Agency in metaphors of explaining: An analysis of scientific texts

In many scientific approaches, especially in those that try to foster explainability of Artificial Intelligences, a narrow conception of explaining prevails. This narrow conception implies that explaining is a one-directional action in which knowledge is transferred from the explainer to an addressee. By studying the amount of agency in metaphors for explaining in scientific texts, we want to find out – or at least to contribute a partial answer to the question – why this narrow conception is so dominant. For our analysis, we use a linguistic conception of agency, transitivity. This concept allows to specify the degree of agency or effectiveness of the action in a verbalised event. It is defined by several component parts. We detail and discuss both the parameters of and global transitivity. Overall, transitivity of explaining metaphors has a rather common pattern across metaphors. Agency is not high and reduced in characteristic aspects: The metaphors imply that the object of explaining is static, i.e., is not changed within the explanation, and that explaining is the activity of one person only. This pattern may account for the narrow conception of explaining. It contrasts strongly with current co-constructive or sociotechnical approaches to explainability.