Questions can be asked that clarify what metaphors may underly comments, what entailments, what figurative usage means, what about gaps, what layers, what elements and the relationships between them what, how, why, etc.

Ferrara (1994) in linguistic analysis of actual psychotherapeutic discourse (which is a type of real-time consultative interaction similar to mediation in that a goal is to reveal and understand clients' thinking) mentions distinct levels of responses to client metaphor: (1) recognizing it but not commenting on it, (2) recognizing it and ratifying it by reflecting back or repeating some of the client's metaphoric language, (3) misinterpretation of the metaphor, and (4) ellaborating or extending the client metaphor(s) jointly through interaction, constructing chains and layers of meaning based on the metaphor. None of these are necessarily the formation of questions to a client. Yet the latter three types of response to client metaphor can easily be seen to encourage the client to clarify and to enter into what Ferrara refers to as "collocational cohesion" -- "a dense layering of semantic associations" (p. 128) [note]. This is the joint negotiation of emergent meaning in sequential discourse or conversation, creatively pursued by both parties in real time.

So we may accept that "questions" can actually consist of statements or even non-verbal responses with the intention of encouraging more expression, perhaps focusing and unpacking condensed ideas into elaborated structures or processes.

This step depends on the mediator's selection of particular words or phrases uttered by clients, hypothesizing what they may mean (metaphorically) and (knowing the structure of the metaphor) stating or asking about what has been said, what might be entailed, what might be infered, etc. The clients' subsequent responses will guide the dialog further.

Kovecses (2002) reviews "questioning" as a novel use of metaphor in literature, where the author evokes one or more common metaphors and then shows how they are somehow inadequate in accounting for the Target. For example, at the start of a divorce mediation one client explains that "We were on the same path and I thought we were going to make it." The other spouse replies in a way that "questions" the adequacy of this Marriage is a Journey metaphor by saying, "I wasn't getting from you what I needed," thus invoking a metaphor of Marriage is Food/Possessions. Although Kovecses uses the term "questioning" in the sense of questioning the adequacy of a metaphor, it can also be seen as a general querying of "what else do we know about this?"

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[note] While Ferrara speaks of lexico-semantic associations (conflation, coincidence, homonyms, synonyms, antonyms, alliteration, rhyme, onomatopoeia, superordinate-hyponym relationships, synecdoche) that enrich metaphoric meaning, Lakoff, Johnson and others emphasize the inference structure that results from the grounding of conceptual metaphors in bodily experience. This grounding results in the transfer of logic not necessarily arising from coincidental occurance of words but from the logic of the way the body moves in space.