Function Of Metaphor Research Articles

Miten kuvailla vihaa? Viron ja suomen idiomien vertailu kognitiivisen kielitieteen näkökulmasta

Tässä artikkelissa vertailemme vihan emootiota välittäviä viron- ja suomenkielisiä kuvaannollisia ilmauksia. Selitämme niiden erikoislaatua idiomien merkityspiirteillä ja analysoimme ilmauksia metaforateorian viitekehystä käyttäen. Sekä suomen että viron vihaidiomien kielikuvat perustuvat laajalti ruumiilliseen metonymiaan; lisäksi näissä kielissä on käytössä kansainvälisesti levinneitä käsitemetaforia kuten viha on kuuma neste astiassa, vihan intensiivisyys on kuumuutta, viha on tulta. Molemmissa kielissä ilmenee vihatilanteen käsitteistämisen vaiheittaisuus (vihan synty, sen vaikutus kokijaan, pyrkimys kontrolloida vihaa, kontrollin menetys, vihainen käyttäytyminen). Suomen kielessä vihaa käsitteistetään aivoihin ja päähän liittyvän toiminnan kautta, kun taas virossa kokija kuvaillaan astiana ja viha nesteenä. Molemmissa kielissä esiintyy hyperbolista kuvaannollisuutta. Virossa vihaista ihmistä karrikoidaan eläinten ruumiinosiin viittaamalla, suomessa korostuu autoaggressiivinen käyttäytymismalli. *** How to describe anger? A comparison of Estonian and Finnish idioms from the perspective of cognitive linguistics This study focuses on a comparison of two sister languages, Estonian and Finnish. The purpose is to compare the idiomatic expressions which describe the emotion of anger in order to find out the similarities and differences in its conceptualisation and lexicalisation. The findings are interpreted by using the framework of cognitive metaphor theory. The idioms of both languages fit onto the five-stage scenario like folk model of anger (the offense and beginning of anger; the (physiological) effects of anger on Self; the attempt to control the emotion; losing the control; retribution i.e. aggressive behaviour). The cognitive model represents these aspects of the anger event which are conceptualised by using figurative expressions. Both languages provide a rich array of expressions motivated by cognitive metonymies. The emotion is described by referring to its bodily symptoms, i.e. the expected changes in the position or function of one’s body parts (both internal and external). The descriptions vary from realistic (e.g., rusikat näitama (Est) ‘to demonstrate aggressivity’, lit. ‘to show one’s fist’) to unrealistic and even absurd ones (e.g., vetää herneet nenään (Fin) ‘to become angry’, lit. ‘to aspirate peas into one’s nose’). The differences lie in particular elements of the (human) body or physiological processes these languages focus on: Finnish idioms refer also to the (negative) activation of the brain and to a pattern of autoaggressive behaviour while the Estonian idioms pay more attention to the feeling of pressure in one’s chest and – on the other hand – also refers to the body parts of (domestic) animals. The latter expressions mix the metonymies with metaphoric mapping man is an animal and subject the (intensity of) emotional reaction to ridicule. In regard to the cognitive metaphors, some widespread ones could be detected in both of the languages, namely anger is hot fluid in a container, the intensity of anger is heat and anger is fire. Estonian tends to exploit the metaphor anger is fluid in a container more widely, by specifying the nature of fluids (such as poison and beer/alcohol) and the nature of containers such as one’s heart and spirit. In Estonian also the metaphor anger is a natural force is used in order to conceptualise one’s inability to control the emotion. The reifying metaphor experiencer is a machine seems to be a Finnish peculiarity. The results were found to reinforce the results of a previous study into the literal concepts of anger by Estonians and Finns in which the concepts were found to be very similar with only minor differences in respect of the action tendencies. The Estonians interviewed in the previous study stated that they would prefer staying passive while angry. Similarly, the Estonian idioms in the present study reflect the aspects of containing the emotion and its effects on the experiencing Self. The Finns, in contrast, believed that they would prefer being active or moving, and the Finnish idioms reflect some interesting patterns of autoaggressive behaviour (e.g. polttaa hihansa , lit. ‘to burn one’s sleeves’ or repiä pelihousunsa , lit. ‘to shred one’s game shorts’.

‘Seeing’ music from manga: visualizing music with embodied mechanisms of musical experience

This study investigates how music is represented in musical-themed manga by visual components referred to as ‘visualized music’, and how embodied mechanisms of musical experience conceive these visual manifestations. Using Šorm and Steen’s (2018) Visual Metaphor Identification Procedure (VISMIP), the authors discovered four metaphors, and seven metonymies and ‘manpu’ (i.e. iconic signs used in manga) that are widely applied in visualizing music. In addition, they incorporated Juslin and Västfjäll’s (2008) framework and further proposed five major embodied mechanisms of musical experience: (1) brain stem reflex, (2) emotional contagion, (3) visual imagery, (4) emotional memory related to music, and (5) musical expectancy. Their results showed that these embodied mechanisms are the foundations of visualized music. The brain stem reflex, the underlying structure of most metonymies and manpu, triggers us to represent some acoustic characteristics by using sound symbolic components. These include emotional contagion-inducing metaphors representing emotional responses, such as ‘ MUSIC/EMOTION IS WEATHER’, which further entails their acoustic characteristics and visual imagery, the most important mechanism, basing our overall comprehension of music and metaphorical mapping between music and image-schemata. Readers also use emotional simulations to understand the visual imagery that further constructs their impressions toward music, emotional memory grounding manifestations related to music used to build background stories and intensify reader empathy, and lastly, musical expectancy, involving the ability of prediction and consciousness, usually associated with ‘ MUSIC IS LIGHT’. In this way, this study sheds light on our overall understanding of audio-visual cross-modality, musical experience, metaphor and embodied experience.

Metaphor in Mahathir’s political speeches in the context of economic crisis

ABSTRACT This study draws on Lakoff and Johnson's conceptual metaphor theory to examine the use of metaphors in business-related political speeches by Mahathir Mohamad in 2000, a year which marked a turning point for Malaysia as it recovered from the Asian financial crisis of 1997–1999. We adopt Charteris-Black's three-step procedure for metaphor analysis, from identification to interpretation and explanation. The predominant patterns of metaphor use include the predominance of economy-related concepts, demonstrating his primary concern at that time; the predominance of health, journey and war domains, demonstrating how he perceived the economy-related concepts; and a combination of different domains to refer to the same concept, demonstrating how he tried to comprehensively address various aspects of the economy. The study also reveals two strategies employed to create a vivid and effective image in the audience's mind: the use of a wide range of metaphor mappings and a series of connected segments to guide interpretation. The overall effect was that Mahathir was able to make his thoughts on economy and economy-related concepts more accessible to his audience by linking them to metaphors that represent familiar areas of experience.

The journey of Jephthah’s daughter: On spatial cognition, body and language in Judges 11:37

The traditional literal interpretation of the text in Judges 11:37 shows exceptional variation in topographic depiction. The literal interpretation of Driver, published in Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, is an example. From a linguistic perspective, no attention was paid whatsoever to the relation of interiority between an objective body and an objective space. This article proposes a cognitive semantic perspective and argues that the motion-path verb ירד (yrd) in Judges 11:37 carries a metaphorical meaning, and the linguistic processing, that is, the metaphorical mapping of the image schematic structure of CHANGE (up-down) as the source domain onto that of BEHAVIOUR as the target domain, involving activation of cultural spatial and bodily systems. With this background in mind, Judges 11:37 represents a new understanding for similar UP-DOWN image schemas applied in the Hebrew Bible.Contribution: This article contributes to the understanding of the apparent ‘inexact’ sense of the use of ירד (yrd) in Judges 11:37.

A Grounded Cognitive Model for Metaphor Acquisition

Metaphors being at the heart of our language and thought process, computationally modelling them is imperative for reproducing human cognitive abilities. In this work, we propose a plausible grounded cognitive model for artificial metaphor acquisition. We put forward a rule-based metaphor acquisition system, which doesn't make use of any prior 'seed metaphor set'. Through correlation between a video and co-occurring commentaries, we show that these rules can be automatically acquired by an early learner capable of manipulating multi-modal sensory input. From these grounded linguistic concepts, we derive classes based on lexico-syntactical language properties. Based on the selectional preferences of these linguistic elements, metaphorical mappings between source and target domains are acquired.

BRILLIANT, SUNNY AND BRIGHT: GENERALISED IINVARIANCE THROUGH ETYMOLOGY

The relevance of image schemas in metaphoric extension has been long highlighted in Cognitive Linguistics literature. The image-schematic makeup of a metaphoric source is preserved in the target, in a way consistent with the structure of the latter (Lakoff, 1993). More recently, Sullivan (2013) has raised a similar case for semantic frames, in a constructional framework. Metaphoric mappings are licensed only if the semantic frame of the source is compatible with the conceptual metaphor profiled by the target. The present work integrates Sullivan and Lakoff’s approach to invariance, on the basis of the following hypothesis: the compatibility between a semantic frame evoked by a lexical construction and a conceptual metaphor is susceptible to an imageschematic blueprint, already present in the etymologically prior meaning of the construction. Thus, invariance is hypothesised to hold across categorisation levels of different schematicity, but also across time. The case study re-takes the analysis of the adjectival terms brilliant, sunny and bright, under the generalised invariance hypothesis. The metaphorical potential of a term is shown to be at the same time constrained as well as motivated by this strong version of invariance.

The Metaphorical Interpretation of English and Chinese Body-part Idioms Based on Relevance Theory

As a special language coding way and language phenomenon, metaphor is an important form when humans use language in communication. However, metaphorical mappings are not arbitrary. They are based on our physical experience of the world around us. Idioms are the crystallization of human language and culture and play an important role in human communication. The idiomatic meaning is not simply the sum of the lexical meanings, but often the metaphorical meaning extended from the literal meaning. The paper is based on the relevance theory proposed by Sperber and Wilson (1995), adopts the methods of comparative analysis and text analysis, and takes the idioms of “body metaphor” contained in English and Chinese as the main research object to explore the following questions: 1. What is the interpretation model of the “body-part metaphors” in idioms? 2. In English and Chinese idioms, what are the similarities and differences in the use and interpretation of body-part metaphors? Firstly, the idioms of body-part metaphor are classified based on their projection types, then analyzing the projection methods of each type. Finally, through the new reasoning model guided by relevance theory to analyze the reasoning process of body-part metaphor in English and Chinese idioms, exploring the importance of cognitive context in the interpretation of body-part idioms.

When Abstract Concepts Rely on Multiple Metaphors: Metaphor Selection in the Case of Power

The study examines metaphor selection for the same abstract concept when multiple concrete dimensions are available for use. Drawing on the power concept, four studies investigated the roles of attention and visual features of concrete dimensions in metaphoric mapping. In Studies 1 and 2, two concrete dimensions (vertical space and size) were visually connected to power-related target words simultaneously, and one was salient. Attention driven by stimulus saliency allowed the attended concrete dimension to have a higher activation level and to be used. In Studies 3 and 4, the attended and the non-attended concrete dimensions were presented separately, and the latter was visually associated with power-related target words. This time, the attended dimension did not have an activation advantage, allowing the non-attended dimension to be used for metaphoric mapping simultaneously. The findings suggest that attention is important, but not necessary, and that features of concrete dimensions can guide metaphor use.

Towards a cultural model ofqiin TCM

AbstractThis paper aims to construct a cultural model ofqiin Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) by probing into its conceptual metaphors based on a contextualized semantic analysis ofqiinHuang Di’s Inner Classic(HDIC). It is found that there are eight conceptual metaphors ofqi, each involving experiential correlation between source and target concept. To be specific,cause for effectbuilds up a major metonymic basis for the metaphorical mappings from the source concept ofqi(i.e.,substance) to the target concepts, includingphysiological function, breathing, climate, pathogenic factor, disease/syndrome, odor, property of drugsandtime. It is worth special noting thattimeis understood in terms of the motion ofqiin TCM. The conceptual metaphortime is qiis Chinese culture-specific. On the whole, conceptual metaphors ofqiform a conceptual network and further constitute a cultural model:qias the substance origin of human life is believed in TCM to function by ceaseless motion, giving rise to wellness or illness. This cultural model reflects a pair of inseparable concepts in ancient Chinese philosophy, viz. substance and (its) function, with the former being primary, essential and original, while the latter, secondary, concomitant and derivational.

Polysemy, synonymy, and metaphor: The use of theHistorical Thesaurus of Englishin translation studies

AbstractThis article proposes that the consideration of translation equivalences for lexical items in English benefits from reference to the diachronic digital resources of Historical Thesaurus of English and its offshoot projects, Mapping Metaphor with the Historical Thesaurus, and the Semantic Annotation and Mark-Up for Enhancing Lexical Searches semantic tagger. These resources are the result of a long-term endeavour to code every sense of every headword in the lexicographical record of the English language. There has hitherto been little research into the relevance of these resources to the translation challenges raised by synonymy, polysemy, and the semantic radiation of lexical items. The relevance of these resources and their potential application to the study of equivalence in translation is illustrated with reference to a selection of semantic domains in a Portuguese and a Chinese translation of Jack London’s The Call of the Wild.

The heart’s downward path to happiness: cross-cultural diversity in spatial metaphors of affect

Abstract Spatial metaphors of affect display remarkable consistencies across languages in mapping sensorimotor experiences onto emotional states, reflecting a great degree of similarity in how our bodies register affect. At the same time, however, affect is complex and there is more than a single possible mapping from vertical spatial concepts to affective states. Here we consider a previously unreported case of spatial metaphors mapping down onto desirable, and up undesirable emotional experiences in Mlabri, an Austroasiatic language of Thailand and Laos, making a novel contribution to the study of metaphor and Cognitive Linguistics. Using first-hand corpus and elicitation data, we examine the metaphorical expressions: klol jur ‘heart going down’ and klol khɯn ‘heart going up’/klol kɔbɔ jur ‘heart not going down’. Though reflecting a metaphorical mapping opposite to the commonly reported happy is up metaphor, which is said to link to universal bodily correlates of emotion, the Mlabri metaphors are far from idiosyncratic. Rather, they are grounded in the bodily experience of positive low-arousal states, and in that reflect an emic view of ideal affect centered on contentment and tranquility. This underscores the complexity of bodily experience of affect, demonstrating that cultures draw on the available sensorimotor correlates of emotion in distinct ways.

The Evolution Mechanism of the Chinese Emerging Degree Adverb ‘Chao(超)’s Meaning in Perspective of Cognitive Linguistics

As languages evolve over time, there are many changes appeared with the Chinese degree adverbs, such as the emerging degree adverb ‘chao(超)’ and the phrase structures like ‘超好’, ‘超愛’, ‘超好吃’ which are commonly used in our daily communication. This article studied the evolution mechanism of the Chinese emerging degree adverb ‘chao(超)’s meaning in perspective of cognitive linguistics including as follows. First, we studied on the prototype meaning of ‘chao(超)’ which is a verb and the existing meaning of ‘chao(超)’ which is used as a degree adverb. Second, we compared the image schema of the verb ‘chao(超)’ with the image schema of the degree adverb ‘chao(超)’ and the ‘chao(超)’ which is used as a element of a word, and tried to find similarities and differences between them. And on this base, we analysed the evolution mechanism of the degree adverb ‘chao(超)’s meaning that is metaphor and restored the metaphor mapping model of it. Third, we chose ‘超好’ and ‘超愛’ as examples on the basis of corpus-based study and made comparisons and discussions about the conceptual blending spaces of them by using the conceptual blending theory. Lastly, we found the general rule of the evolution of the emerging degree adverb ‘chao(超)’s meaning that has reference significance to the research on the evolution of the other emerging degree adverbs’ meaning.

Electrophysiological correlates of conventional metaphor, irony, and literal language processing – An event-related potentials and eLORETA study

Conventional metaphor, irony, and literal language processing were compared. Thirty right-handed participants (21–34 years) performed a sequential-statement ERP-paradigm. A left-frontal Late Anterior Negative Slow Wave (LANSW, 450–1000 ms) was significantly greater for metaphors and by visual tendency greater for irony, compared to literal statements. A centroparietal N400 (300–450 ms) and a centroparietal right-dominant “Late N400” (450–600 ms) were by statistical and visual tendency greater for metaphors. Left PCC and left lingual gyrus activity was significantly higher in metaphors compared to literal statements (eLORETA; 450–1000 ms). A statistical trend indicated higher parahippocampal gyrus activity in metaphors and ironies. N400 results are discussed considering changing processing techniques and a renewed semantic conflict. The Late N400 was associated with the construct of “associativeness”. The LANSW was related to metaphorical mapping, frame-shifting processes, integration of meanings, and memory processes. eLORETA results were discussed considering metaphorical mapping, creation of mental images, conventionality, valence, memory processes, and divergent thinking.

Terminology and the evolution of linguistic prejudice: the conceptual domain of ‘Irishness’ in the Historical Thesaurus of English and the Hansard Corpus of British Parliamentary Speeches

This article draws on the Historical Thesaurus of English and related resources, the Mapping Metaphor project and the semantically tagged Hansard Corpus of British Parliamentary Speeches, to consider how the Irish have been imagined and named in Anglophone culture, and how ‘Irishness’, alongside the attributes of other ‘races and nations’, in the terminology of the Mapping Metaphor project, has developed metaphorically over time, with a focus on the association between Irishness and anger and foolishness. The article concludes by illustrating how the names and metaphors of the Irish are contested discursively in a corpus of British Parliamentary speeches. The article serves as a practical introduction to the Historical Thesaurus of English and the Hansard Corpus and how they may be used, in conjunction with related online resources, to explore aspects of English language, discourse and culture.

MetroSets: Visualizing Sets as Metro Maps.

We propose MetroSets, a new, flexible online tool for visualizing set systems using the metro map metaphor. We model a given set system as a hypergraph H=(V, S), consisting of a set V of vertices and a set S, which contains subsets of V called hyperedges. Our system then computes a metro map representation of H, where each hyperedge E in S corresponds to a metro line and each vertex corresponds to a metro station. Vertices that appear in two or more hyperedges are drawn as interchanges in the metro map, connecting the different sets. MetroSets is based on a modular 4-step pipeline which constructs and optimizes a path-based hypergraph support, which is then drawn and schematized using metro map layout algorithms. We propose and implement multiple algorithms for each step of the MetroSet pipeline and provide a functional prototype with easy-to-use preset configurations. Furthermore, using several real-world datasets, we perform an extensive quantitative evaluation of the impact of different pipeline stages on desirable properties of the generated maps, such as octolinearity, monotonicity, and edge uniformity.

Narrative Maps

Narratives are fundamental to our perception of the world and are pervasive in all activities that involve the representation of events in time. Yet, modern online information systems do not incorporate narratives in their representation of events occurring over time. This article aims to bridge this gap, combining the theory of narrative representations with the data from modern online systems. We make three key contributions: a theory-driven computational representation of narratives, a novel extraction algorithm to obtain these representations from data, and an evaluation of our approach. In particular, given the effectiveness of visual metaphors, we employ a route map metaphor to design a narrative map representation. The narrative map representation illustrates the events and stories in the narrative as a series of landmarks and routes on the map. Each element of our representation is backed by a corresponding element from formal narrative theory, thus providing a solid theoretical background to our method. Our approach extracts the underlying graph structure of the narrative map using a novel optimization technique focused on maximizing coherence while respecting structural and coverage constraints. We showcase the effectiveness of our approach by performing a user evaluation to assess the quality of the representation, metaphor, and visualization. Evaluation results indicate that the Narrative Map representation is a powerful method to communicate complex narratives to individuals. Our findings have implications for intelligence analysts, computational journalists, and misinformation researchers.

Making maps of records: what cartography can teach us about archival description

ABSTRACT This article explores maps as a conceptual metaphor for archival description. Drawing on insights from some classic works in the field of critical cartography, we examine five ways in which maps can help us to understand the nature of archives catalogues: (1) as tools for orientation and sense-making of interconnected archival landscapes; (2) as involving abstraction, selection and privileging, not direct reproduction, of information; (3) as making propositions or claims about records; (4) as ongoing archival labour, where metadata and description have mixed or multiple provenance and continue to evolve; and (5) as intrinsically interdisciplinary. Inverting the metaphor, we propose that the moral defence of the record as an ethical framework is also insightful for cartography. We further suggest that thinking of finding aids as metaphorical maps can help to reinvigorate archival description and inspire better catalogues.

Representation of emotion in English syntax and teaching Russian EFL students

The article looks into English simple utterances about a person’s emotional state. The authors dwell on the ways the English simple sentence patterns are employed in utterances about emotional states and reveal the types of sentence patterns and types of propositions (event schemas) structuring emotional states. The authors also discuss the factors that determine the way a particular emotional event is conceptualized and structured and describe the mechanisms underlying the representation of emotional states in syntax and the choice of a sentence pattern for an utterance about this event. Special attention is given to the mechanism of conceptual metaphor that manifests itself in sentence patterns. The paper lists types of propositional schemas mapped onto concepts of emotional experiences and singles out regular correspondences between the source domain and the target-domain in these metaphorical mappings. The authors also tackle the issue of applying knowledge of sentence representation of emotional states in teaching Russian EFL students to use English syntax correctly and authentically. Teaching syntax in the proposed approach is aimed at helping students to assimilate propositional schemas of the English sentence as models of structuring reality with their metaphoric extensions and then to develop skills of employing these schemas in speaking.

Концептуализация чрезмерного действия через метафору Shower в английском языке

The article presents the results of the research into the functioning of the “Excessive action is Shower” metaphor used to express the aspectual semantics of excessive action in contemporary English fiction texts. To reveal how such metaphors are built, the research investigated their semantic structure, i. e., the relations between the source and targets involved in metaphorical mappings. The results indicate that both meanings of the word Shower, i. e., the direct one (rain) and the one derived from it (device for washing) get into metaphorical relations to name excessive action.The study identified five foci of metaphorical projections. They come to the fore when Shower is used metaphorically. The article provides a detailed classification of nouns collocating with Shower to express excessive action. It was found that the majority of such nouns name heavy or light objects, objects of material well-being and attitude, while nouns naming emotions and time rarely function as targets.The article analyses contextual conditions to describe the functioning of the Shower metaphor. In particular, it focuses on most common syntactic structures of the Shower metaphor, prepositions it combines with, and accompanying linguistic phenomena. These include the following that appear regularly: a) the use of other Water metaphors in the close context as subtypes of the general conceptual metaphor “Excessive action is Water” (a “burst” of metaphors); b) semantic changes when a word with a positive meaning acquires a negative one when it functions as a target (axiological clashes).The study identified the pragmatic potential of the Shower metaphor. It concluded that its prevailing evaluative connotation is negative. The study also found that the conceptual metaphor “Excessive action is Shower” is productive in English and is culturally specific.

The Book of Esther in Daniel Deronda: Between Metaphorical and Literal Mapping

The Book of Esther in Daniel Deronda: Between Metaphorical and Literal Mapping