Conceptual Metaphor Research Articles

Model-based abductive cognition: What thought experiments teach us

Abstract In this article, we want to demonstrate how thoughts experiments (TEs) incorporate cognitive structures—abductive inferences as conceptual metaphors—that reliably underpin everyday thinking and are enhanced and rendered more effective in scientific and philosophical contexts. Indeed one might successfully rethink the inferential structure at the heart of thought experiment production as the application of a generative abductive procedure. We shall characterize TES as possessing two characteristics that are essential to the definitions of abductive and metaphorical thinking, but when considered in relation to TE’s description, can excuse mild bewilderment: both knowledge-enhancing and ignorance-preserving features. In sum, we will say that TEs realize extended conceptual metaphors, which instantiate forms of abductive reasoning and, therefore, partially preserve the ignorance of the authors who produce them (even if they also increase a bit their knowledge by—so to speak—mitigating ignorance). In certain fortunate and exceptional instances, however, TEs can also provide a purely knowledge-enhancing benefit; in order to do this, a reference to the innovative and creative function of thought experiments in Galileo’s findings is also included.

Conceptual Metaphor “MEDIA AS A TRAP” in Vietnamese and English online Newspapers

The study explores the conceptual metaphor of "MEDIA AS A TRAP" in Vietnamese and English, aiming to understand perceptions of media in these linguistic contexts. Using the theory of conceptual metaphor in cognitive linguistics, alongside descriptive and semantic analysis methods, the research establishes and analyzes the mapping from the source domain of "TRAP" to the target domain of "MEDIA." By examining metaphorical expressions in press texts, the study uncovers underlying cognitive models, including media as trickery and media as a scam. Survey data reveals similar frequencies of metaphorical expressions in both languages, with 110 instances in Vietnamese and 90 in English, indicating a shared understanding of the metaphor. The analysis highlights significant parallels and distinctions in the conceptual metaphor "MEDIA IS A TRAP" between Vietnamese and English, underscoring its universal cognitive and linguistic significance. Both languages employ similar conceptual metaphorical expressions, yet exhibit subtle differences reflecting distinct cultural perspectives.

The effect of an embodied intervention on responsibility: put a load on one's shoulder.

Responsibility is an essential part of our social life. Although responsibility is an abstract concept, it can be represented with concrete ideas through conceptual metaphor. Expressions like "carry a lot of responsibility," "shoulder the responsibility" shows that responsibility can be understood as a load on shoulder that one has to carry. Accordingly, this study tests the question that does putting a burden on one's shoulder makes him/her more responsible or not. In order to investigate this, on each trial, we asked participants to decide between risky situations that vary in magnitude, probability of win/lose, and the ambiguity level in two conditions: "self" and 'group." Each subject wears a vest with a load on each shoulder in half of the trials. As expected, Most of participants choose to defer on the group trials more than on the self-trials. This difference between numbers of deferring in group and self conditions is called responsibility aversion. Results indicate that responsibility aversion scores are lower (responsibility-taking was greater) in the state of wearing the vest than in the form of not wearing the vest significantly. We provided evidence that the abstract concept of responsibility is linked to bodily experiences of feeling load on the shoulder consistent with an embodied cognition theory.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR ONLINE ROLES IN EMERGENCY REMOTE TEACHING

Nearly all facets of life, including language instruction, have been impacted by the COVID-19 epidemic and the devastating earthquake in February 2023. Consequently, remote education, also known as e-learning or virtual learning, has taken over as the standard offering in numerous contexts. In this regard, remote teaching practices have been preferred in many higher education institutions. However, gaining a comprehensive understanding of the evolving educational practices during this period requires an awareness of how pupils respond to this change. In the course of the emergency remote teaching, language learners' conceptions of instruction and learning were examined using a metaphor analysis approach. For this purpose, a semi-structured form utilizing the Turkish university students' metaphorical concepts regarding their roles in online learning, along with an open-ended questionnaire where participants shared their background information, was employed. Data collected from 56 foreign language learners from different departments at a state university in Turkey was analysed using elicited metaphor analysis. The results showed that foreign language learners used a variety of metaphors, which were categorized as passive recipient, independent learner, flexible person, ineffective consumer, lazy individual, and lost guide, suggesting both favourable and unfavourable dispositions toward emergency remote teaching. In light of the research results, several recommendations and implications were provided.

A DMT-Based Study on Interpreting Conceptual Metaphors from Quotations of Climate Action Discourses of Top Leaders around the UN

A DMT-Based Study on Interpreting Conceptual Metaphors from Quotations of Climate Action Discourses of Top Leaders around the UN

The Power to Move the Eiffel Tower: Conceptual Metaphor and Persuasion in L2 Argumentative Writing

This article analyses conceptual metaphors produced in argumentative writing by learners of English as a second language (L2). Founded on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, it explores the linguistic metaphorical expressions which reflect an underlying conceptual metaphor. By drawing on Critical Metaphor Analysis, this research adopts a qualitative approach to analysing the concealed motivations behind a conceptual metaphor use. The data of this study comprise five argumentative essay samples collected from foundation year students at a private university in Malaysia. This study reveals how a conceptual metaphor is evoked to frame an argument in a way that is advantageous to the participants, particularly in establishing their stance on the proposition that social media is advantageous rather than disadvantageous to its users. Seven conceptual metaphors identified from the five samples of writing are related to social media, namely global mass gathering, loudspeaker, free society, accommodation, teacher, strong force and maze. While the first six metaphors serve as rhetorical tools to aid the participants in establishing arguments, the last metaphor is raised in the counterclaim section to illustrate how the opposition could equally rely on conceptual metaphors to establish its viewpoint. In instances where the metaphors are deployed as rhetorical devices, the participants’ covert intention to convince readers of their standpoint is achieved by utilising the conceptual metaphors to illuminate abstract ideas, arouse positive or negative emotions in readers, indicate positive or negative evaluations and evoke an ideology.

Weathering Words: A Cross-linguistic Analysis of Metaphorical Frames of Climate Change Discourse in English and German Online News Outlets

Climate change is undeniably a major challenge of the 21st century and those to come. While scientists agree on this, the public does not as opinions range from climate change deniers to those who devote their lives to fighting it. News media play a crucial role in shaping the public’s opinion on climate change and as they have a significant influence on the public discourse. This paper offers a cross-linguistic comparison of conceptual climate change metaphors in online news outlets from four different countries and two languages. Using conceptual metaphor analysis, I identified prevalent source domains to conceptualize the causes, effects, and responses to climate change. Overall, I found three shared metaphorical frames: war, destination, and construction, as well as additional metaphors in each language. The analysis revealed war and destination as most dominant source domains through which effects and responses are framed. This suggests news media emphasize the severity of effects and urgency to respond through creating a threatening image of climate change, which we do have the power to fight. The pervasive use of these two metaphors in both languages suggest a common understanding climate change.

Metaphorical conceptualizations of generative artificial intelligence use by Chinese university EFL learners

The unveiling of ChatGPT 4o by OpenAI, a multimodal large language model powered by Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), has injected interest and incited debate throughout the echelon of education institutions regarding its prospective benefits and drawbacks. Nonetheless, investigations into the learners’ perceptions of GenAI use in learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) remain markedly insufficient. The study adopts an explorative stance and aims to explore the attitudes and perceptions of Chinese EFL learners toward GenAI use in language learning through the application of metaphor analysis. Data were collected from 281 EFL students of varying majors in four key universities across China by completing a sentence using metaphors to elicit their attitudes and perceptions toward GenAI use in language learning. Through qualitative analysis of metaphorical constructs, including HUMANS, TOOL/MACHINE, BRAIN, RESOURCES, FOOD/DRINK, and MEDICINE metaphors, the study unveils a spectrum of attitudes toward GenAI. While some language learners perceived GenAI as supportive, helpful, and intelligent, others expressed concerns about over-reliance and potential loss of critical thinking skills. The findings underscore the importance of considering learners’ diverse attitudes and beliefs toward GenAI use and application in language learning pedagogy. The implications of these findings for the future integration of GenAI in language education are discussed, complemented by recommendations for further research and pedagogical practice.

On Challenges in Translation

Translation practices could be characterised by some bumpy paths, challenging sections, even insurmountable obstacles, irrespective of language combination one works with. Metaphorical concepts, once found in the texts being translated, can only contribute to the complexity of the whole process. Being cautious with conveying the intended messages, hidden behind abstract language, avoiding calques, integrating culture-bound connotations, and, above all, finding the adequate counterparts in the target language/-es are common guidelines along the way. This paper aims to compare the translation practices of EFL students with those of AI-supported engines when translating English passages, brimming with idiomatic language, into Lithuanian. The decision to choose students over language professionals is based on the aspiration to – obtain an insight into their knowledge of metaphorical language and – to be able, at later stages, to introduce them, as future language teachers and translators to the practices and potential of machine translation. Strengths and weaknesses characterising both sides are discussed, accompanied with some implications pertaining to AI usage in pedagogical contexts.

A Corpus-Based Contrastive Study of the Conceptual Metaphors of Warmth and Coolness in Chinese and English

A Corpus-Based Contrastive Study of the Conceptual Metaphors of Warmth and Coolness in Chinese and English

Metaphorical conceptualization of happiness in Wolaita

Metaphorical conceptualization of happiness in Wolaita

A multifactorial approach to war and corruption metaphors in South Asian Englishes

AbstractThe present paper provides a corpus‐based study of war and corruption metaphors in South Asian Englishes (specifically Indian English, Bangladeshi English, Nepali English and Pakistani English). Considering the highly news‐relevant nature of these concepts, the South Asian Varieties of English corpus (SAVE2020) serves as the database. In an initial step, we outline the source domains at different levels of schematicity used to construe war and corruption, revealing the salient domains at location and person. By pursuing a multifactorial approach, this study aims at answering the question whether the choice of source domain is governed by the sociolinguistic factors gender and variety, and intra‐linguistic factors, for example, length and semantic prosody of the metaphor‐related words. It furthermore investigates whether multifactorial analyses, which are still a novelty within research on metaphor variation, constitute a suitable methodological approach. By doing so, our research demonstrates the need to complement this quantitative approach with a qualitative one that offers a more fine‐grained description of the source domains used to structure metaphorical concepts like war and corruption.

Bearish and Bullish Markets

This paper deals with metaphorical collocations of the noun market extracted from an English web corpus. It also categorizes them according to the list of conceptual metaphors proposed by Lakoff et al. (1991). It suggests that in order to arrive at the proper classification of images that operate in the background of collocations, we need to take into account the etymology of collocate, the historical context of its occurrence, as well as the specialized knowledge created by the combination of the base and the collocate. The results of the paper suggest that combining the cognitive and the corpus linguistics approach to the study of metaphorical collocations helps us detect the conceptual image in a significant number of these phraseological units, which in turn elucidates the role of metaphor in the emergence of collocations.

Enhancing academic writing through metaphor-based instruction: the role of conceptual metaphor theory in English for academic purposes

Enhancing academic writing through metaphor-based instruction: the role of conceptual metaphor theory in English for academic purposes

Rhetorical Construct of the Self: An Exploration of Writings of Teacher Education Students with Delayed College Enrollment

Understanding people’s thinking and actions through exploring their word choice in written discourse can provide an objective analysis of their behavioural patterns in responding to life adversities. This study utilising quantitative and qualitative approaches is an attempt to investigate the coping mechanisms as response to the challenges of pursuing a bachelor’s degree of teacher education students who had postponed their college enrollment after graduating from high school. This investigation revolved around analysing students’ written essays for personality type profiling using M. A. K. Halliday’s Transitivity Theory and exploiting their aspired professional identity employing Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory. The analysis of students’ written essays dealing with life challenges revealed their dominant actor, carrier and senser-personality types that reinforced their self consciousness enabling them to be reflective and strategic in addressing life challenges. Moreover, the conceptual metaphor “Teachers are Heroes”, as disclosed by the metaphorical constructs of their aspired professional identity, helped them develop motivation, as they realised the significant role which professional teachers play in the society. This self-identification derived from their projected personality types and the motivation they gained from realising their aspired professional identity served as a coping mechanism by stimulating their confidence in dealing with the challenges associated with continuing their college education. To enhance self-awareness and promote self-reflection among teacher education students, this study advocates the integration of the theories of transitivity and metaphor into teacher education curricula for professional identity development.

The Concept Of Amanah Metaphor In Accounting: Meaning, Guidelines, And Purposes

This paper aims to construct Amanah's (trustful) metaphor in accounting related to meaning, guidelines, and purpose. This research is a qualitative research with an interpretive paradigm which is analyzed using content analysis. Data obtained from structured interviews with 40 IAI (Indonesian Accountant Assosiation) member, the Holy Qur'an, Hadith, and other literature. The research results are in the form of the metaphorical concept of Amanah, which is interpreted by a human perspective in perceiving his duties as God's representative in the world. Accounting guidelines based on the metaphor of Amanah concept must be based on strong Aqidah, based on good morals, a responsibility to society and the Ummah, based on legal, financial processes, and behavioral aspects of each of their actions. Besides, it also purpose at hisful amwal, the existence of al kitabah, assisting decision making, calculating business zakat, determining and calculating profit sharing for the unionized party. These concept will change accountants' behavior to be more trustworthy and not materialistic because all of their work is intended only to get the pleasure of Allah.

Therapeutic potential of twenty-first century music for cancer survivorship: from music and conceptual metaphor perspectives to a synergetic effect approach.

This paper examines the therapeutic potential of twenty-first century music as a means of supplementary therapeutic care for cancer survivorship. It presents a study of songs by Rihanna, Beyoncé, Adele, Coldplay, and Imagine Dragons, which combines the analysis of relevant music features and conceptual metaphors in the lyrics to examine the effect of the songs on the audience. The main aim of this study was to highlight the emotional and cognitive impact of these songs on listeners and identify their potential role in improving the psychological condition of patientswith cancer who are downtrodden or reeling from the pain of surgery, chemotherapy, and side effects of treatment. This article adopts the conceptual metaphorical framework proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and the metaphor identification procedure (MIP) (Pragglejazz group, 2007) to examine the targeted use of metaphors features in the lyrics of the selected songs. The findings show that although there is a therapeutic potential associated with the songs analyzed, there are also potential risks for patientswith cancer. "".

Crossing Borders. Raising Cultural Awareness of Students in Pedagogy by Applying the Interdisciplinary Approach to Analyse Conceptual Metaphors in O. Henry’s Short Story “The Last Leaf”

Crossing Borders. Raising Cultural Awareness of Students in Pedagogy by Applying the Interdisciplinary Approach to Analyse Conceptual Metaphors in O. Henry’s Short Story “The Last Leaf”

Symbolic Signs of the Eye Concept in English Language View of the World

The article deals with the symbolic meanings and cultural meanings associated with the concept “eye” in the English linguistic picture of the world. On the basis of a comprehensive analysis of lexicographic sources, phraseology, paremi, artistic discourse and corpus data a wide range of symbolic features of this concept is revealed. To achieve the purpose of the article a number of methods were used: linguocultural, paremiological, linguistic and linguistic-stylistic analysis, as well as the analysis of artistic discourse. It is established that the concept "eye" in English linguoculture symbolizes a “window” for comprehending the inner world of a person and reflects ideas about soul, emotions, personal qualities. At the same time, eyes are metaphorically associated with perception, aesthetic pleasure, inspiration, insight, but also greed, sinfulness, threat and cruel retribution. The revealed richness and ambivalence of symbolic meanings are explained by the cultural significance of the concept “eye” in the English tradition, its deep roots in Christianity, paganism, folklore, literature and art. The symbolism of eyes represents the national values of the English — the search for truth, love of beauty, thirst for knowledge, but also negative features that require attention. It is concluded that the concept “eye” is one of the main codes of English linguoculture, embodying the originality of the national worldview through metaphorical conceptualization of the most important “window” for cognition of reality.

Metaphor and gender: are words associated with source domains perceived in a gendered way?

Abstract Conceptual metaphors are one of many linguistic devices that can potentially encode and reinforce gender stereotypes. However, little is known about how metaphors encode gender stereotypes, and in previous literature the concept of “gendered metaphor” has been mostly assumed rather than attested. We take the first step to tackle this issue by examining the gender typicality of specific metaphorical source domains. In the present paper, we conducted three rating experiments (N total = 1,060 English-speaking participants) to determine the genderedness of 50 keywords associated with five frequently used source domains (building, competition, journey, plant, and war). We found that keywords associated with three source domains (building, competition, and war) were viewed as more masculine, while keywords associated with the source domains of journey and plant were viewed as more feminine. These data offer empirical verification for gendered perceptions of keywords associated with some frequently used source domains. The result also provides the first evidence that metaphors could encode gender stereotypes by selection of source domains.