Using Critical Metaphor Analysis To Extract Parents' Cultural Models Of How Their Children Learn to...

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USING CRITICAL METAPHOR ANALYSIS TO EXTRACTPARENTS' CULTURAL MODELS OF HOW THEIR CHILDRENLEARN TO READSteve Bialostok aa University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming, USAVersion of record first published: 18 Jun 2008.

To cite this article: Steve Bialostok (2008): USING CRITICAL METAPHOR ANALYSIS TO EXTRACT PARENTS' CULTURAL MODELS OFHOW THEIR CHILDREN LEARN TO READ, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 5:2, 109-147

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Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 5(2):109--147, 2008Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 1542-7587 print/1542-7595 onlineDOI: 10.1080/15427580802068555

USING CRITICAL METAPHOR ANALYSIS TO EXTRACT

PARENTS’ CULTURAL MODELS OF HOW THEIR

CHILDREN LEARN TO READ

STEVE BIALOSTOK

University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming, USA

This research presents an empirical study on metaphor based on numerous

interviews with parents of young children. Contemporary metaphor theory iscomplemented by a well-articulated place for culture and the role metaphor plays

in cultural understanding. I demonstrate that 1) parents understand learning

to read as the acquisition of reading skills; 2) different parents repeatedly use thesame metaphors when describing these reading skills; 3) because parents have

a folk or common-sense understanding of learning to read, the metaphors help

organize their reasoning; 4) the metaphors also index sociocultural informationat the level of the communicative event, specifically aspects of morality; 5) the

hegemonic structure of this morality is evoked through indirect indexicality and

is therefore registered and reproduced below the speaker’s threshold of awareness.

What metaphors do parents use when talking about learningto read? In this article, I present a systematic analysis of themetaphors a sample of parents used when talking about howtheir young children were learning to read. Analysis of metaphorcan allow us to go beyond the literal surface of reading discourseto disclose underlying assumptions and ideologies. In turn, thiscan help scholars see alternate paradigms. If metaphors influenceour thinking, then they must surely shape teaching.

Theoretical Framework: Cultural Models, Ideology,

Morality, and Metaphor

Within anthropology, it is generally agreed that people rely oncultural models—mental models that are schematized culturally

Address correspondence to Steve Bialostok, University of Wyoming, College ofEducation, Department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education, 1000 E. University

Ave., Laramie, WY 82071. E-mail: [email protected]

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110 S. Bialostok

and are more or less widely shared by members of a society—tomake sense of their complicated world (see Gee, 1996; 1999; Hol-land & Quinn, 1987; Holland et al., 2001; Shore, 1996; Strauss,1992). Such models depict prototypical (‘normal’) events in asimplified world, which we take to be the real world. They riseto the level of a semi-conscious elaboration of common sense,as if the event in question could not be any other way. Thesemodels create a set of structured expectations of how the worldor an event should be, of what is expected, and what is takenfor granted. It is through cultural models that we naturalize thesocial world (Baynham, 1995). These models are, by their verynature, ideological.

Cultural models exist both in the individual mind and dis-tributed in the social world (other people, texts, and practices).They demand exclusions and inclusions that are not necessarilyconscious. This is the function of cultural models—they set upwhat counts as typical, central, and what is nontypical and atypical(Gee, 1996). This is why they can be described as the socio-psycholinguistic correlates of ideologies, a ‘‘systematically orga-nized presentation of reality’’ (Kress & Hodge, 1993, p. 15). Asvan Dijk (1995) has pointed out, ideological control of discourseoccurs through the control of cultural models, and the same istrue for the ‘‘acquisition, change, and reproduction of ideologiesthemselves’’ (p. 33).

Metaphor as Culture

A metaphor is a way of understanding one abstract domainin terms of another more easily understood concrete domain.Metaphor theory as originally put forth by Lakoff and Johnson(1980) and developed over the past 25 years holds that spokenmetaphors underlie conceptual metaphors that in turn constituteour understanding. In other words, metaphors structure thought.Cognitive linguists ask the question, ‘‘How does metaphor workin the mind?’’ The universality of contemporary metaphor theoryis limited when isolated from a pragmatic theory (Charteris-Black, 2005). Metaphor theory must be complemented by a well-articulated place for culture, and the role metaphor plays incultural understanding.

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Parents’ Cultural Models of How Their Children Learn to Read 111

Anthropologists Naomi Quinn (1991) and Emily Martin(2000) have explored the ways that metaphors are reflections andimplementations of our culture, its morals, values, and priorities.Quinn, for example, analyzed the metaphors Americans use totalk about marriage. Through the examination of numeroushours of discourse, Quinn (1991; 1987; 1997; 2005) discoveredthat the metaphors Americans use to describe marriage fall intojust eight classes. A similar study in Japan revealed how speakersuse three main metaphors to talk about marriage (Dunn, 2004).

Following Shore (1996), who argues that culture is in themind, what is ‘‘cognitive (and embodied) is inherently cultural’’(Gibbs, 1999, p. 156). And what is cultural is inherently ideolog-ical. Ideology is a system of belief based upon cognitive/culturalmodels (i.e., mental representations). Because metaphors areubiquitous to language—we simply cannot speak without them—they play a central role in the construction and reproduction ofcultural models. When ideological discourses function metaphor-ically, they construct a complex representational system, not eas-ily recognizable, but highly coercive. They are coercive becausethe ideological work of metaphors is accomplished through whatOchs (1990) refers to as ‘‘indirect indexicality.’’

Language acts as a socializing tool, and Ochs is concernedwith how certain features of language may index aspects of iden-tity—social identity, roles, relationships, and ideologies. In addi-tion to the directly indexed messages (the production of nonref-erential meanings or ‘‘indexes’’ that are understood by speakers),the metaphors parents use to describe their children learning toread indirectly index another set of sociocultural messages notrecognized or acknowledged. Metaphors, I argue, have a ‘‘Whor-fian effect’’ (Hill & Mannheim, 1992)—not always deterministic,but where the ‘‘hegemonic structure is reproduced below thespeaker’s threshold of awareness, unconscious : : : ’’ (p. 389–390).

In addition, metaphors assist in organizing reasoning in do-mains where the reasoner possesses no previous model, as Gen-tner and Gentner (1983) describe in people’s everyday under-standings of electricity. The same can be said for parents’ ev-eryday or common-sense understanding of how children read,a topic none of those I studied had given much thought to (al-though, fortunately for my research, they had a lot to say about itwhen asked). These metaphors guided individual reasoning that

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112 S. Bialostok

allowed the parents to make inferences about abstract concepts—folk, not academic understandings—of how children learn toread.

When a parent makes a statement such as ‘‘Phonics instruc-tion really reinforces1 Seth as a reader,’’ the speaker uses themetaphor ‘‘reinforces’’ as a way of conceptualizing one aspect oflearning to read. But an analysis of the metaphor ‘‘reinforces’’as it is used discursively reveals a second set of indirectly indexedmessages.

Metaphors as Morality

What precisely are those indirectly indexed messages? Lakoff(1996a; 1996b; 2004) and Lakoff and Johnson (1999) have ob-served that a small and specific number of ‘‘moral metaphors,’’grounded experientially, guide seemingly unrelated moral per-spectives on taxes, abortion, government, regulation, and socialprograms. I argue that speakers choose these metaphors thatdraw on cultural exemplars. The metaphors indirectly index middle-class values and aspirations of morality.

Morality is understood to be essentially about a set of valuesabout fairness, justice, goodness, right and wrong, and well-being(Foucault, 1985; Linde, 1993; Chazan, 1998). The most importantfunction of reflexivity in narrative, Linde argues, is to ‘‘establishthe moral value of self, and a self that is perceived as good byothers’’ (p. 122). While one might narrate anything within arange of moral values, ‘‘the most basic moral proposition’’ infirst person narratives is ‘‘I am a good person’’ (p. 123).

Moral metaphors are grounded in nonmetaphoric realitythat encompasses a few basic moral understandings drawn from2500 years of Western philosophy that remains central to Westernthought today: Centrally, there is the physical notion of whole-ness, that wholeness and physical strength are good. Ramsey(1997) asserts that formalist philosophical discussions of integrity

1Since most statements include many metaphors, I have italicized the keymetaphors used in my analysis. Also, to avoid confusion when describing metaphors that

are not part of the cultural model, I have placed them in quotations.

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begin with the idea of ‘‘personal wholeness’’ and ‘‘sense of self-integration’’ (p. 145). Plato, in his Republic (2000), viewed the‘‘just man’’ as the ‘‘most unified or whole’’ (2003). Psychologicaland cultural anthropologist Richard Shweder stated that ‘‘ ‘Unity’and ‘uniformity’ are the telltale themes of an enlightenmentthinker: : : : ’’ Unity involves reason and evidence and uniformityinvolves conclusions about how to live and what to believe ‘‘dic-tated by reason and evidence’’ (p. 27). So, too, communitarianssuch as Alisdair MacIntyre (1990) view right and wrong in termsof social ‘‘unity’’ and ‘‘cohesion’’ satisfying the individual needfor ‘‘wholeness.’’2 Wholeness entails various metaphors that in-clude strength. Nietzsche, in Genealogy of Morals (1883/2003),saw goodness and badness in terms of ‘‘strength.’’ Hobbes, inLeviathan (1681/1982), sees strength in terms of power.

In his discussion of ‘‘telos,’’ Aristotle (see Waanders, 1984)also thought in terms of unity (Morrison, 1993). Within the Aris-totelian model, forms of excellence or virtue were inextricablytied to telos—or end—a concept that has grounded virtually allof Western virtue theories. Aristotle argued that a unified life isguided by a desire for telos, a flourishing of their own nature.

The process of flourishing entails the development of virtues,personal characteristics that support ethical behavior and theability to become free, most important, masters of ourselves.Little flowers become big flowers; little children become adults bydeveloping habits that eventually translate into ways of being thatpredispose someone to act in a particular way, the ‘‘exercise’’ ofvirtue. Flourishing is achieved by the habitual practice of ‘‘moral’’and ‘‘intellectual’’ excellences. Moral virtue is excellence of char-acter; intellectual virtues involve wisdom and understanding thatcan be taught. Both are the expression of reason. One develops

2It is worth quoting MacIntyre at length: ‘‘Any contemporary attempt to envisageeach human life as a whole, as a unity, whose character provides the virtues with

an adequate telos encounters two different kinds of obstacles, one social and one

philosophical. The social obstacles derive from the ways in which modernity partitionseach human life into a variety of segments, each with its own norms and modes of

behaviour : : : [A]ll of these separations have been achieved so that it is the distinctivenessof each and not the unity of the life of the individual who passes through those parts in

terms of which we are taught to think and to feel’’ (p. 125).

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114 S. Bialostok

the capacity for reason, which acts as the implement of self-control (see Foucault, 1985).

Methodological Approach

Reconstructing a cultural model requires the use of inter-views and interpretations of those interviews, specifically of themetaphors used in those interviews. Various discourse scholars(e.g., Charteris-Black, 2004; Fairclough, 1989/2002; 2003; Woodand Kroger, 2000) have drawn upon metaphors as a useful sourceof linguistic data. Quinn (1991; 2005) and Gee (1999) describesmetaphor as a medium especially rich in clues for analyzingand understanding some cultural models. We use metaphors wehave grown up with. Rooted in everyday discourse, they occurfrequently, are accepted unquestioningly, taken for granted, usedautomatically and effortlessly, and frequently are out of consciouscontrol (Chilton and Lakoff, 1995). As stated earlier, metaphorsalso are often culturally laden.

Applying this model in concert with Lakoff and Johnson’swork on moral metaphors provides an ideal set of tools to con-ceptualize this project in terms of a critical metaphor analy-sis that allows scholars to extract a cultural model. Once I as-sembled a large corpus of metaphorical data, I interpreted thedata from both a cognitive linguistic perspective but also prag-matically; I wanted to see how the parents’ systematic use ofmetaphor might draw upon tacit cultural understandings. I askedmyself, ‘‘What assumptions about people and society does thisperson have that would cause her to say something like this usingthis metaphor or series of metaphors? What cultural assump-tions does this metaphorical statement reflect? How do thesemetaphorical choices refer to not only speakers’ cognitive andlinguistic knowledge, but also their (not always conscious) socialresources of culture and history?’’ Metaphors are like finger-prints: X’s marking the ideological spot. Metaphor choices needto be understood and interpreted in reference to the ‘‘purposesof use within specific discourse contexts’’ (Charteris-Black, 2004,p. 247).

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My original research topic examined cultural models of liter-acy among the middle class. I interviewed 15 middle-class parentsof a total of 11 kindergarteners (6 boys and 5 girls). I chose theseparents because:

(a) They all had at least one child beginning kindergarten (al-though several had slightly older children as well);

(b) Despite diverse economic statuses that ranged from singlemothers, to struggling working parents, to two-parent fam-ilies where one or both parents worked and brought in acomfortable income, all the parents described themselves asmiddle class;

(c) All parents were college graduates. Like their incomes, theirjobs represented a broad spectrum of society including officemanagers, an architect, a hospital administrator, and others;

(d) The interviewees were all White. The study took place inTucson, Arizona, a university city with a population of nearlya million residents in the city and the suburbs.

Each parent was interviewed between three and five times.Each interview lasted approximately one hour. The interviewswere semi-structured with questions about how children learn toread. I viewed these interviews as both ‘‘in depth’’ and ‘‘open-ended’’ (Siedman, 2006). In others words, I combined a liter-acy life-history interview along with additional interviews askingquestions related to parents attitudes and understandings aboutnumerous aspects of reading. While I had a series of questionsand statements for parents to respond to, many responses re-quired follow up and requests for explication. Further, parentsfrequently used my question as a launching point to express theiropinions.

I did not ask the parents directly about their cultural models.Rather, I developed a series of question that I hoped would bringthe model into play (see D’Andrade, 2005). Then, my major taskwas to be a good listener, building, exploring, asking for exam-ples, and sometimes rephrasing what each parent told me (in hisor her own words) to let them know they’d been understood andclarify or expand a statement. I taped and transcribed a total ofapproximately 45 hours of raw material.

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116 S. Bialostok

The open-endedness of the interviews—that I tried to turneach session into a conversation—led to responses about to learn-ing to read. Since my research topic was literacy, I had notintended to ask parents any questions about learning to read. Butsince all of these children’s kindergarten classrooms emphasizedreading instruction, some quite heavily, the parents observed thisprocess. They wanted to talk about it, especially once I told themI had taught kindergarten. Further, all parents attended parentconferences and discussed their child’s reading progress. Theirinformal comments led me to schedule a final interview whereI asked specific questions related to learning to read as well asto their parent-teacher conferences. At the time, I didn’t knowwhat I would do with the information, if anything. The responsesfrom that specific interview plus responses about learning to readmade during prior interviews are analyzed here.

Analysis

These interviews proved a rich source of material from which Iextracted excerpts that contained the relevant metaphors. (Byrelevant, I refer to any metaphor used to describe some aspectof how the child learns to read.) Finally, I classified the reduceddata to examine similarities. I searched for patterns, not only ofthe repetition of the metaphors themselves but also in the reason-ing in the sentences where the metaphors were embedded. Thecoding of the metaphors was based on my own interpretation aswell as derived from other metaphorical analyses. I searched forpatterns that indicated shared understandings across intervieweesand interview passages.

The participants’ consistent use of the same metaphors de-scribing how a child would learn to read, indicating the existenceof a shared cultural model, turned out to be one of the mostinteresting and revealing insights of this study. The metaphorsalmost always referred to some aspect of ‘‘reading skills,’’ a termspoken so matter-of-factly by virtually everyone that its meaningalmost appeared self-evident; in other words, a matter of commonsense. Parents volunteered the word; I deliberately did not intro-duce the terms ‘‘skills’’ or ‘‘reading skills’’ during the interviews.

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Skills as Ontological Metaphors

In reading education, teachers and parents don’t tend to com-monly talk about a children being a ‘skilled reader’ as a set ofpractices (e.g., Scribner and Cole, 1981) as much as the child‘having skills.’ With this understanding, skills assume a mecha-nistic overtone. Skills are something that can be ‘‘broken intoparts and taught and tested’’ (Barton, 1994, p. 163).

When reading skills are understood as a series of compo-nent parts of a ‘‘competence which is generally seen as unified’’(Stierer and Bloome, 1994, p. 85) but that also must be brokendown into discrete parts which are then separately described,taught, and assessed, the very term ‘‘skills’’ operates metaphor-ically. It evokes the discourse of the market place and labormarket where skills are ‘‘distributed to individuals, acquired by in-dividuals and traded by individuals for jobs, goods, and services’’(p. 85). Describing reading as the acquisition of a rudimentary setof skills requires that these skills be conceptualized as ontologicalmetaphors, delineated as things or entities. Once a skill becomesa substance, it can be ‘‘gotten’’ or ‘‘acquired,’’ the result ofinstruction.

Findings

These metaphors, analyzed in the context of their use, bothconstitute and reflect the cultural model of a taken-for-granted,prototypical rendition of the world. The schema described hereis READING IS A SET OF SKILLS. The metaphors that consti-tute the schema READING IS A SET OF SKILLS are: 1) READ-ING SKILLS ARE MANUFACTURED PRODUCTS; 2) LEARN-ING TO READ REQUIRES A FOUNDATION; 3) LEARNINGREADING SKILLS IS A JOURNEY; 4) LEARNING READINGSKILLS MOVES UPWARDS; 5) READING SKILLS REQUIREINDIVIDUAL CONTROL3 ;4:

3I have adopted Lakoff and Johnson’s format for describing metaphors by puttingthe category in capital letters.

4Two categories—MINDS ARE PHYSICAL SPACES WHERE YOU PUT THINGSand WORDS ARE CONTAINERS FOR LETTERS are not included in this paper due to

space constraints.

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1) Reading Skills are Manufactured Products

All parents talked about the importance of reading skills and alldescribed the skills in terms of a manufactured product. In fact,with a total of 67 references, the manufactured product metaphorwas one of the two most commonly used metaphors.

� She’s learning all of these reading skills—letters and sounds,and how the sounds match letters and how the letters go togetherto build words. She’s developing those skills and once they’restrong enough, and they’re all together and solid, then this willgive her the base for reading. (Marilyn)

� Phonics instruction really reinforces Seth as a reader. Knowinghow sound out words the way that he’s learning will make it last.I hope that because of it he’ll be a lifelong reader. (Pamela)

� Larry’s got to make all those sounds stick—to come together. Tobe a solid reader. (Gwen)

These parents use these metaphors to describe learning to readas the acquisition (or building) of specific skills (components),almost always describing a folk theory of phonics instruction.When the components cohere into a strong, unified physicalwhole (the skills themselves and the child’s understanding ofthose skills), the child metaphorically is also understood as wholeor strong, and thus morally unified. Conversely, when a manufac-tured product is not strong, metaphorically, neither is the child.The child no longer has physical/moral strength. As Pamelaremarks, using metaphors from all the categories identified here:

� Seth’s teacher sends home words to learn, and I hear how heputs it together. The letters just flow together. It clicks for him. AndI feel better now. Being in school for that many hours a dayand not being able to read is devastating at a certain point. Itcan crumble the strongest child’s world. If Seth didn’t have thatstrength, he would just fall apart. He’s that kind of kid.

While manufactured product metaphors produced the great-est number of variations, they all share what Wittgenstein (1953)referred to as ‘‘family resemblances’’—similar characteristics that

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run through all of these metaphors. All permutations fit neatlyinto three categories: 1) the act of creation and unity of the prod-uct; 2) durability of the product; 3) destructibility of the product.The metaphoric logic of this is clear: In order for the product tobe reliable and dependable, the manufacturing of the productmust lead to a whole. That whole must have unity and stabilityof form. This makes an object with physical integrity that ‘‘canbe trusted to function the way it is supposed to’’ (Lakoff, 1996a,p. 90). Poorly made products perish easily. The manufacturedproduct metaphor indicates a desire for unity. It is the creationof a morally ‘‘unified’’ person.

The manufactured product metaphor is very much groundedin ideas of mastering the natural world, our experiences withmaterial resources, and the ways in which we view labor. It isalso especially American. The well-known 20th century journalistand social critic H.L. Mencken asserted that America is a countrythat manufactures—it manufactures raw materials and it manu-factures language. Regarding American English, Mencken wrotethat Americans have a ‘‘large capacity : : : for taking in new wordsand phrases and for manufacturing new locutions out of its ownmaterials’’ (Mencken, 1921, p. 28). Mencken was writing at theend of World War I when American manufacturing was clearly adecisive factor in military development and victory, making themetaphor particularly resonant.

Following this, manufactured products should be durable.By durable, I mean that the product must have enough physicalintegrity to function and to withstand external forces—it cannotcrumble, decay, or disintegrate. Parents often used metaphorsfrom the act of building, durability, and destructibility withina single utterance. However, for easier understanding, I classifythe metaphors separately below. The reader should be aware thatbecause of the frequency at which parents produced metaphors,only the relevant metaphors are italicized.

The act of creation and unity of the product. It appears impossiblefor these parents to discuss how children learn without referringto the actual creation of a product, at least these parents neverdid. This metaphor allowed the parents to make a variety ofpoints about their understandings of the experience of learningto read, points which provide clues to their cultural models. Inthe following examples, the metaphors describe the assemblage

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of a commodity, that the product is fabricated and, to a degree,how it is manufactured into a unified product:

� Every skill you learn when you learn to read, if you learn itwell, builds on the previous one, so you become a solid reader.(Natalie)

In the next example, Pamela recalls the first word she learnedto read was a gas station name: Mobil. As above, Pamela employsthe assembly aspect of the metaphor, again emphasizing theimportance of the unity of the product as its natural state:

� I learned Mobil—that the letters had to do with the soundsthat the word was. They went together. That’s a big lesson.

Later, Pamela went on:

� I was concerned with his being able to : : : connect the letternames to actual letters to the written language and being ableto look at a letter and say yes, this is an A or this is a Tor a W or a Z and from there being able to incorporate thatunderstanding into reading: : : : But I have, particularly overthe last four weeks, really seen some real improvement in Seth.And, as I said, I don’t know if it’s anything specific other thanthe fact that repetition and exposure and it’s kind of clickingwith him that, oh yeah, this is how the words come together.

Pamela’s use of repetition invokes the assembly process of theFordist production line. The metaphor of exposure references theapprenticing of the worker (Seth) in that environment. Pamelavery creatively further exploits the metaphor by explaining howshe provides Seth the pieces of the product which he, himself,must assemble:

� We’d play rhyming games. I always gave him clues to things.It wasn’t just a matter of phonemic awareness but seeing theconnection between two very abstract things: : : : I’d give him thefirst letter of it. Well, that’s really abstract. A, he doesn’t knowwhat the thing is. Can’t see it. And B, then I’m giving him the

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letter which is really just a little piece of it, but has to put the twopieces of the puzzle together in thin air.

The assembly metaphors used by parents embody a powerfulconcept in both folk and academic discussions of reading (such as‘‘part to whole’’ instruction and ‘‘mastering the code’’). That is,the initial stage of reading requires piecing together of elements(letters, onsets) to form the whole product (words/sentences):

� I think [learning to read] is a skill because it requires puttingtogether a whole, a variety of components. (Marilyn)

� There’s different skills. There’s the main, if you will, the me-chanical of it, which is like recognizing the letters, putting theletters into words, recognizing the structure of the sentence,things of that nature. (Gwen)

In the next example, Gwen alludes to a separation of thetechnical aspect from the aesthetic experience. Still, even whendescribing the latter, she understands it metaphorically:

� There’s more to it. There’s what I would consider the literarypart of reading which is being able to read a sentence, under-stand what it’s saying, what is it adding to the whatever you’rereading.

Gwen understands reading as composed of individual ‘‘skills’’where decoding is one skill, comprehension is another sepa-rate skill and so forth (see Harste and Burke, 1977; Stierer andBloome, 1994).

Marilyn describes herself as an excellent reader. Here sherefers to the consequences of her sisters’ inability to read as well.

� Within my own family I have two younger sisters that havelearning disabilities and to them reading has always been very,very difficult. They don’t read quickly like I do. They don’tassimilate like I do. And so I can see the difference betweenhaving those skills that I have and not having it.

The source domain for assimilate involves the literal digestionand transformation of food into living tissue. Metaphorically,

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assimilate is often used to describe the ‘‘melting pot,’’ wherediverse people are ’digested’ into society and transformed into asingle, unified social norm, a whole.

Even when parents refer to aspects of reading beyond theelementary level, they use metaphors that exploit the aspect ofa product’s fabrication. Bea, for example, uses a metaphor ex-tremely common within constructivist reading paradigms:

� A good reader is somebody who understands what they read.They make meaning out of it. (Bea)

Thus the meaning is understood as an entity, something thatcan be physically created, like working with clay.5 Shortly later,she continues:

� These skills improve as the person becomes a better reader.I would think that part of being a good reader is that youexercise, I mean it’s something that you do. It’s like any othertalent or skill that you have. You exercise it. You do it. Andyou know I would think in part it was because it reinforcesthe skill that you acquire. Hopefully, you continue developing,you continue using it to remain, you know, to maintain andeverything.

Similarly, with Chris and Michael:

� I think that the better the foundation of reading—the toolsof phonics that—and you work and you make yourself better atreading. (Chris)

� You make your reading skills strong and lasting the more youread. The more you read the better you read. (Michael)

Durability of the product: Bea talked about how skills have to be‘‘exercised’’ in order to improve, much like weight lifting. Theyalso need to be ‘‘reinforced.’’ Michael expects that strong read-ing skills will ‘‘last.’’ These metaphors provide important clues

5Reading educators commonly use this same manufactured product metaphor of‘‘constructing meaning’’ which attempts to explain the reading process as an active state

during which ‘meaning’—a thing—cannot be ‘made’ on behalf of another individual.

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of parents’ understanding that the manufacturing of a productrequires not just work but also, as predicted by Quinn’s discussionof marriage, ‘‘craftsmanship, durable material, good componentsthat have been put together well, and a whole that is structurallysound and substantially constructed’’ (Quinn, 1987, p. 175).

The durability of the product rests on the quality of mate-rials. Parents used a total of eight metaphors to emphasize thedurability, lastingness, and quality craftsmanship of the manu-factured product. The stronger the manufactured product, themore resistant is the product (and possessor of that product) todiminished quality:

� For myself, I know that solid phonics instruction made me astrong reader. And when my first child didn’t get it, he wasa weak reader and I had to teach him the phonics myself.(Virginia)

� I would really like my kids to have strong skills. (Peggy)

It is not only the skills that are strong. The skills createstrength in the individual. To ‘‘have strong skills’’ makes a ‘‘strong’’person.

� Phonics instruction really reinforces Seth as a reader. (Pamela)� Learning to read in this way will make her a stronger reader.

(Charlie)

Parents referred to their child’s reading instruction as the adventof a ‘‘strong’’ reader. Intellectually strong readers are, followingNeitzche, morally strong.

Destructibility of the Product: Without quality materials, themanufactured product is fragile. Two examples come from Kather-ine and Peggy, each describing their young children.

� I’m worried. I think she has weak prereading skills. (Katherine)� His letter recognition skills are shaky right now. (Peggy)

Both Katherine and Peggy use the plural ‘‘skills.’’ Parentsrarely referred to ‘‘skill’’ in the singular. In fact, it only occurredtwice. The plural works discursively to signify a lack of integra-tion, a lack of unity, a situation in which the product must be

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made strong and reliable—unified—through the assimilation of aseries of independently weak components. When assembled intoa cohesive unit, the product becomes strong, usable, and whole(as is discussed in part-to-whole reading instruction). Reading skillsare understood as something that novice readers must be taughtand improve upon to become more proficient readers.

Skills can weaken through neglect or they can decay, likeold bread.

Katherine: I think they [reading skills] can get rusty if you don’tpractice. I don’t know if your skills are worse if they’re justunrehearsed at that point.

SB: But they can get rusty.Katherine: You can get rusty. I don’t think you lose your skills. I think

they just get moldy.

Katherine initially refers to skills as they. I respond with they.Yet Katherine’s rejoinder shifts to you, and then back to they.Given this alteration, it is difficult to know where the skills andthe person begin and end (think back on the ‘‘strong’’ reader),much like the conflation of an artist with the art itself (technique,role in history). This implies that reading ‘‘skills’’ serve as ametonym for the person. Katherine’s conflation of a rusty personand moldy skills advances the idea that we think of the ‘‘moldy’’skills in relationship to a ‘‘rusty’’ person. Rusty people, like a rustymanufactured product, no longer have strength and durabilityand lack self-discipline, all signifying moral weakness. They’ve‘gone bad’ in common parlance.

In the following excerpt, Peggy’s husband, Carl, responds tomy question about why he gives books as birthday presents.

� The more things you read, I mean it’s a skill. Skills deteriorate.And when you’re developing a skill it’s good to have lots ofmaterials.

Carl initially uses the singular ‘‘skill’’ (the only parent toever use the singular), suggesting someone who might executethis particular practice, like a skilled pianist or a skilled archi-tect. Then, however, he immediately shifts to the plural ‘‘skills’’intimating that the execution of this practice requires a numberof coordinated aptitudes. This point becomes more evident as

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Carl uses four metaphors in a single sentence that exploit themanufactured product metaphor. First, he conceptualizes read-ing skills ontologically as concrete objects that can decompose(‘‘deteriorate’’), and decomposition is not the ideal state for astrong, whole manufactured product (the ‘‘skill’’). Strong man-ufactured products don’t just happen. They require effort thatinvolves gradual construction from something simple to some-thing elaborate. For that elaboration to occur, certain substances(‘‘materials’’) are necessary for what you are developing to be in-corporated into that product. The acquisition of those materialsis judged by a moral evaluation of the workmanship (‘‘good’’).Those materials aid in the process of strengthening and improv-ing the product as a whole. Further, Carl doesn’t just say materialsbut lots of materials—he is talking about manufacturing a strong,durable product/person.

Learning to Read Requires a Foundation

Carl: I’m worried that if he doesn’t have a strong foundation of phonicsthen as he gets older things will break down.

SB: What do you mean?Carl: I mean that if he doesn’t get the foundations first, then later on

his ability to read will collapse.

There is an obvious coherence between a manufacturedproduct and the creation of a building. Human beings buildhouses and other structures. Both the fixed structure and its partsas well as the act of building it ‘‘serve as common metaphoricalsource domains’’ (Kövecses, 2002, p. 17). For these parents,the part of the building they repeatedly referred to was thefoundation, what happens at ‘ground level.’ The Oxford EnglishDictionary (1989) defines a foundation as ‘‘the solid ground orbase (natural or built up) on which an edifice or other structureis erected (Volume VI, p. 120).’’6 Strong buildings, due to their

6Descartes (1984, volume 2) supports this definition. He wrote, ‘‘Throughout my

writings I made it clear that my method imitates that of an architect. When an architectwants to build a house which is stable on ground where there is a sandy topsoil over

underlying rock, or clay, or some other firm base, he begins by digging out a set oftrenches from which he removes the sand, and anything resting on or mixed in the

sand, so that he can lay his foundation on firm soil. In the same way, I began by takingeverything that was doubtful and throwing it out’’ (p. 366).

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foundations, are meant to last the test of time. For these reasons,foundational metaphors, associated with durability, are one ofthe most important classes of metaphors that epistemologistshave used for centuries to discuss the structure and validity ofknowledge. Like an architect who must build a house on afirm base—a term Marilyn used in an earlier example—so toomust the learner metaphorically build knowledge on a strongfoundation.

Parents in this study exploited the foundation metaphor intwo ways. First, they describe the child’s reading affect—aestheticappreciation and future learning:

� Even if the actual [reading] instruction is not occurring athome, the foundation, the attitude toward reading, the examplesetting, all is at home. (Carl)

� The desire to read is laid at home. (Jackie)� Reading and books communicate a whole foundation for their

value toward learning. (Bea)

The parents also used these foundational metaphors to de-scribe the processes of phonetic analysis. Laying foundations is aconventional metaphor that represents something as solid andwell done:

� I see him [his son] building on the foundation of the alphabet.(Grant)

� I am certain that my ability to read today is based on the foun-dations I got with phonics. (Marilyn)

Metaphors can hide certain aspects of a concept. In Marilyn’scase, the idea that phonics serves as a structural foundation dis-cursively functions to convince us that the reading behavior ofexpert readers (such as Marilyn) depends on how novice readersare taught to read. Further, metaphorically (and unconsciously)we think of ourselves as buildings standing erect (Lakoff, 2004).Parents may refer to a foundation of learning as if that learningwas external to the child, but the conjured image is that of thechild/building.

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3) Learning Reading Skills Is a Journey

Every parent in this study described learning how to read as ajourney.

� I think of learning to read as this kind of road, this path whereyou start by learning the letters and the sounds of those lettersand then you move on to blending those letters and sounds.(Virginia)

One of the best-studied metaphors—the journey metaphor—presents a fundamental organizing principle very familiar andquite salient to Western cultural thought (Fernandez, 1991) andmeaningless in some other cultures. The metaphorical expres-sions are based on a series of mappings (Kovesces, 2005):

Travelers ! people leading a life; motion along the way! leading a life; destination(s) of the journey ! purpose(s)of life; obstacles along the way ! difficulties of life; differentpaths to one’s destination ! different means of achieving one’spurpose(s) of life; distance covered along the way ! progressmade in life; locations along the way ! stages in life. Thesemappings are widely shared in the Western world and are evidentin the metaphors these parents use when talking about theirchildren’s reading ‘‘progress.’’ For Americans, it is important to‘have direction,’ desirable to have a ‘head start,’ and frustratingto ‘not get anywhere in life’ (Chilton and Lakoff, 1995).

Morality also involves goals and purposeful action. Action isseen as motion. Knowing what is true and right is metaphoricallyunderstood as location. Truth, for example, is ‘out there.’ Moralaction is understood as motion forward toward truth on a pre-scribed path within prescribed boundaries (Lakoff and Johnson,1980). There are two parts to this notion. The first demandsmotion forward, not backward. Forward is better than backward.We want to be ‘forward thinking’ and ‘moving forward;’ we abhora ‘backward population.’ Second, the path constrains the actor.Knowing what is morally right means heading directly toward it,the ‘true path.’ Immorality is understood as deviating from theright track onto a ‘false path.’ (For example, taking a false step,beating around the bush, move away from the truth, on the roadto ruin, or getting off track.)

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The logic of choosing paths, argue Lakoff and Johnson, isthat transgressors are considered deviants and dangerous to soci-ety. They lead others astray and create new paths to navigate. Thisblurs the transparent and prescribed socially accepted bound-aries of right and wrong. Paths chosen are life paths, and ‘‘ifmorality is seen as going along a particular path, then deviatingfrom that path can be seen as entering an immoral life’’ (Lakoff,1996b, p. 85).

While there have been several reformations to Lakoff andJohnson’s (1980) original proposition, Lakoff’s (1993) final rep-resentation that ‘‘purposeful activity is traveling along a pathtowards a destination’’ is the most useful. The use of the verbof motion highlights movement and the use of a destinationhighlights goal-orientation. It captures the American middle-classpreoccupation with purposeful ends and making something ofoneself (Johnson, 1993; see also Belah et al., 1985/1996, espe-cially pages 65–71). For Americans, choosing a particular pathin one’s life, a ‘‘direction,’’ can determine the rest of one’s life.In other words, Americans tend to be concerned with ultimatedestinations. Unquestionably, middle class Americans are pre-occupied with establishing a direction or setting goals.7 In ourculture, mental activities such as learning to read result in somedeterminate outcome of the path schema:

� I like the fact that—there’s all sorts of directions you can gowhen you learn to read, possible ways that can get you intotrouble if you, or the teacher, isn’t careful. I really am im-pressed that Max’s teacher keeps the class on track. They stayon course. They started out learning a letter a week, and nowthey’re putting letters together. And she doesn’t let them getside tracked. (Eleanor)

Since the manufactured object metaphor involves achievinga purposeful end product, the parents often coupled the journeymetaphor with the manufactured object metaphor. Describinghow her daughter is learning to read, Marilyn says:

7(See, for example, the popular books A Purpose Driven Life and The 7 Habits of

Highly Effective People.)

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� I think it’s kind of an ongoing process. I think she’s really makingstrides in terms of recognizing the letters, putting the lettersounds together as a word.

Parents describe the moral journey of reading in a variety ofways. Sometimes they addressed the journey with concern. Thatis, their children were not proceeding according to plan:

� The teacher is introducing letters and sounds so quickly. Thingsare going too fast for her. They’ve covered so much of that mate-rial so quickly that she can’t follow what’s going on. I’m afraidthat she’s lost and won’t be able to catch up. (Eleanor)

‘‘Cover’’ is a frequent metaphor in educational discourse.It is derived from an understanding that paths of a journey area surface (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). In this case, knowledge(the material) is the landscape across which the learning journeytravels.

Natalie used journey metaphors in relation to her common-sense understanding of decoding, where the journey starts withletter recognition:

Natalie: I’m worried that his teacher doesn’t seem to teach phonics atall.

SB: Why does that worry you?Natalie: Because with learning to read, you have to have a good start. And

he’s in kindergarten and this is where you learn things like thealphabet and phonics and things like how to sound out words.I just don’t want him to get off in the wrong direction.

Below, both Jackie and Natalie describe the classic Americansuccess story, albeit their children are only five.

� I like the fact that John is learning to read in a step-by-stepway. His teacher is introducing a letter a week, and so far she’sintroduced about half the alphabet. It’s slower than I thoughtit would be but he’ll get there. He’s a hard worker. (Jackie)

� He brought home a real simple book to read and he actuallycould sound out all the words. We were both so excited. He’son his way to reading. (Natalie)

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Why do I describe their examples as success stories? Becausein Western culture, particularly for the American middle-class,achieving the good life requires ambitions and goals. While am-bitions and goals are not expressed by the children in this study,they are certainly expressed on behalf of the children by theirparents.

In addition, success for Americans has long been a moral goal(Robertson, 1980). Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, and Tipton(1985) point out that, ‘‘In the true sense of the term, the middle-class is defined not merely by the desire of material betterment,but by a conscious, calculating effort to move up the ladder ofsuccess’’ (p. 148). Morality concerns promote the well-being ofoneself and of others. Well-being can be attained through one’sindividual actions directed toward that goal. In other words, itis a moral act to reach one’s goals or work toward solutions. Pamela,a special education teacher, provides a useful example of thisreasoning:

� I think that reading’s pretty important to success. It bringssuccess. It’s certainly the way to success. Reading is Seth’s accessroad to doing anything in his life. What he does in schooldoesn’t necessarily reflect what kids need in society, but he hasto do it. Especially reading. And especially now, now that’s he’sin kindergarten. I know what happens to kids in kindergartenand first grade who couldn’t read, who couldn’t take a simpleword and sound it out. Who can’t take a word like ‘‘cat’’ andput the letters together. I mean, if you think about it in thelong term, these are the first steps along the road to reading,to the road of success. Seth understands that these words saysomething and he will be able to figure it out. It’s a crucialfirst step. But there are these other kids who don’t get theseskills early. They can’t figure it out. I end up getting them.And they’re lost on this path of reading. They’re totally side-tracked. Because of a learning disability or a lousy teacher, orsomething. You know, the kid’s self concept is so wrapped upin their reading ability once they’re anywhere into the schoolprogram, they start thinking of themselves a successful peopleor not successful people. Reading is the access road. Seth’s notgoing to be a construction worker. His deal has more to do withcommunication. If you’re going to be into communication,

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you’d better be able to get a hand on what’s the major aspectof communication. And that’s reading. And so we work onit at home. Every day. For about an hour. If he can’t get it,he’ll just be barred from a lot of things in life. You just won’tgo anywhere.

The conscious desire for their children to achieve somefuture success played out many times in the journey metaphorsparents used to describe their children’s beginning reading. Butit was not always positive. These children were young enoughthat most had not met explicit school failure. In the next exam-ple, Marilyn uses this example to make a point about her owndaughter:

� I just want Theresa to start out on the right foot. My sister hadlearning disabilities, and no one knew about it for the longesttime. So learning to read was a very bumpy road for her. Ithink her teachers were frustrated. Everyone was frustrated.She wasn’t going anywhere for the longest time.

As Marilyn indicates, goals in life are destinations. Difficultiesin life—metaphorically understood as people, things, or objects(Johnson, 1993)—are impediments to be overcome toward themotion of reaching that destination.

But the journey metaphor is not only about the ‘‘bumpyroad’’ toward the destination. Journey metaphors are parables(Quinn, 1991) designed to teach people the importance of over-coming difficulties in order to reach the destination. Overcomingadversity is not only warranted but also morally honorable, evenheroic. The actions one takes in life are self-propelled move-ments, and the totality of one’s actions form a path one movesalong. Preferred paths are action-paths which lead to sanctionedends or purposes (destinations) that are considered to lead towell-being. These paths are usually considered ‘straight and nar-row’ which leaves little leeway for deviation if one hopes to reachthe required destination (ends). Recall Pamela’s previous com-ments about her son: ‘‘Reading is the access road. Seth’s not goingto be a construction worker.’’

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Marilyn’s remarks about her sister went on to say:

� I suspect that she got off track at the very beginning. That’swhy I think learning to read was so difficult for her. It still is.She doesn’t choose to read. And she really isn’t going anywhere.That’s why I think it’s really important for Theresa to have agood foundation in reading and to stay on track.

Marilyn’s metaphor is derived from actual railroad trackswhich are in fact narrow. Any deviation from those tracks isdisastrous, a train wreck.

Virginia has spent (and spends) much time teaching herchild to read:

Virginia: Teaching her sounds when she was in preschool gave her ahead start for reading.

SB: Why did you do that?Virginia: Because with my other kids, I didn’t do that. And they got off

in the wrong direction. And I didn’t want her to start off in thewrong direction.

As Virginia’s metaphors reveal, deviation keeps a person fromrealizing his or her essential nature as an autonomous moralagent.

Hierarchical organization is a prominent feature of suchconceptual metaphors. LEARNING READING SKILLS IS AJOURNEY is descended from the educational ‘‘learning is ajourney’’ metaphor where knowledge objects reside at variouslocations on the knowledge terrain. Students move across thisenvironment, ‘‘picking up’’ skills until they reach their finaldestination (and become expert or proficient readers, writers,mathematicians, etc.).

Implicit in this version of the journey metaphor is that thereis a correct route on the journey. In other words, one travels aset path in learning to read; you don’t just amble around in thelandscape. The LEARNING READING SKILLS IS A JOURNEYmetaphor maps the ontology of travel onto the ontology of skills.When parents do this, they map the above scenario about travelonto a corresponding learning scenario.

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� When I think of Theresa [daughter] now, she’s mastered letterrecognition which I think is basic. She’s got that. I think she’sdoing well with : : : you know, I think of it as a progressionactually. One is better than the other but as you master oneand you go to the next, they build on each other until finallyyou get to point Y. I think there are things that build on eachother that hopefully happen in a kind of natural progression.(Marilyn)

� Once he learns these skills, Seth will be further along. He’ll becloser to really starting to read. Then as he goes on, he’ll pick uplots of others skills along the way, and in the end, that will reallymake him a solid reader. (Pamela)

� Justin’s teacher explained that focused instruction on readingskills like phonetic [sic] awareness will move her class towardsreading. (Lisa)

In nearly all of the examples, parents described children asactive, or potentially active, agents in the journey. That actionsare considered deliberate (not passive) suggests a very Americancultural theme of individual action.

4) Learning Reading Skills Moves Upwards

The linear trajectory of the journey is not enough to expressthe understandings parents have about how children learn toread. The journey metaphor is frequently coupled with a verticaltrajectory in the form of the orientational metaphor LEARNINGREADING SKILLS MOVES UPWARDS.

� Learning to read is all about breaking all the skills into parts,and then starting from the simplest letter and slowly buildingup. (Gwen)

� Seth’s teacher says that he’s the top reader in the class, far aboveanyone else. (Pamela)

Sometimes, as in the case of Gwen, the upward ascension isimplicitly understood in terms of a building built upon a founda-tion. (It would be useful to reread the foundation metaphors tosee the number of foundation-building examples.) Therefore,

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the upward trajectory, like the building metaphors, not onlyrefers to the skill but once again indirectly indexes the child.Chilton (1996) has noted that the source domain of a buildingis common in Western languages, especially in the form of ahouse:

Phonics is the foundation that she’ll use to build up her reading. (Eleanor)

In other instances, as in the case of Pamela, parents usethe up-down metaphor without the building metaphor.8 Verticalmetaphors are a powerful way by which most humans representreality. Being ‘‘higher’’ is universally viewed as being more desir-able (Schwartz, 1981).9 Goodness is being upright. Badness is be-ing low. Positive aspects of life and well-being such as happiness,health, success, and normal daily activities (e.g., mental highs)are linguistically expressed in terms of up, while negative aspectsof life are expressed in terms of down (e.g., mental lows). It isdifficult if not impossible for most people to imagine somethinggood as being low and something bad as being up. We stand upto evil. We would not stoop so low as to participate in such anactivity. Levi-Strauss argued long ago, there is ‘‘an image of theworld which is already inherent in the structure of the mind’’(p. 341). Schwartz (1981), quoting Marshall Sahlins, argues thatvertical coding illustrates the transformation of nature into cul-ture, ‘‘the essential cultural act of making a moral and psychicorder out of a natural order’’ (Sahlins, 1977, p. 177).

Using the source domain of standing, Lakoff and Johnson(1999) state that being upright requires strength; when oneis healthy and in control, one is typically upright. Followingthis, moral uprightness, like the manufactured and foundationmetaphors, also requires strength. ‘‘Moral uprightness is under-stood in terms of physical uprightness’’ (Lakoff and Johnson,1999, p. 299). In the journey metaphor, progress takes place in

8So pervasive is the use of this metaphor that its use ranges anywhere from emotions(‘‘I’m feeling up/down today’’) to religion (God/Heaven is up; The devil/Hell is down).

9Up is good and down is bad is central to the Christian and Jewish cosmos. God is

up; humans are below God; the dead are below us. The central doctrine of Christianity,

for example, is that God CAME DOWN/humbled himself to live among humans as ahuman in order to redeem/RAISE UP a FALLEN creation. Neither the books nor the

creeds of Christianity even make sense without up being good and down bad.

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stages toward a predetermined goal. But it is better when thatjourney includes a vertical ascension. The upward trajectory liesat the heart of the foundational metaphor and has an unstatedmoral component that is unconsciously understood.

As a group, the parents drew upon the vertical orientationalmetaphor (in conjunction, when appropriate, with the journeymetaphor) to describe the nature of their children’s readingprogress:

� Based on what I’ve seen of other children his age, Daniel’sskills are really up there. (Grant)

� I don’t think her class is spending enough time with learningphonics. If they would I’m sure it would raise her skill level.(Katherine)

This metaphor exploits the earlier metaphors of moralstrength being up and correlates with power and control overone’s body or some thing.

‘‘Bad is down’’ was a metaphorical expression the parentsused, although not about their own children, possibly becausetheir children were all so young and had not yet met failure(although a few were ‘‘struggling’’). Parents spoke about otherchildren in this way, or about their own history, or that of some-one else they knew, such as a friend or relative.

Referring to the lack of phonics instruction, Virginia said:

Virginia: I’ve seen people’s reading really fall.SB: Why? What happened?Virginia: Like my nephew. He’s in high school now and really struggles

with reading. And I told my sister, when he was young, hedidn’t have the foundation he needed.

SB: Foundation in what?Virginia: Phonics. Letters and sounds. Sounding things out.SB: So he didn’t have phonics when he was young.Virginia: No, he was taught the whole word approach and it seemed okay

at the beginning because he memorized words. But he neverwas taught how to sound out words, so later on his readingability just dropped. And the further he was in school, the moreand more he fell behind.

Education discourse in general, but noticeably reading ped-agogy, is linguistically organized, understood, and reasoned in

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terms of this vertical projection. Classroom teachers and adminis-trators talk about high and low readers, top students, and children,as Virginia notes using both the vertical and journey metaphors,who are falling behind. Educators refer to getting test scores up andbecome concerned when those scores drop. Successful childrenare promoted into a higher grade, eventually into high school, andthen higher education. These metaphors are compelling ways tothink about success; they are so built into our syntax that it isnearly impossible for most of us to think about the ideas theyrepresent in any other way. From this perspective, reading skillsare understood as a commodity of the individual. As the skillsimprove, the child (along with the skills) moves up a verticaltrajectory.

Reflecting back on her own schooling, Katherine states:

� We had kids in the class who were reading at—kids got passedfrom grade to grade whether they learned to read or not. Soyou ended up with kids in high school who were barely literate.They were reading at a very low level.

Pamela, the special education teacher, was particularly wor-ried about her son, Seth.

� I have seen this happen with a lot of the low kids I end up get-ting. Without a foundation in phonics—that he knows letter-sounds correspondences—he’s not going to know how to soundout anything. And the older he gets, and the further the otherkids move ahead with reading, he’ll just fall more and morebehind.

5) Skills Require Individual Control

Once a particular reading skill or skills are learned, parents com-monly refer to that learned knowledge as having been mastered.Mastery shifts our conceptualization of learning from somethingin process to a presumption of domination.

� I think of it as a progression actually and not necessarily thatone is better than the other but as you master one you can goonto the next. (Grant)

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� You need to have those kinds of things mastered. (Katherine)

The source domain derives from physiological control andmetaphorically extends to possession in a variety of ways:

� Learning to read requires mastering and then controlling a lotof skills, and once you own those skills, you’re ready to go.(Pamela)

� It’s not just about knowing skills to read. You have to own them,possess them. (Virginia)

The metaphor SKILLS REQUIRE CONTROL conveys howthe ‘‘rational, moral self must bring the bodily, sensuous selfunder control’’ (Johnson, 1996, p. 50) in order to do the ‘rightthing.’ It is a metaphor inextricably (though not explicitly) linkedwith LEARNING READING SKILLS MOVES UPWARDS. Con-trol, linked to well-being and strength, is up (Kövecses, 2002;Lakoff, 1996a; 1996b; 2004; Lakoff and Johnson, 1999).

At the end of the effort of learning to read, not only isone’s ability revealed, so is one’s character. Just as people arenot born strong—physical and moral strength must be built—so, too, must the skills of learning to read be built. (Marie Clay,for example, subtitled Becoming Literate as ‘‘The construction ofinner control.’’) The effort involved emerges as a source of pridefor both parents and children.

The metaphor of controlling (‘‘mastering’’) reading skillsdenotes that their acquisition simultaneously contributes to theacquisition of a form of morality. It is more than merely ‘knowing’a skill and applying it. Parents think mastering a reading skillinvolves willpower, conflict, strength of character, and characterbuilding. As Pamela states:

� Learning to read requires mastering and then controlling a lotof skills, and once you own those skills, you’re ready to go.

To master reading skills, in the manner presented by theseparents, is also a metaphor of self-discipline, self-management,and individual power over oneself, cultural ideologies centralto the neoliberalism prominent in the United States where in-dividual autonomy is represented in terms of personal power

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138 S. Bialostok

and fulfillment. In Aristotelian (and moral) terms, it is achievingone’s telos. Children are thought to be ‘‘mastering’’ reading, butalso mastering oneself:

� He gets these little books to bring home to read and when hedoes I know he’s got his phonics all under control. (Jackie)

It is Jackie’s son’s ability to learn to read acts that acts as thesimultaneous implementation of self-control. Jackie also framesthese actions in terms of her son’s individual responsibility, asdoes Pamela. It is easy to understand mastery of reading skills,following Foucault (1977), as a technology of moral training, theinculcation of particular habits of self-regulation.

When considering the metaphor of mastering a reading skill,two general understandings come to mind:

1. To master anything requires one to conform completely toan established rule, principle, or condition. Something that ismastered is absolute because it is kept within narrowly spec-ified limits. Therefore, mastering reading skills involves theassertion that some aspect or rule of knowledge about readingcan be absolutely confirmed, thoroughly known, and demon-strated.

2. Mastery also implies power where there is rigorous and strin-gent imposition of enforced discipline. Examples that cometo mind are a slave master, or, less strident, master of thehousehold.

But what precisely is being ‘‘mastered’’? Johnson (1993)discusses the ‘‘moral law folk theory’’ where moral character isconceived of as principally a matter of control:

Since our physical, desiring self is strong and nonrational and manifestsinsatiable longing, it takes a strong, powerful moral will to control it.An incessant struggle ensues between these warring faculties, and one’scharacter is revealed in the outcome of this conflict. Moral virtue requiresa strong will that hears the call of reason and can bring the passions undercontrol. (p. 50)

That ‘‘struggle’’ is evidenced by some parents who describedreading skills as opponents:

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� She’s wrestling with learning her sound (Eleanor)� She struggles with it everyday. I’m as frustrated as she is.

(Eleanor)

Just as in the physical world one must be strong to defeat orconquer something (evil), these parents often used the metaphorof lack of control as a sign of weakness of individual effort.This metaphor further captures an aspect of the cultural modelwhere reading skills can be understood as an enemy that mustbe conquered. This is related to a variation of the famous ‘‘war’’metaphor. In this instance, ‘‘Learning to read is war.’’

What follows is a parent’s response to what ‘‘struggling’’ withreading meant:

Jackie: I know he’s young, but David is already struggling with reading.SB: What do you mean by he’s struggling with reading?Jackie: I mean that he’s really having a hard time sounding out words.

And he has to conquer that before he can read.

Pamela also uses a series of opposition metaphors.

SB: You said that Seth is starting to read.Pamela: Yes.SB: But that he was having some difficulty.Pamela: Well, yes. It’s a full day class. And I just didn’t see him learning

anything. He was really fighting, resisting for the longest time.SB: Resisting what?Pamela: Resisting focusing on sounding things out. At first, he just

wanted to look at the pictures and guess the words. But hefinally stopped fighting it and—I have to say, I was really proudof him. He forced himself to learn it.

At first, the force to be controlled is external. Then, Pameladescribes Seth as the force to be controlled. The internal forcerequires self-control (He forced himself), and the externalforce (stopped fighting it) requires something else. What does‘‘stopped fighting’’ this mean?

� I think of it as a progression actually and not necessarily thatone is better than the other but as you master one you can goonto the next. (Grant)

� You need to have those kinds of things mastered. (Katherine)

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140 S. Bialostok

Discussion and Conclusion

The linguistic evidence demonstrates there is recurring system ofmetaphors that parents in my study used to talk about beginningreading. Those metaphors signal a cultural model of beginningreading that indirectly indexes morality. To be sure, the rela-tively small number of participants in this study is a limitation,and further research may shed more light on this matter. Thatsaid, it is remarkable how this group of parents, despite thediversity of their self-designated middle-class status and withoutknowing each other, never voiced a single alternate or contradic-tory metaphor. Of course, not every parent used all metaphorsdescribed here, and some metaphors were more common thanothers. However, that these metaphors are limited and were re-peated by virtually all the parents indicate that they ‘fit’ intoa coherent and logical system of thought. This coherence wasamplified when speakers combined two or more of them at once:

� If she’s going to be a strong (manufactured product) readerwith skills really up there (good is up), she’s got to have a strongbasis (manufactured product; foundation) in her letters. That’sthefoundation (foundation). (Marilyn)

� At our conference, his teacher says that he’s already struggling(mastery). He’s already lagging behind (journey). She spent a lotof the conference showing me how to reinforce (manufacturedproduct) what she’s teaching him at school. (Pamela)

The cultural model involves a series of coherent metaphors:manufacturing, foundation, upwardness, and control, all involv-ing strength. Strength is also implied in the journey metaphorfor one could not ‘go forward’ without it. The journey metaphoradds to strength by providing purpose.

This systematic use of metaphors indicates that, while cultureis by no means static, public discourses concerning how childrenlearn to read are ‘‘relatively stable, consistent, and extremelypowerful’’ (Author, 2002). Language does not emerge in iso-lation, but rather is ‘‘embedded in larger shared and publicpractices’’ (Lankshear, 1997, p. 23). These parents’ systematicpattern of usage further explicates an inextricable connectionbetween learning to read and morality.

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The link between reading and morality should not be alto-gether surprising. Historically, literacy has been linked in a vari-ety of ways to morality (see Graff, 1979; Cook-Gumpertz, 1986).In fact, Soltow and Stevens (1981) claim that by 1850, readinghad become a virtue in and of itself, and the good child wasdistinguished from the bad child in part by the ability to read.Especially relevant is Sylvia Scribner’s discussion of the metaphor‘‘literacy as a state of grace’’ where she echoes Soltow and Stevenby describing how many societies bestow upon the literate person‘‘a special set of virtues’’ (p. 13). She further notes that ‘‘Aristotleand Plato both strove to distinguish the man of letters from thepoet of oral tradition’’ (p. 13). And, of course, with Michael Cole,Scribner spent a career refuting the commonly held moral claimthat literacy in and of itself marks the divide between primitiveand civilized (Scribner and Cole, 1981).

These enormously influential culturally historic ideologiesabout reading and morality live on and are played out in themetaphors we use to talk about children’s reading. From NoChild Left Behind to the popular media, discussions about il-literacy incite ‘‘moral panics’’ (Cohen, 1972). This article hasdemonstrated how these moral understandings about readinghave found their way into our everyday language, imbued withcultural understandings of the nature of reading itself. Literacysuccess is generally viewed as the key to a successful future. Forthese parents, reading and the process of learning to read areconsidered intellectual virtues that develop character and habitsthat will allow children to achieve excellence, their telos, and tobecome better, more complete human beings.

Cultural models are highly motivating (Strauss andD’Andrade, 1992). These parents, quite naturally, care deeplyabout their children’s ability to read and will act (and celebrateand worry) in relationship to this cultural model. More broadly,as parents, they care about their children’s lives—their characterand well-being. Of course, there are many ways these parents canand presumably will facilitate their child’s well-being. However, inour society, learning to read is deemed one of the most importantmeans to that end. The parents build upon folk wisdom, acultural model, of learning to read in order to construct anaspect of their child’s morality. It is not a model that can bearticulated consciously, is rational, disengaged, mechanistic, or

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142 S. Bialostok

literal. Instead, the model is largely unconscious and metaphoric.The parents selected and reasoned with metaphors to explain thismodel, metaphors that indirectly index forms of well-being thathave long been philosophically associated with morality. Withthese (reading) tools in hand, children will be prepared to goout into the world, using literacy to guide their lives for thegood, and to resist evil and temptation. Following the old saying,‘‘knowledge is power,’’ so it is with reading.

While parents may not have better metaphors at their dis-posal, educators do. Reading teachers will recognize many of themetaphors the parents used to describe their children’s learn-ing as those teachers also use.10 These metaphors, however, areso pedagogically ambiguous they provide no information abouta child, nor can they inform instruction. More important, themetaphors draw from an American cultural model that places theindividual child at the moral center, the one who must individ-ually shoulder the entire burden of failure or success. Learningis conceptualized as a private matter, encompassing individualaccomplishments and possessions.11

Given the moral weight these metaphors carry, can our taken-for-granted understanding of the child’s reading ‘‘skills’’ func-tion, as I suggested throughout, as a metonym for the actualchild? As Lakoff and Johnson (1980) point out, when we thinkof a Picasso, we aren’t just thinking of a work of art, in and ofitself, but ‘‘we think of it in terms of its relation to the artist’’(p. 39). It is an easy extension from ‘‘Johnny has a problem withreading’’ to ‘‘Johnny is the problem.’’ How short a leap is itfrom being a ‘‘high reader’’ to a good person, or from beingdescribed as a low reader with low skills to being an immoralchild?

10A common metaphor used by reading educators is ‘‘balance,’’ as in ‘‘balancedreading’’ or a ‘‘balanced reading program.’’ While the expression itself has several

meanings, all related to beginning reading instruction, the metaphor balance derivesfrom a ‘‘Moral Accounting Metaphor’’ (Lakoff, 1996; Lakoff and Johnson, 1999). Here,

‘‘an action of moral import is conceptualized in terms of a financial transaction, witha moral interaction being metaphorically equivalent to a financial transaction, one in

which the books are balanced’’ (p. 45).11The MIND IS A CONTAINER metaphor makes it clear that the parents operate

from the longstanding ‘learning is acquisition’ cultural model rather than, say, a‘‘communities of practice model’’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991) where learning takes place

in participation frameworks, not in the heads of individuals.

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Appendix

TABLE 1 Categories of Metaphors with Salient Examples

Source domain Quantity Metaphors Example

Manufacturedproduct—act ofbuilding

38 together, putting,adding, reinforce,maintain, make, partof, assimilate

I’m giving him theletter which is reallyjust a little piece ofit, but has to put thetwo pieces of the puzzletogether in thin air.

Manufacturedproduct—durability

8 solid, strength, strong I know that solidphonics instructionmade me a strongreader.

Manufacturedproduct—perishable

5 moldy, shaky, weak,deteriorate, rusty,fall apart

His letter recognitionskills are a littleshaky right now.

Buildings 4 foundation, structure,setting, laid, build(manufacturedproduct?)

The desire to read islaid at home.

Journey—object oftravel

23 road, path, course,track, way

He’s on his way toreading.

Journey—state ofmotion

3 bumpy, fast, slow The teacher isintroducing lettersand sounds soquickly. Things aregoing too fast for her.

Journey—negativeprogress

13 side-tracked, off, lost,wrong direction, goanywhere, go slower

I just don’t want himto get off in the wrongdirection.

Journey—positiveProgress

29 so far, making strides,move forward, onhis way, on track,stepping along,toward, ongoing,progression, furtheralong, go to thenext, go on, getthere, in the end,covered, start out

That’s why I think it’sreally important forTheresa to have agood foundation inreading and to stayon track.

Vertical classification 13 up, top, raise, fall,dropped, above,below, low

Based on what I’veseen of otherchildren his age,Daniel’s skills arereally up there.

Control 21 master, control, own,possess, wrestle,struggle, conquer,fight, resist, force

Learning to readrequires masteringand then controllinga lot of skills.

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144 S. Bialostok

TABLE 2 Protocol for Semi-structured Interviews

� What are your earliest memories of learning to read?� What are your memories of how you learned to read or were taught to

read? Do you recall a method?� Any memories of a relative learning to read?� Describe how you think your child is learning to read? How does it happen?� What do you know about what is happening with reading instruction in

your child’s classroom?� Does the teacher talk with you about your child’s reading? What does

she/he say?� What do you know about your child’s teacher’s method for teaching

reading?� What kind of reading homework does your child get? What do you think

about it?� What do you notice about your child’s reading at home?� How would you describe what is happening with your child’s reading at the

moment?� What do you think is particularly important to teach a child in order to

read?� Is there anything particularly important for your child (or any child) to

know or understand in order to read?� How do you think children become better readers? What happens?� Is it possible for your child (or any child) to become a worse reader? How

do you think that might happen?� Have you ever known anyone who had trouble reading or learning to read?

Describe it.� Have you ever tried to teach you child to read? Describe what you did.� Are there ways you support your child’s reading at home?

Acknowledgments

The author is very grateful to Carole Edelsky, Rudi Gaudio, andthe CILS anonymous reviewers for their important and usefulinsights on earlier drafts of this article.

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