Probes’ Review Decoding Symbols and Making-Meaning with Others

Abstract

Chapter eleven analyses the probes. It discusses the application of the multimodal metaphoric methodology in embodying the mind-cinema’s grasps within the context of the two examined probes. This investigation leads to the realisation that visual, audio or kinaesthetic symbols, often playing inconspicuously in our mind-cinema, can be infused with rich emotional value linked to certain events, situations or accumulated body of knowledge. If given the role of valued interlocutors and treated as coded messages from the unconscious, these symbols uncover things we did not pay enough attention to previously. The metaphoric logic of understanding one thing in terms of another, which in cinematic writing is amplified by the unification of a variety of representational modes, advances our self-awareness. Mapping links between our self-discoveries and other people’s representational expressions unfolds sociocultural connections and psychological coherence in the human perception of reality. This promotes the sense of self-agency—the ability not only to think critically but to act upon this criticality in accordance with individual strength and in collaboration with others.