Metaphorical Meaning Research Articles

The beheading of James Foley: a crossing of gazes between East and West

Abstract This paper analyses “A Message to America,” the 2014 ISIS video that presents the beheading of American photojournalist James Foley. This short film served as a model for the more than 200 graphically violent videos posted online by the terrorist group before the fall of the caliphate in 2019. The main objective of this research is to question the truth-value of violent ISIS videos and to advocate a critical approach to them. To this end, four key issues need to be explored: the quality of the videos; their status as art, documentary, or propaganda; their target audiences; and the purpose of the message being conveyed to each of those audiences. To deconstruct the mechanisms employed by the constructed fallacy of this video and critically expose its literal and metaphorical meaning, we use textual analysis, the methodological tool developed in Greimasian semiotics. The results reveal a carefully planned text with a clearly recognizable narrative structure (crime and punishment). This video is a propaganda documentary that makes use of the tools of fiction to stage a real event: Foley dies, but his death is not shown on camera; it is only staged. Targeting two different audiences, an implicit Muslim viewer, and an explicit Western viewer, the text can be interpreted as a crossing of gazes between East and West.

Thermal and metaphorical meanings

Thermal and metaphorical meanings

Space of education

Among the metaphorical meanings of the word ‘space’, the educational space is not the least. We are completing the publication of materials about the most interesting experiment of MARCHI on designing the virtual city of Nikolograd, and we are also presenting a new building of the RANEPA in Barnaul that embodies the modern image of elite higher education.

THE STRENGTH BEHIND GROWTH: EXPLORING METAPHORS IN PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR’S POEM, THE SEEDLING

This research analyzes the types of metaphors in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s ‘The Seedling’ using Lakoff and Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory. A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things. A metaphorical poem has the ability to create and translate the figurative language contained in the content of the poem, especially where there are deep personal and emotional experiences”." The research uses descriptive qualitative methods to obtain a clear and systematic description of the metaphors found in this poem. The findings show that there are three kinds of metaphors identified in the poem "The Seedling." Those are ontological, image scheme, and orientational. The metaphors used in Paul Laurence Dunbar's 'The Seedling' speak to the stages of human improvement, utilizing characteristic pictures such as seeds, roots, daylight, and rain. Each allegory is utilized to portray desires, dreams, trusts, and the plausibility of developing into a grown up in spite of having to overcome numerous challenges. Understanding the meaning and function of metaphors will broaden our conception of language as a learning medium with strong implications for language and literacy teaching.

ФРАЗЕОЛОГИЧЕСКАЯ ВЕРБАЛИЗАЦИЯ ЭМОЦИОНАЛЬНОЙ МЕТАФОРЫ В АНГЛОЯЗЫЧНОЙ И РУССКОЯЗЫЧНОЙ ЛИНГВОКУЛЬТУРАХ

The paper deals with the analysis of the emotional metaphor as a means of emotion conceptualization in phraseology. The interest to such idioms is accounted for by their capacity to reflect the understanding of emotions based on the socio-cultural experience of the language community, as well as to illustrate the national peculiarities of world perception through metaphoric meanings. On the material of English and Russian, metaphoric models of the emotional state are characterized, the role of metaphor in mapping the emotional domain is considered. In the context of a comparative study the authors find it relevant to expand the scope of understanding of the emotional model of the world formation by different linguocultures. Metaphors widely used to explicate the emotional concepts are orientational and ontological ones. A special attention is paid to anthropomorphic and zoomorphic metaphoric types. It is argued that the most productive metaphor is the anthropomorphic one, which can be explained by the anthropocentric mode of human cognition. Anthropomorphic metaphor assigns typically human properties or actions to emotions. Physiological metaphor also seems to be frequent in emotion conceptualization, based on similarity of physiological symptoms and emotional states. Zoomorphic metaphor is also actively used in metaphorical structuring the emotional sphere due to the special significance of animal images for people. In such idioms, animal images are metaphorically patterned to give characteristics of human emotions. The analysis of the material allows to make a conclusion that English and Russian phraseology represent nationally and culturally specific ways of metaphorical mapping of the human emotional experience. The common features in the metaphoric emotion representation are revealed in universal domain spheres for emotional metaphors. The distinctive features reveal themselves in different ways and frequency value, used in the process of figurative representation of positive and negative emotions in the phraseology of English and Russian, differences and gaps in metaphoric meanings, cognitive patterns of emotional concepts.

Semantic Classification of Phraseological Units

This study explores the semantic classification of phraseological units and its significance in language learning and teaching. Phraseological units, including idioms, enrich linguistic expression by conveying figurative, metaphoric, symbolic, and ironical meanings. However, their complexity poses challenges for learners due to the disconnect between literal and figurative interpretations. By categorizing idioms into semantic groups, such as figurative or symbolic, this research simplifies their understanding and usage, enabling learners to enhance their linguistic and cultural competence. The study integrates linguistic theories, corpus linguistics, and practical teaching techniques, such as conceptual mapping and comparative analysis, to examine idioms’ structural and cultural nuances. Findings highlight the importance of semantic classification in improving comprehension, retention, and cross-cultural communication. Recommendations for future idiom pedagogy emphasize the integration of innovative methods and cross-linguistic comparisons to address learners' evolving needs.

The Role of Inhibition as a Component of Executive Functions in Metaphorical Embodiment.

This article discusses the role of inhibition as a component of executive functions in metaphorical embodiment of concepts and explains some incongruent evidence for metaphorical embodiment. Some past works have explained the incongruent evidence for metaphorical embodiment of concepts on the basis of conventionality/novelty of metaphors. Based on theories of embodiment, when a word that refers to an object is used in its literal sense, all sensorimotor networks that are involved in perceiving the object are activated, and sensorimotor features of the object are embodied. However, when the same word is used in a metaphorical sense as the base of a metaphor, only a single salient semantic feature that defines the metaphorical meaning of the word is embodied. The other semantic features, which are metaphorically irrelevant, are inhibited during metaphor comprehension. The activation/embodiment of the salient metaphorically-relevant feature and the inhibition of metaphorically-irrelevant features are dependent on base-target relationship, contextual information, and conventionality/novelty of metaphorical expression. Therefore, meaning of a single term can be metaphorically embodied in a variety of ways in different situations and in different metaphorical expressions. It is suggested that this can be one reason for non-congruency of evidence for metaphorical embodiment of concepts.

Lietuviškumo apraiškos XX a. pirmos pusės latvių literatūroje: stereotipinės ir neįprastos

The article is based on the theoretical approach suggested by literary imagology, drawing an assumption that the image that is revealed in fiction of one country about the other country, the nation is not a literary value that is solely enclosed inside a text, but it rather often reflects specific historical, geographical, social, economic, cultural and other realia, too. There is a large number of literary pieces which depict the Lithuania-related topic or single Lithuanian motifs in Latvian literature of the first half of the 20th century; therefore, the article limits itself with analysis of only a part of them in the chosen aspect of imagology. Around thirty authors of the said period who wrote pieces of various genres, including both famous names, who became classics and less known authors, are discussed. Majority of these literary pieces reveal such manifestations of Lithuanianness which can be considered as trite, stereotypical because they are repeated, obtain new semantic, emotional shades in various contexts; nevertheless, they always retain almost the same notional core. The ethnotype of a Lithuanian beggar (Latv. leišu nabags / ubags) is one of the most frequently occurring manifestations of such kind; it reflects a historical, economic situation of the second half of the 19th century – first half of the 20th century, when many people from Lithuania would go begging in Latvia. The fiction also quite frequently and highly variously displays the motif of Lithuanian neighbourhood, its geographical proximity. The motifs of “a Lithuanian cherry” (Latv. leišu ķirsis) and “a Lithuanian goose” (Latv. leišu zoss) are much rarer, though repeating in fiction works related to specific agrarian and culinary realia prevailing in Latvia at that time. An image of a disastrous “quagmire of Lithuania” (Latv. leišu muklājs) that was made popular by a composer Alfrēds Kalniņš’s (1879–1951) song based on a verse by a poet Atis Ķeniņš (1874–1961) ought to be considered as dissociated from objective realia; this image had a metaphorical meaning which was usually directly unrelated to Lithuania. Manifestations of the topic of Lithuania which are characteristic of some exclusiveness, unusualness, even some kind of cultural exoticism in Latvian literature of that time are relatively sparse. The article analytically presents five pieces of fiction that display quite detailed portraits of atypical, unordinary characters from Lithuania. The most suggestive of them is an image of a Jewish man, named Perec, from Lithuanian province, who was educated under the influence of the religious spirit of the Torah but eventually embraced the truths of Marxism, and his milieu, created by a famous leftist writer Andrejs Kurcijs (the true name Andrejs Kuršinskis, 1884–1959) in his short story “The God of Paupers” (“Nabago dievs”, 1929).

Sentiment analysis of Chinese ancient poetry based on multidimensional knowledge attention

Abstract Poetry was a unique literary genre in ancient China as an important way to express sentiments. Chinese ancient poetry not only has simple words, strict meters, and rich semantic relationships, but also widely use rhetorical techniques such as simile and personification, as well as metaphorical means such as allusion and imagery, which makes it difficult to understand their implicit sentiments quickly and accurately. Therefore, this article attempts to make full use of the semantic features of Chinese ancient poetry text and the knowledge feature of related domains under the guidance of the research paradigm of digital intelligence integration and, based on which, proposed Sentiment Analysis Model of Chinese Ancient Poetry based on Multidimensional Knowledge Attention. This model extracts semantic features from Chinese ancient poetry text, meanwhile designs a multidimensional knowledge attention to extract knowledge features from the knowledge base of Chinese ancient poetry. The recognition of Chinese ancient poetry sentiment is performed by integrating the textual feature and knowledge feature. Comparison experiments on the open ancient poetry corpus verified the effectiveness of the proposed model, and the ablation experiment explored the importance of different knowledge to the sentiment analysis result of Chinese ancient poetry.

Representations of Jewelry as a Source of Metaphorization in the Modern Russian Linguistic Picture of the World

Purpose. The article describes the linguocultural specifics of metaphorization of general representations of jewelry in the Russian linguistic picture of the world. The relevance of the topic is related to the use of lexemes with the root jewel- in various contexts based on metaphorization and figurative representation of heterogeneous phenomena. The purpose of the research is to determine main directions of metaphorization in the semantic field «Jewelry» based on lexicographic data and contexts from the «National Corpus of the Russian Language». The sample consists of 144 examples with metaphorical meaning of the lexemes jeweler, jeweled and jewelry selected from the National Corpus of the Russian Language.Results. Contextual analysis and analysis of conceptual metaphor identified 6 main slots representing the basis for metaphorization.Conclusion. The metaphorization with the source jewel- in the Russian linguistic picture of the world describes not only qualities of a jeweler, but also the process and the result of jewelry work. The signs associated with the process and the results of jewelry work are the basis for metaphorization in most cases. Metaphorical contexts of «General representations of jewelry» predominantly reflect a positive evaluation, even while describing a criminal act, the emphasis is on accuracy and invisibility taken as positive aspects of this activity.

Metaphorical meaning dynamics: Identifying patterns in the metaphorical evolution of English words using mathematical modeling techniques

Abstract Conceptual metaphor theory has been criticized due to its emphasis on concepts instead of words and its top-down direction of analysis. In response to these criticisms, this paper employs a new strategy, utilizing established mathematical modeling methods to allow a systematic, quantitative analysis of the entire dataset produced by the Mapping Metaphor project at the University of Glasgow. This dataset consists of 9609 words performing 18916 metaphorical mappings between 414 domains. The data is represented as a network consisting of 414 nodes, the domains, connected by shared words. Words are represented by groups of directed mappings between all domains in which they occur. This is made possible by the use of a directed hypergraph representation, a tool commonly used in discrete mathematics and various areas of computer science but not previously applied to the metaphorical meanings of words. Examining the dataset as a whole, rather than focusing on individual words or metaphors, allows global patterns of behavior to emerge from the data without pre-filtering or selection by the authors. Outcomes of the analysis relating to the distributions of source and target domains within the network, the growth mechanisms at work in the spread of metaphorical meanings and how these relate to existing concepts in CMT are discussed.

Metaphor and ambiguity

What is the status of metaphorical meaning? Is it an input to semantic composition or is it derived post-semantically? This question has divided theorists for decades. Griceans argue that metaphorical meaning/content is a kind of implicature that is generated through post-semantic processing. Others, such as the contextualists, argue that metaphorical meaning is an input to semantic composition and thus part of “what is said” by an utterance. I think both sides are right: metaphorical meaning is an input to semantic composition and it is also derived post-semantically. I explain how this is possible by positing that successful metaphor involves coining a new word on the spot; this new metaphorical word is ambiguous with its literal counterpart. I show that an ambiguity theory of metaphor, far from being the obvious non-starter that it has long been treated as, actually offers elegant predictions of a whole suite of otherwise recalcitrant linguistic data.

Cognitive poetics: theoretical foundations and analytical tools in the interpretation of literary texts

The aim of this paper is to define and illustrate the concepts and tools of cognitive poetics – a new way of analyzing and interpreting a literary text that focuses on the effects of a read text on the reader’s mind, as well as the cognitive processes that occur in response to the reading experience. Department cognitive poetics aims, therefore, at the relationship between writer, the literary text and its effects on reader’s mind. The reader anchors himself in the text thanks to the spatio-temporal deictic elements provided by the writer, selects the predominant elements of the text and reliefs the textual worlds, establishes an indissoluble link between reality and literary space through the prism of his experience and, according to this experience, is able to denounce the figurative meaning of the conceptual metaphor. Cognitive poetics, through these tools, succeeds in establishing the cognitive processes of the reader who is summoned to discover the „proper” world of the text.

Metaphorical meanings of color symbols in literature

Metaphorical meanings of color symbols in literature

Dostoevsky as a Сitizen: Idea, Concept, Conception

The concept of “citizen” in Russian has a long history. The dictionary of the Russian language of the 11th — 17th centuries notes the first use of the word in the 11th century: citizens were called townspeople, members of the city community. At the same time, the metaphorical meaning of the word was noted, when the righteous and saints were called “heavenly citizens.” In the 18th century, the word “citizen” acquired a wide range of meanings, including eminent and honorable citizens, merchants, bourgeois, artisans and other city dwellers. By the 1830s, a citizen was perceived as a patriot and defender of the fatherland. In the theological tradition, the concepts of “citizen” and “Christian” emerged as identical. These were the meanings of the word in Russian society. The title became the key to the direction and agenda of V. Meshchersky’s weekly “Grazhdanin” (“The Citizen”). Dostoevsky shared the mission of the publication. The idea of being a citizen was at the root of Dostoevsky’s work. It explained his ideological position during his testimony in the Petrashevites’ case, in his political poems of 1854–1856, in his journalistic works of 1860–1865, 1873–1874, in “The Writer’s Diary” of 1876–1881. The concept of a citizen is based on his recognition of the unity of creativity and journalism. Dostoevsky is characterized by a Christian, not class-based, understanding of citizenship, an understanding of the citizen as a Christian, which was expressed in the ideas of Russian statehood. Citizen Kuz’ma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, who overcame the Time of Troubles, Empress Catherine the Great, who gave instructions, writers and poets Gavriil Derzhavin, Alexander Pushkin, Nikolay Gogol, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolay Nekrasov expressed the conciliar ideal of the people — the state, political, patriotic, Christian ideas of Russia. The ideal and ideas are expressed in the concept of fellow citizens. This is a special type of community: not people, but citizens, not citizens, but fellow citizens. They were not only just townspeople (urban dwellers), but also peasants, merchants, nobles, priesthood — in a word, representatives of all of Russia’s social classes. Their ideas determined the content of “Grazhdanin” (“The Citizen”).

Metaphor patterns in Sesotho fiction: The case of the novel Chaka

In this study, we examine the nature, distribution, and stylistic effect of metaphors used in the Sesotho novel Chaka. Previous studies have discussed the metaphoric language in Thomas Mofolo’s work, revealing that, among others, Mofolo uses metaphors to articulate his themes and for stylistic effect. We begin our analysis by identifying and listing all the linguistic and underlying conceptual metaphors used in our sample data. We then analyse the linguistic and conceptual metaphors in terms of whether they are conventional or novel and whether they are creatively employed or not. We also explore the distribution of linguistic metaphors across word classes. Lastly, we explore the stylistic effects of these metaphors. The metaphor patterns in Chaka reflect a strong influence of Sesotho cultural and cognitive structures, including orature. The majority of the linguistic metaphors in the novel are the conventional and non-creative ones whose metaphorical meanings are found in Sesotho dictionaries and whose function is to create a text that can resonate with early 20th century Basotho. Our analysis shows that, to a lesser extent, the metaphors were used to create a text similar to Western literary texts and to promote Christianity. Seemly, it is this attribute of having a deep relationship with other Sesotho texts and cultural practices, including Sesotho orature, that led to the delay in the publication of the novel after it had been completed.

The analysis of orientational metaphor of ‘Zhōng’ (中) in Chinese traditional classic The Doctrine of the Mean

Abstract This paper studies the orientational metaphor of zhōng (中, ‘middle’) and its cultural values behind this metaphor in Chinese Traditional Classic The Doctrine of Mean. It is found that there are three metaphorical meanings for the orientational metaphor of zhōng (中, ‘middle’), including “an emotion of calm.”; “a moderate degree” and “an ethical standard”. The ethical standard of zhōng is the judge criteria for the Chinese traditional role schemas jūnzǐ (君子, ‘a person of noble character’) and xiǎorén (小人,‘a person of petty character’). In addition, the cultural values of Chinese society revealed by the ethical standard of zhōng (中, ‘middle’) are concluded systematically from the levels of individual, family and state.

Metaphors of Colonial Trauma in Abdulrazak Gurnah's By the Sea

By the Sea is one of the masterpieces of Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature. Gurnah tells the story of past events from the standpoint of Saleh Omar and Latif Mahmud respectively, methodically advancing the story as if it were a jigsaw puzzle gradually assembling a complete truth. The novel uses a large number of metaphors in its implicit narrative, and through the dialectical tension between characters, events and objects with symbolic metaphorical meanings, it accurately grasps the destructive impact of colonialism on the colonized people and the plight of the refugee community after fleeing from their own country, triggering thoughts on post-colonialism, and calling attention to the colonial issue as well as to the colonial trauma of the alienated community.

Chinese-English Translation Strategies for Metaphors Based on Domestication and Foreignization

As an essential rhetorical device in language expression, metaphor deeply reflects the cultural background and social cognition. Metaphor translation needs to convey the meaning of language as well as the cultural connotations behind the metaphor. This study found that when the metaphorical images contain the same symbolic meaning in Chinese and English cultures, applying foreignization to reproduce the original metaphorical images can maintain the uniqueness and writing style of the source text and avoid the loss of cultural connotations in the translation process. Instead, in the case of different metaphorical images, using domestication to replace or omit the original symbolic images in the target language can improve the readability and acceptance of the translation. However, no studies explore applying metaphor translation strategies based on comparing the similarities and differences of metaphors in different languages and cultures, causing subjectivity in selecting metaphor translation strategies. This study compares the symbolic meanings of metaphors in Chinese and English cultures and provides a reliable and objective basis for selecting domestication and foreignization for metaphor translation, which help to achieve more effective faithfulness and cultural transmission. This analysis provides practical references for translation strategies of metaphors and promotes the depth of cross-cultural communication.

Sentiment Analysis of Chinese Ancient Poetry Based on Multidimensional Attention Under the Background of Digital Intelligence Integration

Abstract Poetry was a unique literary genre in ancient China as an important way to express sentiments. Chinese ancient poetry not only has simple words, strict meters and rich semantic relationships, but also widely uses rhetorical techniques such as simile and personification, as well as metaphorical means such as allusion and imagery, which makes it difficult to understand their implicit sentiments quickly and accurately. Therefore, this paper attempts to make full use of the semantic features of Chinese ancient poetry text and the knowledge feature of related domains under the guidance of the research paradigm of digital intelligence integration, and based on which, proposed Sentiment Analysis Model of Chinese Ancient Poetry based on Multidimensional Attention (SAMCAP). This model extracts semantic features from Chinese ancient poetry text, meanwhile designs a multidimensional attention to extract the knowledge feature from the knowledge base of Chinese ancient poetry. The recognition of Chinese ancient poetry sentiment is performed by integrating the textual feature and knowledge feature. Comparison experiments on the open ancient poetry corpus verified the effectiveness of the proposed model, and the ablation experiment explored the importance of different knowledge to the sentiment analysis result of Chinese ancient poetry.