Understanding Metaphors: A Dialogue Perspective

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The first important idea I find is interesting is in The Vision of Dialogue (1996), Bohm points out that there are many ways of defining what a metaphor is. These definitions lie within assumptions on what is the metaphorical expression versus what is the literal meaning of the metaphor. Depending on how one interprets a metaphor. One is able to understand its message. What Bohm argues about can be seen from our daily conversation. Like we sometimes like to send recipient an emoji or a sticker without a word in a conversation. For example, an emoji with tears could be interpreted as the person feels sad, or it could be the person burst into tears because of laughing out loudly, or other indescribable feelings that leads the tears come out, …show more content…

Just like the game we played in our tutorial, we made dialogues by using a variety of metaphorical expressions to describe a person. For example, we used animals to describe someone’s characteristics, such as cat, lion, sneak, etc. Like we used cat to describe the princess Leia of Star War, because we normally perceive cat as the symbol of women. These animal metaphors for people’s personality can identify those species most likely to be used as personality metaphors and those aspects of personality most likely to be included in animal metaphors. Metaphors in a dialogue helps people more involved in the dialogue and make the dialogue effectively. Without dialogue, particularly in complex situations, reality can change, while the thought does not change to reflect the change in reality. According to Bohm, dialogue enables individuals to become more sensitive to the incoherences in their own thinking. In dialogue, people become observers of their own thinking. I find Bohm’s idea is interesting is because he helps me realize that metaphor in a dialogue could actually help people involve in a conversation, and we are actually doing in this way in our everyday …show more content…

In Billig's argument, he proposes that humor has become a social obligation, and very little is now considered outside the purview of humor. From here, I think humor can be considered as a form of conformity, not rebellion and what he points out is pretty obvious in our everyday life. If we take a good look at our communication environment, no matter from our verbal conversation or to the written language, it is not difficult for us to find that our conversation contents are inundated with humorous slang. These humorous slang originate from simple words but have been added humorous elements and given entirely new meanings. For example, a “sock puppet” is no longer solely a puppet made from an old sock, but a self-serving fake online persona. And also like the word “troll” which stands for “a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people”. People often use these slangs in texting, online chat, instant messaging, e-mail, blogs,

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