Power Tool: Metaphorical Language vs. Plain Language: Power Tool of Relationship in Coaching

A Coaching Power Tool Created by Vanessa Frongillo
(Career Coach, SWITZERLAND)

From ancient times, the language has fascinated and interested in philosophers, writers, and scientists. What a wonderful skill, ability, talent…the language! Books and books, studies and studies about the magnificence of the language, its function, and application in everyday life, in each type of sector. Language as a system of signs, symbols, ideas, emotions and logic, experts have debated its meaning and its “anatomy”_[1]. Certainly, it is argued that a language is a communication tool, establishing and enhancing all kinds of relationships.

So, in the coaching session, the language plays a great role and a decisive impact between coach and client. Personally, I place a lot of importance on the language, on the use of words which are representing the mind of the client in that specific moment and also the choice of the type of language is fundamental for the exploration of the client during the session. This is actually in every encounter with my coachees, with whom I experience the most powerful tool of communication, of cognitive process and of perceptive capacity, a great transformational behavior of thinking and acting by my clients, thanks to the use of the Metaphorical and the Plain Language. Both are complementary and opposite in many ways.

I consider the metaphorical Language vs Plain Language an important powerful tool for making the coaching session a functional and effective time to allow the client to explore inside her/him; understand beliefs, values, structures, be aware, use visualization to set goals and actions.

Etymology

Looking into the etymology of each word, it is possible to understand the nuance of the two meanings.

Metaphorical Language

Plain Language

The term derives from the Ancient Greek μεταφορά (metaphorá) meaning“carrying over” fromμετά (metá, “with, across, after”) + φέρω (phérō, “I bear, carry”). The metaphor is a figure of speech that describes an object or action in a way that is not literally true but helps explain an idea or make a comparison.

Aristotle, one of the most important ancient Greek philosophers and writers, was the first to write about the metaphor (in Rethorica)and constitutes today a fundamental theoretical paradigm.

For him, a metaphor is a construction process internal to our intellectual faculties and makes the learning pleasant: “To learn easily is naturally pleasant to all people, and words signify something, so whatever words create knowledge in us are the most pleasant.”_[2] In this way, the metaphor produces knowledge and contributes to activate the cognitive mechanism and a perceptive capacity in the listeners. It means the metaphor creates action (ἐναργέστατα – enargèstata), Aristotle used “bringing before the eye” ( πρὸ ὀμμάτων ποιεῖν – prò ommàton poièin) as a capacity that is crucial to the metaphor because it allows rhetors to actualize action immediately before the audience, leading that audience to insight“_[3].

For Aristotle, metaphors are innate, so we are a “metaphorical being” with a good natural disposition to be able to “see the like” or θεωρεῖν (theorèin) implies a scientific, contemplative observation, which aims to investigate.

“The smart sayings are derived from proportional metaphors and expressions which set things before the eyes. We must now explain the meaning of “before the eyes,” and what must be done to produce this. I mean that things are set before the eyes by words that signify actuality.”_[4]

Referring also to the recent studies applied to metaphorical language, they seem to confirm that the”Cognitive activation” has a solid biological basis. Indeed, ongoing research shows that the metaphorical language, as well as responding to the activities of a specific area of the brain, as already known, stimulates the activity of the cerebral cortex in a different way compared to conventional language._[5]

The term derives from the 16th-century idiom “in plain English”, meaning “in clear, straightforward language”.Another name for the term is derived from the idiom “in layman’s terms” which refers to language phrased simply enough that a Layman, or common person, can understand it_[6].

According to the International Plain Language Federation “plain language” is “communication”. Communication is in plain language if its wording, structure, and design are so clear that the intended audience can easily find what they need, understand what they find, and use that information_[7]. Nowadays plain language is correlated to the rules of written text and especially used for the written text of governments and institutions. If we refer to Ancient Latin, the plain language is what a good orator offered to his audience, to be understandable and also persuasive.

“When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men’s minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind”, written by Marco Tullio Cicero, one of the most important ancient Latin writers and philosophers.

He argued with Aristotle that the plain language is clear and brief and should also include the ‘beauty’ “…although it is not full-blooded, it should nevertheless have some of the sap of life so that, though it lacks great strength, it may be, so to speak, in sound health… Just as some women are said to be handsome when unadorned… so this plain style gives pleasure when unembellished… All noticeable pearls, as it were, will be excluded. Not even curling irons will be used. All cosmetics, artificial white and red, will be rejected. Only elegance and neatness will remain”_[8]

Beauty as the “more obvious ornaments” in the language for Cicero was the metaphor, a fundamental for plainness in the language.

Powerful Coaching Tool

Metaphorical Language vs Plain Language is a complementary and opposite powerful tool in coaching language. Both are important for the relationship between coach and client, the level of communication plays a great role in coaching, in such a way each contains features for the trust, the responsibility, and awareness in the client and in coach.

External World vs Inner World: Rational vs Emotional

Plain Language is used by the coach and the client to start the relationship, the knowledge of the process they will collaborate on; the coach can describe his/her job, the agreement, the coaching model and the way to work during the sessions. The client can explain his/her actual situation and goals to achieve.

It is important for the coach to use plain language to present his/her job and professionalism with ethical issues and coaching principles for the client to understand; to define and accept the agreement with the coach, explain the topic he/she wants to investigate but also the responsibility of beginning a coaching process. The discovery session is characterized by the knowledge between the parties (client and coach) with the explanation of the client’s target and coach’s job, and the subscription of the agreement, which states the acceptance of both of the coaching process. Plain Language represents the rational part of each individual. We can also say that the external world, all that is surrounding us, like rules, society, ethical principles, etc., states the working relationship between professionals and clients.

Metaphorical language represents trust between client and coach: it is an opening of the ‘inner scenery’ and lets the coach enter and share the same experience of her/his client.

The metaphorical language starts when the client enters into deep storytelling. Metaphors contain a great deal of information in a compact and memorable container. As Carl Jung_[9]writes about the symbolic terms, the metaphors “represent something vague, unknown or hidden”, they give shape to the inexpressible, use everyday things to illustrate the intangible, complex and relational aspects of life, they are vivid and unforgettable. Materializing a metaphor often makes it easier for the client to describe things she/he cannot say, and to encapsulate and communicate the full wholeness of experience into a single material representation. Once the client pays attention to her/his symbolic expressions, the content of her/his metaphorical landscape begins to enter her/his awareness. The client discovers that she/he lives in a living, breathing symbolic world, and the more he/she participates in it, the more it becomes real and meaningful.

If the role of ‘metaphor’ is to describe an experience in terms of another and specifies and forces the ways of thinking about the original experience, then this affects the meaning and importance of the experience, the way it combines with other experiences, and the actions taken as a result.

José Ortega y Gasset, the Spanish philosopher, and essayist wrote: “The metaphor is perhaps the most fruitful power of man. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God left inside one of His creatures when He made him.”_[10]

Self-reflection, self-understanding, and self-awareness born of interaction with one’s metaphorical landscape lead to a deeper and more fundamental cognition.

In coaching, the metaphor addresses the vision to the action, as Aristotle wrote“enargèstata” and its intellectual faculties let us explore the ‘inner’ part of the client.

During the storytelling, one of my clients started using the metaphor to talk about his/her current job situation that he/she wanted to change finding the ‘key’:

Client: It is like I am on the boat, in a tempest

Coach: Tell me more…

Client: There are other boats; on each, there are: my boss and my colleagues

Coach: What are you doing?

Client: I am trying to hold myself, my wife, my child and my boat, safety. I am wishing to beat the tempest, the tempest against the others’ boats. I want to“ride the wave” and find the key, that is the strength to beat the others on the sea

Coach: You said “the tempest against the other boats” would you like to explain better to me …

Here there is a wonderful vision the client shares with the coach. The metaphor explains what literally we cannot really express: “the tempest” is the situation that the client feels she/he is going through at work. Also, the feelings, values, beliefs she/he is living. Metaphors‘carry the client over’, through the visualization, ‘sees’(as a helicopter view) inside/around/externally, make him/her understand and aware of exploring the ‘way’ to take action. From the part of the coach, the metaphor is helpful to ‘enter’ into the storytelling of the client, as an ‘eye’ that watches, without leading, just ‘accompanies’ the client to go deeper, see more and understand more.

Cultural Meaning vs Language meaning: Concepts vs Image

The Plain language translated into another language is comprehensible, in a sense that during translation there is the corresponding word with the same meaning; the metaphor is linked to the image and it is linked to the cultures, not always does this “image” have the same correlation in other languages. The concepts also translated have “universal” traits, common to multiple languages and cultures, the emotions are different from one culture to another.

Metaphorical Language vs Plain Language is correlated in coaching from the significance they took from the storytelling. The difference is that the first is more influenced by the mental vision and visualization of client and coach, the second is understandable if translated in the intercultural context.

There are some examples to understand that the metaphors are strictly connected to the culture. If in English we say ’ghost of a smile’ in other languages, such as in Italian, this expression is not understandable as the image of a ‘ghost smiling’ is not linked to the real meaning used in English. In Italian ‘abbozzo, di Sorriso is used, but in English, it can literally be translated as‘drawing of a smile’ and also not understandable for English people.

Some metaphors express the emotions and can be correlated to the meaning in real life, but the difference between the cultures makes the rules. In Italian, anger is associated with an ‘explosion’ often saying “he/she exploded with anger“; whereas in Japan anger is situated in the belly and can extend outwards into the whole body, but the term ‘explode’ will have an incorrect use for Japanese people._[11]

The coach working in an intercultural setting should pay attention to the difference between the cultures, especially with the use of metaphors, also paying attention to use Plain Language to offer direct and simple communication.

Conclusion

From the etymology, through language research to its application, both Metaphorical Language and Plain Language play an important role during coaching sessions. What is most evident is that the metaphor gives more power to the language (Plain Language) in terms of making‘the change’ which makes the difference between being a coach or not. Metaphorical Language contributes effectively in the relationship between coach and client to transpose the “Rational vs Emotional” and the “Concept vs Image”, but at the basis, there is always a Plain Language that helps to make this possible, as Watzlawick, Austrian-American psychologist, communication theorist, and philosopher wrote: “One cannot communicate”._[12]

Bibliography

Cicero. De oratore “The Orator”, xxiii, 76-79. Print, 55 BCE

Ervas Francesca e Elisabetta Gola. Che cos’è la metafora. Roma: Carocci Editori, 2016

Jung Gustav Carl and Marie-Luise von Franz. Man and His Symbols. Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1964

José Ortega y Gasset. The Dehumanization of Art and Other Essays on Art, Culture, and literature.Princeton University Press, 1968

Newman, Sara. Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric. Vol. 20, No. 1, Winter 2002

Roberts W. Rhys, Ingram Bywaterand Friedrich Solmsen. Rhetoric, Aristotle. New York: Modern Library, 1954.

Sozzi, Andrea. La Metafora in Aristotele: dal Pensiero al linguaggio. Tesi laurea. Dottorato di Ricerca in Scienze linguistiche, filologiche e letterarie Ciclo XIX S.S.D.: L-LIN/01

Watzlawick Paul, Beavin Janet HelmickandJackson Don D. Pragmatics of Human Communication. New York: WW Norton & Co, 1967

_[1]In sense of ‘structure‘of language, what it is made of

_[2]W. Rhys Roberts, Ingram Bywaterand Friedrich Solmsen. Rhetoric, Aristotle. New York: Modern Library, 1954

_[3]Newman, Sara. Rhetorica: A Journal of the history of rhetoric. Vol. 20, No. 1, Winter 2002

_[4]Ibidem pag.2 footnote 2

_[5]Sozzi, Andrea. La Metafora in Aristotele: dal Pensiero al linguaggio. Tesi laurea. Dottorato di Ricerca in Scienze linguistiche, filologiche e letterarie Ciclo XIX S.S.D.: L-LIN/01

_[6]“Plain Language” Wikipedia. Last visited on 17 January 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_English

_[7]Plain Language Association International. What is Plain Language? Last visited on 17 January 2020, https://plainlanguagenetwork.org/plain-language/what-is-plain-language/

_[8]Cicero. De oratore “The Orator”, xxiii, 76-79. Print, 55 BCE

_[9]Jung Gustav Carl and Marie-Luise von Franz. Man and His Symbols. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964

_[10]José Ortega y Gasset. The Dehumanization of Art and Other Essays on Art, Culture, and literature.Princeton University Press, 1968

_[11]Ervas Francesca e Elisabetta Gola. Che cos’è la metafora. Roma: Carocci Editori, 2016

_[12]Watzlawick Paul, Beavin Janet Helmick and Jackson Don D. Pragmatics of Human Communication. New York: WW Norton & Co, 1967