ABSTRACT Metaphor research is currently undergoing renewed interest in the concrete-abstract continuum. Lexical processing research shows that concrete words like “cat,” “vase,” and “book” are processed more quickly and with clearer mental imagery than abstract words such as “government,” “accident,” and “dream.” This poses some interesting questions about metaphor processing, as metaphors often show a conceptual asymmetry where Topic terms are abstract, and Vehicles are concrete. While this pattern suggests that disparity in this dimension may be an enabling or constraining feature of metaphor interpretation, we contend that concreteness should be viewed instead as a fluid and adaptable dimension of lexical concept interaction. According to Interaction Theory, metaphors have a powerful ability to reshape our perception of concepts, and we seek to investigate how this relates to the concreteness of both the Topic and the Vehicle. Through a qualitative analysis of metaphor appreciation, we examine the cognitive processes that facilitate navigation between abstraction and concretion. We propose that the characteristic adaptability of concepts’ concreteness necessitates an ad hoc model of mental representation in metaphor, moving beyond the traditional fixed models that have long underpinned theories of metaphor.

This paper aims to sketch the current state of metaphor research, tracing its development from classical rhetoric to contemporary approaches including multimodal, cognitive, pragmatic, and critical perspectives. It outlines the theoretical foundations of metaphor and its conceptual, cultural, and communicative functions, emphasizing how metaphors, grounded in embodied experience and image schemas, both shape and reflect cognition, culture, and ideology. The discussion engages with Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT), Extended Conceptual Metaphor Theory (ECMT), and Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA), while highlighting its cross-cultural variation and use across multiple domains. Metaphor has become a central lens for exploring how we conceptualize, interpret, and relate to the world. In addition to this global overview, the paper enriches the field with a selective review of Vietnamese metaphor studies, showcasing how Vietnam-based research contributes to the overall conceptual landscape. It argues that metaphor research now stands at an interdisciplinary crossroads. Emerging directions include examining metaphors across new modalities such as speech, sign language, gesture, film, emoji, memes, and advertising, and exploring the growing role of digital and AI-mediated environments in meaning-making. At the same time, the paper underscores the growing importance of metaphor awareness in language education as a means of strengthening learners’ interpretive and critical skills. We conclude that metaphor is a foundational cognitive and cultural resource - dynamic, adaptable, and central to meaning-making in diverse social interactions, and recommend future research on metaphors in digital and AI-mediated contexts, in language education, and in developing context-sensitive methodological frameworks.

ABSTRACT Studies examining the language of the pandemic include those focused on address terms and of stance-taking (Yingnian Tao, “Address Term and of Stance-Taking in the Discussion of Wuhan Diary in Weibo.” #cads2020. Corpora & Discourse. Book of s [2020]: 116), also the use of Twitter for administering advice in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, or how Covid-19 has been addressed in research articles (Luke Collins and Veronica Koller, Viral Language: Analysing the Covid-19 Pandemic Public Discourse. London: Routledge, 2024). Metaphor research includes the description of metaphors used on Twitter (Philip Wicke and Marianna M. Bolognesi, “Framing COVID-19: How We Conceptualize and Discuss the Pandemic on Twitter.” PLoS One 15, no. 9 [2020]: e0240010) or chosen by politicians from different countries to discuss COVID-related issues (Collins and Koller, Viral Language). Diachronically, there are no studies examining the metaphorical traits of words denoting COVID-19 in the political setting of the UK Parliament. The present research aims to fill this gap. It is a corpus-based investigation undertaken on the Parliament Covid corpus (PCov), including parliamentary debates dating from March 2020 to September 2020. Words denoting COVID-19 have been retrieved with the concordancer WordSmithTools 6.0, and their metaphorical traits examined using the Metaphor Identification Procedure (Pragglejaz Group, “A Method for Identifying Metaphorically Used Words in Discourse.” Metaphor and Symbol 22, no. 1 [2007]: 1–39). The analysis reveals that COVID-19 is depicted as a Stable entity over time, reflecting a sense of immobility, but also as a Moving entity due to the danger experienced as a consequence of the pandemic.

As an emerging literary form, online poetry has garnered significant attention due to its rapid dissemination, diverse styles, and complex metaphorical expressions. However, the process of metaphorical meaning integration in poetry is difficult to quantify, necessitating support from Artificial Intelligence technologies. This study integrates cognitive linguistics theory with AI algorithms to propose a three-dimensional fusion analysis framework—“cognitive theory + specific AI algorithms + online discourse data”—for dissecting metaphorical meaning integration in online poetry. By constructing a comprehensive methodology encompassing metaphor identification, semantic mapping, and integration analysis, this study offers a novel quantitative pathway for metaphor research in poetry. Experimental validation demonstrates that the integrated approach—leveraging Support Vector Machines (SVM), Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), BERT pre-trained models, and the DeepSeek-R1 large model—achieves outstanding performance in metaphor recognition accuracy, semantic association quantification, and fusion effectiveness evaluation, fully embodying both theoretical and practical value.

Given that the research of cognitive metaphors based on sports has been scarcely conducted in Romanian, the present paper aims to explore the manner in which surfing is used to conceptualise and metaphorically express circumstances belonging to other domains. Among the objectives of this paper are: a) to illustrate the conceptual structure of surfing metaphors, b) to develop an inventory, c) to classify the metaphors according to the criteria found in the literature, and d) to analyse the most significant metaphorical conceptualisations, so as to highlight their typological diversity and degree of complexity. The paper is grounded on a theoretical framework consisting of studies such as: Lakoff&Johnson (1980, 2003), Lakoff (1991), Segrave (2000), Charteris-Black (2004), Medina Montero (2015), Najjari&Mohammadi (2018), Quintero Ramírez (2019), Ross&Rivers (2019), Fedorova&Argounov (2022), and Fauzi et al. (2024).

This metaphorical research, titled “Religious syncretism: A hybrid Islamic approach,” examines hybrid Islamic tendencies that have emerged as a practical means of social change. In this context, the research proposes the metaphor of “hybrid Islam” in contemporary discussions on Islam. The conceptualisation of “hybrid Islam” is examined and interpreted in relation to the diversifying and differentiating motifs of belief and religiosity in the Islamic world. The primary purpose of this research is to examine and analyse the tendencies in the spiritual life of Muslims, combining different Islamic motifs in a hybrid image. In addition, this research attempts to understand and make sense of hybrid Islamic trends from a sociological perspective. At this point, it utilises understanding and interpretative approaches. As a result of this research, it is possible to discuss a hybrid Islamic approach that is evident in the Islamic world according to context, place, and time, which is embodied in different examples. A strategy has developed an orientation that combines secular motifs, on the one hand, and different Islamic motifs, on the other hand. This trend shows an approach that evolves from institutional, official, and scriptural religion to artificiality. This corresponds to a syncretic understanding of religion on the axis of Islamic hybridisation.

Metaphors are a core category of cognitive linguistics and an important mode of human thinking. They concretize abstract concepts through cross-domain mapping and build a bridge between cognition and understanding in verbal communication and interpersonal communication. Metaphor research has shifted from a pure linguistic perspective to multidisciplinary and multimodal research. However, there has yet been no systematic review of how the brain processes the differentiation and integration mechanism of verbal and non-verbal modal metaphorical information, as well as the main influencing factors. In particular, a weak area in current research is how special groups achieve compensation of metaphorical understanding through neuroplasticity. This review systematically describes the relevant achievements in cognitive neuroscience in recent years, with the aim of revealing the main influencing factors of multimodal metaphor processing and the process of neural differentiation and cross-modal integration. This review also focuses on the compensatory mechanisms in autism, aphasia, and deafness, and describes how they achieve effective metaphorical understanding through the reconstruction of neuroplasticity. Moreover, it provides an integrated perspective for understanding the neural basis of metaphorical cognition, as well as a theoretical basis and practical guidance for advancing multimodal metaphor research and applications in rehabilitation. Future research should combine temporal neurodynamic technology with ecological interventions designed to further promote advancement in this field.

Abstract This article presents a bibliometric analysis of metaphor research in Translation and Interpreting Studies (TIS) from 1964 to 2023. An ad-hoc database of 1,023 publications was built based on bibliographic records retrieved from Bibliography of Interpreting and Translation and Translation Studies Bibliography . Descriptive analyses of historical development, cognitive theoretical frameworks adopted, authorship patterns, and publication patterns were conducted to map the general landscape of the field. Furthermore, a four-layer coding frame was applied to conduct fine-grained analyses of empirical studies, classifying them according to their mediation of communication, research orientation, and research method. The results show that the potential overlap between metaphor research and Cognitive Translation and Interpreting Studies (CTIS), a growing sub-field of TIS, is yet to be substantial. Much remains to be done to incorporate metaphor research into CTIS. Following recent theoretical and methodological advancements in Metaphor Studies and CTIS, this article ends with suggestions of how the unfinished cognitive turn of metaphor research in TIS could be brought to completion.

ABSTRACT The idea of linking knowledge across disciplines to form unified theoretical structures has long attracted scientific interest. Building on this tradition, and employing the metaphor research strategy, this study constructs a typology of interfirm technological relationships inspired by the dynamics of interparticle interactions in chemistry. Interparticle interactions were selected as the metaphorical base due to their diversity, predictability and structural relevance. A systematic mapping process yielded 14 ideal types of technological relationships, including a novel form—‘crowd acquisition’—inspired by the positive ion‐induced dipole interaction, reflecting decentralized innovation sourcing. To assess the model's conceptual validity, we applied it to a previously studied case of asymmetric technological collaborations (ATCs) in the Iranian nanotechnology sector, focusing on corporate venture capital (CVC) as an analogue to dative bonds. Rather than introducing new data, we re‐examined prior findings to evaluate their consistency with metaphor‐based predictions. The analysis confirmed that recipient learning undermines relational stability, while network ties and host region development enhance it; collaboration diversity followed an inverted U‐shaped pattern. The study concludes with implications for strategic technology management and highlights the value of scientific metaphors in generating novel insights.

Research on plant metaphors explores how individuals conceptualize abstract experiences through the cognitive, aesthetic, and cultural dimensions of botanical imagery. This multidisciplinary review synthesizes existing scholarship from cognitive linguistics, literature, scientific modeling, and socio-cultural studies to elucidate the transdisciplinary mechanisms by which plant metaphors generate meaning. Grounded in Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the study examines how plants serve as source domains, mapping biological characteristics onto human cognition and cultural expression. The synthesis reveals that plant metaphors function as cognitive structures that facilitate universal comprehension while simultaneously reflecting distinct cultural identities. Specifically, the review highlights their diverse roles: promoting philosophical reflection in literature, structuring theoretical frameworks in scientific discourse, and fostering ecological stewardship in socio-cultural contexts. Crucially, the paper addresses the dual nature of these metaphors, which serve as creative bridges but can also impose cognitive constraints or lead to misunderstandings in science communication and translation. Ultimately, this article identifies plant metaphors as vital intermediaries between natural experience and human cognition, offering a unified framework for future interdisciplinary research.

This study starts from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, focusing on the “sea” element in Hemingway’s classic work The Old Man and the Sea. By analyzing the description of the sea, this topic tries to reveal the metaphorical concepts such as kindness, cruelty and female power, which are symbolized by the sea. By using the methods of text analysis and the theory of conceptual metaphor, this paper explores the role of these metaphors in shaping the overall style of the work, such as creating the unique literary atmosphere and affecting the readers’ reading experience, which includes the emotional resonance and in-depth thinking these metaphors evoke. From the perspective of cognitive linguistics, this study enriches the understanding of Hemingway’s writing style and provides a new perspective for the integration of cognitive linguistics and literary studies.

This study examines the role of conceptual metaphors related to emotion, time, and identity in meaning-making within Pim Wangtechawat's The Moon Represents My Heart by analyzing their application throughout three diasporic generations. Despite the proliferation of conceptual metaphor research within cognitive linguistics, there are no studies employing integrated multi-lens frameworks on contemporary Thai-authored English narratives, with even fewer investigating intergenerational transitions. To rectify this deficiency, we performed a two-stage thematic analysis of the novel's text, utilizing Lakoff's structural mappings, Kövecses's culturally grounded emotion model, and Semino's narrative-function approach. Three independent coders attained high Item-Objective Congruence, and the incorporation of theory triangulation with subject-matter specialists enhanced the credibility and reliability of our coding. This research indicates that first-generation voices utilize containment and inheritance metaphors to strengthen communal identity; second-generation characters transform these mappings into hybrid constructs that reflect filial tension; and third-generation protagonists employ dynamic, journey-oriented metaphors that balance heritage with self-expression. This study is limited by its examination of a single English-language text, lacking direct comparison to the Thai original or other Thai-authored works. Subsequent study ought to include bilingual corpora and cross-linguistic analyses, while also broadening the dataset to encompass various texts and genres, to enhance our comprehension of the functioning of metaphorical framing across languages, contexts, and developing diasporic identities.

Abstract Cognitive linguists have long argued that our comprehension of abstract concepts is primarily based on metaphorical or metonymic mappings from more concrete or familiar experiences ( Lakoff & Johnson 1980/2008 , 1999 ). Accordingly, metaphor identification commonly involves contrasting concrete senses of words with their contextual meanings. However, examples like a huge log spinning down into nothingness and Max opened a door into nothingness are reminders that, through metonymy, even highly familiar source concepts such as spatial areas can be targets grounded in abstract concepts. Both these instances evoke scenes in which the abstract notion of ‘nothingness’ is a space that physical entities move into. This study highlights the complexity of figurative language and underscores the need for further exploration into how abstract concepts can ground our understanding of more concrete experiences. It also serves to bridge the gap between current metaphor identification practices and the directionality of metonymy. Focusing mainly on mappings in one direction can pose challenges for metaphor researchers, as they might mistakenly categorize such cases as metaphorical rather than as expressions of spatial relations. This is particularly relevant in contemporary metaphor research, which often relies on establishing the basic meanings of individual words to identify metaphorical relationships.

As a common natural formation, the concept of holeand its Chinese counterpart dong ()stems from early human experience, particularly those related to cave dwelling and shelter seeking. Both lexical terms function as conceptual prototypes that have been extended metaphorically diverse languages. This study conducts a comparative analysis of the metaphorical extensions of hole in English and dong in Chinese, drawing on data from bilingual dictionaries and linguistic corpora, including Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and Center for Chinese Linguistics (CCL) Corpus. The analysis reveals that, although both terms share similar cognitive origins in the imagery of primitive caves and human habitation, variations in geographical environments, historical development, and social-cultural practices have led to different metaphorical pathways. By studying the development of "hole/dong" metaphor, this research intends to provide an insightful case for cross-linguistic metaphor research.

This study investigates the use of conceptual metaphors to represent motivation, struggle, and success in Pakistani original soundtracks (OSTs), applying the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The research aimed to uncover how abstract emotional experiences are framed through metaphorical language in OST lyrics and how these constructions reflect cultural narratives. A qualitative content analysis was conducted on twelve popular OSTs from Urdu television dramas, with lyrics transcribed, translated, and coded for dominant metaphorical patterns. Findings revealed recurring metaphors such as “Success is a Journey,” “Motivation is Fire,” and “Struggle is War,” often structured around spiritual, poetic, and social themes. These metaphors serve not only as expressive devices but also as cognitive tools shaping public understanding of aspiration and resilience. The study contributes to both metaphor research and ESL pedagogy, recommending OSTs as valuable resources for language learners and scholars exploring emotion, media, and culture through linguistic analysis.

Abstract This study examines the metaphorical expressions of anger and sadness in Korean psychological counseling and casual conversation. In counseling contexts, patients frequently use metaphors to articulate abstract emotions or concepts, as metaphors play a pivotal role in shaping cognitive processes that map concrete experiences onto abstract domains. By comparing datasets from psychological counseling sessions and casual conversations provided by South Korea’s AI-HUB, the study found that anger was expressed through a broader range of metaphors in counseling discourse, while casual conversation exhibited comparatively fewer metaphorical expressions of anger . Although similar metaphorical patterns were used to convey sadness in both contexts, counseling discourse demonstrated a more balanced distribution, whereas casual conversation predominantly conceptualized sadness as a form of illness . Furthermore, the analysis of source domains revealed a wider range of conceptualizations in counseling, including liquid in a bowl, insanity, object, plant, enemy, fire, and natural force . In contrast, casual conversation primarily relied on the domains of liquid in a bowl and object . This study contributes to the integration of metaphor research and psychological counseling, offering insights that may inform future investigations into metaphor use in health discourse.

Abstract This study examines the usage, semantics, and affective valence of olfactory metaphors in English, addressing a gap in sensory language and metaphor research. We analyze eight basic smell lexemes (smell, aroma, scent, odor, stench, stink, reek, fragrance) in the iWeb corpus, tracing their abstract noun collocates through frequency counts, WordNet hypernym paths, intersection analysis, and affective valence ratings. Our results reveal that English olfactory metaphors are highly productive, mapping smell perception onto a broad array of abstract experiences, especially socioemotional and moral domains. The eight patterns exhibit pronounced affective polarization: while some (e.g., fragrance, aroma) skew positive, most (e.g., stink, stench, reek, odor) skew negative, reflecting both olfactory hedonics and a cognitive negativity bias. These findings deepen our understanding of how sensory language structures abstract thought and affirm the rich figurative potential of smell in English, with implications for theories of sensory language, conceptual metaphor, and embodied cognition.

Abstract Multimodal metaphor research has received significant attention in recent years, with numerous empirical studies examining metaphors across diverse genres. However, a comprehensive theoretical framework for the qualitative analysis of metaphors in multimodal communication is still lacking. By comparing theoretical approaches from social semiotics and cognitive linguistics, this study emphasizes the complementarity between these two theoretical perspectives and proposes the social semiotic integration model. The model suggests interpreting semiotic representations based on signs’ metafunctions in social semiotics and incorporates conceptual blending theory to explain the metaphors’ cognitive mechanisms. It also emphasizes the influence of pragmatic factors and relevant elements in the interpretation of semiotic representations. Using two editorial cartoons as case studies, the paper demonstrates how this model enhances metaphor analysis in multimodal contexts, leading to a deeper understanding of the text's overall meaning.

This article through the analysis of the big games opening ceremony performance in recent years, think: In the Games opening ceremony we can use metaphor in order to enhance theme in the future; We should understand body language in order to reflect value of metaphor; We should pay attention to the "point, line, face" and the formation of the alike in the design of information; Art decoration should be performance themes to reflect depth of themes.

This study was motivated by the initial observations of Jordanian people’s distinct use of live (novel) and dead (conventional) linguistic metaphors when they narrate their different sad and happy experiences in natural contexts in Jordan. While there has been sufficient research into metaphor from a cognitive-discursive perspective, there has been a lack of metaphor research that links cognitive analysis with practice. The present study aims to examine if live and dead metaphors correlate with speaker’s types of experiences and find their practical implications. In this study, participants were selected using the convenience sampling strategy. The collected metaphorical expressions from participants went through four analysis stages: transcription, manual identification of metaphorical expressions, inductive coding and interpretation. The present study uses discourse analysis to enrich the practice approach (e.g., effective (in)formal communication). This paper found that people narrating their sad experiences rely on live metaphors more than dead metaphors. This can be attributed to two reasons. Live metaphors serve as rhetorical devices that can attract the addressee’s attention and facilitate articulating sensitive issues more effectively than conventional or dead metaphors. This study thus suggests that live metaphors have a more effective role than dead metaphors in various modes of professional communication such as psychological counselling, politics and debates. This distinction, as revealed by the data analysis, can bear important implications that are worth considering in various fields. Thus, this study recommends communication and rhetoric researchers to investigate how live metaphors can strategically be employed in such modes of communication in various cultures.