{"title":"隐喻作为专家与公众科学交流中的理解工具","authors":"Marthe Smedinga, A. Cienki, Henk W. de Regt","doi":"10.1075/msw.22016.sme","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\nScience communication is highly important in present-day society. But mere factual information transfer does not suffice for enhancing public understanding of scientific results, theories, and concepts. In this paper we compare science communication among experts with communication from experts to laypeople, to better understand the role of metaphors in constructing understanding of abstract scientific concepts. As a case study, we analyze specialist and non-specialist scientific articles on epigenetics, the study of heritable changes in gene expression not altering DNA sequence. The results of our analysis show that there is no substantial difference between the two types of articles in frequency of metaphors and in their content. However, the function of the metaphors is different: the figurative aspect of metaphors is employed for public understanding but plays no role in specialist scientific articles. We outline the implications of these results for current philosophical debates on scientific understanding and public understanding of science: (1) metaphors are tools for rendering theoretical concepts intelligible, for both expert and lay audiences; (2) expert and public understanding differ in degree rather than in kind; (3) conveying understanding crucially involves skills: metaphors in this context do not so much add knowledge as enhance relevant conceptual reasoning abilities.","PeriodicalId":51936,"journal":{"name":"Metaphor and the Social World","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2023-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Metaphors as tools for understanding in science communication among experts and to the public\",\"authors\":\"Marthe Smedinga, A. Cienki, Henk W. de Regt\",\"doi\":\"10.1075/msw.22016.sme\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"\\nScience communication is highly important in present-day society. But mere factual information transfer does not suffice for enhancing public understanding of scientific results, theories, and concepts. In this paper we compare science communication among experts with communication from experts to laypeople, to better understand the role of metaphors in constructing understanding of abstract scientific concepts. As a case study, we analyze specialist and non-specialist scientific articles on epigenetics, the study of heritable changes in gene expression not altering DNA sequence. The results of our analysis show that there is no substantial difference between the two types of articles in frequency of metaphors and in their content. However, the function of the metaphors is different: the figurative aspect of metaphors is employed for public understanding but plays no role in specialist scientific articles. We outline the implications of these results for current philosophical debates on scientific understanding and public understanding of science: (1) metaphors are tools for rendering theoretical concepts intelligible, for both expert and lay audiences; (2) expert and public understanding differ in degree rather than in kind; (3) conveying understanding crucially involves skills: metaphors in this context do not so much add knowledge as enhance relevant conceptual reasoning abilities.\",\"PeriodicalId\":51936,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Metaphor and the Social World\",\"volume\":\" \",\"pages\":\"\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.9000,\"publicationDate\":\"2023-08-04\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Metaphor and the Social World\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.22016.sme\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"LINGUISTICS\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Metaphor and the Social World","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.22016.sme","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
Metaphors as tools for understanding in science communication among experts and to the public
Science communication is highly important in present-day society. But mere factual information transfer does not suffice for enhancing public understanding of scientific results, theories, and concepts. In this paper we compare science communication among experts with communication from experts to laypeople, to better understand the role of metaphors in constructing understanding of abstract scientific concepts. As a case study, we analyze specialist and non-specialist scientific articles on epigenetics, the study of heritable changes in gene expression not altering DNA sequence. The results of our analysis show that there is no substantial difference between the two types of articles in frequency of metaphors and in their content. However, the function of the metaphors is different: the figurative aspect of metaphors is employed for public understanding but plays no role in specialist scientific articles. We outline the implications of these results for current philosophical debates on scientific understanding and public understanding of science: (1) metaphors are tools for rendering theoretical concepts intelligible, for both expert and lay audiences; (2) expert and public understanding differ in degree rather than in kind; (3) conveying understanding crucially involves skills: metaphors in this context do not so much add knowledge as enhance relevant conceptual reasoning abilities.
期刊介绍:
The journal Metaphor and the Social World aims to provide a forum for researchers to share with each other, and with potential research users, work that explores aspects of metaphor and the social world. The term “social world” signals the importance given to context (of metaphor use), to connections (e.g. across social, cognitive and discourse dimensions of metaphor use), and to communication (between individuals or across social groups). The journal is not restricted to a single disciplinary or theoretical framework but welcomes papers based in a range of theoretical approaches to metaphor, including discourse and cognitive linguistic approaches, provided that the theory adequately supports the empirical work. Metaphor may be dealt with as either a matter of language or of thought, or of both; what matters is that consideration is given to the social and discourse contexts in which metaphor is found. Furthermore, “metaphor” is broadly interpreted and articles are welcomed on metonymy and other types of figurative language. A further aim is to encourage the development of high-quality research methodology using metaphor as an investigative tool, and for investigating the nature of metaphor use, for example multi-modal discourse analytic or corpus linguistic approaches to metaphor data. The journal publishes various types of articles, including reports of empirical studies, key articles accompanied by short responses, reviews and meta-analyses with commentaries. The Forum section publishes short responses to papers or current issues.