The metaphorical species: Evolution,adaptation and speciation of metaphors

Introduction

It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.

Metaphorical thinking is intrinsic to the human species, and it may have had adaptive value (Feldman, 2004; Forceville et al., 2006). Kenneth Burke (1945) wrote that a ‘metaphor is a device for seeing something in terms of something else’, and even if the definition is inadequate for the complex description of this phenomenon, it states in simple terms what lies at the heart of metaphors (p. 503). Hence, a metaphor is an idea associated with an image: ‘understanding and experiencing’ something in terms of something else is the real process of metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980: 5). The use of metaphors in communication is efficient and can be found practically everywhere (Gibbs and Matlock, 2008), providing more persuasive and less verbose content to the message (Sopory and Dillard, 2002). Lakoff and Johnson (1999), in Philosophy in the Flesh (p. 4), show that a major finding of Cognitive Science is the fact that the mind is inherently embodied: our conceptual system is, as Lakoff and Johnson and many other Cognitive Linguists claim, mirrored in language patterns, for example, in the systematic use of metaphor. These uses of metaphors may facilitate some forms of internal embodied simulation of experiences on the part of listeners/readers (Gibbs, 2006), which may in turn provide the basis for a very empathic response, as Elena Semino (2010) has shown with pain experiences. Metaphors are also often used to express nuances of thought and feeling that are difficult or impossible to express in literal language (Cameron, 2007; Ritchie, 2008) and may act as constructors of social role identity (Quinn, 1991). In view of this, the use of metaphors not only streamlines communication but also creates more empathy and proximity to the receiver (Cohen, 1993), thus providing more powerful rhetoric and persuasion and creating a stronger communicative bond. Ultimately, metaphoric communication is biologically efficient and a selection factor that must have had a great importance in the primitive development of language, as was suggested by the 18th-century Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico (D’Alfonso, 1994; Danesi, 1993), who was the first to understand the power of figurative language in the creation of symbolic systems like language or law (Danesi, 2011).

On the other hand, we can also say that an efficient metaphor is a ‘meme’ (Musolff, 2008), in Richard Dawkins’s (1976) sense: a sociocultural unit that can evolve via differential replication (Croft, 2000). In Richard Dawkins’ (1976) words, in The Selfish Gene,

examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain. (p. 192)

The ‘fitness’ of a meme is its capacity for transmission, and this depends on the cognitive architecture of individuals who transmit it and on the features of the cultures in which the meme exists (Wilson, 2000).

Thus, once a metaphor roots in a communicative space, it tends to diversify its use: it adjusts to various circumstances and social ecosystem changes (Domínguez et al., 2014b). In some cases, a surprising adaptive diversification occurs, and an old metaphor adapts to a new and unexpected communicative circumstance in a generative metaphor process (Schön, 1993): a reuse of the metaphor across context or recontextualisation (Linell, 2009; Semino et al., 2013). Therefore, in many occasions a phylogenetic monitoring process can be followed, starting with a primal metaphor and ending in a number of new phyla, which are related but clearly identifiable (Domínguez, 2015).

In this article, I study the main visual metaphors associated with the consequences of the economic crisis in Spain through cartoons in the Spanish press. Although the recession began in the euro area in 2008, the first measures to contain public spending were taken in Spain starting in 2009. In 2010, the socialist government led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero adopted new actions to reduce the deficit (reduction of public employee salaries by 5%, frozen pensions, decreased state investment, among others); in early 2011, it was announced that the retirement age would be progressively pushed from 65 to 67 years, and that same year, after the Popular Party (the conservative party) won the general elections, new and deeper cuts were announced. In 2012, the government nationalised Bankia, the fourth largest financial institution in the country. The citizenry began to express their outrage against an ever-worsening situation. In late 2013, Banco de España (Spanish Central Bank) confirmed the technical end of the recession and the government interpreted this as the beginning of the end of the crisis.

Cartoons as an opinion genre are extremely useful for my purpose because they combine image and text (often aphoristic and judgemental) and create very efficient multimodal communicative content (Forceville, 2006; Forceville and Urios-Aparisi, 2009; Tsakona, 2009). They are also an excellent barometer of public opinion (Domínguez, 2014; Domínguez et al., 2014a) that enables the researchers to quickly see a change in attitude about certain topics, possibly with greater clarity than other opinion genres (Domínguez and Mateu, 2013; 2014). In addition, due to their ironic nature – often sarcastic and scathing, cartoons take licence that would be far more reprehensible in other genres (Kuipers, 2011; Lægaard, 2007), but which tend to better reflect the true pulse of the street (Edwards and Ware, 2005; Schilperoord and Maes, 2009; Wekesa, 2012).

Thus, the aim of this study is to analyse the metaphors that appear in cartoons related to the economic crisis. I focused mainly on the analysis of scissors as a widely used image to denounce the government cuts in social budgets and represented by the metaphor CUTBACKS ARE SCISSORS. I am interested in characterising the main metaphorical adaptations observed, and how these evolve, leading in some cases to very efficient and communicative multimodal images. In this sense, I have also looked at the symbolic use of other similar elements to portray cutbacks, such as axes, saws, chainsaws and so on, to see whether they had the same success or whether their metaphorical route was much shorter and less efficient.

Forceville et al. (2006) indicate that the more unexpected and simple the metaphor is, the more adaptive success it will have. Following this idea, this article introduces evolutionary theory and the Darwinian concept of adaptation, and reflects on its potential usefulness for gaining an understanding of the diversity of metaphors. An adaptation is a mutation that helps an organism survive in its environment and usually develops in response to a change in the organisms’ habitat (Futuyma, 2009; Ridley, 1993). These adaptations can be summarised in two main groups: structural adaptations, involving significant changes in shape, and behavioural adaptations (Futuyma, 2009; Pianka, 2011).

Therefore, in this article I argue that metaphors (as ‘memes’) are subjected to an intense selection process, and some survive and diversify while many others disappear. Those that are most successful evolve and generate new metaphors, resulting in an adaptive radiation, the diversification of a single lineage into other lineages that exploit diverse ecological niches (Barton et al., 2007) like a clustering metaphorical phenomenon (Cameron and Stelma, 2004). In some cases, different metaphors coevolve, resulting in examples of coadaptation, a term used in biology to describe the circumstances in which organisms sometimes adapt to and with other organisms: the coadaptation is beneficial to both sets of organisms (Futuyma, 2009). Ultimately, these changes create more efficient new metaphors for a new communicative situation: more shocking metaphors, much more helpful in order to spread a message. With these adaptations, mutations and even speciation, the reader is surprised, and communication and dissemination of an idea are encouraged and expedited.

Scissors metaphors: Methods

Cartoons from the leading Spanish editorial cartoonists during the five years of economic crisis, from 2009 to 2013, were analysed, and those that contained the symbol of scissors or some other cutting symbol alluding to cutbacks were selected. To that end, the websites of the main Spanish newspapers (indexed in the Oficina de Justificación de la Difusión (OJD)) were visited. When this was not an option, a print copy from a public library was used. Analysed newspapers and cartoonists were, El País (Forges, El Roto, Peridis, Ramón), El Mundo (Gallego y Rey, Ricardo, Guillermo), ABC (J.M. Nieto), La Vanguardia (Ventura y Coromina), El Periódico (Ferreres), Grupo Joly (Miki y Duarte), La Voz de Galicia (Pinto y Chinto), 20 Minutos (Eneko), Público (Javier Jaén; Medina), AVUI (Jap), Gara (Tasio), Deia (Asier y Javier), Faro de Vigo (Aguilera, Dávila), La Opinión de A Coruña (Santy Gutiérrez), La Opinión de Tenerife (Padylla), La Información (Ferran Martín), Información (J.R. Mora, Malagón), Diario de Navarra (Oroz), Diario La Rioja (Carlos Sacristán), El Punt (Lluís Puigbert), La Gaceta (Emebé + De Juan), El Plural (PAT) and eldiario.es (Bernardo Vergara). Similarly, the weekly satirical El Jueves was also visited (Santi Orúe; Manel Fontdevila), as well as the personal blogs of some professional cartoonists (Jorge Alaminos ‘Litoral’; Igepzio ‘El Bloj’; Juan Andrés Cabello ‘El Peneque’; Leandro Barea; Ricardo Peregrina ‘Riqui’; Julio Carrión ‘Karry’ and Marcos Mesa ‘Burgosdijital’).

Analysis of the media yielded 437 cartoons with the scissors image, among which I found a total of 125 metaphors (i.e. 125 cartoons that used the scissors symbol as a metaphorical source domain). Apart from that, I also found cartoons from a different, although related, source domain such as chainsaws (8), saws (6), axes (13) and other sharp items (like lawnmowers (2), razors (3), a razor blade (1) and a jig saw (1)). No remarkable metaphors were found in the whole set of cartoons (except the simple use of such instruments), but they are referred to for analysis in the ‘Discussion: The ontogenetic process of metaphorical transformation’ section. In total, 471 cartoons by 40 cartoonists were obtained.

In order to make the analysis of scissors metaphors easier, cartoons have been grouped in eight big thematic groups, regarding the nature of the source domain and the contexts of use – (1) cutbacks symbol: exaggerated and enlarged; (2) personification or animalisation: scissors are alive; (3) cross or religious symbol: scissors as a religious symbol, alluding to the suffering inflicted by social budget cuts; (4) new uses of scissors: scissors used for unusual purposes; (5) Olympic Games: references to cutbacks in relation to sports appear on the occasion of the 2012 Olympic Games and the 2013 Winter Olympic Games; (6) wildfires: due to cutbacks in forest fires prevention, scissors appear related to fire, fire-fighters and burned forests; (7) letters and numbers: scissors used as numbers or letters; (8) rock, paper, scissors: the game is referred to and a metaphorical connection is established.

After classifying the metaphors, I performed independent intercoder reliability tests (Fleiss, 1971; Wimmer and Dominick, 2011) with three independent researchers, using 10% of the sample (15 randomly selected cartoons). The Fleiss’ kappa coefficient (k = 0.79) indicated a substantial agreement.

Evolution, adaptation and speciation of metaphors

In biology, we speak of adaptations to describe the changes that living organisms undergo to adjust to new surroundings or a new situation and increase fitness of this organism (Barton et al., 2007; Futuyma, 2009). As Ronald A. Fisher (1930) emphasised, adaptation is characterised by the movement of a population towards a phenotype that best fits the present environment. These changes can be basically behavioural (including significant changes in ethology and lifestyle) or structural (involving the modification or creation of new organs). This kind of adaptation can also be found in the evolution of metaphors in cartoons: from a prototype cartoon to a surprisingly rich adaptive radiation to fit the new communicative ecosystem better. In this study of budget-cut metaphors generated by the economic crisis, we can distinguish between structural and behavioural adaptations and coadaptations. In some cases, we can also discern significant changes that help us consider whether there has been a process of speciation or not: the set of developed adaptations is so big and significant that it creates an entirely new species (Ridley, 1993).

The behavioural adaptation of scissors

The most common adaptations of the scissors metaphor are behavioural adaptations. In many of the studied cartoons, scissors take a new role, different from cutting: they bite (like sharks or rabid dogs), chase people (like infuriated birds) or behave like lurking monsters. Scissors look like a huge mouth that swallows people or attacks citizens. They refer not only to the budget cuts, but also to the pain (often attached to despair) produced by such cuts. In a significant number of cartoons, scissors act as daggers, stabbing and even killing workers; many of them have scissors stuck on their backs, alluding to the cowardice and betrayal of cutbacks. In some cases, scissors are even stuck on the forehead of a dead worker, a violent image comparing cutbacks and murder.

The scissors’ characteristic shape makes it easier to humanise them: the blades resemble legs, the handle reminds of the body and the rings correspond to the head (or eyes). Many cartoonists endow the scissors with voice and humanise them; sometimes there is even a dialogue between the scissors and the corresponding politician (e.g. President Rajoy and his ministers). In other cases, the shape of the scissors recalls the blades of a helicopter, the crossbones of a pirate flag and an instrument of torture (Figure 1).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Examples of behavioural adaptation: Scissors’ adopt a new role, very different from the role for which they were conceived. Their behaviour (function) is different than the original.

Adaptations usually develop in response to a change in the organisms’ habitat. Thus, scissors adopt new and unexpected roles when the communicative context changes: during Christmas they appear as Christmas-tree balls or lottery balls; during the Olympic Games they act as a fence in a steeplechase or as Angela Merkel skis; or several cartoonists use them as clock hands to refer to the turn of the year and further cuts ahead (Figure 1).

The structural adaptation of scissors

In some cases, scissors develop new organs or are notably modified. Some cartoonists draw them with teeth or fangs, or with a trigger (like a gun), or with their tips looking like matches (to refer to forest fires) (Figure 2). The scissors undergo a morphological mutation (a micro-mutation, even) and are more efficient in the new communicative context as a result. Eneko draws scissors with points transformed into donkey’s ears, alluding to cuts in education; some cartoonists draw arms for the scissors so that they seem more human. Malagón transforms the scissors into a cattle-branding iron, with the slogan ‘Spain Brand’. They are substantial changes in the morphology of the scissors, which often prevent the original use for which they were designed.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 2.

Structural adaptation: when the shape of the scissors undergoes significant mutations that alter their specific role and provide them with greater communicative content.

Coadaptation

Organisms sometimes adapt to and with other organisms: this is called coadaptation. In Figure 3, the process of coadaptation between two metaphors is exemplified: the economic cutbacks (symbolised by the pair of scissors) and police repression against popular protests and demonstrations (symbolised by the truncheon). The connection between the club and the scissors appears in several cartoons. But Ferran is the cartoonist who manages to join these two metaphorical concepts in a single cartoon imitating a pair of scissors with two crossed truncheons and handcuffs. He includes the slogan ‘Cutbacks in indignation’, thus referring to the cuts and the way to minimise their effects (via truncheon blows), and the multimodal cartoon becomes even more significant.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 3.

Coadaptation: evolutionary progress of two metaphorical symbols.

Speciation

The criteria for defining a new species in biology are manifold (biological, ecological, cladistic, genetic, etc.), and the aspects considered in order to distinguish between separate species and mere varieties are not simple (Coyne and Orr, 1998; Mayr, 1942; Ridley, 1993). But when a group of organisms develops a series of significant adjustments that separate them from the rest of the population, it is commonly accepted as a new species, and this process is called speciation.

In Figure 4, a process for gradual metaphor speciation is proposed. At the beginning of the economic crisis, many cartoonists drew citizens with scissors. As the crisis worsened, the scissors started growing in size, and citizens appeared in cartoons dragging a huge pair of scissors. In a progressive way, they increasingly opened up and transformed into a cross. The next step was comparing the suffering of the citizenry to the Stations of the Cross, leading to the ultimate crucifixion in a gigantic pair of scissors in Calvary. Therefore, the conceptual evolution is very clear and has a steady and gradual progress, from what could be considered a preadaptation (citizens dragging the scissors, symbol of the overwhelming crisis) to comparing it to a cross and alluding to punishment and therefore to the Stations of the Cross. The term preadaptation is applied when a large change in function is accomplished with little structural change (Ridley, 1993): the shape of the open scissors can remind one of a cross and provide more cognitive content to the metaphor. Thus, we can consider the ‘scissors cross’ as a new metaphor species: a new ‘meme’, which has consolidated among cartoonists and has had a rapid memetic expansion in the Spanish population. Following the Blending Theory (Fauconnier and Turner, 2002), these cartoons could be called ‘blended’ in the sense that the emerging meaning exceeds the inherent meaning of each ‘input space’.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 4.

Phylogenetic evolution of the scissors-as-crosses metaphor.

Discussion: The ontogenetic process of metaphorical transformation

The creation of any new metaphor always has a first transmitter and a first receiver or receivers. If the metaphor is efficient, that is, understood by the recipient and forwarded, an authentic communicative exponential growth then occurs. This process can be observed in the published cartoons: from the simple and widespread use of scissors to an amazing visual complication, adequate for different media contexts. The cartoonists managed to suggest a most striking and surprising image, which is at the same time as suitable as possible for the communicative context.

The success of the scissors image in the Spanish press and its recurring use over all the years of economic crisis and in the most unexpected situations have turned them into a true symbol of the cuts. Previously, the scissors image was widely used as a metonym for signalling activity related to hairdressing (Engelhardt, 2002), but from the onset of the economic crisis, we witness a change as it turns into the most efficient icon for the cutbacks and economic adjustments of the Spanish government.

At the beginning of the crisis, a visual or multimodal metaphor was used on cartoons, which could be verbalised as FINANCIAL CUTTING IS CUTTING-WITH-SCISSORS, where ‘scissors’ was a metonym for ‘cutting’. It became such a convenient and ubiquitous metonym, that it quickly acquired symbolic value (Forceville, 2013). The scissors metonym-turned-symbol became in turn the target domain of a whole series of new metaphors with different source domains (such as people, animals, crosses).

The metaphor rests on the comparison of two actions with a similar feature; with the formula ‘Trimming the budgets’, a new unknown connection is created, and we try to understand a phenomenon comparing it with another: trimming budgets like trimming a hedge. Scissors are precision cutting tools, as indicated by their use in some jobs (hairdressing, surgery, tailoring, cookery, butchery, etc.) and our everyday use. But some skill is also required by the user in order to avoid excessive cutting, the loss of an element or even physical injury. Their actions are conveyed through verbs such as cutting, trimming, lopping . . . The concept of budget cut, used by the government from the beginning of the crisis, emphasises that the effort required of the citizens was only facing small trimmings in order to avoid deeper measures. Scissors then became the symbol for the continued reforms that finally ‘ignited’ the discontent of an increasingly harmed population who had to ‘carry the cross’ of budget cuts. Thus, the symbol of the cuts gradually transforms in the Calvary of the citizens.

Other possible symbols (axes, saws, chainsaws, etc.) are not as efficient communicatively, however, and although they have presence in the media, they fail to reach the significance of scissors, perhaps because they do not allow such a rich metaphorical variation. Certainly, they evoke fewer associations or, more technically, fewer features that can be metaphorically linked with those in other source domains. In many cases, these other images are purely testimonial and benefit mostly from the metaphorical use previously created by the scissors. If at the beginning of the crisis only scissors were used, as it progresses all these other symbols, which may express more strongly the dramatic situation produced by government cuts, come into play. In some cases, you can see the politician leaving the scissors on the table and picking up a chainsaw, or wondering which of those instruments is most suitable for the new cuts. A belt also appears with some frequency in the metaphorical sense of ‘tightening the belt’, but without generating any significant metaphorical evolution – or even a juicer, as if the working class was a fruit (usually a lemon) ready to be squeezed. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) suggest that for a metaphor to be successful, it depends greatly on the society in which it can be implemented: perhaps axes and chainsaws are not as commonly used in Spanish society as they are abroad. It may also be relevant that they are more difficult to work with from the symbolic point of view: they do not allow such a rich and ingenious multimodal variation (see Kövecses, 2005, for cultural variation in metaphor use).

Be this as it may, none of these symbols evolved visually or adapted to the new conditions of the media ecosystem. Instead, scissors survived right throughout the crisis, allowing for major alterations – both structural and behavioural – until they spawned new well-established groups (such as the ‘scissors cross’, ‘scissors pirate flag’ or ‘scissors clock’). Figure 5 briefly shows the progressive evolution of the scissors metaphor, starting from the inanimate symbol until it is brought to life: a process we might call ontogenetic process of metaphorical transformation.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 5.

Ontogenetic process of metaphorical transformation (modified images from various cartoons).

Terrence W. Deacon (1997, 2012) defines humans as a ‘symbolic species’ and argues that the symbolic language justifies a positive selection pressure for the evolution of the hominid brain. As Dan Sperber has claimed, the task of symbolic evocation is to help to discover additional implicatures that could not be calculated on the basis of mobilised shared knowledge (Sperber and Cummins, 2007). In this sense, the creation of the scissors symbol in the communication ecosystem as a generative metaphor for the cuts and economic adjustments had a great and unexpected visual success. In a way, it fits the r-K selection continuum ecological pattern (Gould, 1977; Pianka, 1970, 2011). Living beings follow different strategies in order to reproduce: the r-K strategy tries to classify the parameter and relates it directly to its environmental context (Margalef, 1959); r-strategists tend to be opportunistic and live in unstable environments, while K-strategists are specialised and develop in more stable environments (Reznick et al., 2002). First, an r-selection reproductive strategy was followed: the simple and massive repetition of the scissors symbol until a meme became implemented in society and in the communicative ecosystem. Once established, more complex and efficient ways were sought, and a K-selection reproductive strategy was developed: the metaphor evolved into more complex forms and adapted to a particular situation of current affairs. Scissors are ductile and can get into almost any other context, in order to report social malpractice. Thus, over the five years, it has adapted to different communicative niches, sometimes very specific ones, relating them to the main episodes of the crisis: the Olympic Games, wildfires, health, education and dependency budget cuts, and so on. The metaphorical use has been very rich, fitting scissors into different circumstances, and producing a true adaptive radiation through an intensive process of selection and exclusion.

In some cases, the cartoonists have coincided in a surprising way, and – plagiarism apart (all studied cartoonists are professionals) – coincidence could be understood as a clear process of adaptive convergence. For example, Asier & Javier, Erlich and Eneko interpreted the stars of the European flag as scissors; in another case, Litoral, Erlick and Malagón (Figure 1(d)) put scissors on the pirate flag, under the skull, instead of a pair of crossbones (thus meaning that the ones deciding the cutbacks were pirates). In both cases, they alter a well-known symbol (the flag of the European Community and the pirate flag) and introduce the new symbol to give it a new and more powerful meaning. Presumably, cartoonists came to the same conclusion through different creative paths: the environment was conducive and spawned these adaptive convergences or parallel evolution.

Thus, we can establish the following evolutionary pattern: when a new communication framework with great news content appears, the human species tends to summarise it using metaphorical formulas which are efficient and expedite the explanatory course. Grady (1999, 2005) claims that we work cognitively better with concepts including images, so these visual or multimodal metaphorical ideas usually have great success and are replicated and transmitted as powerful memes within their society (Chilton, 2006).These metaphors in turn suffer various mutations or micro-mutations over time and create new metaphors, which adapt in different ways to new and changing circumstances in the communication ecosystem and continue to replicate until their news content disappears (Figure 6).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 6.

Conceptual flow chart of the evolution of a metaphor set.

In some cases, however, the impact is so important that the metaphorical message remains forever in the sociocultural background of a society and even adopts new and unexpected uses. As Stephen Jay Gould (2002) writes, the evolution of species is opportunistic, and something similar could be said of the evolution of metaphors, which in many respects are the result of chance and necessity.

Conclusion: The metaphorical species

George Lakoff (1993) stated that a ‘metaphor [is] not a figure of speech, but a mode of thought’, and Terrence W. Deacon (2012) concluded that ‘symbols have literally changed the kind of biological organism we are’. Meanwhile, Forceville et al. (2006) indicated that ‘the aesthetic attractiveness of metaphors increases with the degree to which they obey the principle of minimum means for maximum effect’. Certainly, the use of metaphors must have provided a positive communicative fitness to the first groups of humans who used them, and therefore a greater biological efficiency resulting in a selective advantage over other groups or even species. Human culture is full of old-fashioned metaphors, to be found in ancient texts, proverbs and traditional tunes and songs as a kind of forever-extinct fossil communicative strategy (Domínguez, 2015). As Vico wrote in New Science (1744), showing how much the beginning of language was strongly metaphoric, ‘the first human were poets’ (‘. . . i primi popoli della gentilità (. . .) furon poeti’) (Vico, 1990: 440). In this sense, the human species might be called ‘the metaphorical species’ because it is the only living entity that has developed abstract thinking in an amazing and complex way.