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Clean Language: A Linguistic-Experiential Phenomenology

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Clean language: A linguistic-experiential phenomenology

by Ian Rory Owen, Copyright 1996.

First published in 1996 as Clean language: A linguistic-experiential phenomenology. In A.-T.

Tymieniecka (Ed.) Life in the glory of its radiating manifestations, 25th anniversary publication,
Book I, Analecta Husserliana, Vol. 48. (pp. 271-297). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.

Introduction

Since 1984, the psychotherapist David Grove has been developing a form of therapy based on
cognitive linguistics, which is also phenomenological (Grove 1991, Grove & Panzer 1989, Owen
1989, 1991). The therapy seeks to explore subjective experiences in a descriptive manner by
attending to specific phrases and making them less abstract. In doing this, it facilitates clients to
explore and experience memories, meaning, speech and psychosomatic events. Grove's method is
called clean language, which seeks to elicit the relations between speech and lived experience. In
this study, clean language is applied to make a reproducible method for phenomenologists as this
new procedure adheres to many phenomenological first principles. The method reveals the place of
metaphor and metonymy as possible connections between language and lived experience. The word
metaphor refers to synchronic intentionality and metonymy refers to metaphors and the
accompanying awareness and aims evolving through time. This study also defines an adjunct to
Husserl and other phenomenologists’ methods. For those who wish to overcome some of the
limitations of Husserl's own psychological and transcendental methods, and create their own
procedures for phenomenological study, it is an example to others.
One of the abilities that distinguish humans from animals is our advanced ability to use a
regular pattern of noises to speak and hear, for the use of tools, the organization of relationships and
trade. Meaning is in everything we do and see. Meaning is the "signifying effect" of language. That
is, language enables us to understand and make sense of each other, and the non-verbal world,
which is inherently distinct from it, as it is assumed that the interaction of meaning is in actions and
experiences themselves, and is connected to words and thoughts.
Taking Husserl's opposition to abstractions, simplifications, false dualities and
misrepresentations in expositions, introductions and interpretations, which also applies to the
discourses on phenomenology, existentialism and deconstruction; this paper proposes a return to
what I read into, and out of, Husserl's thought (Husserl 1971). The 1927 definition of
phenomenology for The Encyclopaedia Britannica was written with help from Martin Heidegger
and follows approximately seven months after the publication of Being and time. In this wide-
ranging definition, phenomenology is presented as intellectually informed, but egalitarian,
experiential and capable of being tightly defined in both its psychological and transcendental forms.
The definition is, therefore, "anti-intellectual" in method. Intellectuals frequently become lost in
language, running from signifiers to signifieds and back again. The circular constructions of
semantics sending readers round and round, as there is no journey end in phenomenology,
philosophy, or the definitions of language. One of the basic points of psychological and
transcendental phenomenology is to re-situate all meanings and practices back into the real
experience of specific people, in contexts of time and place, so making all abstract semantics
experiential self-evident truths once more.
As we know there are many impossible contradictions within Husserl's thought. It is
impossible to separate pure psyche from the purely transcendent. Also, apperceptive reflection can
be increased, there is always some residual intersubjective engagement with the other and world,
which cannot be eradicated. As Husserl conceded, there is "no other way of contemplating the
world than the teleological", (Husserl, 1971, p 89/90). It is impossible to give pure descriptions
without interpreting intentional objects or acts; intentional objects and acts are fused into one
phenomenon, as no objects can be interpreted and understood apart from them, in the specific ways
in which they can be known in culture, society and the individual. So, the relation between subject
and object in the human sciences is not objective. Researchers have a vested interest in proving
their own stance and this often obscures alternative interpretations about what could be happening.
All knowledge about what exists is created by taking a certain perspective, erecting and frequently
imposing metaphysical claims, imposing meanings, categories, and assuming first principles. When
one tries to analyze one's own assumptions, it becomes easier to see in what ways the phenomena
under observation are being shaped by one's own perspective. Husserl was an idealist who could not
overcome his own blindspots to his inconsistencies. But this is not a failure. It is a stepping-stone
for progress. But, there is no need for a post-phenomenology, despite this inability of the method to
live up to its original claims and ideals. Phenomenology as originally conceived is self-reflexive
and self-critical. It is always heading towards intellectual, spiritual, the development of self and
community. The failures of the Husserlian ideal, do not mean the failure of the project, or reflect on
the quality and correctness, in my view, of these ideals.

The aim of clean language

Grove's therapy uses an awareness of the interconnection between speech and what it can do in
changing the meanings of a person's lived experience. Grove calls this phenomenological approach
clean language, which is the use of bland repetitive questions which create a synchronic and
diachronic phenomenology that produces alive, metaphorical and metonymic answers from
ordinary speech. Repetitive questioning elicits clients' meanings and experiences in the forms and
structures of English, along with the associated subjective experiences. The psychotherapy starts by
ascertaining how the answerer's desire or conscious teleology feels blocked and where it wants to
flow. Clean language is a phenomenology which can be outlined by the seven points below. The
comments above are based on a conglomeration of several writings (Bernet, Kern and Marbach,
1993, Husserl 1971, Schmitt 1971, p. 19;). The clean language process is phenomenological
because:-
1. Bracketing and purification are achieved by the exclusion of the current assumptions, beliefs and
other matters is for the questioner in starting afresh. Although all experiences and methods are
inevitably perspectival; clean language assumes a minimum of presuppositions, biases, prejudices,
and excludes the expectations of the questioner.
2. Reflection on intentional awareness and aims are also attended to by the method. Clean language
phenomenology requires answerers to change from direct non-reflective involvement with the
world, to a reflection about everything and anything. The nature of the intentional acts of the other
are clarified and form the sole focus for questions. A process of questioning is used to elicit how
another person perceives, interprets and imposes their representations of the world in language and
lived experience, within their body and mind.
3. The psychological phenomena produced are accepted as pure psychic verbal representations of
phenomena, and are not interpreted or made abstract and obliterated by intellectualising them. The
method is also successful at imposing as little meaning as possible on to the descriptions being
produced. There is no place for rational discussions or analysis during this intersubjective
reduction.
4. Subjects are aided at remaining at the level of description, and can attend to any signifiers or
signifieds, aims or intentional awarenesses. The method elicits descriptions of their experience in
the other's own terms. Ideally with the smallest amount of perturbation from the questioner. It is
quite impossible to know any item in full, or describe it once and for all and the descriptions made
are not the intentional objects themselves, they are about them.
5. The aims, methods, results and logic of phenomenology need constant refinement and updating
in the light of the current state of knowledge. The criteria for coherence, intelligibility and adequacy
of the meaning of intentional acts are required. A regular repeatable method which has its choices
laid out beforehand, offers a standardised question asking by the phenomenologist. This elicits the
eidetic psychic and transcendental responses of the answerer. This material can be interpreted at a
later stage with or without the input of the answerer.
6. Clean language reveals new data about language and its relation to lived experience. In a simple
and repeatable interaction, it structures and elicits descriptions of living experience. When
described phenomena become not just essences perceived by one person alone, social agreement
and validation also take place. Knowledge of the psychic and the transcendental nature of others is
extended. For instance, there appears to be a self-reflexive and partially closed system of feedback
between what is interpreted as "outside", and what is maintained and created "inside" an individual.
This is a circular pattern of cause and effect which shows itself in rigidity, lack of control over
change and inertia to change within people. For instance, some people have I-habits which are so
strong they act the same in different social contexts and are impervious to change through place and
time. They are frequently unable to change or can only change very slowly.
7. It is assumed that language and experience are intimately connected. Language is also assumed to
influence pre-reflective experience. Not just when an experience is made manifest in thought or
speech.

How realities are to be learned or discovered is perhaps too great a question for you
or me to determine; but it is worthwhile to have reached even this confusion, that
they are to be learned and sought for, not from names but much better through
themselves than through names.
Socrates, in Plato's Cratylus, 439b.
(Plato, 1970, p. 187).

As Socrates points out above, humans are enmeshed in the language they speak, to use language is
never to be outside of the process of naming (Merleau-Ponty 1964, Heidegger 1971). There can
never be a return to the things themselves but I assume it is the right direction to go in. The aim of
this adaption of Grove's cognitive linguistic psychotherapy is to study speech and reference so that
phenomenologists can return somewhere close to the things themselves. Human understanding
cannot get outside of language. Art forms such as dance, mime, music and painting try to evoke
meaning without words, but if one were to describe the meanings that were invoked, words would
have to be used.
Epistemology and ontology are two philosophical areas which are part of all human
enterprises. The two are united in onto-epistemology, which tries to emphasize the constant
connection between knowing and existing (Owen 1992). It is the study of what is known to exist.
Onto-epistemology brings into sharp focus what you know exists; how you know it exists; and with
what transcendental perceptions of certainty or doubt that you know exist. Clean language could be
defined as speech attuned to the being of what is known by another. Clean language is dedicated to
elicit metaphors, meanings, language usage, and deducing cognitive and experiential processes that
are normally out of awareness, preconscious or possibly even "unconscious".
The general aim for clean language is to make explicit the intentional-referentional objects
of the answerer the subject of this intersubjective reduction. This conception is best explained and
introduced below, in the actual examples and descriptions taken from Grove's workshop notes. The
aim of making an adaptation of cognitive linguistic therapy for phenomenology is that it directly
extends and reveals metaphorical-synchronic and metonymic-diachronic aspects of intentional and
teleological combination of language and experience. It searches for these connections, and so to a
degree, creates and exaggerates that which is already there. This form of inquiry is originally for
psychothera-peutic ends. But it could be used for gathering information, perhaps even testing
hypotheses, and finding general principles about the links between reference, lived experience, and
social rules. These studies are currently compartmentalised into separate university departments of
the human sciences. The nature of the investigation is hopefully, a more open-minded process of
finding out about the meeting of linguistic, intersubjective, psychological, transcendental and
physiological events within a person's psychesoma.

The clean language method

The question asking process employed in clean language has no place for rational analysis during
its progress. The questioner focuses on the last phrase the answerer has given, and by asking one of
a number of set questions, tries to extend its significance. The questions follow the principles of
associated and dissociated speech, orientation in time and place, precise vagueness and tracking and
developing. These principles are explained first, before details of the method, which describe the
seating arrangement and the process of formulating specific questions. I also propose that accurate
questioning facilitates harmony and rapport between question and response, questioner and
answerer. This harmony allows the questioner to ask the right questions, and the answerer to speak
as speech comes to them, in their own terms.
In phenomenology, there is a problem of method. In all the human sciences, the subject who
knows is intimately connected with the subject to be known. Phenomenology needs methods which
provide meaningful data, and which are mindful of their effects and viewpoint, inescapable
assumptions and presuppositions. Phenomenological practice requires attention to the surface
appearances, but also attends to what could be hidden, without guessing what this is. Trying to
know something about our fellows is perturbed by our method for knowing the human phenomena
we are trying to understand. Clean language as an intersubjective reduction tries to keep the
disturbances in knowing what exists for another, to a known and regular minimum. Clean language
has the first aim of breaking out of the usual hermeneutic circle (of defining a thing by using
attributes which already presume the existence and essences in question) and attempts to go towards
the original reference.
The four principles below are all interrelated and guide the use of specific question asking. I
have split them into headings for ease of presentation, but readers should note their connections.
The following five sections are also about the method. These are more precise instructions about
how to proceed. In the questioning, simple phrasing is used because anything which would interrupt
the processes to be investigated would not provide descriptive answers, and would disrupt the
answerer's explanations, theories of cause and effect, and produce abstraction, rationalization,
dissociation and so forth. Ordinary language use often takes the speaker away from the lived aspects
of the experiences which are unfolding. The questioner does not use polysyllabic words or others
which activate the answerer's intellectual, rational processes. This would cause the metaphorical
phenomena to disintegrate and the process would become unworkable. Questions are kept easy to
understand. The answerer's words and metaphors are used to reduce the presence of the questioner
to a minimum.
When clean language is applied to phenomenological research it provides a method of data
production which focuses on current speech and experience. This method shows metaphor and
metonymy in action. Phenomenology is an open-ended search for what may exist. All theories,
assumptions and categories are placed in brackets because they necessarily involve distortion,
deletion and generalisation, to produce descriptions of the process at play (Bandler & Grinder 1975,
p. 14). If an analytical schema is held too strongly by the researcher, it can perturb the phenomena
which are being studied, so that the already non-impartial relation between human research and
human researched is even more disrupted.

Associated and dissociated speech

Ordinary speech is dissociative because in speaking about something one becomes separate from
what is being described. Clean language re-associates speakers with the experiences about which
they are talking. I postulate that beneath the surface of conscious experience exists an aspect of
preconscious (usually out of awareness) activity I call felt speech. This is a metaphoric and
metonymic amalgam of the schemata of a language user. The schemata are connected to cognitive,
bodily and social existence. In the case below, the metaphor of anxiety for the client would be a
drum. The way of working therapeutically with this mixture of speech and lived subjective
experience is to focus on the drum. In therapy it may be found that the drum changes in some way
and this change may enable change in other aspects of the person's life: Such as their behaviour,
relationships with others, and in their emotional states and ability to make representations in
language itself.
An example of this process in psychotherapy is a client who constantly refers to a unique or
idiomatic phrase which describes their symptoms of suffering. A client may speak of anxiety as a
"thumping heart" to describe part of a feeling of anxiety. Clean language questions vivify the latent
imagery in this phrase and might produce a description in a non-grammatical idiosyncratic use of
English. For instance, of a thumping heart that is "big... and pounding... like a drum". This is a
metaphorous description of how the anxiety is lived which is intimately represents the experience of
this person's anxiety in a way which the general label "anxiety" can never suffice.

Orientation in time and place

A central focus of the method is a person's orientation in time and place. For instance, memories are
pieces of being that are in "time past". One way of describing how consciousness is oriented in
time, is to consider memories as "time-places" which are continually being recreated and destroyed
as they are reactivated in the present. In accepting the standard Western assumption of the linear
progression of time, various time-places can be delineated which describe answerers' orientation in
time. The clean language technique can be used to find the patterns and shapes of felt-speech, an
amalgam of language and lived experience, which exists in a region "below the surface" of ordinary
conscious experience.
 Figure 1 below, shows the relation between tense and places in time before or after an event
which the answerer may feel was the "origin" of some current experience. Time zero is the moment
the metaphor or event began. When the answerer responds with different tenses the questioner must
take note and respond with questions in the same tense as that currently being used by the answerer.
For instance, it can be considered that a piece of being is still at a time of a car crash, or when being
beaten by their father, or some other trauma. Memories are states of consciousness which are
believed to affect current events and relating: "If it was not for that happy memory of being with my
mother then, I would not feel so hopeless now", "I wish I had never done that". Other phrases are
representations in speech of the regrets from which people may suffer.

Past Past Present Present Subjunctive Future

perfect perfect Conjunctive

"Felt" "Feeling" "Would feel" "Will feel"

-3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2

Figure 1 - Progression of moments in time from past perfect to the future.

Place is also important as the physiological component of emotions takes place within the
body, while the cognitive component of emotion are judgements expressed in language about
relations to social rules. Experiential events "external" to the answerer are about his or her self in
the contexts of time, place and other people. The "internal" experiences are physiological changes
within the body, whilst thoughts associated with these are internalised speech, "self-talk" usually
heard within the head. When investigating emotion, clean language questions would move between
(1) any connections of the tone of voice, loudness, and direction of thoughts within the head; (2)
any places of physiological change in the body; (3) and any events in the context surrounding the
person. Memories and metaphors may also be associated and these would be investigated as they
arise.
The following intervention by David Grove with a psychotherapy client was very brief, and
somehow very meaningful for the client, who was then able to gain an entirely new perspective on
her personal history. In the three examples below, the questioner's speech is in small case and the
answerer's in capitals as in the original texts.

And what do you want?

I THINK I'M GOING TO THROW UP.
Then throw up.
IT'S COMING UP...
And as it's coming up, what happens next?
I THINK I AM GOING TO DIE.
 And as it coming up and as you think you're going to die. And as it comes up and you think
you're going to die, then how you can know whether you're going to die is to wait, and if you
wait then you can know if you're going to die, and you can wait and know for sure.
...I DID'NT DIE! I DID'NT DIE! I DID'NT REALIZE I DID'NT DIE. I CAN BREATHE!
(Grove 1989, p. 49).

The example above shows the use of the first question (explained below). It also has a metonymic
tag question in line 5, "what happens next?" which asks for the next experiential event. Grove's
intervention in lines 7 to 11 above, is unusual because of the nature of the process being discussed,
but some metonymic change occurs so that she gets past the thought "I think I'm going to die".
The above is an example of the relation between reference and the lived experience of
nausea and fear which had been unabated for 22 years. The client had previously been suffering
from a pervasive nausea and had not been able to go into the part of her hometown where her
teacher lived who had raped her 22 years previously. It seems she had some kind of "internal
barrier" which kept her stuck experientially with the thought that she was going to die. Perhaps, the
breakthrough came by going further into this experience than she had previously gone. Past the
place where she had been stuck, to a new place where she could realise that she was not about to
die.

Tracking and developing

In the two interrelated principles of tracking and developing, the first sense of tracking is staying
focused on the last phrase, body place, external context, memory or metaphor that the answerer has
mentioned. Tracking is following each most recent phrase mentioned while it is still most alive in
its significance and the experience of the answerer. The second sense of tracking describes being
like a Native American tracker as the questioner stays with the answerer, whilst being aware of
certain signs. The questioner is guided by the background knowledge of the method and the
possibilities that could arise such as changes in verb tense and the perspective from which the last
phrase is being spoken. Questioners are guided by principles which say what to do and what not to
do. The tense of verbs used, the places and contexts to which they refer, must be noted. Questioners
must not introduce any extraneous material while using as many of the answerer words as possible.
Clean language is clean because it is without reference to the five senses.

And what is it that you want?

I WANT TO BE ABLE TO TALK TO MY FATHER.
And when you want to be able to talk to your father, how do you know that you want to talk
to your father?
BECAUSE THERE'S LOTS OF THINGS I WANT TO TELL HIM, AND I CAN'T.
And when there's lots of things you want to tell him, where are those lots of things you want
to tell him?
THEY'RE LOCKED INSIDE ME.
 And when they're locked inside you, where are they locked inside you?
THEY'RE LOCKED INSIDE MY THROAT AND CHEST AND HEAD, THE TOP HALF
OF ME.
And they're locked in the top side of you. And where are they more locked inside?
IN MY THROAT.
And when they're locked inside your throat, whereabouts inside your throat?
IN THE MIDDLE.
And when they're in the middle, where in the middle?
THEY'RE IN A BALL, A VERY LARGE BLACK IRON BALL.
And they're inside a very large black iron ball. And is there anything else about a very large
black iron ball like that?
IT'S STUCK AND IT WON'T MOVE."
(Grove 1988a, p. 43).

The above is an excellent example of the type of disciplined and ordered questioning that is clean
language. Someone who wishes to practice these skills could do no better than to commit the above
pattern to memory and to follow it rigorously with a colleague as a learning exercise. It shows how
the desire of being "able to talk to my father" becomes things "locked inside me", inside the "top
half of me", particularly in the throat. Grove's question (line 19), "where in the middle?"
inadvertently elicits a metaphor "they're in a ball..." The "anything else" question is used to gain
more information about the ball which is found to be "stuck and it won't move". The therapeutic
intervention would stay with this ball and find more information about it, what surrounds it, what it
is made of, what it could do, and what it might like to do. This is an example of developing a
metaphor.
The principle of developing refers to the amount of information that is required when
focusing on the speech of the answerer. There are some people who describe phenomena that
change very quickly. So once they have been put into words the item being described may have
already changed. However, there are others who have metaphorical processes which change very
slowly. For other people the clarity or strength of the phenomena being described may be weak or
faint. The principle of developing makes the questioner persist until enough descriptive information
is gathered so that the process or scene could be drawn with a pencil, or otherwise seems physically
tangible. Going back to the principle of orientation in place, the questioner attends to the detail of
the places where processes occur. For instance:

And as you know about that memory, is there a particular feeling that you get when you
remember that memory?
FEAR.
And when you get that fear, whereabouts do you get that fear?
IN MY BREAST.
And when you get that feeling of fear inside your breast, whereabouts in your breast?
IN THE VERY MIDDLE.
And when it's in the very middle, does it have a shape or size to it?
I CAN'T MAKE A SHAPE. IT'S VERY BIG.
 And it's very big. And very big like what?
IT'S VERY BIG LIKE IT'S GOING TO ENGULF ME.
(Grove 1988b, p. 23).

The above shows how the surface description "fear", a name or category which can be
conventionally understood, actually stands for the specific fear response of this woman. For her it
was a physiological event inside her breast that develops to become "its very big like its going to
engulf me". This example also shows how the questions attend to place, track each last phrase, and
develop the emerging metaphor. In line 17 above, Grove asks the metaphor elicitation question
"And very big like what?" which further sculpts what had been only a vague fear, without a shape,
but something which has the description "very big".

Precise vagueness

Clean language aims to investigate the precise experience referred to in the last phrase spoken by
the answerer. Each question is asked in a way of revivifying that experience, and so recreating and
re-entering it to a certain degree. By using precise vagueness this way, clean language is expedient
in covering the many of possibilities to which answerers refer. The questioner uses bland verbs such
as "find out", or "happened" which do not mention any particular senses in which the memory
might be represented. What we experience in the five senses (through language) is linked to how
we represent it in saying how it felt, tasted, smelt, heard or looked. Clean language presupposes
none of the five senses when it is used to provoke the answerer into recreating, remembering and
describing. The subjunctive mood is preferred and questions begin with "And could...", "And
may...", "And might...", frequently. All comments start with "And..." as this helps to link the
questioner's remarks to the answerer's on-going experiences.
It is claimed that clean language elicits more relevant information than allowing the client to
"free associate" in reflection, describe essences, or use imaginative variation. Speaking into a
silence provided by phenomenologists does not sufficiently focus the answerer on the experience
which is being referred to in the succession of ideas being produced.

Sitting and speaking

Clean language works best in pairs, comprising a questioner and an answerer. The questioner's
speaking manner is a quiet slow voice, about one third of the rate of normal speech, which has
many pauses between the phrases. No eye contact is made between questioner and answerer, and
these conditions are explained to the answerer before the inquiry is begun. Both people sit looking
in the same direction or with the chairs turned slightly inward toward each other. The questioner
can aid the process of entrainment with the answerer's world by adopting a similar voice tonality,
timber, pitch, pauses, speed, rhythm and intonation as the answerer in a non-condescending way.
The questioner tries to attend to any poetic qualities that unfold between the two people. This often
produces a self-absorbed and dreamlike quality to the process. There is much redundancy in the
question asking as this serves the purpose of staying with the answerer's model of the world. Clean
language requests answerers to look inwards into the detail of their own lived experiences and
meanings. They must accept the conditions of the exercise and in return be provided with safety.
They must realise that normal relating is abandoned in this procedure.
The attitude of the questioner is important. At all times the questioner is helping the
answerer experience and describe their own material. The questioner has no particular aim except to
ask a question about the last phrase spoken. The questioner is not searching for anything in
particular and must discipline his or her questions only to those of clean language. The questioner
tries to become indifferent to finding any particular answer, and bears in mind that there can be no
wrong answers but only wrong questions. A wrong question is operationally defined as one which
cannot be answered, or one which is too distant from what the answerer is experiencing.
In clean language's application in psychotherapy, the words "have happen" have a vagueness
which covers the answerer's possibilities of wanting to do something, wanting to have a state of
mind, be a certain kind of person, be with another person, or achieve something in the world. So the
phrase "have happen" can also be used in other more general applications as they have a maximum
of vagueness yet can refer exactly to a specific experience of the client. The question "And what
would you like to have happen?" could refer to any time past, present or future and is to elicit any
answer. It establishes the extent and initial direction of the session in the answerer's own terms.
The questioner may use the phrasing "have happen" at other points as well. The
ungrammatical opening question "have happen" is worded in this fashion for a purpose. In English
the word "have" is often used in conjunction with the existence of an abstract human quality such as
being in love or being confident. "Have" implies the existence and ownership of such states. It
implies the knowledge of what exists. "Happen" helps to elicit a process, or point to an underlying
process, of change or a movement in a state of becoming. When these are put together the question
"And what would you like to have happen?" is purposefully vague in calling up a past time, a wish,
or what the person would want to have occurred.

The first question

The first question spoken by the questioner is as important as the first move in a game of chess. It
sets the scene and structures the relation between the two people. A clean language user who has
received adequate training in the question asking method can start the investigation by using any of
the questions in figures 2a to 2e below. Answers to these questions are of a different type to the
answers of ordinary questions. When metaphors are taken literally and are given substance, they can
be made precise and definite. Clean language questions pull out the metaphoric and metonymic
aspects of the English language and the absolute norms of lived experience within English speaking
cultures.

The next question

Sometimes people spontaneously offer metaphors in their speech. The simple questions of figures
2a, 2b and 2c may all produce metaphors. Those of figure 2d produce metonymic movement of the
metaphors forwards into new times and places. The four principles previously mentioned are not
distinct from the diachronic and synchronic dimensions for question asking. The diachronic and
synchronic dimensions of language and experience born in mind so that the answerer's model of the
world can be followed to ensure a maximum amount of agreement with current experiences. The
diachronic dimension is moving "backwards" or "forwards" in time. Diachronic questions introduce
the possibility of movement, addition, metamorphosis and change into the felt-speech that clean
language reveals. In clean language they can be specifically elicited by the questioner focusing the
answerer on the past or future, by the nature of the questions. Or, the answerer may spontaneously
go from the present moment with the questioner to a different time and place.

And when you have ____, where do you have ____?

And when its there, whereabouts is it, when its there?
And when its there, does it have a shape or a size?

2a Place oriented questions.

And is that more on the inside, or more on the outside?

And does it have a texture?
And does it have a colour, or a temperature, or weight?
And what could it be made of?
And what kind of edges does it have?
And what is below it?
And what is above it?
And is there anything else about that?
And anything else?

2b Boundary oriented questions.

And what kind of _____ is a _____ like that?

And what is that like?
And like what?

2c Metaphor oriented questions.

And what would ____ like to do?
And what would ____ like to have happen?
And as that happens, what happens next?
And what happens next?
And for how long does that happen, and what happens next?
And as that happens, what would ____ like to do next?

2d Metonym oriented questions.

And when you have ____, how do you know you have ____?
And when its like that, where is it like that?
And how old could you be, the first time you had that there?

2e Origin oriented questions.

The process of asking questions influences the answerer by giving a request to produce a piece of
information. This process can be refused. In asking a question the answerer must access the
memory, or create an answer of some kind. On the whole unspecified references such as "And as
you think about that..", are useful in referring to the same experience the answerer without knowing
what it is. The questioner frequently attempts to find the supposed origin of the current experiences
of the answerer, and uses the questions in figure 2e to do so. Figures 2c and 2d above correspond to
the two dimensions in which the questioner can influence the answerer. It also provides a way for
describing the process, by creating two dimensions to plot the replies. The questions "and like
what?","and what kind of...?" and "and anything else...?" are the most useful. A novice could
practice using these three with a colleague and find out what happens.
In figure 2a the phrase "and when" is used to connect with the flow of words and
experiences at the particular moment in time when an event supposedly first happened, or when it
happens generally. It aims to stop or slow down experience, and find and develop a particular
experience, or metaphorical expression when this is done the new information may be the
physiological aspect of an emotional reaction, or about the social rules for having an emotion. The
questions in figure 2b are a subset of those in figure 2a as they seek to gain more information about
a certain moment in time. Most often the experiences in focus are perceived by answerers being in
time past although some are experienced in being in the "future".

The questioners' lexicon

As few as possible extraneous words are introduced by the questioner because it is the answerer's
world which is of importance. The introduction of outside phrases disrupts the disclosure of
associations, meanings and metaphors of the answerer. Indeed, clean language almost consists
entirely of questions, as one of its primary purposes is to prompt the answerer to search for
memories, as they are currently experienced. Recapping statements such as "and it was like that" are
permitted in an attempt to emphasize each comment the answerer has just made. The questioner's
main lexicon for question asking verbs are:

Be interested, Happen, Have, Know, Like to, Sense.

The above are simple words which a child would know. They are free of any reference to
the five senses which might interrupt the way in which the answerer has the experience that is being
represented. In some cases the verbs "do", "feel" and "experience" may be used, but these are less
than ideal. The tenses in which the questions are phrased are usually the subjunctive or conjunctive:

Be possible, Can, Could be, May be,

Might be, Seem, Will, Would.

Ethics and ending

The sessions can be of any length, as long as some sense of completeness is established for the
answerer by the end of the session. The questioner and the context of the question asking, as
perceived by the answerer, contribute to the answers given. The terms of the meetings should be
explained in advance. In more formal research projects the understanding and consent of the
answerer should be obtained in writing. Confidentiality must be given by the questioner and
maintained within the demands of an experimental context which may involve audio or video
recording of sessions. Care must be taken to inform and educate the answerer about the nature of
the process. Confidentiality and professional ethics must be maintained during the process.

Cognitive linguistic theory

David Grove's question-asking technique aims to lay bare the principles by which English speakers
live, understand and make coherent meanings. In his psychotherapy the spoken word is the focus as
it helps make human relations, relations to abstract quantities, personal qualities, defines essences
and the social rules for having appropriate emotions. All of which are also defined and enforced
through social institutions. Grove's therapy has its roots in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) as
originated by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, and George Lakoff and Mark Johnsons's work on
cognitive linguistics, in addition to other influences.
In cognitive linguistics a certain definition of metaphor is seen as the central aspect of
signification, understanding, comprehensibility, cognition and categorisation. Lakoff and Johnson's
Metaphors we live by is an unusual work because it relates the philosophy of language not only to
metaphor, but also to cultural and bodily, experiential dimensions. The signifying effect of speech
is traced to the collective understanding of our lived experience of having a body. This emphasis on
metaphor is not new, as it forms a basis for Heidegger's understandings of ancient Greek metaphors
and idioms which underlies some modern European languages (Heidegger 1962). Onians took a
similar etymological path in explaining the ancient roots of English expressions in the metaphors
and idioms of Hindu, Roman and Greek (Onians 1951). Two social anthropologists have made
compatible comments on the role of metaphor and experience in producing meaning and connection
between the individual and the communal (Fernandez 1974, Beck 1978). Jakobson and Lacan also
followed an interest in metaphor and metonymy to explain how human understanding (Jakobson &
Halle 1956, Lacan 1977, Weber 1991). It is therefore interesting to compare the cognitive
linguistics literature to grove’s empirical phenomenology and the phenomenology of language
literature (Ambrosio 1986, Carr 1989, Edie 1976, Sokolowski, 1974, 1978, Wilshire).
Below I present a brief excerpt from some of the background cognitive linguistics literature
which provides some of the definitions of its stance. The story of cognitive linguistics begins with
George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at Berkeley, California, and Mark Johnson, an associate
professor of philosophy at Chicago. Their book Metaphors we live by, University of Chicago Press,
1980, was a best seller in the academic press. It takes the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is
discredited by some anthropologists and linguists, and extends it. Edward Sapir and Benjamin
Whorf, two American linguists, hypothesised that the world and its elements are not only coded in
language but that language itself shapes our worldview. Cognitive linguistics is different as it
seeks to determine how we are constrained by regular principles which are not usually in our
awareness. As an intellectual force it is barely a dozen years old. This discipline combines the
insights of cognitive psychology and linguistics to produce a new point of view. But before I can
introduce it I need to mention the pioneering Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who at the
beginning of the century described the relation between speech and meaning as a sheet of paper: On
one side is the spoken sound and on the reverse its meaning. This is an oversimple model, but it
does give the sense of the immediate connection between spoken sounds and their meanings.
This view of reality could be called the linguistic construction of reality, as we only know
the meanings that language gives us. One implication of the cognitive linguistic approach is to
emphasize the part played by the constraints of a language. All that exists are descriptions in
language according to what its rules. For instance the mind-body "problem" is no problem. We all
know mind and body are connected. But we have no words to describe the unity of the two entities
or qualities "mind" and "body". Therefore they both stay separate aspects. Lakoff in his book
Women, fire, and dangerous things (1990) outlines some possible variations that the English
language has to express the experience of anger.

Statements Anger is...

We're having a heated argument hot

I almost burst a blood vessel internal pressure
She was scarlet with rage redness in face and neck
He was hopping mad agitation
I was beginning to see red interference with perception
My anger built up inside me fluid can rise
I was fuming produces steam
I could barely contain my rage produces pressure
I suppressed my anger pressure kept back
He just exploded causes explosion

The statements above are only a few of the possible ways of describing anger. There are
ungrammatical ways of talking about anger. But they are not used and are not usable. If spoken they
sound strange to the ear. It is permissable to say "how much anger does she have inside her?" But
not "how many angers does she have inside her?" In a similar manner to phenomenologists,
cognitive linguists believe various principles might be obeyed. From the table above the way
English talks about anger, is that it can be conceptualized as being triggered by an offending event.
It is treated as a hot fluid that builds up inside the body. Attempts at containing this fluid may fail,
and this may lead to a possible act of retribution. These are the logical, psychological and
metaphysical essences and processes of anger. There are other ways of describing anger which
involve an imagery of anger as a dangerous animal (he has a ferocious temper), of struggling with
an opponent (she was battling with her anger), as insanity (I was mad), as fire (those were
inflammatory remarks), and other metaphorical descriptions: I blew a fuse, he hit the ceiling, she
went through the roof. Consider the following supporting examples:

What is the foundation of your theory? That argument is shaky. Your idea will fall apart. You need
to construct a stronger argument. The theory will stand or fall on its own strength.
- Theories are buildings.

He ran out of ideas. Don't waste your thoughts. Let's pool our ideas. She used up all her ideas too
soon. That's a useless idea.
- Ideas are resources.

His mother's death hit him hard. I was struck by his sincerity. It really made an impression on me. It
bowled me over.
- Emotional effects are physical contacts.

What is metaphor?

Metaphor may be defined as phrases which compare something unknown to something known. As
in the table above, the English language has many metaphors for the event of being angry. Phrases
like "my blood is boiling", "simmer down" and "I reached boiling point" all presuppose a certain
structure in the way they make sense. They each share the presupposition that anger is the heat of a
fluid in a container. Also, according to the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis the way anger is talked about
corresponds to the way anger is experienced. These aspects come together and link how speech
refers to the experience of anger in a way that fits in with the permitted ways of talking about it.
Metaphors create meaning through cohesive principles which order our experiences.
Metaphor works by helping people conceptualise the nonphysical in terms of the physical and the
vague in terms of the precise. A metaphor is certainly not the thing which is being explained. It is
however, a container for passing on meaning and making the effect of understanding. In short,
metaphors are the containers for reality as we know it through language. Metaphors are part of a
process by which meaning is sent and received. Metaphors give order to what would otherwise be
chaotic and amorphous experience. They shape reality because it is based on speaking, listening,
writing and reading. Non-verbal aspects of experience such as acting and watching another are also
given meanings by and through language and the act of definition of the meaning of acts. Hence,
relating to people and abstract definitions are the effect of language.
Cognitive linguistics suggests the presence of underlying dimensions which enable a
language to make sense. In the case of anger, for instance, various assumptions are implied: such as
the body is a container for emotions. The anger can escape if the provocation is strong enough, or, if
the ability to keep it in is too weak. Anger also follows certain directions. It can come up or down.
Go out or be held in. It is not possible to say that anger goes sideways. Cognitive linguistics places
its definition of metaphor as central to the way language does its work of producing meaning. Any
experience to be described is made known according to some fixed number of inherent shapes,
patterns and processes of the language in which it is delivered. For instance, in England unmarried
people may fear "being left on the shelf". In Denmark their predicament is described as being "stuck
up a mountain". The metaphors and idioms of a language are handed down from generation to
generation. Some phrases become obsolete and are eventually discarded, while new ones spring up
to take their place.

Signifiers and signifieds

Cognitive linguistics reveals the structuring principles which underlie language and which enable it
to be meaningful. These are related to the body and its processes of ingestion and expulsion. The
major dimensions of English are up/down, in/out, above/below, taking in/putting out. It seems that
what enables language to make sense are the senses, functions and proportions of the body. Simple
everyday objects may also be used to convey meaning by metaphor. Cognitive linguistics
demonstrates that mental processing, as it takes places in speech and thought in a language, must
follow the constraints of acceptable metaphor. What we feel and how we relate to others are also
linked to our language use. We not only describe reality but use words as blue prints, to know what
to do, how to think and which lines of thought to choose in interpreting the world. Cognitive
linguistics aims to find out what is there. It strips away the layers of assumptions that language
provides. It searches for what exists and tries to find out how meaning is created and guides our
lives. Clean language is the use of bland repetitive questions that aim to find the reference of speech
that people refer to in the empirical phenomenological method which is a version of David Grove's
cognitive linguistic psychotherapy (Grove & Panzer 1989).
The first aspect of this view is that lived experience, conceptual systems and social action
are based on metaphorical schemata (Lakoff & Johnson, 1987, p. 3). Furthermore, "...metaphor
provides a way of partially communicating unshared experiences, and it is the natural structure of
our experience that makes this possible", (Ibid., p. 225). Cognitive linguistics is a language-centred
view of human existence. Following Lakoff, Johnson and Grove, any analysis of existence has to
start with the effects of metaphor and metonymy in intersubjective existence. This field remains to
be explored.
The two major themes of semiotics and semantics also require comment. Semiosis takes
place by metaphoric and metonymic relations which exhibit an isomorphism with the most basic
bodily functions and spaces, which make a basis for the coherency of thought, speech and social
existence. The ability to create, use and interpret signs, be they verbal or non-verbal, is based on
out-of-awareness aspects of cognitive and bodily experiences. The posited out-of-awareness
experiences are reinforced by repetition in the social sphere. Meaning, understanding and the
signifying effect are created by the simultaneous ability to read what is written. Be it in speech,
gestures or non-verbal signs, the signifying effect of being able to understand, is always predicated
by metaphoric and metonymic events. These come from the social sphere and have resonances there
also.
Other cognitive linguists are in broad agreement with the results of Grove's work include
Goossens (1990) who coins the word metaphtonymy to make the reminder that metaphor and
metonymy are intertwined in their actions. Lacan, through Halle and Jakobson, also realised that
metaphor and metonymy are connected. Lacan related these effects to the psychoanalytic
hypotheses. Kovecses has also added to this line of thought in his analysis of the action of
metaphor, metonymy and the social effects of English phrases about love (Kovecses, 1991). The
usual method of cognitive linguistics is to collect and analyze metaphors by desk research. The
following conclusions in Metaphors we live by are supported by clean language. The work that
remains to be done is on two planes. One requires fine detail and refining the method for particular
applications. The other regards the broad sweep of the method and the interpretations of the
processes it shows. For the sake of completeness, the following quotations round up some major
points of Lakoff and Johnson.

...no metaphor can ever be comprehended or even adequately represented

independently of its experiential basis.
(Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 19).

Metaphors have entailments through which they highlight and make coherent certain
aspects of our experience.
A given metaphor may be the only way to highlight and coherently organize exactly
those aspects of our experience.
 Metaphors may create realities for us, especially social realities. A metaphor may
thus be a guide for future action. Such actions will, of course, fit the metaphor. This
will, in turn, reinforce the power of metaphor to make experience coherent. In this
sense metaphors can be self-fulfilling prophecies.
(Ibid., p. 156).

...we define our reality in terms of metaphors and then proceed to act on the basis of
the metaphors. We draw inferences, set goals, make commitments, and execute
plans, all on the basis of how we in part structure our experience, consciously and
unconsciously, by means of metaphor.
(Ibid., p. 158).

In the clean language process the current human situation that exists between questioner and
answerer contributes to any memories along with the psycho-active words of the answerer that have
been vivified. Memories are re-assembled or re-membered. Most references are about memories,
but are contaminated by, and confabulated in, the present moment, each time they are re-accessed.
Thought can be investigated and the varieties of self-talk that exist in a person's current state of
consciousness can be distinguished from prior, habitual states of self-talk and consciousness.

Implications for phenomenology

Much work is required to analyze and sift through the choices that clean language questioners
make, and to compare the principles by which questions are voiced. A simple and regular
experimental method, with known assumptions which can be listed before research takes place, can
be an aid to keep track of how the researcher is adding meaning to the subject under study. If our
assumptions are not separable from our research, then at least we can take them into account
through a self-reflexive method. The results so far seem to indicate that Lakoff and Johnson's
original hypotheses about metaphor were plausible. Examples of the thoughts below are born out by
answerers who can explain, for instance, the English metaphor for undecidedness, "sitting on the
fence", by describing what is on either side of the fence, how they are sitting on the fence, how long
they have been there, and where they want to go, to get off the fence. After questioning the surface
statement of "sitting on the fence", it reproduces and vivifies the literal existential predicament that
the metaphor is used to express.
Because a group of language users are co-extensive with their social behaviour, an inquiry
into social reality is implied in any inquiry into the medium of language, which makes those
relationships also possible (Benveniste 1981, p. 18). As metaphors and metonyms appear to be
ordering principles for our relationships with ourselves and others. They must also structure society
and our relations to the more abstract principles of behaviour, contained in language. Metaphor and
metonymy must be analyzed and their influences explored.
 In a speculative line of thought, Claude Levi-Strauss suggested that each society lives out its
myths. For the West these include "individuality", "science", and the "body-mind" split, which are
all portrayed in language. If this is so, we could conclude that some of the socio-cultural
"primordial teleologies" of humanity are contained in language, intentional objects that Husserl
wished to identify (Husserl, 1971, p 89). Language enables us to relate to each other, reduce and
produce abstract descriptions in the world. It provides a mirage of identity and solidity. Language is
a medium that enables humanity to progress, but also limits it, and indeed, makes it human in the
first place. These structuring principles form and constrain all aspects of human understanding.
They are the basic subject matter for phenomenologists to explore in the search for the "correlative
intentional constitution" (Ibid, p 87) and the "genuine human life", (Ibid, p 89).
An example of how phenomenological method can develop and still retain its original
emphases is to give an example of it also in apperception, or what Heidegger called egology, the
study of the I-habits and self-perception. The following are three topics for phenomenological self-
analysis which may reveal the a priori and essences of authenticity and personal existence. Please
give a few minutes to reflect on the following, and just allow any aims or awarenesses to come to
mind and describe these in the manner of free association.

1. Think your full name to yourself without saying it out loud... And when you thought it,
where did you hear it, when you thought it? ... And was it coming in a specific direction?...And
what tone of voice was it in? ... And what was it like, when you thought it?

2. Notice how you feel right now. ... And how do you feel? ... And what do you feel? ... And when
you feel like that, where do you feel like that?... And whereabouts is that? ... And what is that like,
when it feels like that?...

3. ... And when did you first have that? ... And can you find some time when you had that the
strongest? ... And can you find some time when you had that for the first time? ... And how old
could you be, the first time you had that?

Clean language aims to investigate the relations between speech, lived experience and memory in a
phenomenological manner. It finds evidence for certain definitions of metaphoric and metonymic
processes. Felt-speech might be Kantian noumena, or schemata, an onto-epistemological
substratum to language and lived experience. I believe that clean language is an innovative research
tool for phenomenologists that can be adapted from David Grove's psychotherapy. It uses speech to
uncover the structures and processes of social relating, personal experience, sign usage,
signification and reference. For the reasons of consistency and agreement that simple definitions of
the key terms should be circulated to the phenomenologists to follow on in Husserl's passionate
commitment to produce a cohesive field. Also, the principles of clean language itself must be laid
bare in comparison to a step for step approach of other phenomenological methods.
 The implications of the clean language method are wide ranging for phenomenology, the
human sciences, psychotherapy, linguistics and philosophy. Further research can compare the
relation between the clean language procedure and English, and the clean language procedures for
other languages, and the results they produce. A future testing ground for clean language is to apply
the same principles to non Indo-European languages and cultures. Who knows what more refined
versions of clean language could reveal?

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