Performative metaphor in cultural practices

TY - CHAP

T1 - Performative metaphor in cultural practices

AU - Jensen, Katherine O'Doherty

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - The meanings of non-discursive cultural practices in many spheres of everyday life refer to gradient distinctions. These gradient meanings are shared by using analogical media of communication, and are reproduced when they ‘make sense’ to social actors and interactants. The concept of ‘performative metaphor’ is developed to account for this process of semiosis, drawing in part on theories of conceptual metaphor and conceptual blending. This concept offers an account of the cognitive operation whereby grades of events, material objects, people and other entities are mapped onto each other, and the performance of a given practice is thereby discerned as being appropriate or inappropriate. It is argued that gradient scales are aligned and attuned to each other by means of such non-discursive practices, although social actors do not and often cannot verbally express the meaning of these practices. The argument that non-discursive (mimetic) practices are constitutive of human culture is illustrated with reference to anthropological and sociological studies of food culture, food practices and observations of the fact that men and women discern distinct patterns of food consumption as being gender-appropriate. The ways in which gendered food practices have been accounted for hitherto are compared with an account from the perspective of performative metaphor. One implication of this argument is that the character of mimesis in contemporary societies and in our distant past needs to be understood in more differentiated ways, with particular reference to gradient phenomena – a challenge that is central to the task of establishing cognitive semiotics.

AB - The meanings of non-discursive cultural practices in many spheres of everyday life refer to gradient distinctions. These gradient meanings are shared by using analogical media of communication, and are reproduced when they ‘make sense’ to social actors and interactants. The concept of ‘performative metaphor’ is developed to account for this process of semiosis, drawing in part on theories of conceptual metaphor and conceptual blending. This concept offers an account of the cognitive operation whereby grades of events, material objects, people and other entities are mapped onto each other, and the performance of a given practice is thereby discerned as being appropriate or inappropriate. It is argued that gradient scales are aligned and attuned to each other by means of such non-discursive practices, although social actors do not and often cannot verbally express the meaning of these practices. The argument that non-discursive (mimetic) practices are constitutive of human culture is illustrated with reference to anthropological and sociological studies of food culture, food practices and observations of the fact that men and women discern distinct patterns of food consumption as being gender-appropriate. The ways in which gendered food practices have been accounted for hitherto are compared with an account from the perspective of performative metaphor. One implication of this argument is that the character of mimesis in contemporary societies and in our distant past needs to be understood in more differentiated ways, with particular reference to gradient phenomena – a challenge that is central to the task of establishing cognitive semiotics.

U2 - 10.3726/978-3-653-04948-0

DO - 10.3726/978-3-653-04948-0

M3 - Book chapter

SP - 363

EP - 377

BT - Meaning, mind and communication

A2 - Zlatev, Jordan

A2 - Sonesson, Göran

A2 - Konderak, Piotr

PB - Peter Lang

ER -