Workshop Materials
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"Metaphors That
Reveal and Expand Client Thinking" |
"Conceptual Metaphors |
The introduction to these workshops is on this page. The main part of the workshops is found by clicking on the links above. Each of these, in turn, links to a series of pages. Other hyperlinks and explanations are found that will guide you through the metaphor learning. If this is your first time using the workshop materials on this website you will probably find it very useful first to look at Navigation Notes before proceeding.
Introduction
Points made in introduction:
Metaphor is a tool of interest to mediators, and others...
It works rapidly, holistically, effortlessly.
Transfers facts, technique, approach, logic, reasoning -- the "what, how, and why" of thinking.
Changes viewpoint, ways of using or combining information, direction of thinking.
Most research on mediation and negotiation focuses on the thinking of disputants.
Interdisciplinary effort of Cognitive Science studies metaphor as a central topic.
Many now believe that most human thinking is metaphoric in nature.
Metaphoric thinking is largely unconscious. Learning about it brings it more into conscious awareness.
If I say "I hope to plant some seeds today that will bear fruit for you when you get back home" or "The last session was as clear as mud", or "He looks up to Lincoln for guidance", these are obvious enough metaphors. If I tell the story of the sheep herd taking his sheep up the country road, and a car attempting to overtake them, and how he reversed the direction of the sheep" you will probably notice the allegorical metaphor there.
If I tell of a person's argument as being clean, on target, generously illustrated, you will probably see the metaphoric parts. But if I go on to say, "She went into the subject at great depth, revealing a solid understanding," I don't know how readily you will appreciate some quite elaborate structure that the metaphor has transferred: Subjects are spaces which have surfaces and depths, discussion travels within such spaces and brings what is inside out into the open, and understanding in this case is a well-built, physical construction.
An important distinction in using metaphor is Source Domain and Target Domain.
(An article written to accompany the Savannah workshop can be found here.)