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Written by hauch on 2024-11-27 at 17:06

In my experience, one of the biggest cause for misconceptions about "autistic literal thinking" is the implication and sometimes even assumption, that words have inherent meaning.

Words in their most basic definition are just sounds associated with meaning.

The same or a similar sound can have a widely different meaning in different languages, or even in the same language.

So metaphors are just another meaning, another association with a sound, that can be made.

@actuallyautistic

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Written by hauch on 2024-11-27 at 17:10

@actuallyautistic This means, that an autistic person can, in theory, learn a metaphor first and learn the "literal meaning" later.

Would they have trouble understanding and learning that metaphor, if they learned it the same way, as a "literal meaning"?

It might sound like a rhetorical question, that shouldn't require an anwer, but I think surprisingly many people would give the "wrong" answer, if not presented in such an obvious way, especially "diagnosticians" from what I've heard.

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Written by Not a certified biri-biri technician on 2024-11-27 at 17:09

@hauchvonstaub @actuallyautistic

That is why "thinking in words" doesn't make any sense.

There has to be some actual mental processing before words are formed, otherwise we would only generate sentences that sound good, irrespective if they actually relate to reality.

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Written by Lukyan on 2024-11-27 at 17:30

@hauchvonstaub @actuallyautistic This might be more of an ESL experience, but there are so many phrases which seem to have literal meanings (based on the contained words), but I see them used only as metaphors. I usually won't write them without first checking a dictionary.

This is in Internet contexts where I'm likely just a reader, and I get no negative feedback for not knowing what a phrase is expected to mean.

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Written by Goiterzan/Amygdalai Lama on 2024-11-27 at 17:41

@lukyan @hauchvonstaub @actuallyautistic

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all language is metaphor, something people find out when they learn a second one, it’s all closer to the imagery of poetry than anything technical. I think I’m paraphrasing Joseph Campbell. He made examples of translations from English to Chinese or Japanese to show. I suppose is going to be some disconnect between the reality and our words for it, words are smaller than things, you’re going to lose something.

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An example, “the upper hand.” No-one says that literally, I wouldn’t even know what it means literally. It means, having the power, the advantage and so the agency in a conflict. 😇

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Mansplaining, sorry, nvm

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Written by Lukyan on 2024-11-27 at 17:59

@punishmenthurts @hauchvonstaub @actuallyautistic Yes: "literal" meanings are usually old references to something. I did have the problem in school literature classes that "metaphors" were only specific approved memes, not every literal metaphor.

Seeing "the upper hand", I see so many both literal and figurative movie scenes of someone falling but being held by another. Sometimes the upper hand is literally a set of paws. And the words for a hand might be metaphors for reaching or gaining.

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