Category: English 110 A Blog

My second reading experience of See Through Words was very different compared to my first experience. During that first reading I struggled to really understand a lot of what the author was trying to argue and the key ideas he was trying to get across. Many of the metaphor were very hard to connect with like about the paintbrush being like a pump and the comparing of metaphors to a room. Reading through this again allowed me to take my time deciphering the text and gave me another chance to connect and understand the metaphors more in depth. Similar to my previous reading of the two different theories about metaphors and their structures I still came to the same conclusion, which was the metaphors are really dependent on dual-references and categorism. However, unlike my first experience reading and annotating the text I more clearly understood the other theory about the multistep process of metaphor design. After reading that for the second time I saw it much differently, but still ended up agreeing with the previous theory I had already understood. One very positive moment in my second reading experience when I came across the term pseudo-mistakes, which really confused me and my understanding of the concepts talked about in those couple paragraphs. I was then able to have a clear understanding of the couple paragraphs which I believe resulted in a more overall complete understanding of the whole. This second experience was very beneficial, and it is clear to see why multiple revisions and overviews should be made in any piece.           

Helpful Resource to help “Clear the Fog”-https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Psuedo

When reading through Michael Erards work I noticed plenty of theories about metaphors. This included what the meaning of some of the structures were and the origins behind the creation of specific metaphor. I had to polar opposite reactions to two different theories I had come across. One of these theories discussed was about how metaphors are really categorisation proposals which are “suggesting that one things belongs with another.” I related to this theory because it connects and follows along the same lines that I view metaphors. When reading this it just made sense to me; I understood when creator of the theory, Princeton psychologist Sam Glucksberg, described the categories that separate different metaphors are how they are meant to be distinguished and why metaphors seem to have any connections at all. One of the major points in his theory was about how metaphors have ‘dual reference’. This essentially targets how people categorize certain words leading to a combination of ideas that according to one point of view have no correlation but according to another match together perfectly. The other theory, created by psychologist Dedre Gentnerclaimed that there are two steps in the creation of metaphors. In the first step the concepts are matched. This means that the two specific ideas are identified. The second step in this would then be the comparison of the two individual concepts which finishes in the result of a metaphor. This theory is both confused and unnecessarily long. I understand the overall concept of it but the first theory is a simple concept to grasp which simplifies the idea of what a metaphor means.   

My second experience with James Geary greatly differed from my first experience. Throughout my first experience watching the TED talk, it took me a while to fully understand all the examples and specific metaphor that were given. I understood the main ideas and thoughts about metaphors Geary was introducing however did not grasp the entirety of the whole talk. During my second experience with Geary as I was annotating his whole transcript from the TED talk I got a deeper understanding of what Geary meant. Every single metaphor example was clearly spelled out for me, allowing me to annotate and add my own thoughts. As if having a conversation with Geary I layed out my opinions and concerns as well as questions about his text that confused me. Ironically as I continued reading some of my questions were answered as if we were partaking in a back and forth conversation. During my second experience, as opposed to my first, I became deeply fascinated with the specific experiments he talked about. This kept me thinking about all humans different ways of thinking and how sometimes with the same “push” can be persuaded into thinking very similar. Although I wasn’t watching James Gaerly on screen for my second experience I felt more connected and immersed in a deeper conversation with the man, who I had never met or heard of before. Annotating allowed me to organize my thoughts and gave them to me easily accessible to the point I was able to understand and think deeper about the subject than I ever had during my first experience.