Prof. Dr. Burkhard Niederhoff (Chair of English Literature, RUB)
"Tenor and Vehicle, Source and Target? Against Dualism in Metaphor Theory"
Almost ninety years ago, I. A. Richards introduced two related terms that are still widely used in the theory and analysis of metaphor: tenor and vehicle. Other theorists have followed suit and suggested terminological pairs whose meaning is very similar: primary subject/frame and secondary subject/focus (Max Black), Bildspender and Bildempfänger (H. Weinrich), target and source (G. Lakoff). All of these suggest that a metaphor consists in a symmetrical pairing of concepts. In my talk, I will argue against this dualism. I will present a range of metaphors, primarily from English poetry, that cannot be adequately analysed in dualist terms, and I will point out some of the theoretical problems inherent in dualism, for instance its indebtedness to the substitution and resemblance theories of metaphor.
