The career of metaphor in pantomime: a motion-capture study of the conventionalization of metaphor

Abstract

Human communication is highly adaptable in the sense that, for instance, new words or combinations of words emerge when there is a communicative pressure. However, another way in which humans can communicate about novel experiences is through meaning extensions of words that are already in their lexicon. One of the key driving factors of such polysemic extension is metaphorical conceptual mappings, which first become usualized, and then conventionalized within a community. In this article, we set out to investigate whether this kind of conceptual mapping can be achieved in an experimental semiotic study and whether the usualization trajectories of concrete and metaphorical meanings differ from each other. We do so by engaging participants in a referential game in which dyads of participants have to communicate about concrete and metaphorical meanings. We find that, over the course of the experiment, participants adapt elements of their kinematics from concrete to metaphorical meanings. We also find that the usualization trajectory is different between the two groups of meanings: both meanings initially undergo reduction in terms of movement path. However, concrete meanings continue to change and become more efficient across all rounds, while metaphorical meanings stabilize earlier and do not change significantly after their initial kinematic changes. In contrast to concrete meanings, we find no significant change in terms of speed and volume for metaphorical meanings. The study provides evidence that both concrete and metaphorical meanings can be expressed through pantomime, but their trajectory of change is different.