For the engineers that I have taught, one of the most challenging communication tasks is explaining scientific concepts to less technical audiences, such as the general public. Yet explaining their work to the public – and other audiences with varying levels of technical know how – is a key part of many engineering positions, and doing this well is pivotal to success in their careers. A number of rhetorical tools can help with this task, but one is specifically designed for communicating unfamiliar concepts, via reference to familiar ones: metaphor.
You might think that metaphorical (or, more generally, figurative) language is more suitable for the Arts, but it has an important place in scientific communication and, significantly, science itself. Scientists communicating to scientists often have to resort to metaphorical language, particularly when confronted by new phenomena or ideas. For example, Maxwell used the concept of water pressure in tubes to describe to others Faraday’s concept of electric lines of force; waves in water were used to help explain the wave-like nature of light; and computer interface design relied on the physical analogy of a desktop as its foundational concept. Metaphor is key to understanding, explaining, and conceptualizing new ideas in all domains.
At some point in your academic career, you’ve likely been taught that metaphor is simply a comparison between one thing and another*: but understanding its deeper structures can help tease out how they function, and how to deploy them effectively to get your meaning across. “Metaphor” is Greek for “transfer,” and we should understand it as transferring explicit or implicit attributes from one object to another. Take, for example, one of Shakespeare’s famous metaphors: “All the world’s a stage.” This short five word line carries so much implied meaning in its transfer of the attributes of a stage world to real life, as it works on the comparison between the “stage” and the real “world.” Here, “stage” is the source of the metaphor, the familiar term that lends meaning; “world” – in this case a reference to life in general – is the target, the object that takes on meaning from the source. We can already begin to assign some meaning to this metaphor based solely on this line, but Shakespeare follows up with more explicit similarities: “And all the men and women merely players; / They have their exits and their entrances.” (He goes on for much longer …) [Continue reading]
