III. Background

B. Metaphors and Conceptual Structure

Metaphors are not just decorative; rather, they form knowledge and shape perceptions of reality at a fundamental structural level. Like any kind of significant underlying conceptual structure, metaphors can appear to be largely invisible or implicit. As Lakoff and Johnson note, “[O]ur conceptual system is not something we are normally aware of. In most of the little things we do every day, we simply think and act more or less automatically along certain lines. Just what these lines are is by no means obvious” (3). My project aligns with theirs in terms of highlighting the need to systematically examine unconsciously enacted conceptual systems and strategies, although I examine these structures via the inventive juxtaposition of webtext design/pieces across drafts rather than at the sentence-based or linguistic level.

Of greatest interests and stakes for this particular project are metaphors’ potential to shape a project according to their own conceptual logics; I hope to highlight especially how metaphors can exert an agency and rhetoricity of their own. Baake notes that “I have come to believe when ever metaphor is used thoughtfully, it has some role in producing knowledge [...] Production in the sense I am using it is a process whereby discovery (the act of observation) occurs concurrently with creation (the act of reflection up on what is observed) to make knowledge. I am arguing that observation and reflection are inseparable; the fusion of the two processes is what produces knowledge, and metaphor assist in that fusion” (56). Likewise, he observes that “[s]cience has never been without metaphor and related figures of thought and speech. Examples are everywhere; where there has been discovery and invention, there has been the language of metaphor to align those new insights with old ones” (68), and that “[t]he history of science is replete with examples of metaphorical insights that led to breakthroughs in knowledge when seemingly more conventional methods of theorizing reached an impasse” (69). Here Baake highlights the crucial role metaphor plays in the creation and representation of scientific knowledge, and in enabling scientists to produce and communicate new ideas.

Additionally, metaphors shape knowledge representation processes through partiality; they rely on overlapping conceptual domains that are alike in some ways but not in others. As models that foreground one conceptual structure of experience or a situation, they will necessarily leave out, cover up, or otherwise obscure other aspects that don’t necessarily fit into that model (Lakoff and Johnson 12-13). Thus, the partiality of metaphor in deploying certain meanings and serving as an organizing conceptual structure can be both a resource and a limitation, particularly when it comes to structuring scholarly webtexts. Questions involved in using metaphors to design scholarly arguments include the following: What are the risks associated with relying on metaphor as conceptual system that reveals but also conceals? What does a particular metaphorical concept foreground? What does it hide? What are the consequences for the design (and implicit design-as-argument) of a work of scholarship? It is thus important both to examine an organizing metaphor’s creative potential as an invention strategy for organizing complex concepts, but also to critically examine the risks it presents as an organizing strategy that is anything but neutral.

Knowing that metaphor can be a powerful conceptual and design resource, it’s worth investigating closely metaphor's influence on the creation of scholarly knowledge via design, and how it both offers new affordances and constraints that shape the argument in ways the composer had not initially anticipated. Fahnestock also observes the need to carefully examine the use of structuring rhetorical devices in making an argument: “Since it is impossible to argue without exploiting the structures identified in the rhetorical tradition, consciously or unconsciously, it would be better to use these devices consciously” (xii). Ceccarellii likewise notes metaphor’s power to shift arguments in unintended ways: “The entailments of metaphors often differ from what we explicitly claim that we are trying to convey, reflecting instead the language that has been used most frequently in the past or a cultural perception of the science and of our proper relationship to it” (104). Both scholars call for careful attention to rhetorical devices not merely as decorative stylistic elements, but as key agents in processes of creating and presenting knowledge. It is precisely this critical attention this chapter seeks to bring to investigating metaphor as a signficant invention influence on a webtext’s developing inscape.