Metaphor - A semiotic perspective

Draft for Danish Yearbook of Philosophy no. 31, 1997, 1137-156 Metaphor - a Semiotic Perspective Svend Erik Larsen, Odense University Signs and metaphors Semiotics is not a theory of right or wrong sign uses, but of the actual use of signs, whether right or wrong. Or, as Umberto Eco puts it, semiotics studies "everything which can be used in order to lie" (Eco 1976: 7). Moreover, semiotics is not a theory of verbal signs alone or primarily of verbal signs, although verbal signs and, consequently, linguistic theories occupy a prominent position in semiotics. But in no actual communication do verbal signs occur alone. Finally, semiotics does not single out metaphors as a specific sign category. A metaphor is a sign function that is carried out by various sign vehicles in the semiotic process. These opening lines introduced a negative triad of what semiotics isn't or doesn't. Now the paper will continue on a more positive note, defining metaphor in a semiotic perspective, exemplified through an analysis of the opening scene of Romeo and Juliet. In order for semiotics to define metaphors they will have to be seen as integral parts of semiotic processes containing other signs than metaphors and other types of signs than verbal signs. This process can be analyzed either from the point of view of a media specific theory of signs or in the framework of a general theory of signs. One of the most outstanding representatives of the first type of theory is Ferdinand de Saussure, and the most important example of the second is Charles Sanders Peirce. In a saussurean perspective non-verbal signs are taken into account only in so far as they can be analyzed as if they were linguistic signs. Therefore, the formal properties of linguistic signs, organized in a system or a structure, are essential to all signs. Peirce, on the other hand, focuses on sign processes not sign systems or a specific sign system. Such processes are general mental and logical processes that are specified in different material sign systems and constrained by the operational logic of these systems. The two semioticians invite you to follow different types of argument concerning signs and sign processes and, hence, to give metaphors a different position. For Saussure, metaphors and similar phenomena are deviations from standard linguistic signs. Such signs are constituted by two arbitrary relations. The arbitrary relation (labelled radical in some of

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Saussure's manuscripts) between the sign as a whole and the object it refers to: between the word 'house' and the building, between the plural suffix '-s' and the plurality of certain things. The most important arbitrary relation in a linguistic context, however, holds between the expression and the content of the signs, its signifiant and its signifié: between the sound pattern of the phonemes in 'house' and its semantic structure. The formal properties of the signifiant and the signifié are the differentia specifica of verbal sign systems. The task of semiotics is to define them. That task has been the main occupation of structuralist semiotics in this century. Metaphors are, however, part of the marginal group of motivated signs, that is signs, as for example onomatopoeica, whose relation to the object referred to is not entirely arbitrary but partly "natural" as Saussure has it (Saussure 1972: 102ff), or signs with a non-arbitrary relation between signifiant and signifié, as for example the repeated use of a-, o- or u-vowels in stressed syllables, that may be used in many languages as a part of the acoustic signifiant to express an uncomfortable or uncanny state of affairs as part of the signifié. For Peirce metaphors form instead an integral part of the general sign process. Metaphors belong to the group of socalled iconic signs, that are not less important or developed than any other type of signs, just a specific kind of signs. I will return briefly to these two main trends in semiotics after having introduced Karl Bühler's sign theory which balances between the two others. Semiotic processes A short description of the nature of semiotic processes will offer a useful frame for my argument, also if I only make a summary of the features that are common to most semioticians and mainly of relevance for the broader group of iconic or motivated signs to which metaphors belong. In a semiotic process you infer something from a phenomenon you thus consider as a sign, concerning something else which you consider an object. When you make an inference in a semiotic process you specify the relation between sign and object according to a code on the basis of certain presuppositions. There are several codes and presuppositions involved simultaneously in a sign process. And when we are discussing iconic signs or iconic aspects of more complex sign processes, I agree with Tom Sebeok and Joseph Ransdell. Sebeok (Sebeok 1976: 1438) claims that even if the quasisynonymous notions of similarity, likeness, resemblance etc. are not sufficient to account for iconic signs, it would not be a clever strategy to drop

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them as suggested by e.g. Nelson Goodman (Goodman 1973). And Ransdell states very clearly that "iconicity presupposes likeness of sign and object, but likeness is not itself a semiotic relation" (Ransdell 1986: 70). So, through the coded sign process the presupposed likeness can be specified as likeness in certain respects and confirmed, or rejected if you do not have the codes necessary for the specification. In this case you may even be forced to give up your presupposition of the existence of a likeness – which unfortunately often happens in life – or just to find a better code. Thus, iconic signs in general produce a coded and specified relation between sign and object, presupposing similarity. The word 'presupposing' here hides the saussurean notion of motivation. It is important to note that the semiotic inference cannot be reduced to that of formal logic where only the inferential relation itself is pertinent, but not the character of the elements between which the inferential relation holds, or the nature of the particular sign system used to channel the inference. In semiotics however, the status of these elements is relevant: they are signs in use. The contextualization, narrow or broad, of the inferential process has to be taken into account, and it can only happen when considering the specificity of the sign systems involved. Thus, this type of inference is a kind of interpretation, that is a hermeneutic activity, in which some of the procedures of formal logic are integrated. As the interpretation can connect different types of signs or sign systems, it will often be relevant to conceive of it as a type of translation between sign systems. The inferential process in the above sense of the term is the nucleus of semiosis as meaning production, although this aspect is labelled differently in different semiotic theories. In Saussure's linguistics an often used term for the process is association, in Peirce a recurrent term is in fact inference. Karl Bühler prefers the term inference. His Sprachtheorie from 1934 will be my main reference in the following. Karl Bühler From this book I shall introduce three different types of iconic signs, often appearing by complex manifestation in the actual sign process, but still representing different kinds of codes and coding procedures. Bühler analyses, among other things, the onomatopoetic elements of language and the metaphor.

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First of all for Bühler (Bühler 1965: 196) onomatopoetic unities are signs and thus coded phenomena. Acoustic imitation takes place as conditioned by the phonological structure of the sign system used. He characterizes two different types of such unities as representing "Materialtreue" or "Erscheinungstreue" on the one hand, that is "material or apparent fidelity", and "Relationstreue" or "Gestalttreue" on the other, that is "relational or structural fidelity" (ib.: 208). In both cases the coding process presupposes 'eine Treue', that is a fidelity, equivalent to likeness, similarity, resemblance etc. between sign and object. This presupposed fidelity can be specified according to the material appearance of the object, as when a sound of a bird, of water, of wind etc. is reproduced in different languages through acoustic means with a not always identical result. Animals simply do not "say" the same in different languages. Nevertheless, that would be an example of Materialtreue. Or you can specify the presupposed fidelity according to a relational property in one medium which is reproduced as a relational property in another one. That would exemplify Relationstreue. Thus, a disgusting smell, i.e. a relation between a nice and a bad smell, can be reproduced acoustically: as a long sound (poooooh), which is long because of a marked difference to the usually shorter sounds that surround it, or as a very loud sound (POOOH!!), that is loud also when compared with the phonetic context. Or the experience of a smell outside the range of acceptable smells can be reproduced as a combination of phonemes outside the field of normal phonetic combinations (in Danish we say Bvadr! having no words beginning with bv- in our standard vocabulary). In general we may say that in one type of iconic signs it is essential that sign and object are materially identical, in another type that they are materially different. But in the both cases the sign as a concrete unity and the object belong to the same spatio-temporal universe. Likeness is presupposed in any of the cases, but the codes involved in the specification will be different. Bühler does not relate metaphors (ib.: 342-356) to the two kinds of iconic signs I have dealt with up till now. But his analysis of metaphors can be pushed in this direction. Essential to metaphors is "Sphärenmischung", that is the "mixing of fields of experience": in order to create a visual impression of the physical world as perceived by the eye, we have to mix different kinds of experience (color, spatial dimensions, size, etc.); and, according to Bühler, when metaphors occur in language we are following the

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same perceptual process. Once metaphors are produced in language, we are able to construe a mixture of spheres, namely semantic spheres or spaces, in our perception of metaphors. This process being a contructive process and not a mere passive reflection, embraces both the identity of the object, which is the main focus of this paper, and the identification of the perceiving subject. Although the perceptual dimension is an integral part of a comprehensive semiotic approach to metaphors, this aspect will not be discussed further. Only a brief conceptual clarification may indicate a relevant line of thought: Identification can be taken as the subject's identification with aspects of the perceived object actually or potentially like features of the subject, or its identification in relation to certain aspects in a marked difference to the subject, such as, for example, a perceiver's identification with the male hero but in relation to the female characters. In both cases the identification may take on an individual form, as in the example just offered, or a transindividual form, as in the case of an ideology of a text or nonfigurative works of art. The iconic signs of the text will play a major role in this process of identification. (See Fig. 1 below). Now, in order to produce metaphors aiming at etablishing the identity of a certain object through likeness, and not just to perceive them, we must already be able to master the process of selecting features from the physical experience according to iconic language codes, that is to make abstractions which presuppose "Ähnlichkeitsassoziationen", that is "associations of resemblance". With this formulation we are in the tradition of mental associations (from David Hartley and onwards to Saussure, among others). Thus the process of producing and perceiving metaphors is still bound to the two types of iconic signs already mentioned based on material or relational fidelity. So far our perception of linguistic metaphors is not only based on a certain sensory experience and the associations emerging from it, but it is conceived of as an analogy to such sensory experience. In interpreting metaphors we are just reversing the initial abstractive process. Nevertheless, in the interpretation of metaphors the process of abstraction is more refined. Bühler refers to the process of abstractive relevance which he introduced with regard to phonology in his seminal article "Phonetik und Phonologie" (Bühler 1931) and which is essential to his model of communication through signs, the so-called Organon-Modell (Bühler 1965: 24ff), later modified by Roman Jakobson (Jakobson 1960). When we hear a complex sound and recognize it to be like a language we

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know, we only perceive a set of distinctive features, sufficient to construct a signification, but we do not perceive the sound as such. Through abstractive relevance identities of objects are constructed as structural identities. This interpretative or signifying process once finished, the specific materiality of the sign becomes irrelevant. But still, this cluster of distinctive features is only relevant in relation to a specific system of expression, e.g. language, which in this way is a presupposition for the meaning creation although it is no longer part of the significative result. That is why the possibility for creation of new information is opened in the semiotic process, transcending but constantly presupposing the immediately given material and social space. Through this process there is no direct reference to the same material space as that of the sign, where material identity or difference between sign and object can be stated, as in the two kinds of iconic signs first mentioned and therefore no analogy between sign and object. Through the abstractive relevance only the codes of these iconic signs are retained: codes of material identity or codes of relational identity, but the material quality in itself is irrelevant. In the semantic spheres of language such codes are used to highlight certain properties common to the mixed semantic spheres (called Übersummativität or "hypersummation" by Bühler) and simultaneously to exclude other semantic properties from the focus of the mixed spheres (called Untersummativität or "hyposummation"). Now an indirect reference is made to the presupposed world of social and physical experience through the simultaneously focalized and defocalized meaning, constituting the structural identity of the object and presupposing likeness (often difficult to find, as we know from poetry). Thus the metaphor can be considered as an iconic sign which is indifferent to the material identity or difference between sign and object, but which retains the codes of the two first kinds of iconic signs and only thereby presupposes likeness between sign and object. (That is why you can speak of the 'same' metaphor in e.g. painting and literature as has been discussed as ekphrasis in aesthetics and rethoric from antiquity at least to Lessing.) This hierarchy allows us to see how the iconic signs create an interpretative process, making metaphors signs presupposing the two other types of iconic signs. The driving force of this interpretative process is the following questions: does the basic presupposition of likeness hold or does it not, and in what type of universe? If the sign is linguistic or not is not essential.

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Fig. 1: Metaphors and iconic signs Representation It is obvious that Bühler invites us to generalize his semiotic analyses of one specific semiotic system, viz. verbal language, in order to reach a genuine semiotic perspective on iconicity. In that respect Bühler belongs to the saussurean tradition. But his view on language is broader. As opposed to Saussure he does not consider it a specific formal system which has to be generalized through the analytical methodology applied to other sign systems supposedly analoguous to language. If the linguistically founded methods are not applicable, the elements in question are not signs but just some meaning creating deviations from the signs or fragments of signs. Bühler, however, avoids the pitfalls of formalism. Language is a specific system, but in a general structure of representation. The representational character of language is more fundamental than its arbitrariness. His study of language presupposes a notion of the sign linked to a philosophical and psychological notion of representativity, intentionality and communicability (Larsen 1989). His notion of relations, system and structure is not derived from linguistics as a specific scientific enterprise, but – like Jakobson's – from the phenomenological notion of Fundierung, the formal basis of representations of objects. So, he integrates and modifies the viewpoints of structural linguistics in a framework which is generalizable not only on a methodological basis, but on a philosophical and epistemological basis which he calls his "Axiomatik der Sprachwissenschaft" and summarizes in his Organon-Modell (ib.: 24ff) (cf. Graumann and Herrmann (eds.) 1984). Due to these presuppositions Bühler never loses the general perspective on language as one meaning creating system among others, although he mostly works within the limits of a specific semiotic system (mainly but not only verbal language). Even if we do not analyze verbal language, Bühler always forces us to reflect on the specificity of the system of expression you are dealing with, be it linguistic or not. Although less knowledgeable than Saussure on the details of linguistics and philology, Bühler clearly transcends his theoretical horizon when it comes to general semiotic perspectives. The main reason is that he never accepts the constitutive dichotomy in Saussure's sign notion: motivation as opposed to arbitrarity, giving priority to arbitrarity (Saussure

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1972: 102ff). For Bühler they are simply aspects of the same phenomenon, representation, carrying out different functions. Whereas Saussure leaves the predominantly motivated signs on the margins of language and thus outside the methodologically accepted canonic signs, the arbitrary signs, Bühler's notion of representation covers both aspects in complex combinations of signs. This is why we can generalize from Bühler's theories of language to a broader semiotic perspective. (Although Saussure is more complex than often admitted, see Amacker 1965.) If the generalization is carried out as I have tried to suggest, the parallel to peircean semiotics is more promising. In Peirce, however, we do not find generalized notions, derived from the properties of specific sign structures, but general notions, defined in the outset in relation to other types of signs which, in the analytical procedure, we have to make particular and concrete according to the specific sign systems materializing the general semiotic process. If the inference based on an iconic sign, as stated above, presupposes similarity between sign and object, we can briefly characterize the two other basic categories of signs: the symbolic sign presupposes a difference between sign and object (cf. Saussure's arbitrariness), whereas the indexical sign presupposes co-existence between sign and object (cf. Larsen 1990). In relation to Bühler's theory of metaphor as I have interpreted it, especially Peirce's notion of hypoicons is of relevance. In his general tripartite sign structure of sign the three hypoicons constitute a substructure of the iconically based sign process specifying the presupposed similarity between sign and object (CP 2.277). In any actually ongoing sign process iconic signs are, of course, to be understood as an instance of the predomination of iconic aspects of the total sign complex, not as entities that are iconic and only iconic. Such predominantly iconic signs are called images if they work on the basis of a partial material identity between sign and object: the curve of my nose and the curve of my nose on a photo. They are called diagrams if there is a relational identity between parts of the object and parts of the sign, irrespectively of any "sensual resemblance" (CP 2.279), i.e. the ratio between physical elements of a landscape is identical with the ratio between points on a map, as is the ratio between the points of a statistical curve with the real catastrophe of my private economy. The third type of iconic signs, metaphors, is more complicated. Peirce states enigmatically that they "represent the representative character of a representamen by representing a parallelism in something else" (CP 2.277).

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This condensed statement needs to be unpacked. If we depict an elephant (as an image) in a reduced scale with the relative proportions maintained and in a simplified manner (as a diagram), it may represent, not only an elephant but the representative character of the represented animal, that is it represents the elephant to us so that we may interpret it as something else. If this something else, for instance a most appreciated elderly aunt of mine, is referred to by some similarity or parallelism to the elephant or to certain assumed elephant-like qualities, then we have a metaphor. The same is the case in a less controversial case as the use of a representation of an elephant (as image and diagram) in order to represent the Republican party in the USA or the Carlsberg breweries in Denmark. Then it is a metaphor in Peirce's sense. In order for this sign to function as a metaphor it will have to retain the features of an assumed general or even quintessential elephantness. The sign of the elephant makes the elephant a type on the basis of two necessarily combined presuppositions: 1) As a general presupposition we take for granted a similarity between sign and object (e.g. a long memory or some spectacular but not very flattering qualities of bodily appearance, or perhaps solidity, or imperialism), and 2) as a specific presuppostion concerning the sign itself, we assume that the material and relational identity between sign and object manifested in the sign does not contain features that are bound to any individual and thus material elephant, but only to ways in which these features are coded as to construct an elephant identity. The final metaphorical elephantness does not refer directly to any material or relational identity with any particular elephant. Moreover, it is indifferent to the particularity of the material or relational identity manifested in the concrete sign in the given expression system – as long as through the process of abstractive relevance we can 1) retain the features of an elephant and 2) use them to produce a typical elephantness as a semantic unity referring to an object through similarity. If this interpretation of Peirce's metaphor holds (cf. Haley 1988), I see no difference between him and Bühler on this point. They agree that metaphor is a meaning potential whose codes work in a universe where this presupposed similarity holds as a material and relational identity. Metaphors are a way of grasping it. Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet

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There is a considerable distance between the linguistics of Saussure and the linguistic background of Bühler or the general semiotics of Peirce. But at the same time that Saussure advocates for a linguistically based general semiotic he cannot avoid transcending the boundaries of verbal language. This holds for metaphors, too. And Bühler and Peirce, on the other hand, cannot in their attempted axiomatic or logic generality escape the specific constraints that the material sign vehicles, verbal or not, impose on any actual semiotic process, also when metaphors are involved. To develop and exemplify this complexity I will turn to poetic metaphors. I do not want to repeat the age old mistake that metaphoricity is an essential feature only of poetic language, but not of other types of language use. Poetic metaphors are only specific instances of the metaphoricity of the cognitive and semiotic processes we incessantly perform. But nevertheless, the use of metaphors (and other types of imagery) in poetic language is often so complicated that it tells us about the boundaries and the general mechanisms of metaphoricity, most often due to the self-reflexiveness of many poetic texts. They display their own codes: they do not just tell us a story or describe certain phenomena, but they tell us they tell, and they describe for us that they describe. I use the opening scene of Romeo and Juliet for three reasons. Firstly, Shakespeare and Elizabethean literature in general are famous for their infinitely rich variety of imagery. So I can take for a fact that the text has a dense metaphorical structure. Secondly, when I choose a presumably well known text I do not have to explain it as a whole (although it is sufficiently complex!). Thirdly, it is a dramatic text, that is a text of which the verbal part cannot stand alone: the verbal signs co-occur necessarily with nonverbal signs, and the analysis of the verbal text, focusing on metaphors or other textual details, misses the point if it does not, as an essential aspect of the meaning potential of the verbal text, point to a connection to non-verbal signs. The verbal text is at the same time the lines of the actors as characters and suggestions for their performance and interaction, as well as more or less hidden instructions for the director, the costumier etc. The verbal text is part of an intersemiotic process which we see in actu on stage. Metaphors are parts of the entire process. What I will exemplify – that is a more honest denomination for my modest enterprise than to analyze or interpret – is, firstly, how the transformation from material and relation identity to codes for these types of identity takes place in the text and the effects it has. I do however take

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my starting point in the verbal text, although a dramaturgical analysis could proceed differently. Secondly, I will point to the role of code breaking that is so often related to poetic texts or, rather, to the poetic function, because code breaking occurs in many other texts without having the same importance as in literature. Thirdly, on the basis of this analysis, I shall cross the boundary between verbal and non-verbal signs. My fourth and final point relates to another role entertained by metaphorical expressions or complexes in poetic texts: due to their generality, as underlined by Peirce, some of them are no longer just local expressions in the chain of signs, but represent the text as a whole across the borderlines of the different sign systems. Although only parts of the play, they constitute a condensed microversion of the play as a whole, of the macrotext. As soon as we know what the wild duck means in Ibsen's The Wild Duck the interpretation of the entire play is near at hand. In the opening scene nobody knows yet about the love of Romeo and Juliet, not even themselves. But the conflict between the two noble families, the Capulets and the Montagues, is obvious to everyone. In the opening lines quoted below (I, i, v.1-74) some of the servants and family members of the rivalling families meet, begin to argue and then to fight until a group of citizens appear together with the head of the Capulets. It looks simple. It is not. quote from Shakespeare 1) Mediaspecific coding of material and relational identity Language itself is a material phenomenon with an expression level (sound or writing) and, from a structural or formal point of view, its material properties are organized according to phonology or to the organizing principles of the writing system. As we are here dealing with a dramatic text, only the oral materiality is relevant. Through material identity on the expression level (rime, assonance etc.) a cohesion may be created that often highlights semantic features in a more or less sophisticated way (word play, puns etc.). Any amateur writer of songs uses these media specific features to hammer home a good point. The relational identity in language is often related to the position of linguistic elements in the manifested chain of discourse: high frequency of certain elements corresponds to semantic importance; an initial position in the chain corresponds to a position of first importance in the semantic

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structure; a final position of an element in the discursive string corresponds to a conclusive semantic role of the element in question; different elements in positions close to each other correponds to closeness in meaning, etc. Any course on composition builds on such basic rules. Of course, we are not yet speaking of metaphors at all, but only exploring the iconic features of a given media that, for instance, may be verbal language. And, as we can see, no iconic features create a one-to-one relationship between expression level and content level. But they allow us to exercise the abstractive relevance and then focus on an ambiguous semantic field of similarities to be specified. In forcing us to assume that similarities hold somewhere, the iconic properties make the use of metaphors possible. For Saussure it simply means that some signs must be motivated. But he has no theoretical or analytical tools to tell why or how this motivation occurs. As arbitrariness is his key notion, motivation is a phenomenon like pedestrians for a French car driver: ça existe! But for Bühler and for Peirce iconicity is not an exception. As the capacity to represent is more basic to language than arbitrariness (which is, of course, an important aspect of the representational mechanism of language), the metaphorical turn of the iconic representation is but one of several specific forms of representation in language. Bühler's key word is 'mixture of semantic spheres' through simultaneous 'hyper- and hyposummation'. Peirce's is 'representation of the representative character of the iconic sign'. In this respect works of fiction produce a difficulty, because the universe that is represented by the sign is in a sense also created by the sign – the fictitious universe –, although it shows partial identity with the universe of our everyday life. If this were not the case, we could not understand anything. But this partial identity changes over time: the contemporary audience of Shakespeare's drama had a greater 'Vorverständnis' on many points than we have and will ever have, and instead of the meanings we have lost over the years we have accumulated new meanings to invest in the interpretation. The richness of the iconic dimension of a Shakespearean text contributes to its capacity to adapt to and appeal to new audiences in suggesting new or partially new semantic fields for similarities, and thus forcing the perceiving subject to engage himself of herself in renewed processes of identification (See Fig. 1). Take the very opening lines of the play (v. 1-7). A series of pun-like phonologically similar expressions makes us aware of the importance of the iconic dimension of the text and its rich metaphorical potential: 'carry coals',

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'be colliers', 'be in choler, we'll draw', 'draw your neck out of collar', 'I strike quickly being moved', 'not quickly moved to strike', 'a dog of the house of Montague moves me'. The italized nouns refer to the process of hard work for servants or laborers of the lowest rank, close to animal, and also to humilation ('carry coal') on the one hand and anger on the other ('choler'). Both a bodily, a social and an emotional dimension with a conflictual potential is involved. The repeated verbs, rendered in boldface, refer to violent actions: draw and strike when moved by a conflict (Capulet vs. Montague). When we are looking for metaphors here, an isolated metaphor like 'a dog of the house of Montague' is not of particular interest. But the emergence of a metaphorical structure that embraces the entire fictitious universe is fundamental. This is what is growing from the language elements we have seen up til now. Here material similarity (phonological similarity corresponds to semantic similarity) and relational similarity (high frequency of certain nouns and verbs corresponds to semantic importance) makes us single out semantic fields where metaphors may be possible. The mixture of semantic spheres, the 'Sphärenmischung', emerges through reference to conflicts on a bodily level, social level and emotional level. So, we tend to believe that expressions like 'draw' and 'strike' are elements in an important metaphorical structure. The metaphorical mechanism pressuposes similarities between sign and object, and the linguistic signs are used in such a way that they are able to make us believe in such presuppositions. The servants themselves play around with the similarities between the bodily, the social and the emotional dimension: they refuse to be humiliated as servants, but impose instead that position on the absent representatives of the rivalling family ('dog'), and they allude to themselves as valiant – to move (physically) is to run, to be moved (mentally) is to be valiant and thus to stand (physically and mentally). The role change – from slavery (v. 12) to bravery – is a metaphorical process. The change affects both the acting subjects and objects acted upon. The subjects are turned from slaves to braves, and also from tyrants to lovers ('take the wall of any man or maid of Montague's', v. 11). And in the objective dimension a shift from warfare to sex takes place on all three levels of social, bodily and emotional reality. Two new metaphors introduced by the servants both push the shifts on the subjective and objective level further and strengthen the interrelation between sign systems: 'wall' (v. 11) and 'sword' (v. 30-32).

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'Wall' refers to any physical boundary (the body, virginity, the sides of a ship, a building etc.) or any other obstacle, and it is the target of your attack or your last defense, or someting you are crushed against. It contains all the metaphorical codes of the verbs and nouns brought into play so far. It is an example of Bühler's 'hypersummativity'. From the vivid and playful dialogue of the servants we now jump from discourse into the univers represented by the text, the fictitiuos world to which the metaphors produced so far apply. And here the other metaphor occurs thus prepared for: the phallic sword: 'draw thy tool', 'my naked weapon is out' (v. 30-32). The meaning of all the verbs (draw, strike, etc.) and the nouns (wall, etc.) are interrelated in the sword and unfolded in the fight going on over the remaining part of the opening scene. The two last mentioned metaphors, the wall and the sword, are not bound to a linguistically manifested material and relational similarity that lays the ground for them. The non-linguistic similarity between sign (sword) and object (phallos) alluded to through the linguistic signs is the core of its metaphoricity. Although the sword is necessarily seen on stage and the wall perhaps not, they are both metaphors because their metaphoricity is created by the codes of material and relational similarity grounded by the iconic qualities of language but not manifested in verbal signs alone. The transformation from material and relational similarity to the codes of such similarities has the effect that the metaphorical process gets out of hand. What is created in one sign system, may occur in another; the manifestation of the codes may change in the same sign system. The servants and other sign users are no longer in complete control of the signs they use. This is represented in a straighforward way after the quote when the heads of the noble families enter. They spell out unambiguously what is social order, what is war, what is love as opposed to the complexity of the metaphorical 'Sphärenmischung'. And the sword becomes just a plain sword (v. 73-76). (Later in the drama they are also caught in the metaphorical cobweb.) In a more subtle way we see the power of metaphors over their users in the lines of the servants. In the beginning they say for fun that 'while you live, draw your neck out of collar' (v. 4), but later this also expresses the danger of being decapitated ('... I will cut of their heads' (v. 21)). Moreover, 'draw' both means to work as a servant and to draw the sword, and, through the phallic connotation of the sword, the neck drawn out of the collar becomes phallic as well, and thus turns the servants into purely bodily

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phenomena – they are in fact like the dogs they locate in the rivalling house of Montague. The metaphors are of a complexity that goes beyond the control of any individual. Therefore, what is retained by the metaphors in the play are the codes of the similarities between 'war and love', 'active and passive roles', 'body-society-mind', etc. that apply to the fictitious universe and to the universe of everyday experience as well. The 'sword', the 'wall', to 'draw' etc. stop representing certain phenomena, but represent to us the codes of similarities through which they are capable of representing a universe (they represent, as Peirce would have it, their representative character): they make things similar that embrace both 'activity and passivity', both 'love and war'. This type of elements makes it possible for us, centuries after Shakespeare, to understand some of his texts, and makes it possible to translate them to other languages and other semiotic systems that can retain the codes of similarity. 2) Code breaking The limited horizon of any individual in the understanding of metaphors, both the metaphors of others and the metaphors we produce on our own acccount, is also marked in Shakespeare by code breaking. There is code breaking going on in the endless series of word play, for example: 'Samp. I strike quickly being moved./ Greg. But thou are not quickly moved to strike' (v. 5-6), or the turning upside down of semantic meaning: 'I will be civil with the maids, I will cut off their heads' (v. 21-22). In both cases, however, such lines are still in the control of the dramatis personae. More fundamental is the way the basic metaphorical codes are being shaken. As metaphors work through similarities, a metaphorical complex can often be analyzed in metaphorical equations: a man is a lion, the servants of the Montagues are dogs, etc. But here, the very validity of equations is questioned: First through the mock equations of word play 'to move is to stir, and to be valiant is to stand' (v. 8); then through the somewhat ambiguous use of metaphors by the interlocutors themselves, involving the double meaning of 'sense' as both 'meaning' and 'feeling': 'Samp. .... I will be civil with maids, I will cut off their heads./ Greg. The heads of the maids?/ Samp. Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads; take it in what sense thou wilt./ Greg. They must take it in the sense they feel it.' (v. 21-26). The very word 'sense' is part of the metaphorical play with sense. The text forces the audience to reflect on the valid codes involved in the metaphorical process. There is no

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master key to an unambiguous basic meaning, but only a series of 'mixture of semantic spheres'. 3) Relation to other media This ambivalence is the basic interpretative difficulty that contains the whole dramaturgic potential of the text. The basic codes of similarity can be staged in an intersemiotic text using words, gestures, costumes, props, etc. to display the metaphorical content. It opens the text as a series of possible choices for the stagedirector and the actor, not as verbally expressed meaning to be moved from paper to stage. To read Shakespeare (or any other major dramatic writer) without having the intersemiotic stage production in mind is to misread him. To focus on the emergent metaphorical structure is essential for that type of reading. When the two servants enter, each of them carries a bucket and a sword, thus showing both their slavery and their bravery. Anyone having seen a Shakespeare performance will know that they are talking fast when they open their dialogue. No audience, native speaking or not, will have the time to make an analysis as we have done here. So, the director will have to choose which elements of the iconic structure he wants to underline, and to decide when the words will have the lead and when the non-verbal elements. If we read the first lines as a preparation of the fighting after v. 30, then the verbal and non-verbal signs will have to stress the belligerant action to come. If we want to read the introduction as a psychological portrait of the servants playing knights when they, like kids, are on their own, then the bragging about victories in war and love will have to be given an ironic emphasis (use the buckets al helmets, for example). If the intention is to show the two persons as members of a social group, being servants from an important family, then the characteristics of that group will have to be represented (its sensuality, sexuality, playfulness, roughness, etc. – the sword can produce all kinds of sexual associations (v. 4ff) before they are made verbally explicit. The specific meanings of each word disappear, and the general semantic codes, repeated over and over again, will be foregrounded by intersemiotic redundancy. And such signs, verbal or not, will then represent their representative character. 4) Mis en abîme The use if the verbal text as a set of dramaturgic possibilities requires a thorough interpretation of the entire play, so that meanings that are clear

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only later in the drama (like the love between Romeo and Juliet) may be hinted at already in the beginning. Not all dramatic texts make this foreshadowing possible, and even fewer texts allow us to sketch the essential structure of the entire text from the very beginning. But certain major works of art (also novels and other genres) create the effect of a mis en abîme in the opening section. This expression is taken from heraldry, where a coat of arms is painted on a coat of arms on which a coat of arms is painted on which ....., etc. This structure indicated the hierarchy to which the nobleman belonged. In the same sense we talk about the effect on a mis en abîme when a minor part of text contains the basic structure of the entire text. This is the case of the opening of Romeo and Juliet. The drama as a whole unfolds on three interrelated levels with different and conflicting norms and values: a level governed by collective norms, abstract social relations, power relations and habits and it is impersonated by the Capulets and the Montgues; a level governed by bodily concerns – fighting, fun, birth, food and drinking, work, sex, etc. and it is impersonated by servants and nurses; finally, an intermediary level of individual relations, both bodily and ideal, crushed between the two others. It is here Romeo and Juliet belong. The metaphorical structure that has developed over the first 65 lines gives the outlines of the two first mentioned levels, makes them mirror each other and indicates how the equation of war and love, fight and sex, slavery and bravery, peace and suppression etc. makes an intermediary level both possible, necessary and unstable: 'you know not what you do' (v. 61-62). The conflict takes on the form of love, but love takes on the form of death. Therefore, the drama is a metaphor in actu, enacting the philosophy of likeness through a complex metaphorical semiosis. BIBLIOGRAPHY Amacker, René (1965). Linguistique Saussurienne. Genève: Droz. Bühler, Karl (1931). Phonetik und Phonologie. Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague 4. Bühler, Karl (1965 [1934]). Sprachtheorie. Stuttgart: Fischer. Eco, Umberto (1976). A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Goodman, Nelson (1973). Seven Strictures on Similarity. Problems and Projects. Indianapolis/New York: Bobbs-Merrill.

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Grauman, Carl F. and Theo Herrmann (eds.) (1984). Karls Bühlers Axiomatik. Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann. Haley, Michael Cabot (1988). The Semeiosis of Metaphor. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Jakobson, Roman (1960). Closing Statements. Linguistics and Poetics. Thomas Sebeok (ed.): Style in Language. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Johansen, Jørgen Dines and Larsen, Svend Erik (1994). Tegn i brug. København: Amanda. Larsen, Svend Erik (1991). Iconicity or identity? Face - Revista de Semiótica e Comunicação. Número especial 1. São Paolo. Peirce, Charles Sanders (1935, 1958). Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. (Referred to as CP followed by volume number and paragraph number). Ransdell, Joseph (1986). On Peirce's Conception of the Iconic Sign. Iconicity. Essays on the Nature of Culture. Paul Bouissac, Michael Herzfeld, Roland Posner (eds.). Tübingen: Stauffenburg. Saussure, Ferdinand de (1972 [1916]). Cours de linguistique générale. Ed. by T. De Mauro. Paris: Payot. Shakespeare, William (1983 [1597]). Romeo and Juliet. Arden Edition. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Sebeok, Thomas (1976). Iconicity. Modern Language Notes 91.

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