Metaphoric Pictures Research Articles

Extension and the Ground in Motion’s Gestalt: Literal and metaphoric

Abstract We propose that in pictures both the extended limbs of actors and the ground are involved in gestalts for movement. Limbs extend to suggest more motion literally when a dancer is in air and refer to a canonical pose when on the ground. A running pony’s curled limbs off the ground depict fast action literally. A horse’s flying-gallop off the ground suggests speedy motion metaphorically. Cast shadows indicate the actor’s location with respect to the ground. We consider extended and curled limbs, on-ground and off, in literal and metaphoric pictures.

Lived experiences of study programme leadership in Norwegian higher education

This qualitative study explores the lived experiences of study programme leadership in development processes in higher education (HE). Study programme leaders are considered crucial in enhancing high-quality study programmes. Using a phenomenological hermeneutic approach, we analysed data from 18 interviews representing study programme leaders from six distinct health profession bachelor programmes at two Norwegian multi-campus institutions. Our findings paint a metaphorical picture of study programme leadership, likening it to leading as in alternating currents where signals flow and change direction. These leaders adeptly navigate an ever-evolving educational landscape filled with horizontal and vertical signals, tensions, and expectations. However, some express a lack of motivation and preparation to enter this field of tension. Our analysis identifies three aspects of study programme leadership: transforming, bridging, and balancing. Through their leadership, study programme leaders serve as vital antennas in development processes, capturing signals, coordinating activities, and fostering connections. Furthermore, they are a pivotal nexus through their transformative and bridging efforts. Balancing various leadership approaches enables them to navigate the changing currents. This study's implications are relevant to the HE field, offering valuable insights into study programme leadership. By emphasising the pivotal role of study programme leaders, it contributes to advancing HE development processes, underscoring the need for heightened awareness and further development of these leadership roles.

Grapes in the Albanian metaphorical picture of the world: word formation, phraseology, paremias

Grapes in the Albanian metaphorical picture of the world: word formation, phraseology, paremias

A Study on Recognizing and Communicating Metaphors in Picture Book Creation in the Digital Age

Abstract Picture book creation has a rich metaphorical connotation, which is becoming more and more popular along with the development of digitalization. In this paper, the textual metaphors of picture book creation are extracted by combining the textual feature extraction model of the BERT pre-training model and HAN network, the ResNet50 network extracts the illustration metaphors of picture book creation, and the extracted metaphorical features are multimodal fused and recognized with the help of fully connected layer. In addition, a picture book metaphor dataset was constructed, and after analyzing the basic features of picture book metaphors, the effect of the constructed multimodal metaphor recognition was explored, and the recognition and communication of metaphors in picture book creation was studied. The results showed that the recognition accuracy in picture book creation ranged from 0.67 to 0.77, and the high degree of metaphor recognition in picture book creation showed a positive correlation with the average response time of communication, with the regression equation RT=138.45*IdentificationStd+1045.The results of the analysis of the metaphorical picture book creation pictures with textual references showed that the degree of communication comprehension (M=22.38. Std.=3.68), communication liking (M=94.86, Std.=13.58) and reaction time (M=82.44s, Std.=14.15s). Picture books facilitate better interactive communication through their metaphorical expression.

The effect of incongruous contextual cues on pictorial metaphor processing.

An eye-tracking experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of incongruous contextual cues, both perceptual and conceptual, on pictorial metaphor processing. In a metaphoricity decision task, 38 participants independently viewed a total of 36 pictures equally divided into three different conditions: metaphoric pictures (MP), anomalous literal pictures (ALP) with perceptual congruity, and congruous literal pictures (LP). By initiating the midway condition ALP, the effect of contextual cues of conceptual incongruity were distinguished from that of perceptual incongruity. The eye movement data during each picture viewing were collected before the participant made a decision whether the picture was metaphorical or not. The behavioral results showed that the more abundant incongruous contextual cues were there, the more likely the pictures would be judged as metaphors. It took longer for the participants to make decisions on the literal pictures, be them in congruous or incongruous condition. The results of eye-tracking statistics showed that the perceptual incongruity cues were detected earlier than the conceptual ones. The perceptual-conceptual incongruity cues evoked more fixations and longer duration than the perceptual incongruity alone. The processing of conceptual incongruity proceeded after that of perceptual incongruity. The overall result of the study supports the contextual cues of perceptual incongruity as triggers for pictorial metaphor processing, whereas the contextual cues of conceptual incongruity play a decisive role in the metaphoric interpretation, which in turn renders the processing of MP more mental effort consuming than that of ALP or LP. The present findings have vital implications in revealing the triggering and determining mechanisms of pictorial metaphor processing, which are significant in exploring human cognition and have great impacts on various facets of social and cultural communications.

Метафоры пандемического дискурса (на материале СМИ Германии)

This article focuses on the analysis of metaphorical representations of the coronavirus pandemic in texts selected by continuous sampling from German-language media. The methodological basis of the research is the theory of conceptual metaphor, as well as the Russian theory of metaphorical modeling, which allow us to single out universal metaphorical models that are in line with the Zeitgeist and are part of the national picture of the world. Pandemic discourse was selected as the research space. It is understood as a media supertext or as a collection of media texts united by one topic and aimed at reflecting events associated with the pandemic. Further, the article examines predictable metaphorical models – the military model with an extensive system of slots representing most of the elements of “military” actions aimed at combating the virus; the disaster model (tsunami, storm, fire) showing the attitude to the virus as to a dangerous and uncontrollable phenomenon; the ambivalent road model (the road from the pandemic, on the one hand, and the road along which the virus is walking around the world, on the other); the legal model focusing attention on the protest part of the discourse; the zoomorphic model; the theatrical-game model. The author shows an example of the interaction of units of different metaphorical models for the implication of certain nuances of meaning. The conceptual metaphors that fill the slots of these models show the complex moral and psychological state of society and an ambiguous social attitude towards the pandemic reality. The final part of the article describes living metaphors, born as a response to the anxiety of the situation and fear, realizing unconventional meanings, to some extent a carnival attitude to what is happening, speaking ironically and/or describing everything in a plain, upfront way. A striking linguistic fact in this category of metaphors is serial metaphors, which form large word families and, by one feature, characterize a number of objects or phenomena of the new reality. Attention is drawn to complex metaphors, the semantics of which is made up of a pun on the direct meanings of the components. The conclusion states the high degree of emotional impact of metaphors, the dynamism of the metaphorical picture of the pandemic reality, its dependence on many objective and individual factors, as well as on ideological reasons. The prospect of the research is seen in the description of anthropomorphic metaphorical images of pandemic discourse of the corona-humoristic texts.

«…Помнить до берёзки». О природе метафоры в поэзии Геннадия Касмынина

In an article dedicated to the poetic heritage of G. G. Kasmynin, an attempt is made to determine the artistic and philosophical paradigm of metaphor in the poet’s creative method, the metaphorical picture of the world of his poetry is actualized, opposing the time of decay, the tragic consept of the historical frontire, when the author’s talent reached its peak.

The Social Implications of Metaphor in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite

The purpose of the present article is to study the social implications of repetitive metaphors in the film and of the word Parasite (2019) and to observe what makes the life of a lower-class family parasitic within a typical capitalistic society. In the mainstream discussion, the metaphorical functions of such words as ‘smell,’ ‘insects,’ ‘the rock,’ and ‘the party’ are assessed within the context of the film. The central questions of the article, therefore, are: What are the recurrent and metaphorical motifs in the plotline and how can their implications be related to the overall theme of the film? How does Parasite exhibit the clash of classes in a capitalist society? To answer the questions, the present study offers a comprehensive analysis of its recurring metaphors as well as its treatment of the characters who visibly belong to two completely different classes. Through a complex story of two families whose fate gets intermingled, Bong Joon-ho masterfully presents a metaphoric picture of a society where inequality is rampant and the poor can only experience temporary happiness in the shadow of the rich (represented by the Park family).

Woman-Nature affinity in Desai’s Where Shall We Go This Summer: An Ecofeminist Analysis

This research paper focuses on the images extracted from natural phenomena in Anita Desai's WhereShall We Go This Summer? (1982), to illustrate the pros and cons of patriarchal society'smarginalization and alienation of women in today's world. The article exposes the deep hiddenmeanings of natural imagery through a feministic sensibility. Desai uses natural and animal elementsto create a metaphoric picture of an archetypal feminine figure that works on two levels at the sametime. At a primary level, this technique of inserting natural images at various points throughout thenovel aims to heighten the magnitude and intensity of the mental and spiritual agony of a victimizedwoman who faces domestic violence, male oppression, and female suppression while on a secondarylevel, the role of these images helps the women in the catharsis of that pain, distress, and anguish whichis the result of the rejection of her husband and society as a whole. Karen Warren’s theory ofEcofeminism which regards both women and nature as oppressed objects, is applied for the purpose ofresearch methodology. This research aims to overturn oppressive patriarchal practices by bringingwomen and ecology from the margins to the forefront

The International Scholar Conference “A Metaphorical Picture of the World of Modern Fiction”

The International Scholar Conference “A Metaphorical Picture of the World of Modern Fiction”

Short Text: Experiment in Quantitative Analysis

The method of quantitative text analysis is usually associated with vast corpora of text utilized to solve problems of attribution, dating, data mining, etc. The article is aimed to demonstrate that quantitative analysis can be used for the study of short pieces a few stanza long. The research deals with the 12 lines
 long poem «The name – of it – is Autumn» by Emily Dickinson, a famous American poet. The feature set is based on metaphorical models realized in the text, lexical units representing them, morphological classes of words, characteristics
 of syntax including verse syntax and rhythm.
 The conducted study has demonstrated that counting elements of text, which belong to different levels and aspects of verse text, makes it possible to reveal text inner structure, as well as the ways and the means used for the presentation of authorial metaphoric and spacial picture of the world. There is a
 positive correlation between the author’s use of semantic and linguistic means, whose frequency is also interrelated with the alteration of statics vs. dynamics ratio in the poetic world.The obtained data point at the possibility and necessity to apply the
 methodology of quantitative analysis even in the study of a limited size texts.

Metaphorical Descriptions of Well-Doers

Abstract What is a metaphoric picture of a “well-doer” made of? In a study devoted to the development of the ability to use metaphorical descriptions of humans, I tried to establish the semantic fields of four target metaphors: Human-Apple Tree, Human-Sun, Human-Cup, Human-Dolphin. Over 300 young adults (the exact number depending on the stimuli), both men and women aged 19-26, were asked to decipher the metaphors’ meanings. The results were obtained mainly by qualitative analysis, with frequency counts of clusters containing synonymous meanings. The results indicate that, while creating imaginary characteristics of ‘“kind humans,” young adults focus on three factors: benefactor provides help (which takes various, but consistent forms: he/she gives hope, an ear to listen to one’s problems, shares fruits of work, provides warmth and joy, etc.), benefactor’s mental stability (as opposed to sudden changes of mood, which is associated with weakness), benefactor’s skill of merging cheerfulness and tranquility. The semantic fields of stimuli addressed to kindness are more complex than the ones connected with evil. Goodness may be associated with wisdom, maturity, generosity, with both inactivity and vividness. Beauty seems to be less important than was expected. The results may serve for developmental comparisons.

RUSSIAN <i>BEAR</i> AND CHINESE <i>LONG</i>: ZOOLOGICAL METAPHOR IN RUSSIAN AND CHINESE POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Zoometaphor plays a very important role in linguistics, especially in contrastive studies, and has long attracted the attention of both Russian and Chinese linguists, including A. N. Baranov, A. P. Chudinov, F. N. Guketlova, T. S. Vershinina, Zhao Yanfan, Xue Yahong, Guo Weihai and others who also show deep interest in the role of this kind of metaphor in political discourse. Russian linguist A. P. Chudinov believes that each concrete metaphor reflects the worldview of one person thus contributing to the creation of a common metaphorical picture of the world of a certain society. Representations of the animal world, characteristic of Russian and Chinese cultures are reflected in zoometaphors involved in political discourse in both languages. Chinese linguists Xue Yahong and Guo Weihai consider the conceptual metaphor “man is an animal” one of the most important means of cognition and representation of knowledge in language. By resorting to zoometaphors statesmen and politicians choose a more effective and efficient way of conveying their political views and thus exercise a stronger influence on the target audience. The article analyzes examples of metaphors with the “bear” component and metaphors with the “Long” component. These two words play an important role in conceptualizing the world of Russian and Chinese people and metaphorically represent the two cultures. The image of the bear metaphorically represents the political authority of Russia; the use of the word “bear” stands for “strength” contributing to a positive image of a powerful state that can protect itself. Likewise, Long represents China, and in the eyes of the Chinese it is a symbol of everything sacred, noble, strong and successful, so it shows China as an authoritative state. It is stressed in the article that both Long and the dragon have mythological roots and arouse different associations, therefore it is appropriate to use the word “Long” rather than “dragon” when addressing Chinese culture. Analysis of metaphors with the bear and Long components in western political discourse shows that respective metaphors can transmit negative attitudes, which points to a controversial attitude of western politicians to Russia and China.

Универсальное и национальное в метафорической картине мира

Универсальное и национальное в метафорической картине мира

Metaphorical descriptions of wrongdoers

Abstract What is a metaphoric picture of an evil person made of? In a study devoted to the development of the ability to use metaphorical descriptions of humans, the semantic fields of four target metaphors - Human-Swamp, Human-Snake, Human-Knife, and Human-Nettle - were established and compared. Subjects (365 young adults) were asked to decipher the metaphors’ meanings. The results were obtained mainly by qualitative analysis, with frequency analysis of clusters containing synonymous meanings. The results indicate that when creating imaginary characteristics of evil people, young adults seem to be more concerned about the possibility of suffering verbal harassment (most commonly: vulgarity, mockery, gossip, jeering) than the threat of actual physical assault. The results may prove useful for developmental comparisons.

Exploring the possibility of including African proverbs in HIV and AIDS messages to influence reception by the South African youth

Campaigns about health problems such as smoking, obesity, HIV and AIDS are increasingly facing the challenge of non-receptive target audiences. Researchers are studying what features of health messages could catch and hold the attention of audiences, in turn contributing to their receptiveness towards the content. Metaphoric messages could be particularly effective in preventative health messaging especially where information has been commonly known to audiences over protracted periods of time. Could the inclusion of metaphoric African proverbs in HIV and AIDS messages influence receptivity, when specific audiences such as the youth are targeted? This reasoning led to an exploratory study into the effects of metaphoric African proverbs in HIV and AIDS posters. An experiment was conducted among 160 South African learners. Each learner was presented with posters about various HIV and AIDS related topics. A set of the posters included verbal literal text and straightforward pictures, in another set Tshivenda proverbs/idioms were added, in another metaphoric pictures were used, while a fourth set combined the proverbs/idioms with the metaphoric pictures. Results showed that appreciation of the messages was high. However, most of the learners thought that they did not understand the posters with proverbs/idioms as compared to the other posters, although those who said they had heard the proverb/idiom before, also thought that they understood the message.

The Nature of Change

There is little doubt that health care is facing change. The conventional view of change, based on evolution, is that it is slow, gradual, and generally an evenly paced system change. Unfortunately, it is much more uneven, being burstlike, unpredictable, and, in fact, steplike. This pattern is called punctuated equilibrium, which is well illustrated by the metaphorical picture of the Devil's Staircase. These features call for a reassessment of how to cope with change. In addition to detecting change, responding to it and preparing for it require some understanding of the role of experimentation because the evolution algorithm is simple: experimentation, selection, and replication. Experimentation in radiology forms a continuum ranging from modifying traits to developing variants of diagnostic, interventional, and even new integrated services. We often describe experiments by relating their motives (ie, adaptation and innovation), but complex systems see only experiments available for selection. Experiments generating new services and business models are the important ones because they create the "subspecies" of radiology, which offers a robust set of options capable of withstanding new health care selection forces. Experimentation and selection are the prerequisites of replication (i.e.,survival). It behooves radiology to combine and concatenate diversified, reactive, and innovative experiments to explore adjacent domains to expand its set of options. Just as in Darwinian evolution, major changes on the health care landscape will be at the specialty, ie, species and subspecies levels, rather than at the individual specialty trait level. Radiology needs a strong set of "subspecies" to succeed in selection to enhance evolution and allow replication.

A thorough benchmark of density functional methods for general main group thermochemistry, kinetics, and noncovalent interactions

A thorough energy benchmark study of various density functionals (DFs) is carried out with the new GMTKN30 database for general main group thermochemistry, kinetics and noncovalent interactions [Goerigk and Grimme, J. Chem. Theor. Comput., 2010, 6, 107; Goerigk and Grimme, J. Chem. Theor. Comput., 2011, 7, 291]. In total, 47 DFs are investigated: two LDAs, 14 GGAs, three meta-GGAs, 23 hybrids and five double-hybrids. Besides the double-hybrids, also other modern approaches, i.e., the M05 and M06 classes of functionals and range-separated hybrids, are tested. For almost all functionals, the new DFT-D3 correction is applied in order to consistently test the performance also for important noncovalent interactions; the parameters are taken from previous works or determined for the present study. Basis set and quadrature grid issues are also considered. The general aim of the study is to work out which functionals are generally well applicable and robust to describe the energies of molecules. In summary, we recommend on the GGA level the B97-D3 and revPBE-D3 functionals. The best meta-GGA is oTPSS-D3 although meta-GGAs represent in general no clear improvement compared to numerically simpler GGAs. Notably, the widely used B3LYP functional performs worse than the average of all tested hybrids and is also very sensitive to the application of dispersion corrections. We discourage its usage as a standard method without closer inspection of the results, as it still seems to be often done nowadays. Surprisingly, long-range corrected exchange functionals do in general not perform better than the corresponding standard hybrids. However, the ωB97X-D functional seems to be a promising method. The most robust hybrid is Zhao and Truhlar's PW6B95 functional in combination with DFT-D3. If higher accuracy is required, double-hybrids should be applied. The corresponding DSD-BLYP-D3 and PWPB95-D3 variants are the most accurate and robust functionals of the entire study. Additional calculations with MP2 and and its spin-scaled variants SCS-MP2, S2-MP2 and SOS-MP2 revealed that double-hybrids in general outperform those. Only SCS-MP2 can be recommended, particularly for reaction energies. We suggest its usage when a large self-interaction error is expected that prohibits usage of double-hybrids. Perdews' metaphoric picture of Jacob's Ladder for the classification of density functionals' performance could unbiasedly be confirmed with GMTKN30. We also show that there is no statistical correlation between a functional's accuracy for atomization energies and the performance for chemically more relevant reaction energies.

The Moment is Frozen in Time: Photojournalists’ Metaphors in Describing Trauma Photography

In describing their understanding of trauma, disaster, and conflict photography, photojournalists in this qualitative study conceptualized abstract experiences using specific types of metaphors. Their metaphors focused on concepts such as violence, bewilderment, and health/affliction. The unique aspect of these metaphors was how they were reflective of aspects of journalism culture and the work of trauma photography. Through a metaphorical analysis of these figurative expressions, I show how metaphors construct a conceptual system of understanding the work of trauma photography and occupational identity, as well as influence the formation of the culture of journalism itself. Understanding this metaphorical picture may add to our knowledge about how traumatic stress injuries are recognized, managed, and aided in newsrooms.

„Bo miłość mężczyzny i kobiety jest walką”. Sposoby obrazowania miłości w twórczości Zofii Nałkowskiej na podstawie Dzienników i Kobiet

This article is an attempt to reconstruction of ways in which Zofia Nalkowska pictured love in her modernist novel Kobiety and I volume of Diaries. The subject of the analysis were lexical exponents calling love and metaphoric pictures of love. As the gathered material showed in Nalkowska’s modernist works dominates picturing love as a battle, constant struggles between woman and man. Vocabulary calling women’s and men’s relations and metaphoric names of the sides of this love battle were used to represent it. Due to the young age of the author we can assume that the way of picturing love wasn’t a result of her own experience but cultural context (influence of modernist literature and art).