Schema Theory” (Adams Collins 1979), which is the body of research into reading comprehension. According to Adams and Collins (1979), a schema can be characterized as an “abstract knowledge structure” in the memory and it functions by interpreting, storing, and retrieving new information. This theory concludes that texts on their own do not provide meanings, but rather they direct to readers the construct meaning based on what they have acquired previously.

References

• (n.d.). The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th Ed.). Retrieved June 23, 2007, from Dictionary.com website.
• Kaal, Anna Albertha. 2012. Metaphor in conversation. VU University Amsterdam.
• Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Lakoff, George. 1993. Metaphor and Thought. 2nd Ed. Cambridge University Press.
• Lakoff, George and Turner, Mark. 1989. More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Lakoff, George. 1993. “The contemporary theory of metaphor.” In A. Ortony (Ed.) Metaphor and Thought. (pp. 202-251) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [second edition]
• Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. 1980. “Conceptual Metaphor in Everyday Language.” (Vol. 7). The Journal of Philosophy.
• McGlone, Matthew S. 2006. What is the explanatory value of conceptual metaphor? The University of Texas.
• Erna. 1996. “The limits of literal meaning.” Danish Yearbook of Philosophy.
• Pierson, Cheri. 2008. “Reflections on Educational Metaphors for Teaching English as a Second Language to Adult Learners.” (Vol.17). PAACE Journal of Lifelong Learning.
• Short, Mick. 1996. Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose. Longman.
• Van, Engen Robert B. 2008. Metaphor: A Multifaceted Literary Device used by Morgan and Weick to Describe Organizations. (Vol. 1). Regent University.
• Winberg, Christine. 1994. The comprehension of figurative language in English literary texts. Rhodes University.

Collective responsibility

But just acknowledging this shared responsibility is not enough. Frequently, the real problem is group inaction, for harm can be prevented if enough people form a group to prevent it. Collective responsibility often can be ascribed to those people who have the ability to form such groups but do not do so. To the extent that this is the case, they are collectively responsible for their collective inaction.

Members of the dominant Western culture may consider it overly severe to assert that all of us are collectively responsible for our failure to do something about the world’s many problems. While not saying that people who do not form groups are guilty due to their inaction, I do feel that our inaction should provoke a sense of shame within us.

Goodin describes his approach as putting consequences to the fore, meaning that consequences quickly take up the whole stage, not just its front and center. He preserves a central link between responsibility and causality, and claims to make better sense of our present practices of responsibility. Larry May sets out to expand significantly our sense of responsibility within groups. The keystone of moral responsibility here is that for who one chooses to be. Attitudes and habits, states of mind and character, roles and affiliations, and the professional, institutional, and social climates shaping our interests, perceptions, and values are reviewed even as we continue to shape them.

A welcome but difficult result is that we are responsible for failures of awareness and insensitivity, as well as unexamined habits, traits, allegiances, and identifications that predispose us to moral failure. Another result is that people should see themselves as responsible for certain harmful events occurring within their communities, even if they are not direct participants or cannot prevent them. We are”and should feel”accountable for tolerating our own morally flawed character, contributing to a morally irresponsible attitudinal climate, or failing to reckon adequately with our institutional roles. These enriched bases of responsibility are not intended as new bases for subjecting people to punishment. I suggest that shame and taint, not just guilt, are appropriate individual reactions to expanded responsibility.

My concern is the collectivities, attitudinal climates, and expectation of groups that shape what people think is up to them and what they become used to ignoring. This has implications for all people who function within institutions where the most significant outcomes are the work of many minds and hands. A group’s responsibility is a fundamental moral issue. Therefore, groups are responsible for events and should be held responsible for them.

Shared responsibility

People should see themselves as sharing responsibility for the harm experienced by their communities far more often than they do. There is a distinction between shared responsibility and collective responsibility. Collective responsibility applies to a group as such (not necessarily to individual members), whereas shared responsibility applies to individuals within groups because of their membership relation with the group. We live in a world of groups. Groups affect our daily life, attitudes, and character, and greatly increase our power to act. Individuals receive great benefits from group membership. Those increased benefits and power should come with increased responsibility. Yet, although groups cause more and greater harm than individuals and have a greater capacity to correct large-scale social problems, individuals typically identify less with harm caused by groups and less often assume responsibility for them.

People share responsibility for harm done by groups, including those that result from omission. More harm occurs collectively than individually, and yet people take less responsibility for it for two reasons: Groups break problems into pieces, responsibility gets diffused, and groups allow individuals to assume that someone else will”or at least could”act. An expanded notion of moral negligence, the idea that since individuals within groups and the group’s structure and policies influence one another, and since group membership structures its members’ values and tends to desensitize them, individual members should be aware of this and responsible for reducing the risk of harm perpetrated by their group. Since there is a duty to act, the failure to do so may constitute negligence. This makes group members responsible for group values and, derivatively, for whatever harm the group does.

Shared responsibility is particularly appropriate for the value transformations that occur within groups. Since people affect one another’s conduct more, and attitudes are more closely shared, people should feel a heightened sense of responsibility to offset any risks associated with misconduct, including negligent omission or inaction. Of course, there is always the problem of defining the scope of negligence. This problem can be handled by using a reasonable person standard to ascertain what our roles would commit us to. We are not negatively responsible for all of the world’s failures, but only what a reasonable group of fellow citizens would expect of someone in our circumstances. Recognizing negative responsibility, including responsibility for omis-sions that allow an unreasonable risk of group harm, helps people lead lives that are more integrated with their moral values, because that involves both acts and omissions. To be in harmony with ourselves, we need to integrate principles with behavior that promotes moral integrity.

Conclusion

Shared responsibility, by focusing the issues of responsibility in a different light, provides us with the beginning of an account of how people, as moral agents, are connected to and function within groups and institutions. This analysis also provides a picture of the nature of informal groups and social relations. Most human relations influence the daily life, attitudes, assumptions, aspirations, and acts of individuals everywhere, such as in voluntary associations. We should remember the team’s perception of the Challenger space shuttle disaster: It is time to take your engineer’s cap off and put on your manager’s cap.1 An aggregate approach or something like it is necessary here, making shared and vicarious responsibility particularly appropriate. 

Footnote

1. Amy Gutnam and Dennis Thompson, Ethics and Politics: Cases and Comments, 3d ed. (Chicago: Nelson-Hall Publishers, 1997), 189.

References

• Goodin, Robert E. Utilitarianism as a Public Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Gutnam, Amy and Dennis Thompson. Ethics and Politics: Cases and Comments, 3d ed. Chicago: Nelson-Hall Publishers, 1997.
• May, Larry. Sharing Responsibility. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
• Thampson, Dennis E. Political Ethics and Public Office. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987.