Animal Metaphors Research Articles

The Study of Animal Metaphors in English and Chinese Idioms from the Perspective of Conceptual Metaphor

This paper conducted a study of animal metaphors in English and Chinese idioms from the perspective of conceptual metaphor for the following reasons. Firstly, it summarizes the primary metaphors and its classifications by collecting and sorting out a large number of English and Chinese animal idioms and interpreting the representative animal “dog”. Secondly, it summarizes the similarities and differences of conceptual metaphors in English and Chinese animal idioms, and discusses the causes of these similarities and differences, hoping to help readers understand the nature and characteristics of idioms from a new perspective. It is found that the common characteristics and the similar physiological and psychological basis between human and animal lead to the similarities, while geographical environment, religious belief, dietary habits, literary works and legend, historical background and social customs lead to the differences in conceptual metaphors in English and Chinese animal idioms.

How animal metaphors increase tourists’ waste classification intention?

Abstract Previous researches have shown that animal metaphors play an important role in promoting specific behavioral dispositions of individuals. However, we are not well aware of the role of animal metaphors in tourists' waste classification intentions. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the impact of animal metaphors advertising for waste classification in scenic spots (vs. non-animal metaphors advertising) on tourists' waste classification intentions. Four experiments (N=1051) were conducted in this study to examine the impacts of animal metaphors advertising in scenic spots, on tourists' waste classification intentions, which enriches the literature on the animal metaphors and tourists' pro-environmental behaviors. The results show that the animal metaphors advertising about waste classification in scenic spots can effectively increase tourists' waste classification intentions. We explored the mediating role of tourists' perceptions of cute animal images in animal metaphors advertising, and the moderating role of visual imagery for animal metaphors advertising, on the relationship between animal metaphors advertising and tourists' waste classification intentions. The results show that there is a significant interaction effect between visual imagery and animal metaphors advertising. In conclusion, this study reveals the different impacts of animal metaphors, cute images and visual imagery on individual tourists, which provides new insights for scenic spot managers to choose waste classification strategies and the looks of bins.

Use of Offensive Animal Metaphor as an Interactional Activity in Online Forum Discussions

ABSTRACT This paper investigates offensive animal metaphors in blog comments about the management of donations of money and medical relief during the coronavirus pandemic in China. Rather than understanding the metaphorical usage of language as a cognitive process, we consider its situational usage as a social action and invoke insights from Conversation Analysis. Based on data retrieved from Sina Weibo, we show how discussants use animal metaphors to accomplish varying actions and construct intelligibility between themselves and others about the relationship between actions, moral accountability, and description of social events. We therefore argue that CA with its focus on topicality, action and societal membership can complement the cognitive understanding of the proximity between the source and the target domains.

Study on Naming Common Infectious Diseases in Treatise on Cold Pathogenic and Miscellaneous Diseases

The naming factors of the representative infectious diseases in Treatise on Cold Pathogenic and Miscellaneous Diseases are various, mainly according to the cause, time and symptoms of the disease. From the perspective of cognitive linguistics, these names are mostly named by metaphor and metonymy. The types of metaphors are mainly abiotic metaphors, plant metaphors and animal metaphors, while metonymy highlights the key features. This reflects the wisdom of the ancients to transform abstract pathological phenomena into concrete perceptions. This naming principle not only highlights the essence of TCM culture, but also promotes the inheritance and development of TCM theories.

I am not an animal: How animal metaphors backfire in product advertising

AbstractThis study investigates the effect of animal metaphors in product advertisements. Such ads, especially those for health products, often employ metaphors depicting the ad messengers with animal characteristics to imply the negative health consequences of not using a product. Four studies are carried out using field and experimental data. The findings show that animal metaphor ads are less persuasive than nonmetaphor ads because the viewers of ads with animal‐like (as opposed to human) messengers experience stronger perceived self‐dehumanization, which in turn has a negative effect on product choice, brand attitude, product evaluation, and purchase intention. This effect occurs regardless of whether the animal metaphors are presented visually or verbally. Furthermore, the unfavorable reaction is stronger when the source domain includes a more disliked animal. However, it is also found that the animal metaphor effect diminishes when the target domain shifts from human to object. The findings shed light on how a sense of self‐dehumanization, triggered by the use of animalized model images in advertisements, can harm brands and products, offering insights into the pitfalls of using animal metaphors in health communication.

The Images of The Feudal Societies in Vietnamese Literary Works: A Perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis

Purpose: This study aims to apply critical discourse analysis (henceforth CDA) to examine representations of feudalism in Vietnamese literary works. The discourse-historical approach (Wodak, 2009) and socio-cognitive framework (Van Dijk, 1993) guide an analysis of how linguistic strategies construct feudal portrayals and situate them within Vietnam's sociohistorical context. Methods: A corpus of five short stories (1930-1945) thematically depicting feudalism is compiled. Detailed textual analysis identifies metaphors, lexical choices, connotations and symbolic spaces that construct vivid feudal imagery portraying oppression and injustice. Results: Findings show the discourse utilizes techniques like animal metaphors, derogatory nouns, and graphic violence to dramatize the dehumanization and brutality endured by peasants under feudalism. This study demonstrates usefulness of CDA for elucidating the complex, nuanced ways literary discourse reproduces and contests dominant power structures and ideologies. Discussion: Findings provide deeper insight into linguistic strategies that critique yet inadvertently reinforce aspects of feudalism. The adoption of CDA can enrich Vietnamese literary scholarship by enabling a more critical examination of discursive constructions of identity, inequality and power relations.

“How to Become a Rock”: Non-Human Metaphors as Trans Paranarratives

ABSTRACT: Non-human metaphors, including animal metaphors, are widely used to evoke trans experiences, but the blooming flowers and hatching butterflies are often reduced to mere tropes or clichés. This article investigates what a narrative approach to these non-human metaphors can offer us to reconceptualize trans existence. I employ Benjamin Biebuyck and Gunther Martens’s concept of the ‘paranarrative,’ which allows us to look at metaphors as creating an additional narrative layer where aspects of the main narrative can be deepened, nuanced, or even contested. In two case studies, I unearth hidden sides of trans experience evoked through non-human metaphors on a paranarrative level. In Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s novel Mijn lieve gunsteling , animal metaphors ranging from otters to birds bring to the surface a view of transness not limited to gender, but one that entails feelings of isolation and even uncontrollable desires. The metaphors in the novel Wormmaan by Mariken Heitman likewise raise attention to the connectedness between human, plants, and matter that society has tried to contain in limiting categorizations, such as gender divisions. By broadening the scope of trans as an embodied experience across various boundaries, this article calls for an expansive approach to trans narratology that reaches beyond gender towards the variety of affects that trans is capable of exposing.

Animal Conceptual Metaphors in Kotowaza: A Cognitive Linguistic Study

The primary objective of this study is to examine the cognitive linguistic perspective of Japanese culture in relation to animal-related kotowaza. This study employs a qualitative descriptive approach to analyze 15 kotowaza from the comic book dictionary "Doraemon no Kotowaza Jiten." The objective is to determine the grammatical and idiomatic meanings of these kotowaza, as well as to comprehend the mental metaphor of animals present in them. The research findings suggest that Japanese society employs animal kotowaza as metaphors to convey implicit messages about an individual's character. The kotowaza conveys intricate messages regarding moral principles in everyday life, as well as a profound comprehension of flawed circumstances, through the use of conceptual analogies. Various animal metaphors, including fish, horse, bird, cat, and monkey, are employed to symbolize different facets of existence and human nature.

Animal metaphors in oral pathology-A review.

Oral pathology is a challenging yet intriguing subject. By comparing pathological traits to things we typically encounter, it is possible to reduce the difficulty of memorising these qualities. Hence, the usage of various analogical methods, like the usage of metaphors, conveys likeliness or similarities between two items and can help the students. A lot of pathological features have a resemblance to animals we see on a frequent basis. Students might find comparing, examining and comprehending oral pathology easier when the information is compared with familiar animals. This article is an attempt to compile animal metaphors related to oral pathology.

Man’s Characteristics in Animal Metaphors in Italian and Georgian (goat, rabbit, cat, lynx)

Man’s Characteristics in Animal Metaphors in Italian and Georgian (goat, rabbit, cat, lynx)

The ecology of liberation: animals, nature, geography

ABSTRACT This work offers an ecocritical reading of the Holocaust from the perspective of liberator accounts concerning the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. It focuses on how Allied military personnel expressed their descriptions in two distinct ways. First, liberators offer a unique spatial orientation in their narratives, communicating values that are presented through geography and ecology. Second, the survivors were repeatedly viewed by liberators through the lens of animal metaphors, a type of zoomorphic language. This paper argues that the horrific suffering experienced by the survivors in Bergen-Belsen created a linguistic frontier or divide between themselves and Allied military personnel.

“Angry as a pissemyre”: Churlish Anger in Chaucer’s The Summoner’s Tale

Although The Summoner’s Tale currently tends to be read as anti-fraternal satire that gives the last laugh to aristocratic characters, this study argues that Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1400) included another layer of irony that appealed to members of his own social station serving as courtiers to England’s volatile aristocracy. Guided by the study of medieval obscene comedy, it is attentive to how lower-status characters express criticism of the social order and power relationships between other social stations. This study reconsiders the anger of Thomas the “churl” as a model for those who must resist their superiors passive aggressively and dissemble their anger. Thomas is characterized with anti-peasant stereotypes, including animal metaphors, that warn against provoking seemingly docile subordinates. These stereotypes reflect subordinated people’s tactics for hiding their indignation from those who deny their agency. Scholastic analysis the emotions and pastoral discourse about the vices help explain how indignation can be expressed sometimes as sadness and other times as anger. Friar John’s sermon against Wrath brings the discussion to the level of Chaucer’s peers by considering the options available to the courtiers of tyrants. Although the friar’s advice is to placate the powerful instead of correcting them, both Thomas and Jankyn know how to resist overbearing masters while appearing to give in to their unreasonable demands. Thomas’s fart is a form of scatological resistance that is on the boundary between agency and reflex. Subjects expose the folly of their superiors’ unreasonable demands by dissembling indignation and artfully concealing correction as compliance.

METAFORA DALAM KUMPULAN PUISI MATA PEMBURU KARYA MAHDI IDRIS

This research describes the form of metaphor in the poetry collection Mata Pengburu by Mahdi Idris. The research method used is descriptive qualitative. The data source in this research is the poetry collection Mata Pengburu by Mahdi Idris. The data used is an array containing metaphors in the poetry collection Mata Pengburu by Mahdi Idris. The technique for collecting data is using reading techniques and note-taking techniques by marking parts of the lines containing metaphors in the poetry collection Eye of the Hunter by Mahdi Idris. The research results show that there are four forms of metaphor in the poetry collection Mata Pengburu by Mahdi Idris, namely anthropomorphic metaphor, animal metaphor, concrete to abstract metaphor, and synaesthetic metaphor. Researchers found 44 data contained in the poetry collection Mata Pengburu by Mahdi Idris regarding metaphor forms which were grouped into 4 sections, namely 29 anthropomorphic metaphor data, 7 animal metaphor data, 7 concrete to abstract metaphor data, and 1 synaesthetic metaphor data. Of the four metaphors, anthropomorphic metaphors often appear in the poetry collection Mata Pengburu by Mahdi Idris.

Writing Birds, Butterflies, and Other Insects: Metaphors of Mortality and Metamorphosis in Eighteenth-Century Religious Literature

ABSTRACT The mortality of man and the possibility of life after death are recurring themes in eighteenth-century German and Swiss literature. Animal imagery serves as an idiosyncratic poetic device for illustrating the inevitability and finality of death or the metamorphosis of the body in preparation for eternity. This article explores the functions of animal metaphors of mortality and metamorphosis in three eighteenth-century works of religious literature. Gessner’s epic poem Der Tod Abels (1758) describes how the discovery of a dead bird prompts Eve to reflect on her responsibility for human mortality. Klopstock’s hymnic poem ‘Die Frühlingsfeyer’ (1759) questions the impermanence of life by example of a little insect, the ‘Frühlingswürmchen’. In Lavater’s play Abraham und Isaak (1776), the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly proves that death is the threshold to eternity. The article offers a new perspective on the German-language tradition of Christian poetry and Bibeldichtung across literary genres and the role of animal imagery in it.

Bears and Dogs: Animals, Animal Metaphors, and the Telling of Rape and Gendered Collectivity in Fredrik Backman's Beartown

Bears and Dogs: Animals, Animal Metaphors, and the Telling of Rape and Gendered Collectivity in Fredrik Backman's Beartown

Humanizing animals does not reduce blatant dehumanization by children or adults

Blatantly likening humans to animals is associated with discrimination and hostility. The power of dehumanizing animal metaphors is thought to lie in the belief that animals are inferior to humans and do not deserve full moral concern. Previous work suggests that perceiving a narrower divide between humans and animals encourages the expansion of moral concern and reduces subtle dehumanization. Here we described animals as possessing human-like mental states, and tested if this manipulation would extend to the reduction of blatant dehumanization of an outgroup. Results demonstrate both children (5–12 years of age) and adults perceived animals as more similar to humans when animals were attributed feelings, intentions and beliefs. However, this manipulation did not reduce blatant dehumanization in either age group. These results suggest that subtle and blatant dehumanization may require distinct intervention strategies, and imply potential differences in their psychological mechanisms.

Has everything changed or has nothing changed? Students’ perception on sales professionals after the storm

BACKGROUND: The sales stereotype has been studied since the beginning of the last century; in particular, the perceptions held by university students are relevant, because they may be reluctant to consider a career in sales due to common misconceptions about the profession. This is even more relevant as the role of the salesperson has evolved over the years, and companies are interested in hiring this profile from HEI. The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the change in sales, and new skills, activities and paradigms are challenging the profession. OBJECTIVE: Aiming to address a potential gap in sales education, this paper examines the perceptions of salespeople among university students, and students’ orientation toward sales careers in a changing sales environment. METHOD: Focus group methodology using a special technique of animal metaphors was used to examine how the most noticeable characteristics of animals are mapped onto salespeople. RESULTS: The pre-pandemic and post-pandemic periods seems to confirm the persistence of the overall students’ perceptions of the salesperson but at the same time new competences and skills emerge for a new generation of salespersons. CONCLUSIONS: These findings update and enrich the existing literature with a new work on sales stereotypes that sheds light on students’ perceptions of salespeople after the pandemic.

Unpacking colonialist and racist ideologies in historical German lexicons: A critical analysis of the Afrika Hand-Lexikon (1885) and similar reference books

Abstract This article This article has been adapted from the author’s master’s thesis as part of completion of the European Master in Lexicography (EMLex). delves into the impact of colonialist and racist ideologies as manifested in lexicons, with a special focus on the Afrika Hand-Lexikon (1885) and other lexicons from the German colonialist period (1884–1914). By examining the front matter and selected entries from these lexicons, the article uncovers the origins of racial hierarchies and scrutinizes dehumanization tactics, including the use of animal metaphors. Moreover, the article provides historical context to understand the language and rhetorical devices employed by lexicographers such as Paul Heichen in the Afrika Hand-Lexikon. Additionally, it emphasizes the pivotal role that colonialist ideologies played in influencing the ideologies embraced by the Nazi regime in its war of extermination. Through this analysis, the article sheds light on the historical significance of lexicons in perpetuating and legitimizing derogatory language, while also underscoring their relevance in comprehending the broader socio-political impact of colonialism and racism.

Brom Bones Meets the Count de Buffon: Race, Biopower, and Natural History in ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’

ABSTRACT In Washington Irving’s short story ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’, animals are everywhere and almost seem interchangeable with humans. Nevertheless, the story’s pervasive animal imagery has received scant critical attention. In this paper, I consider the blurring human/animal binary in the story as a proxy for blurred lines between different ‘races’ of humans coexisting in Early America. Washington Irving uses his satirical Dutch narrator Dietrich Knickerbocker’s engagement with the Count de Buffon’s Natural History to question categorization based on the interrelated concepts of species and race, which were becoming important in an increasingly biopolitical early United States. I place Irving’s engagement with natural history in context before considering the ‘racial’ tension between the Dutch and the Yankees that Knickerbocker constructs in ‘Sleepy Hollow’. Irving marks this tension as satire in part through Knickerbocker’s deployment of bears and lions, two animal metaphors with special significance in Buffonian natural history. Close attention to the implications of these metaphors complicates our understanding of Brom Bones, a central but understudied character. I also discuss how this satirical use of race could deepen our understanding of ‘Sleepy Hollow’s’ actual racialized characters. Focusing on the animals in ‘Sleepy Hollow’ reveals Irving’s critique of using science to categorize humans into distinct racial groupings for political convenience and complicates our understanding of how early Americans grappled with the interplay between shifting scientific and political paradigms.

Speaking of Animals: A Conceptual analysis of Animal Metaphors in Yoruba

Figurative expressions, particularly metaphors, play a pivotal role in shaping our interpretation and comprehension of human discourse within a cultural system. In Yoruba culture, the metaphoric use of animal forms an indispensable component of daily life, manifesting in diverse forms, including proverbs, music, oral literature etc. To this end, previous studies have primarily concentrated on the stylistic use of animal-related metaphors in Yoruba language. This paper diverges by using a conceptual/cognitive approach to explore how specific animal terms and their associated concepts are metaphorically employed to represent various facets of human experiences, behaviors, and attributes. Data collection involved a one-week purposive observation and audio-recording of random discussions among Yoruba speakers in Ibadan, consultation with Yoruba language teachers and elderly family members. Audio-recordings were subsequently transcribed to extract all animal-related metaphoric expressions. These metaphors were then analyzed, organized and categorized according to Lakoff and Johnson’s Idealized Cultural or Cognitive Metaphor (ICM) framework. The study demonstrates the existence of conceptual connections between animal attributes and human traits in Yoruba culture as conveyed in twenty metaphorical expressions analyzed. The study also reveals that through the conceptual process of “mapping” across domains, animals in the source domain are used to depict various human experiences, behaviors, both semantically positive and derogatory to humans in the target domain through metaphorical means. This paper concludes that both domestic and non-domestic animals are employed to communicate intricate concepts and ideas via succinct and vivid imagery based on the sociocultural values, beliefs, and general worldview of the Yoruba people.