Metaphor Interpretation Research Articles

Vague and unworkable: The fuzziness of the archipelago as a concept and its unsuitability as model for a 21st century Palestinian nation

While it is frequently invoked, the archipelago is such a vague concept that its deployment in fields such as island studies is only productive when the contingency of its use is specified. In this article, we examine the concept itself and then consider the use of the archipelago as a metaphor and/or model for a future Palestinian state. The creation of the modern nation-state of Israel in Palestine in 1948, various Israeli military actions, and (often related) public and private developments of former Palestinian lands has resulted in a substantial proportion of Palestinians fleeing to neighbouring countries (chiefly Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria). Those Palestinians who have remained have largely been confined to territorial isolates within the Jewish state. These isolates have frequently been understood and analogised as ‘islands’ within Israel, and the aggregation of these isolates has been variously referred to and/or represented as an archipelago. This article examines the development of this metaphoric interpretation of the Palestinian community within Israel in Anglophone, Arabic, and Francophone discourse, and characterises the contortions necessary to imagine Palestinian territories as archipelagic. The conclusion returns to consideration of the notion of the archipelago itself and of its usefulness in island studies and other contexts.

A Metaphorical Interpretation on Vessel Segmentation Algorithms by using Local Connected Fractal Dimension

ABSTRACT Retinal vessel segmentation is a prime utensil in ophthalmology. From the last two decades, a massive number of studies have been carried out in the creation and development of automated vessel segmentation. A benefit of this procedure has been recognised in various retinal oddities. A keen mathematical tool that anticipates the degree of difficulty of disease is the fractal dimension. Typically, the fractal dimension depends on the complexity of the objects. In the case of vessel segmentation, we placed filters and contrast adjustments for obtaining a better configuration of the original images. As well as, precise visualisation, identification, prevention medication and surgery planning for particular diseases can be done in an effective manner by considering this segmentation procedure. This will enhance the feature of the skeletonized/segmented structure of the retinal vessels. Hence, focusing on the segmentation method is more important. As a consequence, determining an elite strategy for vessel segmentation remains a challenging task. Thus, this article mainly focuses on the segmentation procedures in four ways and it uses the local connected fractal dimension (for short, ). Also, a precise method for segmenting the source images has been fixed in such a way that manipulating the fractal dimension of the output images occurred in those four processes. Ultimately, it results in the best technique by focusing on the variation of the fractal dimension of the raw pictures, which yields that the U-Net segmentation is more effective.

Evaluation Method of English Learning Engagement Based on Wireless Communication Network and Big Data

The existing English learning engagement assessment methods still have some deficiencies, which cannot predict students’ interest in English learning, and the teaching effect is not good enough, resulting in the improvement of students’ performance which is not obvious. Therefore, an English learning engagement assessment method based on wireless communication network and big data is proposed. Firstly, build a mobile wireless communication network model, analyze the metaphor processing and evaluation methods adopted by English learners according to big data, and realize the acquisition and interpretation of metaphor meaning through three steps: the establishment of metaphor knowledge base, the analysis and description of metaphor language, and the classification and recognition of metaphor; build an evaluation framework based on wireless communication network and big data, propose a Java application platform for English learning engagement evaluation, and realize the English learning engagement evaluation method. The experimental research shows that the evaluation method has good stability, short evaluation time, and high efficiency and has practical application effect.

The Bioethical Discourse in the Development of a Musician-Performer

Involvement of a modern performer in the dialogue of concepts of recompense and biocentrism regulates its experimentation with bio and recorded music by awakening a sense of responsibility at the level of the epigenetic rule. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to substantiate a pedagogical model of bioethical education of a musician-performer - creation of a favourable environment to motivate them to comprehend the value of what serves as confirmation of God-like dignity of a person and the general weal for the glory of the Creator. The essence of the proposed pedagogical model is the concept of musical performance as a workroom of soul. Its leading idea is metaphorization of the intonated sense of emotional revelation as an anthropological discourse. Specifically, the basis of the proposed model appears the connectivism theory of metaphorical interpretation. The direction of such performative activity is determined by the strategy of creative clustering, which involves playing out of music scenarios of the value-based choice on the path to “creative innocence” or “the path of the heart”. The regulatory function in implementation of the mentioned strategy performs the methodology of pedagogical and metaphorical creativity. The technology of performative improvisation and the contextual approach to the game are factors in activating the mental resources of the musician-performer. The effectiveness of implementation of the proposed pedagogical model provides creation of a special event platform in the art laboratory.

Multimodal Metaphor Construction and Cognitive Analysis in Educational Cartoons

Since Lakoff and Johnson proposed their far-reaching theory of conceptual metaphor, people's interpretation of metaphor has changed from a rhetorical approach to a way of thinking. In recent years, multimodal metaphors have gradually received attention from scholars at home and abroad, and have been applied to different forms of media research such as advertisements, comics, gestures, and films, thus greatly contributing to the advancement of multimodal metaphor theory. Multimodal metaphors provide a new perspective for the construction and understanding of metaphorical meaning. This study draws on 100 educational cartoons published by China News Cartoon Network from 2020-2021. Firstly, multimodal metaphors in the 100 educational cartoons published on China News Cartoon Network are classified into four categories according to Forceville's cognitive-linguistic theoretical framework, and the integration network in the cartoons is classified into four categories from the perspective of conceptual integration. This study analyses multimodal metaphors from both social and cognitive perspectives and explores the cognitive basis of comic metaphors from both formal and meaningful perspectives.

ОЦЕНОЧНАЯ СЕМАНТИКА МЕТАФОРИЧЕСКИХ МОДЕЛЕЙ «ЧЕЛОВЕК – ЭТО МЕХАНИЗМ» И «МЕХАНИЗМ – ЭТО ЧЕЛОВЕК» В РУССКОЙ ЯЗЫКОВОЙ КАРТИНЕ МИРА

Statement of the problem. This article analyzes the anthropomorphic image of a mechanism and the mechanistic image of a person in the aspect of evaluative semantics, reveals the axiological orientation of conceptual models, and presents the characteristics of the reversible correlation of the analyzed concepts in terms of their evaluative orientation. The purpose of the article is to analyze the metaphorical models “MAN – MECHANISM” and “MECHANISM – MAN” in terms of evaluative semantics, to identify the nature and axiological potential of conceptual metaphorical models. The study was carried out on the methodological basis of cognitive linguistics and was carried out on the material of the texts of the National Corpus of the Russian Language, Internet forums representing the semantics of the mechanism both as a target sphere and as a source sphere for the metaphorical interpretation of the image of a person. Research results confirm the functional-semantic asymmetry of metaphorical models, which appears in different evaluative orientations of the metaphors of the compared models. Thus, most of the lexical representatives of the “MAN is a MECHANISM” model is characterized by a negative evaluative connotation: a person in the image of a mechanism is characterized negatively or ironically. While the evaluative semantics of the metaphors of the correlated MM “MECHANISM is a MAN” is characterized by neutrality.

Turkish EFL learners’ interpretation of metaphors

Abstract This study investigated Turkish EFL learners’ conceptual socialization in terms of their interpretation of English metaphors in three categories; a) conceptually and linguistically similar, b) conceptually similar, linguistically different, and c) conceptually and linguistically different metaphors. Data were collected through sentence level and situation-based tests. Learners’ responses were analyzed by comparing them to the native English speakers’ (NES s). Findings indicated that Turkish EFL learners could only benefit from the situational information when the metaphors were either conceptually or linguistically similar, and their performance differed very much from NES s in terms of correct interpretation of the metaphors. These results underline EFL learners’ lack of exposure to target culture and interaction with native speakers and thus the importance of non-native English speaking teachers (NNEST s) in EFL contexts as the most valuable source of the target language conceptual system.

The spatial–temporal web of the Inhabited City

AbstractThis paper presents a philosophical reflection on space and the significance of urban living. Inspired by a close reading of Michel de Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life, the paper unveils some of its philosophical inspirations (e.g., Kant, Wittgenstein and Freud) and it elaborates on a notion of space that is grasped through narrative and the act of walking understood as ‘space opening’. In so doing, the paper unveils the limits of a cartographic depiction of space (as well as the limits of ‘theory’ itself) and, together with de Certeau, it explores the potentialities of a bodily and metaphoric interpretation of space.

Konceptuelle metaforer som selektionskriterium for Dansk litteraturs kanon - med fokus på elevers literacytilegnelse på tværs af tidsrum, sprog og kultur i arbejdet med kanonlitteratur

This article argues that an increased focus on the inherent conceptual metaphors of chronotopes in canonical literature may contribute to students’ awareness of the historical and literary development in time and space. Thus, expanding their literacy-skills acquisition in comparison to the linear chronological periodization, author-portrait and text reading that typically characterize the reading of canon literature. Furthermore, the article argues that an increased focus on bi- and multilingual students’ interpretation of conceptual metaphors may contribute to the historical and literary development.

The Relationship between Metaphorical Perceptions of Consumption and Mental Well-Being in the Period of COVID-19

This study aims to examine the relationship between the interpretation of the consumption concept of individuals and their mental well-being levels during the pandemic period. Metaphors are the essential communication tools used in defining and interpreting the consumption concept. The effort to reveal the interpretations loaded on a complex and multidimensional concept such as individuals' consumption expresses the important contribution of this research. The fact that these interpretations were made during the pandemic turned individuals' lives upside-down increases the degree of contribution. The study's originality has been tried to be revealed by establishing a relationship between the interpretations of the consumption phenomenon of individuals and their mental well-being. The Conceptual Metaphor Theory developed by Lakoff and Johnson was used in metaphorical interpretation. The metaphorical approach, which is one of the alternative approaches based on subjective experiences, enables the comprehension of concrete and well-known concepts, abstract concepts, symbols, or elements that are more difficult and complex to understand. The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) was used to determine the mental well-being levels of individuals. All the metaphors developed and evaluated regarding the concept of consumption have been grouped into three conceptual categories: «pleasure, insatiability and vanity», «necessity and requirement», and «addictive and harmful». In this study, the mental well-being average of all participants was calculated as 53.46. The lowest average was calculated in the «addictive and harmful» category according to conceptual categories in terms of mental well-being averages. It was determined that the mental well-being averages of the participants who interpreted the concept of consumption as «negative» were also low.

The Copernican Revolution as a Spatial Methaphor

The author specifies the origin of the terms “Copernican Upheaval” and “Copernican Revolution” considering the spatial interpretations of this philosophical metaphor, which was evoked by the Kantian analogy between his model of knowledge process and the model of the solar system by Copernicus. On the base of Solomon Maimon’s criticism and subsequent scientific discussion, the author studies the analogy between a rotation of celestial bodies and the conformity of objects to knowing reason. As the result, the author offers two approaches to the interpretation of the spatial analogy of the Copernican Revolution. 1) As the analogy of mobility (plasticity) and immobility (immutability) of celestial bodies / reason in relation to knowable objects. 2) As the analogy of relativity and absoluteness of movement / cognition, leads to the question of the starting point and direction of predication in cognitive trajectories.

Features of the ecclesiological discourse of St Porphyry Kavsokalivit

The paper analyzes the approach of St Porphyry Kavsokalivit to ecclesiological issues, in particular his central statement, “The Church is eternal and uncreated”. An attempt to determine the origins and logical justification of this concept is made. The emergence of St Porphyry’s unusual theological formula relates to the literal interpretation of the New Testament metaphor of the Church as the Body of Christ (Eph 1:23, 1 Cor 12). A specific feature of St Porphyry’s ecclesiological discourse is the affirmation of sameness of the Church and Christ, the Church and God, the Church and the Holy Trinity. The relationship of his theological ideas with the ecclesiological constructions of some Christian writers (St Epiphanius of Cyprus) is also shown. Along with the original approach from a theological point of view, St Porphyry Kavsokalivit is quite traditional when he talks about the Church in practical terms, about its significance for salvation and the canonical structure of Christianity. The St Porphyry’s idea of Church is more mystical than theological. His thought is based not on rationalization, but on a subjective experience of the “churchness”. Given the dogmatic uncertainty in ecclesiology in the Orthodox Church, the contradictory and unusual concept of the eternal and uncreated Church of St Porphyry can be qualified as a private theological opinion.

ВТОРИЧНАЯ ИНТЕРПРЕТАЦИЯ ЯЗЫКОВЫХ СТРУКТУР В ПОЭЗИИ И ПРОЗЕ МИГРАНТОВ

The article deals with issues related to metaphors in poetry and prose of migrants through the prism of multiculturalism. The authors argue that in cognitive perspective metaphors emerge within the framework of secondary linguistic interpretation and conceptual derivation as its underlying process. Taking into account memory peculiarities and working space of a poet or writer, possible procedural variants of metaphor production are proposed. It is stated that metaphors in poetry and prose of migrants are created being based on national / conventional and unique / individual patterns of their formation with reference to certain contextual factors that correlate with dominant constructs of poets and writers’ linguistic consciousness. Significant is the idea of integrating the accumulated contextual knowledge in the aspect of cognitive matrix, as well as possible variation in the content of the matrix model from the mundane to the expert representation of knowledge in the process of metaphorical interpretation of the world migrant poets and writers live or lived in.

II международная научная конференция «Слово, текст, источник: методология современного гуманитарного исследования»

An overview of the main problems that were discussed during the II International Scientific Conference "Word, Text, Source: Methodology of Modern Humanitarian Research", which was held at the Institute of Slavic Culture of the Kosygin Russian State University (Technology. Design. Art) more than 130 participants from 10 regions of Russia and from 4 countries. The participants focused on topical issues of the methodology of philological research, problems of terminology and tasks of interdisciplinary research. The presented reports reflect the whole range of topical humanitarian research. The range of issues discussed is varied. These are new scientific areas, such as theolinguistics and linguotheology, questions of method, methodology and terminology, questions of lexicographic definition and hermeneutic interpretation, the problem of visualizing linguistic phenomena, analysis of the relationship between the categories "text" and "context", etc. Also, the attention of researchers is directed to the description of discourse and the solution of problems of metaphorical interpretation in different types of discourse; issues of reconstruction of the central concepts of the individual-author's picture of the world.

Метафорические истолкования алхимического языка в позднедаосском тексте (по «Лун мэнь синь фа», XVII в.)

The article is devoted to the history of the hermeneutics of the language of Taoist alchemy. Traditional Taoist practices, which in European scientific literature are usually called «Taoist alchemy», are divided into two types in Chinese culture, namely, wai dan («external alchemy») and nei dan («internal alchemy»). Both branches are united by the declared goal (achievement of «immortality») and spe­cific alchemical terminology and imagery. The article deals with the metaphorical interpretation of the terms and expressions of the alchemical language in the late Taoist text. The main source text is the text of the 17th century Lun men xin fa (The Law of the Heart-Consciousness [according to the Tradition] Longmen), which outlined the views of Wang Changyue (Kunyang-zi), master of the Taoist school Quanzhen/Longmen. A notable feature of Wang Changyue's sermons is that he in­terprets expressions typical of the language of the Taoist, and in particular, the al­chemical tradition, through the language of the Buddhist tradition. In the later pe­riod, as can be seen in the text under study, the expressions and terms of internal alchemy, metaphorical in nature, underwent a secondary metaphorical interpreta­tion. It is called «secondary» for the reason that the language of inner alchemy was already metaphorical in nature. The article examines two examples of the interpre­tation of the alchemical language in the sermons of Wang Changyue. The article also provides a historical and philosophical assessment of the interpretation of the alchemical language proposed by Wang Changyue. This interpretation represents a spiritualized and “Buddhized” version of Taoism. The article includes fragments of Long men xin fa, first translated in Russian, illustrating the observations of the author of the article.

Visual metaphor in commercial ad: effectiveness or failure?

Based on the modern approaches to the study of multimodal pragmatics, this study focuses on its new facet, identifying the correlation between cognitive and pragmatic features of visual metaphor with reference to visual grammatical analysis and Optimal Innovation Hypothesis added by explanatory tools of the conceptual blending Theory and Relevance Theory along with cooperative principle. The purpose of the article is to analyze the visual message of commercial advertising while assessing its successfulness / failure in accordance with the sequentially applied criteria of “the level of metaphorical polysemanticity and ambiguity”, “the availability of the relevant context of interpretation”, “the level of optimal innovativeness”. The paper reached four principal results. First. The visual metaphor flouts one or few cooperatіve maxims, which triggers discursive implicature. Second. Depending on the level of implicitness and polysemanticity of the visual metaphor, the result of the maxim flouting can be both implicature and explicature. If the inference of the implicature is intended by an advertising message, but requires excessive efforts to process visual information in lack of relevant context, the level of the metaphor interpretation remains explicature. Third. “Explicature” and “implicature” levels of visual metaphor interpretation are associated with different stages of blending processes. Inference of discursive implicature, which constitutes the intended meaning of the metaphor, coincides with the stage of the blend elaboration; Fourth. Depending on the balance between the level of familiarity and innovativeness, the components of a visual metaphor can be ranked on the scale of “attractiveness” for the target client—from optimally innovative to pure innovative devices.

Being ambivalent by exploiting indeterminacy in the explicit import of an utterance

AbstractIn line with recent interest in weak and often not fully determinate effects of communication permeating relevance-theoretic research, I contribute a discussion on two possible sources of speaker-intended indeterminacy within explicit import of an utterance: one residing in an intentionally underspecified location of an ad hoc concept between literal or non-literal (e.g. metaphorical or hyperbolic) interpretation, and the other lying in the higher-level explicature of an utterance, and being related to propositional attitude (e.g. pretence, reporting, dissociation) or speech-act description (e.g. complementing, reproaching). In both cases, the speaker leaves a certain amount of indeterminacy concerning the degree of her commitment to the content communicated, by not indicating where precisely the concept or the attitude is to be located on the literalness-metaphor continuum or on the continuum of various propositional attitudes/speech-act descriptions, respectively. Using a number of illustrative examples drawn from television discourse, I try to show that this kind of intended indeterminacy gives rise to communicative effects of a non-propositional kind. Additionally, the analyses presented here support the deflationary view of figurative uses of language, on which they form continua with non-figurative utterances.

Метафорическое осмысление движения, сопровождаемого звучанием, в диалекте английского языка Scots

The research aims to determine the ways of figurative interpretation of movement accompanied with sounding in the Scots dialectal metaphor. Scientific novelty of the paper lies in the following fact: the semantics of movement accompanied with sounding and presented by a group of verbs with the meaning of displacement taken from the Scots dialect is studied and described as a basis for creating a system of metaphorical images. Having analysed this group of Scots dialectal verbal lexemes, the authors have concluded that the “sound” component appears to be the main characteristic underlying the metaphorical transfer of verbs. As a result, it has been determined that the images of this type of movement serve as a source sphere for metaphorical interpretation of speech behaviour, actions and physiological aspects of people’s existence.

Młodzież i dekomunizacja w ukraińskim Donbasie. Studium etnograficzne

The text, which is part of the new field of social sciences – Donbas Studies, presents partial results of the research carried out in the city of Severodonetsk, which is located in the Lugansk Oblast in Donbas. The author, using the ethnographic method of field research, was looking for an answer to the question of how the process of decommunization in Donbas proceeded, and in particular, how the sense of removing the symbols of communism was negotiated, what aspects of this process turned out to be socially conflicting, and what role young people played in this process? Using the interpretation of metaphors and etymologies, the author states that de-communization in Ukraine, apart from the official imperative of oblivion, brings an element of revenge with it. Thanks to participation in the discussion on the de-communization of young people, it is possible to notice that its field of meaning has been extended to include aspects relating not only to the assessment of the past, but also the current social situation in Ukraine. Thanks to this, de-communization does not only mean an order to forget, but also to remember.

Pragmatic Function of Linguistic Units

The article is devoted to the theoretical analysis of a number of works of domestic and foreign linguists in which approaches to language learning in a pragmatic aspect are defined. As a result of generalization of various approaches of researchers, the author revealed the main task of pragmatics, which consists in establishing the patterns of the use of linguistic means for the purpose of directed influence on the addressee in the communication process. Within the framework of P. Grice’s theory, implicatures are considered as conversational or communicative, as well as conventional. At the same time, the metaphorical interpretation is analyzed within the framework of the theory of speech acts. The role of euphemistic units involved in the formation of a certain, predetermined by the addressee, evaluative opinion is shown. The article reveals the potential of the study of precedent phenomena in a pragmatic aspect. The key problems of linguopragmatics are analyzed: connotations and additional (background) information as a necessary component of communication.