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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Categories And Similarities: A Note On Circularity, L. David Ritchie Jan 2003

Categories And Similarities: A Note On Circularity, L. David Ritchie

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Theories of metaphor comprehension that rely on category assignment based on common characteristics (Keysar & Glucksberg, 1992), a comparison between characteristics or relationships of source and target (Chiappe & Kennedy, 2001), or a mapping of characteristics or relationships from source to target (Gentner & Bowdle, 2001) are inherently circular, since these comparisons, mappings, or categories usually make sense only after the underlying metaphor has already been understood. This inherent circularity is avoided by approaches such as conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) and conceptual blending theory (Fauconnier & Turner, 1998) that seek to explain metaphors in terms of underlying …


"Argument Is War"-Or Is It A Game Of Chess? : Multiple Meanings In The Analysis Of Implicit Metaphors, L. David Ritchie Jan 2003

"Argument Is War"-Or Is It A Game Of Chess? : Multiple Meanings In The Analysis Of Implicit Metaphors, L. David Ritchie

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

Both Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and Vervaeke and Kennedy (1996), in their critique of Lakoff and Johnson, drew narrowly from a broad range of reasonable interpretations of the metaphors they analyzed. Expanding the interpretations vitiates many of Vervaeke and Kennedy's criticisms, but it supports their call for an open interpretation of groups of metaphors and points toward a more complex elaboration of the theories put forth by Lakoff and Johnson. The results of applying this approach to "ARGUMENT IS WAR" suggest that war is not necessarily the primary conceptual metaphor for contentious argument, as Lakoff and Johnson claimed. Rather, there …


Statistical Probability As A Metaphor For Epistemological Probability, L. David Ritchie Jan 2003

Statistical Probability As A Metaphor For Epistemological Probability, L. David Ritchie

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

The metaphor, "epistemological probability is statistical probability" is traced to the origins of probability theory. Related metaphors appear both in everyday discourse about social processes, and in social scientific argumentation, often disguised as literal claims. Gambling provides a familiar vehicle for expressing the uncertainties associated with social interactions, and with social science research. Examples are drawn from reports of research on media effects, from everyday conversations, and from political communication.