Conventional Metaphors Research Articles

Comprehension of metaphors in patients with mild cognitive impairment: Evidence from behavioral and ERP data

The ability of metaphor comprehension reflects the cognitive status of elders. This study explored the ability of Chinese aMCI patients to access metaphorical meaning based on linguistic models of metaphor processing. ERPs were recorded from 30 aMCI patients and 30 control participants when judging the meaningfulness of literal sentences, conventional metaphors, novel metaphors, and anomalous expressions. The lower accuracy of the aMCI group revealed an impairment in metaphoric comprehension ability, but this difference was not reflected in ERPs data. In all participants, anomalous endings to sentences evoked the most negative N400 amplitude, whereas conventional metaphors evoked the smallest N400 amplitude. The LPC amplitude might be masked by a metaphor rebound effect when processing novel metaphors, which was consistent with the Graded Salience Model that novel metaphors needed further semantic integration. The results suggest that the aMCI patients may suffer an impairment in metaphorical meaning recognition, which the declined working memory may cause.

Концептуальная метафора как средство формирования межкультурной компетенции у студентов экономических специальностей

The article looks into the use of metaphors in English economic discourse and examines ways to turn conceptual metaphor analysis into a learning tool for students of business English.
 We studied coverage of the economic impact of the 2020-22 pandemic on the tourism industry and the role that the conceptual metaphor «economy is a patient» plays in English economic discourse about these events. In our research we used corpus, semantic, conceptual and contextual analysis.
 The findings show that the conceptual metaphor «economy is a patient» has been common in English economic discourse. Moreover, writers have frequently incorporated economic terminology into extended metaphors, highlighting the interplay of primary dictionary and contextual meaning in what is considered “dead metaphors”. The research proves that even trite metaphors can still have a persuasive effect on the reader creating powerful images in his/her mind’s eye. It also becomes clear that when writers use conventional metaphors, they are fully aware of their figurativeness.
 From our perspective, using conceptual metaphor analysis methods in a business English class helps to achieve a number of teaching goals: it gives students useful insights into the origins of economic terminology, makes them culturally competent, helps them develop communicative skills. Therefore, it can be a useful learning tool.
 The research contributes to the study of metaphor in modern economic discourse. The findings of the research could be used to develop ways to help students to acquire a number of important communication and professional skills.

Linguacultural isomorphism / anisomorphism and synesthetic metaphor translation procedures

In this paper, we combine analytical tools of conceptual metaphor theory with the affordances of corpus-based linguistics and quantitative analysis to investigate the translation of synesthetic metaphors found in Donna Tartt’s novels into Ukrainian. A synesthetic metaphor is addressed as a linguistic expression representing a sensation of one modality in terms of another. We claim that the choice of a translation procedure – retention, removal, omission, modification, or addition is partly determined by linguacultural similarity (i.e. isomorphism) or specificity (i.e. anisomorphism) of cross-sensory mappings that underlie the source-text and targettext linguistic expressions and partly – by the translator’s free choice, which cannot be explained by objective reasons. The obtained results show the following trends. Original metaphors as well as conventional metaphors based on isomorphic crosssensory mappings are mostly retained. Conventional metaphors that rest on anisomorphic mappings are mostly modified or removed/omitted. However, the translator can choose to remove/modify a synesthetic metaphor that rests on an isomorphic mapping. Added synesthetic metaphors usually root in isomorphic mappings. The applied methodology minimizes subjectivity of judgment in differentiating between the compulsory (i.e. imposed by the linguacultural specificity) and free strategic choices, which contributes to the potential impact of this research.

Metaphors in scientific discourse: some observations on a Nobel lectures corpus

This paper aims at describing the role and the different manifestations of metaphor in scientific discourse, drawing a distinction between creative and conventional metaphors. To this end, a corpus composed of nineteen Nobel lectures, delivered by nineteen women, will be analysed by means of the critical discourse analysis theoretical and methodological tool, with particular attention to the framing that metaphor produced in scientific discourse. Our analysis shows that scientific discourse tends to privilege conventional metaphors, rather than creative ones, above all as far as the main shared domain concepts are concerned.

Are Older Bilinguals' Better in Metaphor Generation?

Metaphor, as widely known, is a figure of speech where a word or phrase is used to describe an object, action, or event to which it cannot be applied exactly. Metaphors are often used figuratively to enable clarity or emphasize the similarities between the two things in a frame. In the current study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between cognitive functions and generating metaphor and their associations in older bilingual and monolingual participants. We conducted the experiment with fifty-six (Bilingual and Monolingual) participants in the age group ranging from 50 to 65years. We administered the novel and conventional metaphor generation task based on vision words in perceptual domain in Telugu. Followed by a battery of cognitive function tests: Flanker task to study the attention, Semantic Fluency task, Corsi task to check working memory, LexTALE to measure the vocabulary, and a language questionnaire. These tasks are used to investigate the association and correlation between the old age bilingual and monolingual in generating vision metaphors. The current study's findings demonstrate that bilinguals have a considerable advantage in cognitive function and their ability to generate novel metaphors are better when compared to monolinguals.

The Psychological Reality of Chinese Deliberate Metaphors from the Reception Side: An Experimental Approach.

While the psychological reality of deliberate metaphors remains in ongoing doubt, this study attests to their psychological reality in the Chinese language. Based upon the definition and main tenets of deliberate metaphor, we propose three hypotheses: Compared with non-deliberate metaphors, addressees pay more attention to deliberate metaphors' source domains, display a greater tendency to adopt the source domain's perspective, and spend more time on processing deliberate metaphors. Using Chinese deliberate metaphors as testing materials, we conducted an experiment with 70 Chinese university students whose native language was Chinese. The results confirmed our hypotheses. Compared with non-deliberate metaphors, Chinese deliberate metaphors drew more attention and brought about more perspective changes. Additionally, processing deliberate novel metaphors consumed more time than processing non-deliberate metaphors, thus providing supportive evidence for the psychological reality of Chinese deliberate metaphors. However, less time taken on deliberate conventional metaphors than non-deliberate metaphors might have been caused by our experiment's task design. In a nutshell, our study statistically proves the psychological reality of Chinese deliberate metaphors from the reception side. Future studies may check our findings with a similar experimental paradigm in other languages.

Common brain activation and connectivity patterns supporting the generation of creative uses and creative metaphors

Recent studies and reviews suggest that creative thinking is at least partly a domain-general cognitive ability, dependent on consistent patterns of brain activity including co-activation of the executive control and default mode networks. However, the degree to which the generation of ideas in different creative tasks relies on common brain activity remains unknown. In this fMRI study, participants were asked to generate creative ideas in both a uses generation task and a metaphor production task. Whole-brain analysis showed that generation of creative uses (relative to conventional uses) activated the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), medial prefrontal cortex, left supplementary motor area, left angular gyrus (AG), left thalamus, and bilateral cerebellum posterior lobe. The generation of creative metaphors (relative to conventional metaphors) activated dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and left AG. Importantly, regions active in both creative use and creative metaphor generation included the dmPFC and left AG. Psycho-physiological interactions analysis showed that the left AG was positively connected to the right precentral gyrus, and the dmPFC to the left IFG in both creative tasks. Our findings provide evidence that the generation of creative ideas relies on a core creative network related to remote semantic association-making and conceptual integration, offering new insight into the domain-general mechanisms underlying creative thinking.

Personality traits and environment: The effects of observing visual art on verbal creativity.

Figurative language is one of the most prevalent expressions of verbal creativity, and use of novel metaphors is the most significant source of verbal innovation. As environmental and personality trait factors can impact creativity, the current study aimed to examine whether exposure to an environment rich in visual stimuli (artwork) and verbal stimuli (novel metaphors) contributes to verbal creativity, taking into account the personality trait of "openness to experience." Study participants (132) were divided into three groups: (1) a group exposed to a creative verbal environment (reading novel metaphors), (2) a group exposed to a visually creative environment (observing abstract and figurative artwork), and (3) a group not exposed to any creative environment. Participants completed personality questionnaire and a metaphor generation questionnaire that asked participants to describe 10 emotions using novel metaphors. Results showed the type of creative environment exposure had a graded effect on creativity (i.e., generation of novel metaphors): the non-exposed control group generated fewer novel than conventional metaphors, the group exposed to novel verbal metaphors produced a similar number of novel and conventional metaphors, and the group exposed to artwork produced more novel than conventional metaphors. This may imply that environments containing visually creative stimuli provide opportunities for silent contemplation which in turn evoke neuropsychological mechanisms related to creative processes. Furthermore, the finding that the trait of "openness to experience" and exposure to a visually creative environment contributed to greater generation of novel metaphors suggests that creativity may be dependent on both individual and environmental factors.

Comprehending scientific metaphors in the bilingual brain: Evidence from event-related potentials.

While the processing mechanisms of novel and conventional metaphors were widely investigated in previous monolingual studies, little attention has been devoted to how metaphoric utterances are processed by the bilingual brain as well as how scientific context might modulate such processes. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), this paper investigates the way in which scientific metaphors are electrophysiologically processed in Chinese (L1) and English (L2), with the aim of investigating the different mechanisms for understanding metaphorical language in first (L1) and second (L2) languages. By time-locking the N400 and later LPC time windows, the research show how meaning integration differs between L1 and L2 at different stages when comprehending figurative language. We found that compared with Chinese scientific metaphors, English scientific metaphors elicited greater N400, smaller late positive component (LPC), and greater late negativity, and English literals elicited greater late negativity. Our findings suggest that the dynamics of processing figurative meaning in bilingual brains over time show a complex pattern, with language, context, inference and salience jointly modulating temporal dynamics and possible cerebral asymmetries, supporting the revised hierarchical model.

The Postmodernity of the European Union: A Discourse Analysis of State of the Union Addresses

ABSTRACT While the debate about further integration is ongoing, the European Union (EU) already shows signs of functioning like a state. The dynamics of the European integration process are defined by the duality of inter-governmentalism and supranationalism. This contradiction encouraged the development of the EU as a new hybrid political organisation. A software-assisted discourse analysis of the European State of the Union Addresses highlights that Presidents of the EU Commission have indeed conceptualised the Union both as a state-like entity and an intergovernmental institution because of its unique process of evolution, as evidenced by parallelism with the US event, the co-occurrence of conventional metaphors of statehood and EU-related metaphors as well as the merging of the concepts of “Europe” and “European Union” in the Addresses. Overall, the Addresses have contributed to creating a context of statehood for the EU on the one hand, and to reinforcing the position of the Presidents of the European Commission of the EU Parliament as leaders of the EU on the other.

The Road Less Traveled: How COVID-19 Patients Use Metaphors to Frame Their Lived Experiences.

Metaphor provides an important intellectual tool for communication about intense disease experiences. The present study aimed to investigate how COVID-19-infected persons metaphorically frame their lived experiences of COVID-19, and how the pandemic impacts on their mental health burden. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 33 patients afflicted with COVID-19. Metaphor analysis of patient narratives demonstrated that: (1) COVID-19 infection impacted patient conceptualization of themselves and the relationship between the "self" and the body, as well as social relationships. (2) Metaphors relating to physical experience, space and time, and integrative behaviors tended to be used by COVID-19 patients in a negative way, whereas war metaphors, family metaphors, temperature metaphors, and light metaphors were likely to express positive attitudes. (3) Patients preferred to employ conventional metaphors grounded on embodied sensorimotor experiences to conceptualize their extreme emotional experiences. This study has important implications with respect to the therapeutic function of metaphors in clinical communication between healthcare professionals and COVID-19 patients.

The Conventionality and Novelty of Metaphorical Expressions in British and American Love Poetry: A Cognitive Approach

According to the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), metaphors are pervasive in everyday life, and most novel poetic metaphors are developed from conventional metaphors. Several examples and explanations have been provided to support these assertions; however, there has yet to be a systematic investigation into the conventionality and novelty of metaphors in literature. To partly fill in these gaps, the present study aims to explore which conceptual metaphors of love are frequently employed in British and American love poems and how the poets adapt them to bring novelty to their works. Love, one of the most highly metaphorised concepts, was chosen as the topic of the metaphors in this study, for there is a considerable resource of love poems available to be explored. The findings of the study reveal that there are nine conventional conceptual metaphors of love employed in British and American love poems. The conventionality and novelty of metaphors in poetry were then analysed in their respective poetic contexts, focusing on how the poets have adopted four techniques (extending, elaboration, questioning, and combining) to create novel expressions from conventional language. This study indicates that the knowledge of conceptual metaphors can help a person, especially a learner of a foreign language, to interpret poetic metaphors in literary contexts.

CONCEPTUAL MAPPING MODEL ACROSS LANGUAGES: A TEST IN VIETNAMESE LANGUAGE

The conceptual metaphor, LOVE IS A JOURNEY, has been identified as a process of mapping based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). However, Ahrens (2002) pointed out several problems that the CMT may encounter, especially in setting parameters to be experimentally tested. Ahrens (2002) proposed the Conceptual Mapping Model (CMM) to investigate metaphor expressions by identifying three mappings between the source domain and the target domain: entities, qualities, and functions. After an analysis, the reason for these mappings, called a mapping principle, is indicated. In particular, the CMM can predict the processing of conceptual metaphors in terms of conventional and novel metaphors. This study is intended to test whether the CMM can perform well across languages through the experimental rates of acceptability and interpretability for different types of metaphors. Fifty Vietnamese native speakers were recruited. Each participant judged (on a Likert scale of 1-7) the levels of acceptability and interpretability of three conceptual metaphors in Vietnamese: LIFE IS A BOOK, HAPPINESS IS LIGHT, and LOVE IS FIRE. Each conceptual metaphor consists of six types of sentences, including (a) Literal pair to B, (b) Conventional metaphor, (c) Literal pair to D, (d) Novel metaphor that follows the mapping principle, (e) Literal pair to F, and (f) Novel metaphor that does not follow the mapping principle. The results of t-tests show that in terms of both acceptability and interpretability, conventional metaphors are ranked higher than novel metaphors. The results also indicate that novel metaphors that follow the mapping principle are rated higher than those that do not. Therefore, the mapping principle can constrain the image schemas so that any image that does not belong to the schemas can affect the processing of metaphors.

Measuring embodied conceptualizations of pitch in singing performances: Insights from an OpenPose study

People conceptualize auditory pitch as vertical space: low and high pitch correspond to low and high space, respectively. The strength of this cross-modal correspondence, however, seems to vary across different cultural contexts and a debate on the different factors underlying this variation is currently taking place. According to one hypothesis, pitch mappings are semantically mediated. For instance, the use of conventional metaphors such as “falling” or “rising” melodies strengthens a pitch-height mapping to the detriment of other possible mappings (e.g., pitch as bright/dark color or small/big size). Hence, entrenched pitch terms shape specific conceptualizations. The deterministic role of language is called into question by the hypothesis that different pitch mappings share a less constraining conceptual basis. As such, conceptual primitives may be concretizedad hocinto specific domains so that more local variation is possible. This claim is supported, for instance, by the finding that musicians use language-congruent (conventional) and language-incongruent (ad hoc) mappings interchangeably. The present paper substantiates this observation by investigating the head movements of musically trained and untrained speakers of Dutch in a melody reproduction task, as embodied instantiations of a vertical conceptualization of pitch. The OpenPose algorithm was used to track the movement trajectories in detail. The results show that untrained participants systematically made language-congruent movements, while trained participants showed more diverse behaviors, including language-incongruent movements. The difference between the two groups could not be attributed to the level of accuracy in the singing performances. In sum, this study argues for a joint consideration of more entrenched (e.g., linguistic metaphors) and more context-dependent (e.g., musical training and task) factors in accounting for variability in pitch representations.

The Role of Sensory-Motor Experiences and Embodied Cognition in Container-Based Metaphors in the Language of Jordanian Congenitally-Blind Persons

Empirical research accentuates that blind persons’ command of conventional metaphors does not significantly differ from that of the sighted (Sak-Wernicka, 2017; Minervino et. al., 2018). Still, there are several propositions and theories regarding congenitally-blind persons’ ability of perceiving conceptual metaphors that are based on sensory modalities (e.g. UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING). On basis of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and with the aid of a corpus of natural data, this study investigates how Jordanian congenitally-blind persons perceive and use the CONTANER image-schema following spatial logics that are based on sensory-motor experiences and behaviours. These logics created meanings that are grounded on the speaker’s embodied experiences and conceptualized as spatial schemas of CONTAINMENT, RESISTANCE, MOVEMENT, FORCE, INFILTRATING, ENTERING, and LEAVING. These spatial schemas predominantly reflect the Jordanian congenitally-blind persons’ ‘embodied cognition’ (Johnson, 1987; Gibbs, 2006) and points of view as ‘characters’ or ‘observers’ (Cassell and McNeill, 1991).

Decoding brain activities of literary metaphor comprehension: An event-related potential and EEG spectral analysis.

Novel metaphors in literary texts (hereinafter referred to as literary metaphors) seem to be more creative and open-ended in meaning than metaphors in non-literary texts (non-literary metaphors). However, some disagreement still exists on how literary metaphors differ from non-literary metaphors. Therefore, this study explored the neural mechanisms of literary metaphors extracted from modern Chinese poetry by using the methods of Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) and Event-Related Spectral Perturbations (ERSPs), as compared with non-literary conventional metaphors and literal expressions outside literary texts. Forty-eight subjects were recruited to make the semantic relatedness judgment after reading the prime-target pairs in three linguistic conditions. According to the ERPs results, the earliest differences were presented during the time window of P200 component (170–260 ms) in the frontal and central areas, with the amplitude of P200 for literary metaphors more positive than the other two conditions, reflecting the early allocation of attention and the early conscious experience of the experimental stimuli. Meanwhile, significant differences were presented during the time window of N400 effect (430–530 ms), with the waveform of literary metaphors more negative than others in the frontal and central topography of scalp distributions, suggesting more efforts in retrieving conceptual knowledge for literary metaphors. The ERSPs analysis revealed that the frequency bands of delta and theta were both involved in the cognitive process of literary metaphor comprehension, with delta band distributed in the frontal and central scalp and theta band in parietal and occipital electrodes. Increases in the two power bands during different time windows provided extra evidences that the processing of literary metaphors required more attention and effort than non-literary metaphors and literal expressions in the semantic related tasks, suggesting that the cognitive process of literary metaphors was distinguished by different EEG spectral patterns.

‘Waves’ and ‘flashes’ of the pandemic: How COVID-19 metaphors in Russian media influence reasoning

In this study, we examined how metaphors used in the Russian media to describe the COVID-19 virus affect the audience’s judgment about the virus and their willingness to take a vaccine. We found that the two conventional metaphors used to describe the dynamics of the spread of the coronavirus (‘wave’ and ‘flash’) have a limited impact on the audience. In particular, by conducting an online experiment (N=737), we revealed that texts in which the virus and vaccination were described metaphorically (‘a new flash of coronavirus’ / ‘vaccination could extinguish the flames of a new flash of coronavirus’; ‘a new wave of coronavirus’ / ‘vaccination could curb the onslaught of a new wave of coronavirus’) reduced fear and anxiety at the thought of the coronavirus, but this effect appears only in vaccinated participants. Metaphorical framing, while impactful at the affective level, did not affect ‘rational’ reasoning, such as estimates of the likelihood of becoming vaccinated or estimates of the number of cases in the country. Also, subjects’ responses to most of the questions correlated positively with their confidence in official information about the coronavirus. The article interprets the results in the context of current work in the field of metaphorical framing and health communication.

Metaphoric proverbs in EFL learners’ translation

Abstract Metaphoric proverbs represent interesting cultural instances of conventional metaphors (Belkhir 2014, 2012). The ubiquity of metaphoric proverbs in language and the problems this phenomenon causes in translation is an issue that requires close attention. Translation aims at providing semantic equivalence between two languages. According to Vinay and Darbelnet (1995), equivalence constitutes the adequate method that should be used by translators when dealing with proverbs. However, no translator can provide perfect translation of a source text due to cultural specificities. The present paper offers a modest report of an experimental study conducted with a group of EFL students who have been taught translation as a subject in a higher education context (Mouloud Mammeri University). A set of English proverbs has been collected to build up the experiment that was administered to the subjects who were asked to translate them into Arabic, then into their first language, Kabyle. The question raised is whether these students are able to translate the proverbs appropriately. The study aims (1) to investigate translation strategies used by EFL learners; and (2) to show how learners’ L1 (Kabyle) and L2 (Arabic) interfere in the translation of English proverbs. The results showed that the more the students were acquainted with proverbs, the more they used equivalence in their translation. Similarly, the lesser they were acquainted with proverbs, the more they used literal translation or paraphrase. In addition, some translations provided by the participants revealed the presence of language interference.

Hemispheric Processing of Chinese Scientific Metaphors: Evidence via Hemifield Presentation.

The role of the two hemispheres in processing metaphoric language is controversial. In order to complement current debates, the current divided visual field (DVF) study introduced scientific metaphors as novel metaphors, presenting orientation mapping from the specific and familiar domains to the abstract and unfamiliar domains, to examine hemispheric asymmetry in metaphoric processing. Twenty-four Chinese native speakers from science disciplines took part in the experiment. The participants were presented with four types of Chinese word pairs: scientific metaphors, conventional metaphors, literal word pairs, and unrelated word pairs. The first word in each pair was presented centrally, and the second was presented to the left visual field (the Right Hemisphere) or the right visual field (the Left Hemisphere). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded when participants read the target words and judged whether words in each pair were related. The data demonstrated that both hemispheres were involved at the initial stage of metaphor processing, but the right hemisphere took a more privileged role. The significant activation of the left hemisphere for scientific metaphoric processing supports the fine-coarse coding hypothesis. During right-visual-field presentation, the left hemisphere, responsible for the processing of closely related domains, has to integrate the loosely associated domains of scientific metaphor, which greatly increased cognitive taxes. Moreover, the data of late positive components (LPCs) revealed different hemispheric activation between scientific metaphors and conventional metaphors. Compared with literal pairs, conventional metaphors elicited significantly higher LPCs during right visual field presentation, while the scientific metaphor elicited significantly lower LPCs during left visual field presentation. These results suggest different processing mechanisms between novel metaphors and conventional metaphors and the special role of the right hemisphere in novel metaphoric processing at the later mapping stage.

Oxytocin Reduces the Attractiveness of Silver-Tongued Men for Women During Mid-Cycle.

In humans, the neuropeptide oxytocin promotes both attraction toward and bonds with romantic partners, although no studies have investigated whether this extends to the perceived attractiveness of flirtatious language. In a within-subject, randomized double-blind placebo-controlled behavior and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm (https://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT03144115), 75 women rated the attractiveness of either a male face alone or paired with a verbal compliment which varied in terms of topic (women or landscapes) and figurativeness (novel or conventional metaphors or literal expressions). Subjects were tested in fertile and luteal phases of their cycle and on both occasions received either 24 IU intranasal oxytocin or placebo. Results showed that, whereas under placebo women in the fertile phase rated the facial attractiveness of men producing novel metaphorical compliments higher than in their luteal phase, following oxytocin treatment they did not. Correspondingly, under oxytocin the faces of individuals producing novel metaphorical compliments evoked greater responses in brain regions involved in processing language (middle frontal gyrus) and cognitive and emotional conflict (posterior middle cingulate and dorsal anterior cingulate) but reduced functional connectivity between the dorsal anterior cingulate and right orbitofrontal and medial frontal gyri. Thus, sex hormones and oxytocin may have opposite effects in regulating mate selection in women during their fertile phase. Novel metaphorical compliments convey a greater sexual than bonding intention and thus while sex hormones at mid-cycle may promote attraction to individuals communicating sexual rather than bonding intent, oxytocin may bias attraction away from such individuals through increasing cognitive and emotional conflict responses toward them.