Language as Fluid: A Description of the Conduit

The aim of the present paper is to see how COMMUNICATION is metaphorized in Japanese and to contrast this metaphorization with Reddy's (1979) conduit metaphor. I will claim that there is a strong tendency for Japanese to conceptua'ize LORD as FLUID and to fuse VORD and MEANING.


Introduction
Points Of view or opinions stated ,n this dOCument do not necessarily represent othcta.

OERI position or policy
Communication is an abstract domain of experience which can be metaphorized in terms of a more concrete domain of experience. Reddy (1979) is the first detailed analysis of how our language about language is structured in terms of retaphor. He argued that English expressions of COMMUNICATION arc based on what he calls "the conduit metaphor'. which consists of the following four components (ibid: 290): (11a. language functions like a conduit, transferring thoughts bodily from one person to another: e.g. Try to get your thoughts across better.
None of Mary's feelings came through to me with any clarity. h. in writing and speaking, people insert their thoughts and feelings in the words: e.g. Try to pack more thoughts into fewer words.
Don't force your meanings into the wrong words. c. words accomplish the transfer by containing the thoughts or feelings and conveying them to others: e.g. That thought is in practically every other word.
The sentence was filled with emotion. d.
in listening or reading, people extract the thoughts and feelings once again from the words: e.g. Can you actually extract coherent ideas from that prose? I don't any feelings of anger out of his words.
In (la). the object of the act of transferring is "thoughts' or "feelings".
Since words are containers for thoughts and feelings, as (1b,c,d)  toss a word to--- The expressions in (2) suggest that WORD is conceptualized as an <individuum> that people can give and take.
The aim of the present paper is to consider how Japanese exploits metaphors to talk about COMMUNICATION, and to contrast this with Reddy's "conduit metaphor". I will argue that there is a strong tendency for Japanese to conceptualize WORD as <fluid> and COMMUNICATION as a movement of <fluid> from a speaker toward a hearer.

9.
Methodological Assumptions I will make the following methodological assumptions: ( (4) If such a predicate (henceforth 'fluid predicate") is used in a metaphorical sense (henceforth "fluid metaphor"), its relevant argument is being conceptualized as <fluid> or indiscrete mass.
English, which unlike Japanese has overt count/mass and singular/plural distinctions, provides indirect support for the assumption (4).

3
The following examples suggest that a fluid metaphor can occur with either a plural noun or a mass noun as its relevant argument: (5)a. Crowds/People flow down the street.
b.sA boy flows down the street.
(6)a. A lot of good ideas welled up while reading this book.
b.?A good idea welled up while reading this book.
In light of the above assumptions, compare, as an illustration, the following pair of Japanese expressions which have roughly the same meaning, snap at someone": Since Japanese lacks the singular/plural and the count/mass distinctions as grammatical categories, the noun "Kotoba" has exactly the same form in (7a) and (7b).
because (7b) involves a fluid predicate abiseru (shower) being used in a metaphorical sense.
In the next section, based on this methodology, I will analyze Japanese conventional expressions of communication and demonstrate the ubiquity of fluid metaphors in conceptualizing COMMUNICATION in Japanese. 3.

The Conduit Metaphor in Japanese
Reddy's conduit metaphor can be divided into two parts. (la) and (lb-d).
The former focuses on the movement of MORD, and the latter focuses on VORD as a container.
In this section, I will discuss the movement aspect of the conduit metaphor and the container aspect of the conduit metaphor in this order.

Movement of MORD '
I will examine fluid predicates one by one to see how they are used to metaphorize the movement aspect of COMMUNICATION. r.
Taro-TOP Jiro-NOI cancer be COMP leaked "Taro confided that Jiro has cancer".
The verb "morasu" can be combined with "kiku"(hear) and "iu"(say) to form a compound verb meaning "fail to catch/say some words" ("kiki" and 'ii" are conjunctive forms of "kiku" and "iu" respectively): S The image behind these expressions would be that lORD as <fluid> leaks from the conduit and loses some portion of it when it should flow to the hearer in Iota Interestingly, the compound verb "ii-morasu" has two seemingly incompatible interpretations, namely, "forget to mention" and "let out'. The latter interpretation seems to be related to the fact that the verb "morasu" itself implies "to say something secretly", as seen in (9).
The intransitive verb "wren", which is morphologically related to 79 "morasu", is used to express the situation where one utters words despite oneself: (13) human-no kotoba-ga kare-no kuti kara moreru complaint-GEN word-NOV he-GEN mouth from leak "lords of complaint escape his lips' The verb "moreru" combines with "kiLL"(hear) to make up a compound verb: (14) Taro-ga kekkonsuru hanasi-o more -kiku.
Taro-NOV get married rumor-ACC leak-hew-"(I) hear the rumor that Taro will get married' The image behind this combination would presumably be that one bears VORD as <fluid> leaking from some source of information.

80
This meaning is motivated by the image that one writes smoothly and quickly as if pouring water. For some unknown reason, the combination "ii-nagasu"(saylet flow) is not commonly used.
(C) kobosu (spill) The verb 'kobosu"(spill) typically takes a <fluid> and occasionally a mass-like <solid> direct object: The verb 'kobosu" implies that one spills something which should have been contained.
The reason that "kobosu" is normally associated with the notion of "complaint" might be that 'complaint" is understood in Japanese as something to be contained and not let out.
The verbs "simiru"(soak into) and "kumu"(draw (water)) typically take a <fluid> argument: (34) mizu-ga nuno-ni simiru water-NOM cloth-DAT soak The water soaks the cloth" (35) mizu-o ido kara kumu water-ACC well from draw "draw water from the well Vben WORD as <fluid> issued from the speaker is not accepted by the hearer, the compound verb "kiki-nagasi,"(listell-flow) is used, as we saw in (16). Then it is accepted, MORD as <fluid> 'soaks into" the hearer: (36) kanozyo-no kotoba-ga kokoro-ni simiru she-GEN word-NOM heart-DAT soak into Her words sink into my heart" When the hearer wants to take in MORD as <fluid> of his/her own accord, the verb "kumu"(draw (water)) is used: "take someone's words into consideration"

Container aspect of MORD
Compared with the variety of English expressions Reddy (1979) gave for the MORD AS A CONTAINER part of the conduit metaphor (which corresponds to (1b)-(1d)), there are only a few corresponding expressions in Japanese that concern the relationship between WORD and WEANING (I assume that WEANING corresponds to "thoughts/feelings" in Reddy's formulations).
Here This seems to indicate that in Japanese, unlike in English, WORD and WEANING are fused, rather than separated. Part of the reason for this might be that in classical Japanese there was a folk model where "kokoro"(heart, meaning) grows into "kotobe(word)(see Ikegami 1988Ikegami , 1989 That is important is that in Japanese the conceptualization of ORD as <fluid> is, at least, no less common than the conceptualization of 'ORD as <individuum>.
Here are, on the other hand, some English examples where LORD is conceptualized as <fluid>: (48)a. pour out (a stream of) words b. lord leaks out from CIA.

Concluding Resarks
To sumnarize our discussion, we have seen the following contrast between Japanese and English: Tendency: Japanese: WORD as <fluid>. Fusion of WORD and MEANING English: WORD as <individuun>. Separation of WORD and LEANING.
As Lakoff and Johnson (1980:Ch.3) correctly point out, metaphor can highlight one aspect of a concept but hide other aspects of the concept. The conduit metaphor is so deeply rooted in English that it is virtually impossible to talk about language without using it." One way of "relativizing" the conduit metaphor is to see how other languages wetaphorize TORO and COMMUNICA-TION, which will hopefully reveal in what respects Reddy's conduit metaphor is universal and in what respects it is language-specific. The present paper is only a small attempt at this. 1 an indebted to R.Sheffer for checking my English.
Thanks also go to wy cohorts at UCSD, especially, Martha, Michael, Kathleen, Sean. and Will for their support.
Any remaining inadequacies are, of course, my responsibility alone.