Deliberate Metaphors Research Articles

A Deliberate Metaphorical Framing Analysis in Multimodal Cartoons -- By Analyzing Environmental Cartoons

Drawing on deliberate metaphor theory and framing theory, this study takes the environmental cartoons for case analysis and explore how deliberate metaphors construct in multimodal cartoons and how to convey social communicative meaning deliberately. The analysis founded three types of surface frames: HUMAN frame, MONSTER frame and DEATH frame. Deliberate metaphors attempt to invite readers to understand environmental cartoons from the frames in which the source domain is constructed. The cartoons embody the value of harmonious coexistence between human beings and nature and advocate individuals to protect the environment.

Politics metaphor in British and Bosnian-Herzegovinian migration discourse

As the geopolitical situation changes, it is necessary to discuss how politics is structured by metaphor in the context of recent social phenomena, such as the European migrant crisis. This paper analyses the conceptual metaphors politics as war, politics as a game, politics as a trade, and politics as a theater in British and Bosnian-Herzegovinian newspapers. The goal of this study is to establish to what extent and in which situations journalists resort to figurative language to persuade the recipients to view politics in a desired way. The paper aims to reflect on the use of deliberate metaphor as a perspective-changing device by journalists striving to achieve their rhetorical goals and influence recipients’ perception of the political situation. The corpus comprises 174 British and 307 Bosnian-Herzegovinian articles collected from August 2015 to March 2016 (247,912 words). Relying on Steen et al.’s (2010) model of metaphor analysis, the paper investigates the types of metaphor in the corpus, the deliberate use of politics metaphors and their communicative function in migration discourse - discussing both the rhetorical goals of journalists and the rhetorical effects on recipients. It has been established that the analyzed set of metaphors has a divertive and persuasive function in migration discourse. Similar studies are encouraged to shed light on how deliberate metaphors related to politics may have diverging communicative functions in other types of discourse.

"No man is an island": How Chinese netizens use deliberate metaphors to provide "depression sufferers" with social support.

Online social support provides a way to positively influence depression sufferers. In the present study, we aim to analyze how social support in Chinese online depression communities is communicated through the lens of deliberate metaphor theory (DMT) to deepen the understanding of the under-researched complicated, emotionally laden, and culture-related concepts of this experience. We collected data (n = 3546 comments) from the Warm Supporting section of the Depression Super Topic, a major Chinese online depression community on Weibo. The data were analyzed using a metaphorical analysis with the Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit and a thematic analysis. Our findings identify two themes: deliberate metaphors (DMs) of depression and DMs of social environment for depression sufferers. The former conceptualizes future expectations without depression (as rosy images; victorious battles; the beaten black dog); disorder (as subtle objects; subjective initiative events); depression sufferers (as valuable objects; important roles); and present life with depression (as optional events; spiritual practices; fragile objects). The latter conceptualizes social connection (as solid objects; nonessentials); individuals in the social environment (as energetic objects; vicious roles); and prejudice (as colored objects). The findings suggest that DMs as important online social support resources, helping to express empathy and normalize depression with more common-sense, and non-judgmental concepts. Additionally, in DMs, Chinese netizens navigate the intricate intersection of medical and moral perspectives on depression and its recovery, leveraging both aspects to offer comprehensive social support. "Confucian-based" elements are embedded in culture-related social support expressions in DMs. In practice, our findings contribute to tailored and appropriate health interventions for depression.

Deliberate metaphors in English as a lingua franca interactions: characteristics and constructing processes

ABSTRACT Drawing on insights from intercultural pragmatics and Deliberate Metaphor Theory, this study investigates the use of metaphorical expressions in English as a lingua franca (ELF) interactions. Research data were collected from the Asian Corpus of English, and eight orientational phrasal verbs – namely put up, get up, go down, come down, stay in, live in, come out, and check out – were selected and analyzed using the Deliberate Metaphor Identification Procedures. The findings reveal that ELF speakers make extensive use of deliberate metaphors, which display linguistic creativity, intentionality, and context-dependency in intercultural communication. A detailed analysis of the corpus data indicates that ELF speakers employ various communication strategies, including repetition, clarification, paraphrasing, back-channeling, and confirmation, to negotiate the metaphorical meanings of the orientational phrasal verbs. This study provides significant insights into the construction of deliberate metaphors by ELF speakers in specific situational contexts.

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.

Uses and functions of conceptual metaphor in pedagogical meditation discourse

In mindfulness and meditation instructional contexts, conceptual metaphor is a powerful facilitator of intersubjective communication about inner events and first-person experiences. Previous studies in meditation discourse have described space as a productive source domain that is used by meditation teachers to characterise metaphorically inner events and abstract concepts related to the meditative practice (Silvestre-López 2019, 2020). This study examines the discourse manifestations of the space source domain used to metaphorically characterise the most representative metaphorical topics (targets) in a corpus of introductory talks about meditation addressed to an audience of non-expert meditators. The analysis is sensitive to the communicative dimension of the use of metaphors in that it distinguishes between non-deliberate and deliberate uses (Steen 2015) and considers the functions they fulfil in discourse (Semino 2008; Goatly 2011). The corpus was analysed qualitatively following a bottom-up approach. Metaphor identification was carried out using DMIP (Reijnierse et al. 2018). Target and source domain coding was done with the help of dictionary information and the domains already identified in a metaphor compendium created in previous meditation discourse analyses (see Coll-Florit & Climent 2019; Silvestre-López & Navarro 2017; Silvestre-López 2020). This approach allowed different layers of domain specificity to be unveiled, with remarkable differences found between non-deliberate and deliberate metaphor use. Among them, differences in degree of source domain granularity (Langacker 2008) ranging from vaguer notions like undefined space or spaciousness to conceptually richer and finer-grained scenarios like the home and shelter, ocean, landscape, or sky models. The speakers were found to use these source domains consistently with explanatory purposes (explanatory function) to help their audience reconceptualise some of the most frequent target topics in their talks (e.g., the present moment, the meditator, the mind, awareness, or meditation) from more mindfully-oriented perspectives, hence allowing to become aware of and get rid of potential misconceptions. Deliberate uses proved particularly useful in promoting understanding through reconceptualisation, which was in turn facilitated by the vivid imagery evoked through detailed elaborations of source-domain scenery. Besides ideational functions, deliberate metaphors were also found to facilitate positive attitudinal changes towards the practice, as well as to provide for argument structuring and create textual cohesion. Overall, non-deliberate and deliberate uses were found to combine in the speakers’ production to aid them in skilfully achieving their own communicative intentions, which underscores the need for further studies that explore potential ways of applying similar findings to real meditation practice, and in instructional settings.

What Else besides War: Deliberate Metaphors Framing COVID-19 in Chinese Online Newspaper Editorials

ABSTRACT Through metaphor, we gain distinctive perspectives on reality and communicate in new ways, especially when we use metaphor intentionally. The COVID-19 pandemic broke out in early 2020, causing significant harm to people’s lives worldwide. This article moves the focus from the ubiquitous war metaphor used in the pandemic to other deliberate metaphors identified in five Chinese news media, i.e., China Daily, People’s Daily, Huanqiu, Cankaoxiaoxi, and Xinhuanet. 59 Chinese online newspaper editorials were collected between 22 January 2020 and 22 July 2020. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, we investigate season, disease and medicine, and homework metaphors. We contend that (a) originating from common bodily experiences in the physical environment, season metaphors have emotional valences and promoted public confidence when the epidemic was severe and urged caution when it was mitigated, (b) connecting physical and socio-cultural worlds, disease and medicine metaphors could simplify and evaluate social issues besides formulating editorials’ political stances, and (c) based on shared socio-cultural knowledge, homework metaphors call for more democratic and practical governance in disease control. This study reveals how these metaphors accomplish useful pragmatic purposes in the pandemic in particular contexts.

Metaphern im Diskurs des Klimawandels: eine vergleichende Analyse

Climate change is a phenomenon that is increasingly moving into the focus of public discourse. The object of the present study is the linguistic expression of the concept of CLIMATE CHANGE in German and Lithuanian public discourse, especially metaphorical expressions such as a monster called climate change or lexicalized metaphors like the fight against climate change. The aim of the study is to compare conceptual metaphors in the Lithuanian and German public discourse. The main research method is the analysis of conceptual metaphors based on the three-dimensional model of metaphor. The method is in line with the cognitive concept of the research, in which a metaphor is understood not as a linguistic phenomenon, but as a thinking strategy, mapping from a source domain to a target domain. The research is also based on ethnolinguistic principles since conceptual metaphors are linked not only to the cultural experience of an individual but of the entire nation. The analysis of the conceptual metaphors provides an insight into the perception of climate change in both languages. The concept of CLIMATE CHANGE is structured by several source domains, which can be classified according to the scala naturae (Great Chain of Being): NATURE, PLANTS, ANIMALS, HUMANITY, SUPERNATURE. The areas include different metaphorical images. Metaphorical expressions reveal that the target concept is reflected by universal conceptual metaphors in both languages, but their linguistic expression in German and Lithuanian is partly unique. The concept of CLIMATE CHANGE also has a communicative role achieved by deliberate metaphors in both languages.

The relevance of metaphor in argumentation. Uniting pragma-dialectics and deliberate metaphor theory

Argumentative discussions can contain various types of metaphor, but these do not all fulfil the same function in discourse: while some seem to express part of the argumentation, others seem to be irrelevant. So far, argumentation research has not explained when metaphors should be considered relevant for argumentation. In this paper, insights from deliberate metaphor theory are combined with the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation. Based on this framework, it can be explained that various forms of metaphor exist that have various communicative functions. Deliberate metaphors are metaphors intended to change the perspective of the interlocutor and thus may play a relevant role in a discussion. Non-deliberate metaphors have no such function. Using the concept of analytic relevance, the analyst can distinguish between relevant and irrelevant metaphors: If metaphors are used as a means to change someone's perspective on the issue at hand, they are relevant moves in light of the aim to solve a difference of opinion, whether they positively contribute to that aim or not.

A network of conventional and deliberate metaphors in Psalm 22

Metaphors are not stand-alone units, but figure often in larger chains and regularly build upon each other. Yet, not all metaphors are the same. Some are very simple, such as the simile, while other metaphors require more active cross-domain mapping in thought. Still others are also context-dependent, deliberately used to convey new insights or used with a certain rhetorical intention. The study of various metaphorical clusters in Psalm 22 allows us to discuss the different types of metaphors and their distinct communicative functions. The most remarkable metaphorical cluster is based on the conceptual metaphor yhwh is fire. Built upon this conceptual layer is another metaphor, namely people melt before yhwh like wax melts before fire. Used in the context of Ps. 22.15, this deliberate metaphor confirms yhwh’s absolute sovereignty. His authority and power are in Ps. 22.13–17 the reason for fear, because his is a flaming and destructive power.

“That’s the Metaphor You’re Going for?” Deliberate Metaphor and Humor

Abstract This paper aims at discussing the function of deliberate metaphors in humorous narratives due to the similarities in mechanisms underlying both elements of language. This corpus-based analysis has shown the relation between deliberate metaphors and elements of the knowledge resources of the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH). The study has revealed that if deliberate metaphors are part of humorous narratives, they are more likely to be the source of the funniness rather than the transit system which conveys the metaphors themselves. With this in mind, it is possible to assess the extent to which deliberate metaphors contribute to humor.

The contested notion of ‘deliberate metaphor’: What can we learn from ‘unclear’ cases in academic lectures?

Abstract This contribution applies Steen’s (e.g., 2008, 2010, 2015, 2017a,b) notion of ‘deliberate metaphor’ to authentic language data from US-American academic lectures. The analysis of excerpts from these data demonstrates several problems with the concept of deliberate metaphor and its proposed ‘identification procedure’ (Reijnierse 2017, Reijnierse et al. 2018). As the analysis shows, problems in distinguishing deliberate from non-deliberate metaphors are posed by metaphorical technical terms, the assumption of ‘idealized language users’ inherent in the identification procedure of deliberate metaphors, and the dynamics of discourse. Thus, while in its current state, deliberate metaphor can draw our attention to important uses of striking metaphors, it appears to be inadequate for the analysis of less striking cases of metaphor whose use in particular discourse contexts nevertheless suggests important communicative functions for part of the participants.

Metaphors in political communication

Abstract This article analyses the use of (deliberate) metaphors in political discourse produced by French-speaking Belgian regional parliamentarians during non-institutional political interviews. The article first investigates if the use of deliberate metaphor limits itself to a particular type of political discourse (i.e. public and institutional political discourse) or if metaphor use is also found in other types of settings (i.e. non-institutional political discourse). Second, the article analyses the variation of deliberate metaphor use between political actors depending on gender, seniority and political affiliation. To this end, the article applies Steen’s (2008) three-dimensional model of metaphor analysis on biographical interviews conducted with French-speaking Belgian regional parliamentarians (RMPs). Our results indicate that RMPs, when using non-deliberate metaphors, mostly rely on source domains such as construction, battle and relationships. This is in contrast with the use of deliberate metaphors, where source domains like sports, nature and container take the upper hand.

Metaphor in communication: the distribution of potentially deliberate metaphor across register and word class

There is renewed interest in the special role that metaphor can have in its communicative status as metaphor between language users. This paper investigates the occurrence of such deliberate metaphors in comparison with non-deliberate metaphors. To this end, a corpus of 24,762 metaphors was analysed for the presence of potentially deliberate (versus non-deliberate) metaphor use across registers and word classes. Results show that 4.36 percent of metaphors in the corpus are identified as potentially deliberate metaphors. News and fiction contain significantly more potentially deliberate metaphors, while academic texts and conversations exhibit significantly fewer potentially deliberate metaphors than expected. Moreover, nouns and adjectives are used relatively more frequently as potentially deliberate metaphors, while adverbs, verbs and prepositions are used relatively less frequently as potentially deliberate metaphors. These results can be explained by referring to the overall communicative properties of the registers concerned, as well as to the role of the different word classes in those registers.

The IMMIGRANTS ARE ANIMALS metaphor as a deliberate metaphor in British and Bosnian-Herzegovinian media

Abstract Applying MIPVU (Steen et al., 2010) to the corpus of media articles about the European migrant crisis in the period from August 2015 until March 2016 in English and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, this paper analyzes the IMMIGRANTS ARE ANIMALS metaphor within the framework of the deliberate metaphor theory by considering the three dimensions of this metaphor, namely, the linguistic dimension of (in)directness, the conceptual parameter of conventionality, and the communicative dimension of (non)deliberateness. Specifically, the paper examines the use of the ANIMALS metaphor as a deliberate metaphor in the immigration discourse in English and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian. The paper aims to determine to what extent and in which situations the authors of the texts tend to divert the addressee’s attention to viewing immigrants in terms of animals. Using the IDeM protocol for the identification of deliberate metaphor (Krennmayr, 2011), the paper also focuses on the rhetorical potential and the effects of the use of deliberate metaphors in the media discourse. Such metaphors are often used in the media discourse to dehumanize immigrants and consequently reduce the addressee’s empathy for them.

Co-construction of metaphors in Estonian conversation

The study1 examines how metaphors are deliberately used in spoken interaction, taking into account their context and combining the analysis of conversational data with new developments in metaphor studies. In doing this, we present Estonian examples of extended metaphors co-constructed in the course of interaction. Steen's framework of deliberate metaphor theory (DMT) presents a useful paradigm to investigate the understudied area in a new way, especially in a language where deliberate metaphors have not yet been studied.In conversation, metaphorical creativity manifests itself in how metaphors are used and spontaneously adapted in the flow of talk (Cameron, 2007), often evoking humour in the process. Our second aim in the study has thus been to demonstrate how metaphor use overlaps with the use of humour in conversation. We suggest that metaphor-related words - central to the procedure of identifying deliberate metaphors (DMIP; see Steen, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2015), and understood here as contextually embedded words which bring along potential ambiguity – serve either as indicators of cross-domain mapping, as triggers of humorous effects, or sometimes as both at the same time.Since we assume such deliberate use of metaphors, at least to some extent, contributes to the cultural communication style, as defined in the introduction to this issue, we draw attention to the ways Estonian speakers employ them. This is evident through the unique language-specific references, for example metaphors built on proverbs or phraseology.

“Leftie snowflakes” and other metaphtonymies in the British political discourse

Abstract The present paper deals with the use of deliberate metaphors in the political discourse. The potential of dehumanising metaphors to create derogatory descriptions used to disparage one’s political opponents is analysed. Also, metaphorical descriptions prove to be very productive in creating polysemy in previously monosemous items which are used in a new capacity in order to create an effect of novelty and surprise. This function appears especially useful in the language of politics in general, and the language of British politics in particular. The paper is maintained within the methodological framework of cognitive linguistics, focusing on the theories of conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy.

Eye movements reveal readers’ sensitivity to deliberate metaphors during narrative reading

Abstract Metaphors occur frequently in literary texts. Deliberate Metaphor Theory (DMT; e.g., Steen, 2017) proposes that metaphors that serve a communicative function as metaphor are radically different from metaphors that do not have this function. We investigated differences in processing between deliberate and non-deliberate metaphors, compared to non-metaphorical words in literary reading. Using the Deliberate Metaphor Identification Procedure (Reijnierse et al., 2018), we identified metaphors in two literary stories. Then, eye-tracking was used to investigate participants’ (N = 72) reading behavior. Deliberate metaphors were read slower than non-deliberate metaphors, and both metaphor types were read slower than non-metaphorical words. Differences were controlled for several psycholinguistic variables. Differences in reading behavior were related to individual differences in reading experience and absorption and appreciation of the story. These results are in line with predictions from DMT and underline the importance of distinguishing between metaphor types in the experimental study of literary reading.

On metaphorical views, dynamite, and doodlings

AbstractThis paper offers a systematic, bottom-up, investigation of the role of adjectives as metaphor signals in metaphorical domain constructions (MDCs) such as ‘budgetary anorexia’ and ‘economic crash’ within the framework of Deliberate Metaphor Theory (e.g.,Steen, 2017). To this end, we analyse all MDCs in the VU Amsterdam Metaphor Corpus. Results of our analyses demonstrate that domain adjectives in MDCs do not by definition constitute signals of metaphor, and that not all nouns in MDCs are identified as potentially deliberate metaphors. We identify three different functions of domain adjectives: (1) signal of novel metaphor; (2) signal of conventional metaphor; (3) non-signal. The analyses in this paper provide new insights into both the role of domain adjectives in MDCs, and the position of MDCs as a typical manifestation of potentially deliberate metaphor.

A variational approach to deliberate metaphors

While Deliberate Metaphor Theory is controversial from a psychological point of view, its advocates propose that the communicative notion of ‘deliberateness’ is valuable for structural-functional analyses of metaphors in the social world. Nevertheless, the inter-relationships between the linguistic, conceptual, and communicative dimensions of metaphor highlighted by Deliberate Metaphor Theory, and how these may vary across different discourse contexts, remains underexplored. This paper examines deliberate metaphor across four contrasting discourse categories of psychotherapy talk, news articles, popular science articles, and political speeches. 800 metaphor units were randomly sampled and coded under the variables DIRECT (direct/indirect), NOVEL (novel/conventional), DELIB (deliberate/non-deliberate), and CATEGORY. In the first part of the study, a hierarchical log-linear analysis identified three significant interaction effects: DELIB*DIRECT, CATEGORY*NOVEL*DIRECT, and CATEGORY *NOVEL*DELIB (χ2(7) = 0.0, p = 1). While generally reflecting the inter-relatedness of the three dimensions, the three-way interactions point towards underexplored patterns of variation which are discussed with respect to contrasting discourse objectives. In the second part of the study, six categories of deliberate metaphor features were inductively identified: elaboration, signal, analogy, stark novelty, topic-triggering, and repetition. They demonstrate diverse strategic ways in which ‘deliberateness’ is constructed across the four discourse categories.