Review section

The Metaphoric Properties of the Term “Blood” in the Works of Charles Darwin and Edith Durham: A Comparison of Concep-tual Framesby Thomas Christiansen

1. Introduction

The substance and the concept of blood have long been accord-ed special significance in both religion (see the different Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions relating to the status of blood and hence how it may be treated or consumed/or not) and in medical science (see Galen of Pergamon, the second century physician).

Consequently, terms denoting the red bodily fluid that flows through veins and arteries, such as “blood”, have acquired a series of complex metaphorical meanings in many languages and have come to carry a great deal of «cultural baggage» (Rutman and Rutman 1984) even when used in scientific discourse.

In this study, we examine how it is used in two very different oeuvres, that of Charles Darwin (1809-1882), who needs no in-troduction, and that of Edith Durham (1863-1944)1, the anthro-pologist famous for her works on the inhabitants of the Balkans

1 Darwin’s life, interesting as it is, is well-known. By contrast, outside Al-bania and the field of Balkan studies, Durham is almost unknown. Her life thus merits a brief summary here: trained as an artist, she lived the uneventful life of a Victorian middle class spinster looking after her parents until around 1900 when, at the age of 37, on the advice of her doctor, she took a foreign tour, starting on the Dalmatian coast and eventually making her way down to «High Albania», then one of the least developed areas of Europe, mainly in what is nowadays, Albania, Montenegro and Kosova: an area where local customs and the traditional clan system still took precedence over outside authority. For the next 20 years, she was a regular visitor working for a variety of relief organizations and achieving a degree of respect that lasts until today. She has received public acclaim from Albanian heads of state, on her death in 1944, from King Zog and sixty years later from President Moisiu.

42 Thomas Christiansen

and northern Albania (a complex patchwork of different ethnic groups including followers of both Islam and Christianity, still adhering in some respects to much older beliefs).

We will analyse the part played by “blood” as a metaphor for kinship and descent in the exposition of Darwin’s theory of natu-ral selection, which famously failed to take genetics into consid-eration, and for a complex code of ethics and honour as outlined in Durham’s description of northern Albanian society.

Both oeuvres present examples of popularisation of science but of markedly different kinds. In Darwin’s case, there is an at-tempt to arrive at an empirically-observable theory to describe a complex naturally-occurring process and make it understood using the traditional but ill-defined concept of inheritance. Part of the scientific method is to gather data and discuss findings with fellow scholars and enthusiasts from all backgrounds (theo-logians, breeders, and amateur biologists) (Christiansen 2009: 255-278; Christiansen 2010: 235-261). His work is thus popu-larising from its very inception.

By contrast, a part of Durham’s work entails cultural media-tion. She takes an unfamiliar «exotic» social system and set of beliefs, and analyses it for other scholars2 and for a wider read-ing public. It represents a complicated case of de-popularisation from one pole (folklore and partly codified customs such as the Kanun3) coupled with popularisation towards another pole: that of social science.

In this analysis, broadly from the perspective of frame seman-tics (Fillmore 1976: 20-32) and cognitive grammar (Langacker 1987, 1991), we will focus on the terms, and the experiential categories underlying them that each scholar adopts to expound their theories in a corpus of twenty-seven of Darwin’s works (some of which in more than one edition) and four of Durham’s.

2 Although, by today’s standards, more of a gifted amateur than a career scholar, Durham was a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

3 Different versions of the Kanun exist. The most famous is the Kanuni i leke dukagjinit passed down orally and only published in written form in the early 20th century. It originated with Lekë Dukagjini (1410–1481), a rebel-lious prince and contemporary of Skanderbeg, Albania’s national hero.

The Metaphoric Properties of the Term “Blood” 43

We will compare results with those from a parallel corpora drawn from various sources (see Section 4).

To our knowledge, we are the first to compare the works of Darwin and Durham in this way. We do so from the conviction that, in this kind of study, a comparison of the metaphors used by two scholars from markedly different fields is instructive. As it happens, the term “blood”, for quite different reasons, features prominently in both their oeuvres.

As a preliminary to our analysis, in the next section (2), we summarise metaphor theory and the important role it can be shown to play not only in the expression of complex ideas but also in the conceptualisation itself of phenomena. In Section 3, we will also briefly examine the way in which blood, the bodily fluid, was conceptualised by scholars before Darwin and Durham.

2. Metaphor Theory

In their seminal work, Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson underline how metaphors, far from being sty-listic devices peripheral to language use, are actually central to the way that both the mind and language work. In particular they identify «four fallacies» (2003: 244) in traditional rationalist attitudes to metaphors: «Metaphor is a matter of words, not con-cepts; metaphor is based on similarity; all concepts are “literal” and none can be metaphorical; rational thought is in no way shaped by the nature of our brains and bodies.»

They counter each in turn with the affirmations that:

1) The locus of metaphor is in concepts not words. 2) Metaphor based on correlations in our existence, which give rise to the perceived similarities between the two domains within the metaphor.3) […] even our deepest and most abiding concepts – time, events, causa-tion, morality, and mind itself – are understood and reasoned about via multiple metaphors.4) […] the system of conceptual metaphors is not arbitrary or just histori-cally contingent: rather it is shaped to a significant extent by the common nature of our bodies and the shared ways that we all function in the every-day world (Lakoff and Johnson 2003: 244-245).


The recognition of the ubiquity and centrality of metaphor in the conceptualization of phenomena both concrete and abstract allows Lakoff and Johnson to propose a radical third way be-tween the supposed subjectivism of the arts and the objectivism of the sciences, which they dub «experientialism». This provides the context within which the two central key elements from both schools can be reconciled: that meaning is at the same time flex-ible (the arts) and structured (the sciences).4

Metaphors exist on two main levels, the first of which is neu-ral in nature and intrinsic to the mind and concerns how ba-sic physical concepts are perceived and categorised. The second, arising from the first, is the extension of intuitive metaphors to other concepts, and is largely culturally determined, (Lakoff and Johnson 2003: 256-257).

A well-known example is that of the physical relationships of up and down, the two opposing poles of which constitute the pri-mary, base concepts or «literal» meanings of the terms “up” and “down” in a traditional analysis. The concepts of up (the state of being above or higher) and down (below or lower) are correlated with the concepts of more and less (as a primary metaphor) and from that to the secondary metaphor of more and good, i.e. up = more = good; down = less = bad. In this case, the relationship between the concepts of up and good, though perhaps not im-mediately apparent, is grounded in physical experience: that of up equating with more (as quantities increase, so typically does height – for example liquid in a container: ibid, p.254) and more with good because experience teaches that having more of some-thing desirable is normally a pleasant sensation.

3. The traditional conceptualisation of the term “blood”

Like most other terms, “blood”, which is our focus in this article, can be used to express a variety of meanings some of which «lit-

4 In this way, their work could be seen as in line with that of Wittgenstein, who likewise was preoccupied with the allusive nature of categorisation and of meaning (Lakoff and Johnson 2003: 182).


eral», in a traditional sense, others more «figurative». From the point of view of metaphor theory, the physical experience of seeing the red bodily fluid which provides the primary meaning of the term “blood” (for example a wound) sets up a correlation with similar abstract concepts (e.g. violence), thus creating a primary metaphor.

Figure 1. Entry for “blood”, Concise Oxford English Dictionary,2004

blood noun

1. the red liquid that circulates in the arteries and veins, carrying oxygen to and carbon dioxide from the tissues of the body.

2. violence involving bloodshed. 3. fiery or passionate temperament. 4. family background; descent or lineage: she must have Irish blood. 5. dated a fashionable and dashing young man.

verb 1. initiate (someone) in a particular activity. 2. hunting smear the face of (a novice hunter) with the blood of the

kill. ► give (a hound) a first taste of blood. Phrases

- blood and thunder informal unrestrained and violent action or behaviour.

- one's blood is up one is in a fighting mood. - blood, sweat, and tears extremely hard work. - first blood

1. the first shedding of blood in a fight or (formerly) a duel. 2. the first point or advantage gained in a contest.

- give blood allow blood to be removed medically from one's body in order to be stored for use in transfusions.

- have blood on one's hands be responsible for someone's death. - in one's blood ingrained in or fundamental to one's character. - make someone's blood boil informal infuriate someone. - make someone's blood run cold horrify someone. - new (or fresh) blood new members admitted to a group. - of the blood (royal) literary royal. - young blood a younger member or members of a group.


In English, the breadth of the range of such correlations or mental associations, constituting metaphors both primary and secondary, can be gleaned by examining the various uses listed in an authorita-tive dictionary (see Figure 1) (Soanes and Stevenson 2004).

What is most interesting for our purposes here are the ways in which blood as a bodily fluid was viewed by scientists and scholars before Darwin and Durham. This because scientific and religious ideas provide the cultural background to both scholars’ conceptualisations of that same fluid and, in the case of Darwin, the way its function (albeit erroneous) was to be envisaged within his own theories, also by other scholars.

As an anthropologist, Durham’s work is mainly descriptive, yet classical and religious interpretations of the term “blood” in all its senses influence both the culture that she is observing and, as importantly, also her own perceptions of that culture and the way in which she herself conceptualises her subjects’ view of the world and how she in turn mediates the same to her readers.

Up until the time of William Harvey (1578-1657), Aelius Claudius Galen’s (AD 129-199/217) classical conceptualisation of blood was predominant in medicine and also in Christianity.5 According to Galen, blood was the most important of four hu-mours of body (blood, bile, black bile, phlegm according to the Hippocratic corpus) and constituted both a nutritive element and a life force. Galen believed that there was a one-way flow of blood through the body, it being produced in the liver, then travelling in dark purple form to the heart where it underwent a mystical transformation acquiring life and energy, becoming bright red in the process. A small part also went to the brain, where it became perception. Galen also believed that it underwent transmutation into other bodily fluids: e.g. semen, milk, and menstrual blood. For centuries, bloodletting was seen as restorative and healthy and widely performed both as a cure and for prevention of disease. Fi-nally as regards biological inheritance and group identity, «shared

5 For an overview of Galen’s doctrines and his contribution to medicine, science and philosophy, see R.J. Hankinson, (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Galen, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008.


blood» was seen as the bond between individual members of fami-lies, tribes and nations, and between successive generations.

From this analysis, blood, came to be conceptualised as the essence of life, individuality, and the soul, with connotations of purity in all three, which gave it a mystical quality. For example, central to the Roman Catholic and various Eastern Orthodox lit-urgies (both relevant in the Balkan context) is the Eucharist: the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, together becoming the essence of eternal life.

It was not until the seventeenth century that the bonds between the medical perception of blood and its religious and mystical significance began to be loosened after Harvey had demonstrated

6 The Voyage of the Beagle (1838-1843); Coral Reefs (1842); Volcanic Islands (1844); Geological observations on South America (1846); On the Origin of the Species (1st ed. 1859; 2nd ed. 1860; 3rd ed. 1861; 4th ed. 1866; 5th ed. 1869; 6th ed. 1872); The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants (1865-1882); Ani-mals and Plants under Domestication Vols. 1 and 2 (1st ed. 1868, 2nd ed. 1875); The Descent of Man (1871); Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals (1872); Insectivorous Plants (1875); The Power of Movement in Plants (1875); The Effects of Cross and Self-Fertilization in the Vegetable Kingdom (1876); The Different Forms of Flowers and Plants of the Same Species (1877); On the Fertilization of Orchids (1877); The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms with Observations on their Habits (1881); Autobiography of Charles Darwin from the Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887); More Letters (1843-67) Vol. 1; More Letters (1867-1882) Vol. 2.

7 High Albania and its customs in 1908 (1908); High Albania (1909); The struggle for Scutari (Turk, Slav and Albanian) (1914); Twenty years of Balkan tangle (1920).

Table 1. Composition of corpus

From this analysis, blood, came to be conceptualised as the essence of life, individuality, and the soul, with connotations of purity in all three, which gave it a mystical quality. For example, central to the Roman Catholic and various Eastern Orthodox liturgies (both relevant in the Balkan context) is the Eucharist: the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, together becoming the essence of eternal life.

It was not until the seventeenth century that the bonds between the medical perception of blood and its religious and mystical significance began to be loosened after Harvey had demonstrated that the heart is merely a pump circulating the blood around the body. In so doing, he reconceptualised the flow of blood as a mechanical system which, following the scientific method, can be observed and measured like any other natural phenomenon. However, as Figure 1 shows, even over three and half centuries later, the connotations of the term ‘blood’ and its collocational patterns (Christiansen 2011:240-254), and the variety of contexts in which it is used, illustrate how its various idiomatic uses still include the idea of some mystical essence. 2.1 The corpus 4 This research is based on the analysis of five groups of texts as listed below on Table 1: Division Date Words

(approx.) Works of Charles Darwin6 27 texts 1838-1887 4,150,000 Selected works of Edith Durham7 4 texts 1909-1920 302,842 Scientific American 70 editions 1881-1898 2,647,200 King James Bible 1 text 1611 783,137 Macbeth (William Shakespeare) 1 text 1603-1611 18,151 Table 1. composition of corpus In addition to the works of Darwin and a selection of those by Durham,8 we examined a selection of editions of Scientific American (1881-1898)9 a popular-science magazine, published since 1845, which, despite its name, includes contributions by authors from both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. Given the cultural importance of the concept of blood, we will also look at two non-scientific texts, the King James Bible and Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The former representing a key text in understanding so much not only of the culture of the Anglican / Episcopalian part of the English-speaking world but also of the lexis and phraseology of English (and also an influential work on Darwin the man) (Christiansen 2009:255-278). It should be borne in mind that the King James Bible is a translation completed by a committee working from source texts in various languages: Greek, Hebrew and Latin. Macbeth is an original work (and one in which the concept of blood in all senses plays an important part) by Shakespeare: undeniably a culturally significant figure who left his personal mark on the English language. Our corpus of Darwin texts includes also three collections of Darwin’s correspondence taken from three separate works published posthumously: Autobiography of Charles Darwin from Life and letters (1887, edited by his son Francis); More letters of Charles Darwin Vols. I and II (1903, edited by Francis Darwin and A.C. Seward).10 This does not all constitute scientific discourse as such as it contains letters on a variety of subjects, including some of a personal nature. However, in the works cited, it is often difficult to separate the scholarly from the personal (Christiansen 2010,


that the heart is merely a pump circulating the blood around the body. In so doing, he reconceptualised the flow of blood as a mechanical system which, following the scientific method, can be observed and measured like any other natural phenomenon. However, as Figure 1 shows, even over three and half centuries later, the connotations of the term “blood” and its collocational patterns (Christiansen 2011: 240-254), and the variety of con-texts in which it is used, illustrate how its various idiomatic uses still include the idea of some mystical essence.

4. The corpus

This research is based on the analysis of five groups of texts as listed on Table 1.

In addition to the works of Darwin and a selection of those by Durham,8 we examined a selection of editions of Scientific American (1881-1898)9 a popular-science magazine, published since 1845, which, despite its name, includes contributions by authors from both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. Given the cultural importance of the concept of blood, we will also look at two non-scientific texts, the King James Bible and Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The former representing a key text in understanding so much not only of the culture of the Anglican / Episcopalian part of the English-speaking world but also of the lexis and phraseol-ogy of English (and also an influential work on Darwin the man) (Christiansen 2009: 255-278). It should be borne in mind that the King James Bible is a translation completed by a committee working from source texts in various languages: Greek, Hebrew and Latin. Macbeth is an original work (and one in which the concept of blood in all senses plays an important part) by Shake-

8 Those available in electronic format. Overall, Edith Durham is the au-thor of seven works between 1904 and 1928. Various of her articles and letters were edited and published posthumously – see M. Edith Durham, Bejtullah D. Destani, Harry Hodgkinson (eds) Albania and the Albanians: selected arti-cles and letters, 1903-1944, I.B. Tauris, London 2001.

9 Retrieved from Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org).


speare: undeniably a culturally significant figure who left his per-sonal mark on the English language.

Our corpus of Darwin texts includes also three collections of Darwin’s correspondence taken from three separate works pub-lished posthumously: Autobiography of Charles Darwin from Life and letters (1887, edited by his son Francis); More letters of Charles Darwin Vols. I and II (1903, edited by Francis Darwin and A.C. Seward).10 This does not all constitute scientific discourse as such as it contains letters on a variety of subjects, including some of a personal nature. However, in the works cited, it is often difficult to separate the scholarly from the personal (Christiansen 2010, pp. 235-261); letters on scientific matters, addressed to lifelong colleagues and friends, contain comments of a personal nature and the more personal may well contain material of scientific concern given that the study of natural history, breeding, garden-ing etc. were popular pastimes, as confirmed by the commercial success of some of Darwin’s works.11

5. Methodology

Using concordance software AntConc 2.3.1.0 (Laurence 2007) we listed all the occurrences of the term “blood” in each of sec-tion of our corpus, categorising the meaning or sense of each use in the context of the immediate discourse.

The results of this, we give in Tables 2 and 3 in Section 6. In Section 7 we will compare the results for the individual sections of the corpus and attempt to make some generalisations about the use of the term “blood” in the whole corpus.

10 A complete collection of Darwin’s correspondence, in unedited form, is available at the University of Cambridge’s The Darwin Correspondence Project (www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwin).

11 Darwin expressed great surprise when all 1,250 copies of On the Origin of Species sold out on the first day of publication.


Table 2. Different uses of term “blood” found in corpus

*KeyDAR = Darwin; DUR = Durham; KJB = King James Bible; McB = Macbeth (Shakespeare); ScA = Scientific American

Category Example

Adjective [...] though blood-hounds differ considerably. (DAR)*

General Talk ran on ghak [sic] (blood). They treated it from all points of view. (DUR)*

Substance

Red bodily fluid

These little organisms, when observed in a fluid like blood, sputum, etc., are found to present very active movements, […] (ScA)*

Juice […] and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape. (KJB)*

Vitality It has lost red blood and the joy of life. (DUR)*

Biol

ogica

l Re

latio

nshi

p:

Non

-Hum

an

Breed […] whilst other mares of equally pure blood have allowed the character of the sire to prevail. (DAR)*

Species […] but such resemblances will not reveal-will rather tend to conceal their blood-relationship. (DAR)*

Hum

an Ethnic group

On the other hand the governor of Quinchao boasts much of his purely kept Spanish blood. (DAR)*

Family group […] he is a very clever young man, and I believe owes his cleverness to Salisbury blood. (DAR)*

Viol

ence

(Non

-insti

tutio

nalis

ed) General

[…] such as the sacrifice of human beings to a blood-loving god. (DAR)*

Murder The secret'st man of blood. (McB)*

Violent death It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood. (McB)*

Killer's fee It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. (KJB)*

To physically wound

Italy was regarded by many as the only dog who had dared blood the badger. (DUR)*

Feud

(In

stitu

tiona

lised

,)

General Montenegrins have for centuries fled from «blood» into Albania, and Albanians into Montenegro. (DUR)*

Wounded honour

Each child was taught that his cap's red crown was blood that had to be avenged. (DUR)*

Retribution Abduction of a girl demands blood, as does of course adultery. (DUR)*

Compensation Threatened with ruin if it continued, he had paid blood gelt, 300 guldens in all, and now was doing well. (DUR)*

*Key *Key DAR = Darwin; DUR = Durham; KJB = King James Bible; McB = Macbeth (Shakespeare); ScA = Scientific American Table 2. Different uses of term ‘blood’ found in corpus Any such categorisation is of course often a matter of subjective interpretation, especially when it comes to works of literature like Macbeth where language is often symbolic and the same word may be interpreted in different ways.13 Because in such contexts almost anything can be read as metaphoric at some level, we have opted for the meaning which is closest to the base concept


6. Categorisation of uses of the term “blood’”in corpus

In the various texts making up our corpus, we identified 18 different senses or meanings for the term “blood”, some of which grouped into various degrees of subcategory: the three main relating to the bodily fluid (the physical entity and primary sense); biological relationships12; and violence . These are summarised on Table 2.

Any such categorisation is of course often a matter of subjec-tive interpretation, especially when it comes to works of literature like Macbeth where language is often symbolic and the same word may be interpreted in different ways.13 Because in such contexts almost anything can be read as metaphoric at some level, we have opted for the meaning which is closest to the base concept mean-ing (which in this article we have loosely defined as red bodily fluid), where this is possible. Likewise, we have avoided ascribing separate meanings to such common expressions as «cold blood» or «to make the blood boil» (the first of which occurs in both Dar-win and Durham, the latter in Darwin alone) where “blood” is just one element in a fixed expression that, as a whole, has a meta-phorical meaning, in the traditional sense. Within that expression however, “blood” retains the primary meaning of bodily fluid.

Furthermore, between our categorisations, there may appear to be some overlaps; for example «retribution» may, according to case, include elements of «physically wound», «violent death» or

12 Of course this relationship may be only perceived, especially in the case of larger social units such as tribes. Institutions such as marriage (whose pri-mary object, in a traditional context, is procreation) and rituals such as blood bonding as described by Durham are a way of establishing a biological rela-tionship between groups and individuals where none before existed. Alterna-tively, a biological relationship may exist but not be perceived or recognised, as again is the case of North Albania as described by Durham, where descent and biological relationships through the female line are often discounted except in the most immediate cases.

13 This is certainly the case in the case of “juice” (row 4), a classic example of metaphor, where the characteristics of one concept are applied to another in a non-literal sense for stylistic effect. However here, it is clear that ‘blood’ does not at any level mean «red bodily fluid». In Macbeth, many cases can be read both literally and figuratively.


«compensation». This is not however always specified, hence the need for a more general category.

7. Frequency of different meanings and senses of “blood’” in corpus

Having identified the various senses and meanings of the term “blood” in the corpus, it is possible to calculate figures for the relative frequency of each and thus make comparisons.

Below in Table 3 we give the figures for the frequencies of each sense of the term “blood” in each corpus, listed side by side for comparison.

In Darwin’s works, seven different senses for blood can be identified (bottom row), which is just below the mean (7.4). The most frequent of these, in over half of its occurrences, is the base concept meaning of bodily fluid. Next, in roughly a quarter of cases, comes breed – a group of animals related by close common progenitors. Next comes a similar use; this time in reference spe-cifically to humans (family group).

Turning to Durham, in whose works, fourteen different senses of the term “blood” can be listed, which is the widest selection of any of the groups of texts. There is also relatively even distribution of senses of the term “blood”. The most frequent, but only with just over a quarter, is the meaning of feud (institutionalised vio-lence). However taken, together the two categories relating to feud and retribution, amount to 44.16%. The base meaning of the bod-ily fluid totals only 7.12%, the lowest of any of the sets of texts.

Looking now at the rest of the corpus compiled for purposes of comparison, in the collection of ScA texts, only two senses of blood can be identified, the base sense of bodily fluid being the most frequent (88.01%).

As regards the non-scientific texts, in the KJB, “blood” is used in a wide range of different senses (eight, just ahead of Darwin and in distant second place to Durham) but the base sense, bod-ily fluid, dominates: almost 80%. It is also interesting to see some similarities in the list of categories with the Durham texts, namely a killer’s fee or wounded honour: both highly particular uses.


Table 3. Uses and respective frequencies of term “blood” in corpus

DAR DUR ScA KJB McB Span

Adjective 6

(2.25%) 1

General 1

(0.28%) 1

Red bodily fluid

139 (52.06%)

38 (10.83%)

257 (88.01%)

365 (78,49%)

18 (69.23%) 5

Juice 1

(0.22%) 1

Vitality 1

(0.28%) 1

Breed 70

(26.22%) 35

(11.99%) 2

Species 12

(4.49%) 1

(0.28%) 2

Ethnic group 11

(4.12%) 36

(10.26%) 2

Family group 27

(10.11%) 20

(5.70%) 1

(0.22%) 2

(7.69%) 4

General violence

2 (0.75%)

39 (11.11%)

7 (1.51%)

1 (3.85%) 4

Murder 1 (0.22%)

2 (7.69%)

2

Violent death 29 (8.26%)

87 (18.71%)

1 (3.85%)

3

Killer's fee 1 (0.28%)

1 (0.22%)

2

To physically wound

1 (0.28%)

1

General (feud)

94 (26.78%)

1

Wounded honour

8 (2.28%)

2 (0.43%)

2

Retribution 61 (17.38%)

2 (7.69%)

2

Compensation

8 (2.28%)

1

Total occurrences

267 351 292 465 26

Total different uses

7 14 2 8 6

Table 3. Uses and respective frequencies of term ‘blood’ in corpus In Darwin’s works, seven different senses for blood can be identified (bottom row), which is just below the mean (7.4). The most frequent of these, in over half of its occurrences, is the base concept meaning of bodily fluid. Next, in roughly a quarter of cases, comes breed – a group of animals related by close common progenitors. Next comes a similar use; this time in reference specifically to humans (family group).

Finally, Macbeth contains six categories of meaning and senses of the term ‘blood’. As can be seen, surprisingly perhaps, in Mac-beth the term “blood” is used most frequently with its base mean-


14 It could be argued that in this and similar examples the pronoun “it” replaces “blood” and should thus also be counted as an occurrence of “blood”. In addition to the practical difficulties presented by such an approach, it should be borne in mind that the pronominal substitute hypothesis (McKay and Fulkerson 1979: 662-673) offers only a limited view of anaphora and one that we reject on principle (Christiansen 2011: 319).

15 In all, Gotti (2003: 33-46) lists six main lexical criteria for specialised discourse (i.e. monoreferentiality; lack of emotion; precision; transparency; con-ciseness; conservatism), which constitute general principles which may be flout-ed in special circumstances rather than rigid parameters.

16 «It is pointless to try to classify a text such as this – to ask whether it “is” a scientific treatise or a declaration of faith or an entertaining work of litera-ture. It is a product of the impact between an intellectual giant and a moment in the space-time continuum of our culture, with all the complexity that that implies.» (Halliday 1994: 155).

ing, although it must be noted that categorisation of the uses of the term “blood” in this text produced more problems than it did in the other works in the corpus because meaning or sense was so often open to diverse interpretations or had multifarious mean-ings (e.g. «It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood»14). As mentioned above, our policy in such cases was to choose the most superficial sense, namely the closest to the base concept.

Looking at the total number of different uses of “blood” in each section of the corpus (second from bottom row) is also il-luminating, because it can be assumed, in line with the principles of monoreferentiality and precision, which Gotti (2003) identifies as typical features of specialised discourse,15 that in more scientific texts a given term will have fewer, more clearly defined, uses.

As we have seen, Durham has the most (14) and ScA the fewest (2), the mean of all five sections being 7.4. ScA, we may take as a typical scientific text of this period – Durham is at the opposite end of the scale and Darwin comes in the middle, which confirms Halliday’s conclusion that Origin of the Species as a hy-brid text, a unique semiotic event.16 However, the lack of a clear correlation between number of different meanings for the term “blood” and degree of technicality or scientificity of the section of the corpus is attested to by the fact that Macbeth, convention-ally viewed as a literary text, comes second to ScA in terms of


fewest distinct meanings for “blood”. However as we have stated, difficulties in analysing this text and the cautious approach which we felt obliged to adopt in the interests of objectivity may be a factor here. That said, even disregarding the figures for Macbeth, it can be seen that in our selection of texts, there is no obvi-ous link between text type and the number of different meanings that “blood” is found to have: Durham having far more than any other section of the corpus including Darwin and the KJB.

Looking at the figures for the different sections of the corpus regarding the core, primary meaning of “blood” as the red bod-ily fluid (third row) shows that the figures for ScA, the KJB and Macbeth are very close (88.01%; 78.49%; 73.08% respectively). In Darwin, the figure is much lower but still over half (52.06%) and, in Durham, the figure is considerably lower: only 10.38%. Again, there is no evidence of a correlation here between pro-portion of references to the base concept rather than to more figurative uses and text type, underlining the fact that metaphor is a much more engrained feature of all types of discourse than traditional approaches would have one believe.

As regards the diffusion of a given meaning or sense of “blood”, this can be gauged by noting down the number of dif-ferent sections of the corpus it appears in (span – last column). Senses that occur in only one section can be judged more pe-culiar than ones than occur across the broad range of texts col-lected here. It also allows one to see in which sets of texts certain senses of “blood” occur.

The one sense that is found in every section of corpus is per-haps unsurprisingly the base concept of red bodily fluid. The next most common, with a span of 4, are «family group» and «general violence». Looking at the other end of the scale, of the various senses, seven are found only in one section of the corpus. Five of these are found in Durham, thus emphasising the originality of her work, and one each in Darwin and the KJB. The average span across the various texts is 2, a relatively low figure (less than 50% of the possible total, namely 5). With senses that have a low span (1 or 2), all but one (“breed”), occur in Durham, putting further emphasis on its peculiarity as regards meanings assigned


to the term “blood”. The same is true of the one item that has a span of 3 («violent death»), as this is also found in Durham.

The relative patterns of frequency for the various senses of “blood” within the corpus highlight some notable differences be-tween the various texts in particular between the two that we are focusing on here: the works of Darwin and Durham. The figures for the use of “blood” in its primary base sense, the red bodily fluid, are perhaps the most revealing as in both Darwin and Dur-ham the figure is considerably lower than that of the other texts even if there is also a wide difference between them, with Darwin almost at 50% and Durham closer to only 10%.

There are great differences in the relative uses of “blood” in Darwin and Durham, as Table 3 makes clear; to the general cat-egory of biological relationships Darwin dedicates 44.74% of his uses of the term “blood”, while Durham only does 16.24%. By contrast, general non-institutionalised violence accounts for only 0.75% of Darwin’s use of the term; the corresponding figure for Durham is 19.37%. However, the biggest difference comes with the general category of feud (here identified as «institutionalised violence»). None of Darwin’s uses fall into this category while a notable 48.72% (or almost half ) of Durham’s do.

Given that both these general categories constitute metaphor-ic extensions of the primary base concept of red bodily fluid (see Section 2), they illuminate the different conceptual frames un-derlying use of the term “blood” in each. In the next section (8), we will turn to these.

8. Basic conceptual frames for “blood” in Darwin and Durham

Underlying the various different senses for “blood” identified in Section 3.2, would appear to be a single underlying conceptual gestalt of blood as a container but seen from two subtly different perspectives: that of a means of conveying something else (e.g. essence, purity, identity, biological inheritance) and that of a con-taminating agent or something that one can fall into and have dif-ficulty extracting oneself from. At a very basic level, these two per-


spectives can be equated with blood, the red bodily fluid, and how perceptions of it change in relation to the body (its container).

Inside the body, blood is seen as a sign of health and normal-ity; outside, it signals that something is wrong. As regards the connection with contamination, blood escaping from the body is perhaps associated with a wound which, for healing to take place, must first be cleaned.

It is interesting that in Darwin the first, positive, sense predom-inates, while in Durham, it is the second. Durham is of course most often translating directly Albanian expressions and concepts into English: for example «fall into blood» («bie në gjak»17), to start a feud (deliberately or not), although she does very occasionally create new expressions such as «at blood» which would seem to be a combination of English «at war» and Albanian «në gjak»(«in blood»). As such, as we say in Section 1, she is not formulating a new theory, rather acting as a cultural mediator, translating the metaphoric gestalt of one aspect of one culture into terms that can be understood by an English-speaking reader.

The function of Darwin, as a scientist working on a new theo-ry, is more complex and the role that metaphor plays in his work is pivotal, determining not only how he expresses ideas but also to a significant degree how he conceives of them in the first place and how his fellow scientists then elaborate them. It is to this that we will turn in the final section (9).

9. Discussion: the role of metaphor in scientific discourse

From this analysis of one term (“blood”) in a diverse variety of texts, it can be seen that the range of uses of such terms rests less on their actual denotation or application but on the underlying conceptual metaphor from which they stem.

17 We are grateful to Robert Lekaj, native of northern Albania, and student at the Università del Salento, Italy, who painstakingly translated Durham’s expressions containing “blood” into northern Albanian dialect and standard Albanian for us, and was able to provide us with many clarifications on Dur-ham’s treatment of the subject of “blood”.


As Table 3 shows, in confirmation of Lakoff and Johnson (ibid), metaphor is a feature of all kinds of texts, whether literary, religious or scientific. Such categorisations of text type do not appear, from the limited analysis undertaken here, to allow one to predict the degree of «literalness» a basic term may have or the number of different senses a given term may have.

As we state in Section 7, this might seem to run counter to the fact that lexis in specialised discourse is typically monoreferential – see Gotti (2003: 33-35). However, in both the cases of Darwin and Durham, the term we have examined “blood” is not a techni-cal term in itself but a general everyday concept. Secondly in many of the contexts here “blood” is used for reasons of catachresis or elliptic simile and adheres to uses of metaphors in specialised dis-course – as discussed by Gotti (2003: 58), where they are used as interpretive keys. Such a thing is clearly the case with Durham and by extension to the original Albanian terminology coming from tradition and folklore (folk science) which she reports.

The importance of metaphors as interpretive keys is under-lined by Lakoff and Johnson (2003: 19):

[…] the concepts in a scientific theory, are often – perhaps always – based on metaphors that have a physical and/or cultural basis. The high in «high-energy particles» is based on more is up! The high in «high-level func-tions,» as in physiological psychology, is based on rational is up. The low in «low-level phonology» (which refers to detailed phonetic aspects of the sound systems of languages) is based on mundane reality is down (as in «down to earth»). The intuitive appeal of a scientific theory has to do with how well its metaphors fit one’s experience.

As Gotti notes, metaphors are by their nature interactive:

[metaphors’] interactive function which arises whenever the second term does not merely qualify the semantic features of the first term but also adds new ones. Thus, for example, in Black’s metaphor «man is a wolf» the second term (wolf) does not merely transfer to the first term (man) the negative qual-ities (fierceness, aggressiveness, cruelty, etc.) attributed to the lexeme wolf by cultural stereotypes, but also adds the qualities of the former to the latter.[…] For Boyd these metaphors [brain as computer] are constitutive of the theories they convey, since behavioural similarities between humans and computers have added new interpretations to the phenomena concerned


and new insights to evolutionary biology. In this light, they are neither marginal nor secondary but play a fundamental part in disciplinary de-velopment by promoting the discovery of new features and properties in metaphorized items (2003: 58-59).

However, this very interactivity means that as well as being in-terpretative keys, metaphors will also steer language-users towards some conceptualisations and away from others: something which Lakoff and Johnson (2003: 10) call selectivity or partial structuring.

The conceptualisation of “blood”, as a conveyor of biological in-heritance, which cannot however be associated directly with Darwin, but rather with his acolytes, provides a very good example of this.

As is well-known, the part of evolution that eluded Darwin was the precise way in which hereditary characteristics were passed on from parents to offspring, a conundrum that Gregor Mendel (1822: 84), the father of genetics, was to solve, ironically publishing just two years (1866) before Darwin’s epic treatment of the subject: Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestica-tion (1868). Mendel’s work was all but ignored until after 1900, and in particular after 1915, when his laws of Segregation and of Independent Assortment were integrated with the chromosome theory of inheritance by Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866-1945)18.

Lacking any clear idea of the mechanics of biological inher-itance, even though he, like Mendel, was ahead of his time in that he applied mathematical probabilistic models to his results Charlesworth and Charlesworth 2009:757), Darwin posited the existence of so-called gemmules or pangenes that he speculated were emitted like spores by the various organs of the body and transmitted to successive generations. Darwin’s half-cousin Fran-cis Galton (1822-1911), and able statistician, tried to ascertain whether these were carried via the blood to the reproductive or-gans, and whether they acquired characteristics could be inher-ited in a Lamarckian way. When Galton was unable to prove this

18 For an overview of Darwin and genetics see Brian Charlesworth and Deborah Charlesworth: Perspectives: Anecdotal, Historical and Critical Com-mentaries on Genetics: Darwin and Genetics in «Genetics» no. 183 (November 2009), pp. 757-766.


theory, Darwin rapidly disassociated himself from the idea that blood was the actual conveyor19, but nonetheless failed to provide an alternative explanation.

As Table 3 in Section 7 clearly shows, Darwin’s use of the term “blood”, together with that of Durham, is that where it is used least in the base-concept sense. Overall, 44.94% of Darwin’s uses of it relate to biological relationships (human and non-human), which is a significantly higher figure that of the other sections of the cor-pus (Durham: 16.24%; ScA: 11.99%; KJB: 0.22%; «Macbeth»: 7.69%). This indicates that there is a predisposition in Darwin’s language at least to associate the term “blood” with biological rela-tionships. Of course, in this, he is merely adopting the prevailing linguistic expressions of his day (and still now – see Figure 1), but the fact that he employs them so frequently leads one to suspect that they indeed reflect the dominant conceptual frames underly-ing his thought, at least in his more unreflective moments.

Darwin’s inability to identify a plausible conveyor of heredi-tary traits was to significantly weaken his theory of natural selec-tion in the eyes of other academics, who were not fully to accept it well into the 20th century, and this only when it was seen how Mendellian genetics could be accommodated within it (Charles-worth and Charlesworth 2009: 758).

As stated in Section 3, the conceptualisation of blood as a con-veyor of inherited characteristics, adheres to a long-established conceptual frame traceable to Galen’s vision of blood as the es-sence of the individual, both as regards health and identity and is also present in Darwin’s discourse, where following popular usage, he uses the term to describe both human and non-human biological relationships. It thus underlines the fact that populari-sation is an interactive process entailing not just the diffusion of scientific ideas to a wider, non-expert, audience but also to the

19 In an article in Nature (April 27, 1871, 502-503) entitled Pangenesis, Darwin stated: «It is, indeed, obvious that the presence of gemmules in the blood can form no necessary part of my hypothesis; for I refer in illustration of it to the lowest animals, such as the Protozoa, which do not possess blood or any vessels; and I refer to plants in which the fluid, when present in the vessels, cannot be considered as true blood.»


re-evaluation of those same ideas in terms of popular conceptu-alisation. Metaphor, as we have seen lies at the heart of this proc-ess, as it affects not just the way an individual term is interpreted but also the way in which its denotatum is perceived in relation to other concepts and the wider conceptual frame and thus plays an important part in science itself.

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