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The Metaphor as an Utterance

Regarding the desktop metaphor as a virtual space has a disadvantage: since the computer is considered to be more like a virtual world and less like a conversation partner. This observation corresponds to Walker's thoughts:

I believe that conversation is the wrong model for dealing with a computer - a model that misleads inexpierenced users and invites even experienced software designers to build hard-to-use systems. When you're interacting with a computer, you are not conversing with another person. You are exploring another world. (Walker 443)⁶¹

Walker refers his critique of the conversation approach to human-computer interaction as a whole. With regard to what has been said about the desktop metaphor above, the author of this paper agrees with Walker. It is, though, debatable whether or not his view can be applied to human-computer interaction as a whole. Of course, the metaphor could be understood as an utterance made by the programmers of a system, using "words" which are understandable for users. It is, however, doubtable if users understand the desktop metaphor as an utterance, since the dimensionality of the metaphor has already become part of the user's language. Therefore, it shall be argued that, if the metaphor has to be regarded as an utterance, this utterance takes place on another level than the level of what has been called conversation in section 3 and which will be examined in terms of conversation in the following sections. To sum up, the desktop metaphor is the basis of every utterance in human-computer interaction, a speech event or the context of an utterance (Leech 13; Yule 57).

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