Category: English 110 (Page 3 of 3)

Blog #4

September 13, 2019 / Marie Hoehner / 2 Comments

Quote: “I believe that a metaphor could impact a person’s physical health.”

Supports: “Since then, studies that have interviewed cancer patients around the time of diagnosis and followed them for years after have found that patients who view their disease as an “enemy” tend to have higher levels of depression and anxiety, and poorer quality of life than those who ascribe a more positive meaning. They also tend to report higher pain scores and lower coping scores” (para. 17). This quote within Druv Khullar’s essay, “The Trouble with Medicine’s Metaphors” supports the quote that a metaphor could impact a person’s physical health. Khullar is explaining how using the wrong metaphor to describe recovering from an illness could lead to the condition being viewed as something it is not, in this case, an “enemy”. As Erard explains in “See Through Words”, the power of a metaphor comes from how the target audience understands it; it needs to correspond with the beliefs and culture of the people for it to be successful. And this is the case with viewing the disease as “an enemy”. An enemy seems to be something that is always present and always trying and finding ways to destroy you, no matter how hard you fight against it. If you view a disease from this perspective, it creates expectations to feel more pain because something, the “enemy” is constantly attacking you, impacting your physical health.

Develops: “The words we choose to describe illness are powerful. They carry weight and valence, creating the milieu in which goals of care are discussed and treatment plans designed” (para. 5). This quote within Khullar’s essay is a development of the statement that metaphors have the potential to impact our physical health. Khullar is describing how metaphors are able to create expectations that the disease can be treated. These metaphors used, such as that ‘we will fight this disease’, increase hope that there is a way for the physical health of the patient to improve. Because after all, there is always a winner in a fight and there is always the chance that the patient will come out the victor. If they continue to believe, this possibility could become a reality.

Complicates: “Almost none of the subject identified the metaphorical frame as being important to their decision-making process” (para. 10). This quote within Khullar’s essay complicates the statement that metaphors could affect our physical health. Khullar is referencing thought process and how these thoughts when carried out, can lead to a change in physical health. However, Khullar does not make a direct reference to how metaphors could potentially affect our physical health directly, complicating the thinking around this quote and how valid it actually is.

Michael Erard-“See Through Words”- “To design a metaphor, you have to get beyond what people say they like or don’t like. These are emotional responses, and it is the cognitive ones you’re after” (para. 21). I chose this quote because of how it further elaborates on how metaphors can impact our thinking processes. It complicates the idea that metaphors can impact our physical health as it suggests that they have a greater effect on our mental health; though the question remains if that could possibly lead to a correlation between mental and physical health.

James Geary-“Metaphorically Speaking”- “It’s also a great example of how whenever we deal with anything abstract–ideas, emotions, feelings, concepts, thoughts–we inevitable resort to metaphor” (para. 3). This quote stood out to me because it further develops the idea that metaphors do have the potential to impact our physical health. I understood Geary explaining how that whenever we experience anything, whether it is mental or physical, we use a metaphor to describe what is happening, which creates expectations that there could be a change in our health, developing the idea that metaphors could impact our physical health.

Blog #3

September 10, 2019 / Marie Hoehner / 1 Comment

When re-reading Erard’s essay “See Through Words”, I realized the message he was conveying was that anything can be designed to become a metaphor, it just needs to fit the correct context. Erard argues that metaphors can be created, going against past thought processes that metaphors just happened and were never designed. This came to my attention when I researched further into pseudo-mistakes. The prefix ‘pseudo-‘ means false and is used to mark something that seemingly appears to be one thing but is, in fact, something else. Erard discusses how an effective metaphor designer needs to “generate lots of pseudo-mistakes” (para. 5). I was a little bewildered the first time I read through this section and then by the second time through and with the help of a little extra research, I could finally comprehend the point Erard was trying to make. Metaphors use comparisons that will uncover deeper meanings. Therefore, if seen in the right context, and the example Erard uses is that ‘A paintbrush is a kind of pump’, far-fetched comparisons make sense in metaphors. It is important to not look at the terms used literally, but rather how they connect with one another. And that is why a metaphor can be considered a ‘pseudo-mistake’; the terms used are meant to mean something else than what they initially appear to mean.

Furthermore, when reading through the essay again, I began to understand Erard’s discussion about explaining how to design metaphors with metaphors. (He does this by comparing a metaphor to a room. Another example of a pseudo-mistake I now realize.) The first time I read through “See Through Words”, I was confused by the fact that he was describing a metaphor with a metaphor. Perhaps I was thinking to literally because I compared this statement with having the word in its definition. I criticized him because he was explaining something with the thing itself: a metaphor. Though now I understand where Erard is coming from. He uses the metaphor of a room to describe how metaphors offer a new perspective on something often looked at superficially. The choice of terms and arrangement of them can all impact how the metaphor is perceived. Just like a room, with the placement of the window offering different views (perspectives) outside and the furniture showing how visitors need to adapt and be comfortable in the room. The furniture relates to the target audience of the metaphor that is being designed. The target audience needs to adapt and grow comfortable with it in order for the metaphor to be understood.

Blog #2

September 8, 2019 / Marie Hoehner / 1 Comment

In Michael Erard’s essay, “See Through Words”, he discusses how metaphors can be designed in order to affect us in a specific way. Erard describes how he shapes and tests a variety of different metaphors in order to help people “understand the unfamiliar” (para. 2). He is able to create metaphors that place the unknown in a familiar context, allowing one to not only build a whole new perspective but to deepen one’s knowledge on specific topics. Metaphors enable us to view something from various angles.

Within “See Through Words”, Erard makes an insightful point that it seems like “we grasp metaphors more readily when at least one of the concepts is very familiar” (para. 11). While reading through this, I realized that the metaphors I use in my life, such as “life is a road”, I did not think of by myself, rather I have seen it before and applied it to my life. This connects to Verlyn Klinkenborg’s essay “Several Short Sentences About Writing”. In this essay, Klinkenborg discusses how we tend to follow and notice what everyone else is and never take a risk to deem something important for ourselves. And this is true with metaphors. In order to truly create a metaphor that is applicable to us, we have to use our own experiences and place them into context, not someone else’s. Another point that stood out to me is when Erard mentions that when creating metaphors, one has to use points that people are willing to use (para. 23). A metaphor can not be effective if the terms used to describe specific circumstances are not applicable to the beliefs of the people it is addressed to. It is vital that a metaphor uses language that applies to the common way of thinking to the group it is meant to address.

Blog #1

September 4, 2019 / Marie Hoehner / 1 Comment

After reading through the transcript of Geary’s “Metaphorically Speaking” for a second time, his thoughts started to become a lot clearer. The first time I read it through, I was able to build a basic understanding of a metaphor. Though now, after carefully going through, analyzing and annotating the transcript, I was able to comprehend the deeper meaning behind metaphors that Geary was conveying. I realized that anything can become a metaphor for something and that it is a thought before being written down. A metaphor is created through the constant association of what is around us and placing it into context with our experiences.

A segment in Geary’s talk that stood out to me is when he discussed how “metaphor creates a kind of conceptual synesthesia, in which we understand once concept in the context of another” (min 03:48). It highlights how what we experience in life leads to us associating one thing with another. This use of the literal meaning of words enables us to create patterns in thoughts and associations, helping us build a greater understanding. Metaphors enable us to connect what we know to give understanding to something unknown which is how they have impacted my life. If I come across something I do not know and keep taking it literally, I will never be able to understand it. However, as soon as I connect the unknown experience within a context I know, I slowly begin to gain a better understanding. The application of a metaphor gives a deeper, thought-provoking meaning to something literal, which allows you to make sense of something unfamiliar.