Choice Of Metaphor Research Articles

War and liar: a semiotic account of metaphors in the reports on the discharge of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water in Chinese media

Abstract The release of nuclear wastewater by Japan has generated strong opposition from Japanese citizens, governments of neighboring countries, and global environmental advocates. China, representing the concerns of neighboring countries, has underscored the illicit and detrimental nature of this action. This study explores the metaphors employed in Chinese media regarding the discharge of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water. Based on the self-built corpus, we reveal the rhetorical motives underlying the metaphors, drawing on the framework of critical metaphor analysis. The study centers on two major metaphors – war and liar metaphors – in the discourse of two Chinese official media, China Daily and People’s Daily Online. It is found that according to Chinese media, initiating and protesting the discharge of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water is a war; and that the Japanese government and TEPCO are liars. The metaphor choices reflect China’s stance of opposition and condemnation against the discharge and its intention of uncovering deceptive and misleading information.

Chasm and net: metaphors in elder-related texts in a Chinese economic newspaper

The current situation of aging in China is unprecedentedly severe. Polices responding to the issues about aging are tracked by the media. This study investigates the living conditions of elders portrayed in a Chinese economic newspaper, the Economic Daily, through a metaphor analysis of 309 news reports pertaining to their living conditions. The analysis is positioned within the framework of rhetorical criticism, which allows the rhetorical motive hidden behind metaphors to be discovered. Three major metaphors—metaphor of net, metaphor of building, and metaphor of chasm are found and analyzed. Most notably, two keywords—“chasm” and “net” are suggested to explain the metaphor choices of journalists and to offer insights into elders’ living conditions in China. This study finds that the chasm encompassing both the invisible gap and the obstacles confronted by Chinese elders calls for the safeguarding of a protective net. However, in the construction of the net, elders’ subjectivity is often compromised and marginalized.

Metaphoric Conceptualizations of Georgian Cultural and National Identities in Oliver Wardrop’s The Kingdom of Georgia

The aspiration of Georgia to be part of the Western Culture has always been an irrevocable vector. Nevertheless, it is of immense importance to discursively scrutinize how Europeans perceive this aspiration. Metaphors possess an inherent capacity to represent cultural values of a society and communicate established or competing worldviews. From this perspective, the choice of metaphors, which is cognitively reinforced, conceptualizes culture-specific and national-emotive attitudes that are ascribed to certain communities. The aim of the present paper is to explore conceptual metaphors that contribute to the representation of Georgian cultural and national identities in the eye of a beholder - Sir Oliver Wardrop, who was a British Diplomat and the United Kingdom’s first Chief Commissioner of Transcaucasia in Georgia in 1919-1920 manifesting his take on Georgian cultural and national characteristic features in his work The Kingdom of Georgia (1888). Corpus linguistic software tool AntConc® is used for generating concordance lists for a qualitative discourse analysis of a verbal milieu of the target lingual units – Georgia and Georgian. The research reveals that Georgian cultural and national identities manifested in the discursive realm through the observer’s lenses, which could be referred to as Georgian cultural and national eye-dentities, possess signaling and meaning sides. The latter reinforces the idea that identities function as discursive signs in the narrative of a beholder. What is more, a meaning side of cultural and national identities expressed via the conceptual metaphors acknowledge the emergence of a reshaped Georgian identity that prepared a foundation for establishing Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918-1921).

Influence of time metaphor and destination image proximity on tourist responses

Travelers may use two common time metaphors to describe their upcoming vacations. The first is the time-moving metaphor, expressed as “the vacation is approaching us,” and the second is the ego-moving metaphor, conveyed through “we are approaching the vacation.” Drawing from construal level theory, this research establishes that the choice of time metaphor can impact the attractiveness of destination images. Three scenario-based experimental studies suggest that using a time-moving (ego-moving) metaphor along with a “close-up” (“long-shot”) destination image generates more positive tourist response. Processing fluency, which reflects the ease of information processing, has been identified as an explanatory mechanism for the generation of these effects. Practical implications of these findings are also discussed.

University students’ metaphors for Canadian multiculturalism: Diverse perceptions

AbstractThis study investigated the beliefs of university students at a university in Canada regarding multiculturalism and multicultural society, through examining the metaphors they use to talk about these concepts. We interviewed 50 students about their perceptions and experiences of multiculturalism in Canada and then asked them to explain their choice of metaphors. Many of the metaphors could be grouped under more general metaphor themes, such as a multicultural society is a varied multicomponent piece of art/craft (comprising, e.g., mosaic and tapestry metaphors) and multicultural society is a container to mix things (comprising, e.g., melting pot and salad bowl metaphors). According to the literature, the former theme is compatible with the view that multiculturalism involves integration while preserving diversity, whereas the latter is associated with the notion of assimilation. Canadian students appeared to be more inclined than international students to use the (positive) varied multicomponent piece of art/craft theme relative to the other metaphors in the total data set. The interview data also revealed marked differences among participants as regards their awareness of metaphor but prompting them to reflect on their choice of metaphors often had an awareness‐raising effect.

A Corpus-Assisted Analysis of Conceptual Metaphors in K-Beauty Metaphoric Advertising

Over the past few decades, the Conceptual Metaphor theory has attracted scholarly and practitioner attention in the construction of metaphoric advertising, which is driven by the claim that abstract concepts intended to be delivered are better communicated through a conceptual metaphor (Reddy 1979). Metaphoric advertising is a communicative mechanism that sends out intended messages while also provoking positive emotions and triggering attention from the recipient. In order to augment prior findings, this article aims to provide the metaphorical account of a conceptual mechanism delineated in K-Beauty metaphoric advertising by classifying their sub-types into structural, orientational, and ontological metaphors. To that end, this study compiled the K-Beauty metaphoric advertising corpora, which held over four thousand tokens of slogans and taglines extracted from beauty product advertisements generated in translated English, thus aiming to discuss primary instances of metaphorical mappings and conceptualizations, as well as their persuasive functions. Overall, the results evidenced that structural metaphors outperformed the other two sub-types, typifying systematic qualities and rich source domains. Of all the conceptual metaphor sub-categories, it was observable that the ENTITY and SUBSTANCE metaphors, which are a sub-type of ontological metaphors, were the most robust, signifying that ontological metaphors may adopt an imaging mechanism to transfer metaphorical mappings from a source domain to a target domain. The findings argue that particular metaphor choices in metaphoric advertising are closely linked to a cognitive mechanism triggered by cultural awareness pertaining to persuasion and promotion. Based on the current findings, implications and future research directions will also be discussed.

სიცოცხლისუნარიანი საგანმანათლებლო პროგრამების სტრუქტურირება

Educational leaders are questioning the “traditional’ curriculum, does not provide students with the appropriate employment skills for the modern industrial and knowledge economy. The context of this article is the choice of metaphor to best communicate our Master of Business Administration program. Our design is grounded on systems thinking and two important concepts are stressed, organization structure and operational excellence. The article does not justify this design but concerns how best such a design could be communicated to the reaching staff, students and other institutions. Keywords: Employment skills for business, Operational Excellence, Curriculum development.

Features of information modeling based on swarm metaphors

The procedure of information modeling based on metaphors of swarms in an intelligent information environment, its features and composition are considered. For the formation of the concept in the intellectual environment of construction, the possibility of using the swarm particle algorithm of metaphorical optimization in cognitive technologies to normalize the concept and its features of the intellectual within the limits of the defined issues is determined and substantiated. A promising direction for solving complex optimization tasks is heuristics, which is determined by the objective ambiguity of the task statement and involves choosing from a set of solutions based on the relations of analogy, similarity, similarity. In order to understand the ontology of the subject area, an analysis of the choice of metaphor, which provides effective solutions to specific problems due to evolutionary origin, was carried out. The metaphor helps to effectively build fuzzy classifiers, on the basis of which to informationally determine the areas of maximum overlap of concepts based on the results of processing the information of fuzzy prototypes of the concepts of the assumed fuzzy data cluster of the functioning of the basic definition based on the basic information for the swarm. The fundamental property of the swarm is the information exchange between the particles of the swarm, which connects the particles in the swarm as such, which realizes the asymmetry of the information exchange for the particle of the swarm. At the same time, a family of solutions for a collection of swarms of particles based on basic information and connected information spaces generates a solution as the most general basic solution. An analysis of the features of information modeling based on metaphors of swarms was carried out. The peculiarities of concepts of the ontology of the subject area for choosing a metaphor are determined.

Visualizing ordered bivariate data on node-link diagrams

Node-link visual representation is a widely used tool that allows decision-makers to see details about a network through the appropriate choice of visual metaphor. However, existing visualization methods are not always effective and efficient in representing bivariate graph-based data. This study proposes a novel node-link visual model – visual entropy (Vizent) graph – to effectively represent both primary and secondary values, such as uncertainty, on the edges simultaneously. We performed two user studies to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our approach in the context of static node-link diagrams. In the first experiment, we evaluated the performance of the Vizent design to determine if it performed equally well or better than existing alternatives in terms of response time and accuracy. Three static visual encodings that use two visual cues were selected from the literature for comparison: Width-Lightness, Saturation-Transparency, and Numerical values. We compared the Vizent design to the selected visual encodings on various graphs ranging in complexity from 5 to 25 edges for three different tasks. The participants achieved higher accuracy of their responses using Vizent and Numerical values; however, both Width-Lightness and Saturation-Transparency did not show equal performance for all tasks. Our results suggest that increasing graph size has no impact on Vizent in terms of response time and accuracy. The performance of the Vizent graph was then compared to the Numerical values visualization. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed that mean response time in seconds was significantly less when the Vizent graphs were presented, while no significant difference in accuracy was found. The results from the experiments are encouraging and we believe justify using the Vizent graph as a good alternative to traditional methods for representing bivariate data in the context of node-link diagrams.

Exploring pandemic metaphors in educational contexts: a survey on the language of teachers and educators in Reggio Emilia, Italy.

This study aimed to explore how metaphors were used to interpret the pandemic and to address its challenges in primary and secondary schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy. A questionnaire was administered to educators and teachers to understand how languages, images, and metaphors were used by themselves and their students to talk about the pandemic and their experiences of living with it. The goal of the questionnaire was to guide critical reflection and encourage more informed language choices. While the existing literature points out the alleged overuse of war metaphors and military frames in public discourse, our findings show that war metaphors are relatively frequent, with other metaphorical frames widely used by teachers and educators to foster resilient attitudes in students. Moreover, in their professional contexts, teachers and educators mostly use metaphorical frames involving resilient attitudes. Our interpretation of the results supports the hypothesis that the purposeful use and deliberate production of metaphors support the choice of metaphors with positive, constructive implications. Finally, some implications of these findings on the theory of metaphor and the methodology of the research are discussed.

Organizational knowledge: definitions, taxonomies, and metaphors in a digital transformation environment

Purpose: In the era of digital transformation, organizational knowledge becomes even more important than before in building the competitive advantage of enterprises (Malerba et al., 2020; Santorno et al., 2018; Chen et al., 2023). Digital transformation forces companies to rethink knowledge resources to meet current requirements. Design/methodology/approach: The research methods consist of a comprehensive and systematic domestic and foreign literature review of organizational knowledge definitions, taxonomies, and metaphors in a digital transformation environment. Findings: The development of companies in a dynamic, competitive business environment with digital transformation is altering the way knowledge is perceived within organizations and requires a new approach to understanding knowledge assets and their formation. Research limitations/implications: The research should continue on the relationship between digital transformation and knowledge processes in the organization (acquisition, generation, storage, sharing, and transfer). Practical implications: The research results prove that an adequate understanding of organizational knowledge, its taxonomy, and the right choice of metaphors guide efforts on knowledge creation in organizations in a digital transformation environment. Originality/value: The research contributes to organizational knowledge management and sheds light on how knowledge metaphor analysis contributes to diagnosing situations and finding solutions that contribute to an organization’s potential. Keywords: Systematic literature review, organizational knowledge, knowledge definitions, knowledge taxonomies, metaphorical analysis. Category of the paper: Literature review, general review.

“Uma Grande e Honesta Colmeia”: a Subversão do Apiário Clássico em Mandeville

Bernard Mandeville built his two-volume masterwork, The Fable of the Bees, around a largely ignored poem originally published in 1705, his “Grumbling Hive.” This piece attempts to provide the literary context for Mandeville’s choice of apian metaphor. We examine ancient and early modern examples of social and political theory informed and articulated by reference to the organization and structure of apiaries and their denizens. Considering this context, we argue, demonstrates in a new way the subversive character of “The Grumbling Hive” and its subsequent iterations as The Fable of the Bees. Mandeville turns inside out the time-worn assumptions about the natural harmony of hives, their relation to human society, and the role of speech and reason in their flourishing.

To the Question of Attitude to Death of Middle-Aged People During the War in Ukraine

A person's attitude to death is influenced by the critical situations he encounters in his life. The war, which began in Ukraine at the beginning of 2022, made people's feelings about death relevant, because death has become everyday reality in the lives of Ukrainians. The purpose of the study is to determine the peculiarities of middle-aged people attitude to the phenomenon of death during the war in Ukraine. A sample of subjects (N=76) who previously participated in our research in 2019 and 2020 during the coronavirus infection. The age of the subjects varies as follows: Me=44.00; min=35.00; max=55.00. Research methods: the "Attitude to Death" method (I.Yu. Kulagina, L.V. Senkevich), the "Attitude to Death Scale" method by D.V. Hardt, Metaphor of Personal Death technique – the Revised Death Fantasy Scale (RDFS) J. McLennan. It was determined that the attitude towards death in people of the studied middle-aged group during the war is ambivalent with a certain deviation towards the positive. The studied group is characterized by an average level of stress resistance, which is associated with thoughts about death. The choice of metaphors about death is determined by the degree of attitude positivity towards death: a pessimistic attitude towards death is associated with negative thoughts about death, fixation on its external side, avoidance of contact with death. Lack of seeing a positive perspective in death leads to pessimism and negative thoughts. An optimistic attitude towards death is associated with the rare occurrence of negative thoughts about own death, perception of death as a necessary aspect of being, openness to contact with death. Significant differences were found between believers and atheists on the indicator of positive thoughts about their own death: believers showed a high level of acceptance of death. Significant differences in attitudes toward death between men and women were also identified: men have a more positive and "black" humor to thoughts about death.

Determining pre-service science teachers’ perceptions of science, nature of science, and the relationship between them

Besides being a necessity for science education, understanding the nature of science and the concept of science also facilitates individuals’ daily lives and affects their decisions as conscious citizens. This study aims to determine the pre-service science teachers' perceptions of science and their views on the nature of science and the relationship between them. The study was carried out with prospective science teachers from different undergraduate levels. Perception of Science Questionnaire and Views on Nature of Science Questionnaire were used as data collection tools. The views on the nature of science were coded as unacceptable, partially acceptable and acceptable and statistical analyses were carried out accordingly. Pre-service science teachers’ views on the nature of science were found to be unacceptable and partially acceptable. Nature of science views generally showed a positive tendency throughout the undergraduate education. The metaphors obtained from the concept of science were analyzed by content analysis. The metaphors obtained were categorized as dynamic, guiding, cumulative, requirement andinfinite. According to the results, the perceptions of pre-service science teachers were positive, but also showed some deficiencies and misconceptions. Finally, pre-service science teachers’ choice of metaphors, although not statistically significant, differed according to their grade level. No statistically significant relationship was found between pre-service science teachers' views on nature of science and their perceptions of science.

News discourse as a source of metaphorical creativity in political cartooning

It is through news reports in the press or on television, radio or the Internet that people learn most of what they know about their environment or the world beyond their daily experiences. This paper raises the question: to what extent can a trending topic in news discourse become the source of metaphorical creativity, and which factors contribute to this fact? It uses the systematic analysis of multimodal metaphors in a corpus of political cartoons. The genre conventions of the political cartoon generate a particular form of engagement with the news, which in turn shapes the metaphors that political cartoonists use in their work. An editorial or political cartoon is a text, especially one in a newspaper or magazine, concerning a topical event and therefore, by definition, plays a crucial role in the reproduction of knowledge. Finding a fresh angle on a breaking news story and using this to create another piece of media content, such as an editorial or political cartoon, is often referred to as news-jacking. The question is not whether topical news stories are reproduced by journalists — it is whether they offer unique opportunities to journalists, influencing their choice of metaphors. A comparative study of cartoons about a range of topics across different cultures would deliver useful insights into how topical news items may shape the metaphors that political cartoonists use to offer expert comment. In so doing, this paper moves beyond the confines of conceptual metaphor theory (CMT), presenting fundamental challenges to a theory that was originally developed based on linguistic and artificial data.

Abduction, Dialogue and the Learning Paradox: How Metaphor Choice Affects Teaching in Multicultural Schools

ABSTRACT The learning paradox, an ancient inquiry found in Plato’s Meno, is still widely discussed today. It focuses on the puzzle of how students acquire new understandings out of the knowledge they already possess. Richard Prawat’s concept of abduction, or the use of metaphor by teachers, is a compelling answer, but not all metaphors are equally effective for all students, especially in multicultural schools where students have different cultural backgrounds and understandings. The utilization of a fixed metaphor that only some students comprehend can limit the learning opportunities of others. This article attempts to address this concern through applying Nicholas Burbules’ concept of'dialogue to the abductive process. Dialogue allows greater mutual understanding between learning counterparts despite their differences and opens up possibilities for other relevant metaphors. Consequently, the integration of dialogue in the abductive process assists a more equal acquirement of knowledge and enriches learning more holistically and meaningfully. Keywords: Learning paradox, Abduction, Dialogue, Metaphor, Multicultural schools.

VETTERSFELDE HOARD: DECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENSEMBLE

SummaryAmong all the hoards containing ceremonial akinakai, (swords and daggers of Iranian origin), the assemblage of items discovered in 1882 near the village of Vettersfelde (Poland) is the most internally coherent. Judging by the motifs present on the golden objects richly decorated in the animal style – a fish‐shaped plaque, a clover‐shaped phalera and a sheath ornament of a sword – they make up a unified ensemble, most likely the result of one ritual event. The source of the items from Vettersfelde is usually associated with the Milesian colonies of the Pontic region, in which a certain artistic bilingualism is documented, with both Greek and ‘barbarian’ influences to be seen. Most likely, the choice of visual metaphors in the narrative was not accidental but something recognized both by the creator and the recipient. If the provenance for its manufacture is extended beyond the northern or western coast of the Black Sea, then the Milesian colonies of Eastern Greece could also claim that role. In particular, for a number of reasons, Cyzicus is a suitable candidate.‘It's still magic even if you know how it's done.’Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

Audience Perceptions of COVID-19 Metaphors: The Role of Source Domain and Country Context

ABSTRACT Metaphors abound in descriptions of the COVID-19 pandemic: it is described, among other things, as a war, a flood, and a marathon. However, not all metaphors may resonate equally well with members of the public. Given that the pandemic has impacted people’s lives across countries in divergent ways – both in terms of spread and in terms of government-imposed measures, we investigated whether audience perceptions of metaphors for the COVID-19 pandemic depend on source domain and country context. This mixed-design study examined how individuals across three European countries (Germany, Italy, and The Netherlands) perceived different COVID-19 metaphorical frames. Participants (N = 216) were randomly exposed to nine metaphorical frames and one literal-language frame and asked to express their perceptions in terms of liking, aptness, complexity, conventionality, and credibility. Results showed that audience perceptions of metaphorical descriptions of the COVID-19 pandemic differed between source domains and country contexts, but mostly in terms of aptness. These findings suggest that experience with the target domain may indeed be relevant for metaphor perceptions and highlight the importance of studying metaphor appreciation as a multifaceted phenomenon. Findings may also inform metaphor choice by governments, journalists, and other actors to describe this novel situation.

The use of clarificatory metaphors in argumentative discourse in British Public Bill Committee debates

Abstract In this paper, we aim to explain how metaphors can be employed for clarificatory purposes in British parliamentary debates. These debates typically involve an exchange of arguments concerning complex issues, which more often than not may require clarification. In clarifying something complex, metaphors are often employed in which an unfamiliar and abstract concept is compared to a more familiar and concrete concept. Because the choice of metaphor affects how an issue is understood and reasoned about, discussants may wish to oppose such a metaphor to avoid biased conceptions or even misunderstandings of the issue under discussion. We present a number of cases in which metaphors used for clarificatory purposes are opposed in a British Public Bill Committee debate on the Digital Economy Bill. Our analyses uncover which metaphors are used for clarificatory purposes, to what extent these clarificatory metaphors contribute to furthering the resolution of a debate on the acceptability of legislative proposals, and what consequences opposing such metaphors may have on the continuation of the debate.

Conceptualisation of Sustainability

Metaphors are language phenomena commonly used as tools of persuasion, as evident in different kinds of public discourses, most notably in political addresses. They are particularly potent in this respect because they function on the principle of connecting the logical with the emotional. This persuasive role has also been attested in media reports, usually employed for the purposes of framing and the creation of a specific narrative. The purpose of this paper is to outline a theoretical and methodological account of metaphor choices related to sustainability and restoration, as issues related to climate change, made by the contemporary media and the perceptions formed by repetition and reinforcements of certain kinds of imagery present in their choice. An additional purpose is to understand which information sources, and possible instances of influence and leverage, could be of importance in terms of the media reporting on sustainability-related issues. Therefore, the paper offers novel conceptual and analytical guidelines for future research in the field of sustainability communication.