Reinventing Your Metaphoric Habitat

Emergence, 2000

Theoria et Historia Scientiarum, 2007

1993

2012

The way we conceptualise nature matters. Thinking of nature as a resource to be harnessed, a victim to be saved or a mother that nurtures us shapes the way we behave towards nature. As Lakoff & Johnson (1980) say, we act according to how we perceive.

Metascience

Configurations, 2008

Right on the first page of their Metaphors We Live By, George La-koff and Mark Johnson state that metaphors are not a matter merely of words, but of action. 1 The reason is that our conceptual system, which governs our thought and our everyday functioning, is made up of ...

2021

Yes, metaphor. That's how this whole fabric of mental interconnections holds together. Metaphor is right at the bottom of being alive. Capra (1988: 79; quotation attributed to Gregory Bateson) The language of transformation This book is concerned with the ways in which language, metaphor in particular, but also myth, fable, parable, allegory, and other literary devices, can shape how we think about, and respond to, the environmental challenges that humanity is currently facing. It recognises that language makes sense of our world and shapes how we think and act: individually and collectively (Fløttum, 2014). Narratives-constructed stories-frame problems and issues in ways that are meaningful, creating an "architecture" for understanding the state of the world and what might be done to improve it (Jepson, 2018). Metaphor, myth, and fable influence how we frame problems and set agendas (Lakoff, 2004), affect whether or not we are motivated to act, and can play a role in bringing about needed transformations in deeply held beliefs, social norms, and institutions (Moser, 2006). These feed into narratives and discourses in ways which recursively and interdependently influence social, political, and economic institutions across a range of fieldspsychological, philosophical, cultural, historical-thereby shaping the ways in which we engage with the natural world (Harré et al., 1999). This is why, for Bateson, metaphor was the "language of nature", the "logic upon which the entire living world is built" and the basis for establishing the "pattern which connects" (Capra, 1988: 84; Olds, 1992). This is a book that is consequently interested in language but that has been written, largely, by people who do not regard themselves as linguists, rhetoricians, or cognitive scientists. On the contrary, we present ourselves-editors and contributors alike-as transdisciplinarians motivated by a shared interest in sustainability and concerned by the threats to the stability of Earth system processes. As environmental, social, and natural scientists, engineers, eco-humanity scholars, and with other academic influences, we have been engaged in a deliberative process of dialogue and discussion that has enabled us to reflect upon the role of language in shaping our understanding of current problems and possible

Writing from Invention to Decipherment, 2024

The Rongorongo script of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) may represent one of the few cases of independent writing in the world. Still, it is hard to situate as a code because it remains undeciphered. Rongorongo Tablet C bears a sequence of text that most scholars agree can be interpreted to some extent. It most probably contains a ‘calendar’ with the list of ‘the nights of the moon’ that made up the Polynesian month, and whose Rapanui variety is known from oral tradition. If this identification is correct, then this ‘list of nights’ is crucial for decipherment. In this chapter, I propose that revisiting some older views on Rongorongo through a new look at Tablet C can help us understand where Rongorongo is situated in terms of typology. It is argued that it is a form of logo-phonetic notation that largely omitted grammatical words, and whose individual and combined glyphs represented polysyllabic morphemes—not syllables, as the most widespread view today holds. Readings of certain glyphic sequences of Tablet C as names of nights of the month and astronomical or time-reckoning phrases are proposed.