Common Ground in Metaphor Theory: Continuing the Conversation

Although Vervaeke and Kennedy (this issue) made many useful and interesting points in this and previous articles, much of their response was based on a serious misunderstanding of my own writings. Rather than engage in a point-by-point clarification, I examine the origins of the misunderstanding in a difference between our respective approaches to theorizing and a consequent breakdown of common ground, the mutual cognitive representation of our shared knowledge and beliefs (Clark, 1996). Vervaeke and Kennedy seemed to favor a top-down, a priori approach to metaphor, in contrast to my preference for more of an inductive, bottom-up approach. I argue that metaphors must be analyzed in a cognitive and communicative context, which includes a detailed representation of the conversation and the participants' prior experience with both topic and vehicle, and that this cognitive context guides interpretation of metaphors, regardless of whether the interpreter has any prior knowledge of the topic.