Metaphorical Content Research Articles

The Antecedents of the Experience of Light in Dreams

The experience of inner light and ecstasy is widely accepted as a universal mystical experience, regardless of cultural or religious context. While one can read first-hand accounts in the historical record, the direct experience of light remains elusive for most people. This study analyzes a series of dream-based experiences of light provided by a single subject. In our analysis of 19 dreams, we pursue a process-oriented, relational analysis based on co-creative dream theory, which views the dream as an interactive experience in real time rather than a fixed product of the unconscious mind. By analyzing dreams as relational events, in which the metaphoric content emerges alongside the dreamer’s responses, we see how the dream ego influences the outcome through feelings, choices, and reactions. Through this analysis, we identify an array of subjective antecedents to the experience of light and provide a potential avenue of access to the core mystical experience.

The Retention of Metaphorical Imagery in Translations of Pasternak's Works into Kazakh and English

In this research the retention of metaphorical content in translations of Boris Pasternak's poems into Kazakh and English was examined, highlighting the complexity of transferring metaphors and the need for further analysis. It evaluates how well metaphorical content is preserved in these translations, noting that despite ef-forts, complete conveyance of metaphorical imagery is often challenging. The methodology involves a com-parative analysis of the original text and its translated version to assess the preservation of metaphors. While some metaphors in Pasternak's works can be effectively conveyed in Kazakh and English, challenges arise when dealing with national-specific metaphors. This study contributes significantly to literary studies, com-parative linguistics, and translation theory, particularly in poetry translation, enhancing understanding of the complexities involved in conveying metaphors in literary works.

Russia’s Image in False Mirror of Russophobia

The article analyses russophobia as a tool for creating a distorted image of Russia. The publications in the Russian media serve as the material for the study. These publications, on the one hand, represent the falsified perception of our country by the collective West, and on the other hand, are part of the official mass media discourse in the promotion of universal and state values. The research is carried out in compliance with the imagological paradigm. Modelling is the main method of the analysis. Modelling provides the opportunity to investigate and describe the phenomena of reality taking into account the existential, cognitive, discursive, and axiological characteristics of object under analysis. Russophobia in the present research is considered as a discursive practice with its own existential, axiological, linguistic characteristics, and content, which are determined by the peculiarities of the modern geopolitical situation. As a result of the analysis of empirical material, the following characteristics of the analyzed phenomenon are revealed: russophobia is, first of all, the activity of the Ukrainian authorities; russophobia is equated with xenophobia, nationalism and nazism; russophobia is a political technology of the fight against Russia. From a linguistic point of view, russophobia possesses the following characteristics: militant, rabid, manic, cave-like, attributed to a specific geographical name. The paper presents an analysis of the metaphorical content of russophobia in the official mass media discourse. The Research prospects are outlined.

Концептуальная оппозиция «правда – ложь» в чувашской и русской языковых картинах мира

The purpose of the study is to identify the linguistic and cultural features of the representation of the concepts of TRUTH and LIE in the Russian and Chuvash language worldviews. The article examines the structural and semantic features of the concepts as complex mental formations, identifies their intercultural correspondences, analyzes conceptual, figurative and moral-aesthetic components reflecting important attitudes of the life philosophy of the Russian and Chuvash peoples. The scientific novelty of the study consists in the fact that it for the first time presents a description of the concepts of TRUTH and LIE based on the material of Russian and Chuvash proverbial expressions in a comparative way, examines the linguistic and cultural aspects of their linguistic implementation, identifies intercultural correspondences and differences that determine the linguistic mentality of the Chuvash people. As a result of the study, it was found that the cognitive categories "truth" and "lie" are the basic elements of the cultural code of nations. They form a single semantic paradigm in the space of the Russian and Chuvash worldviews and act as units of a functional and pragmatic level. The emotional and evaluative interpretation of the considered components is determined by life or behavioral situations and receives various metaphorical content within the framework of the studied linguistic cultures.

Pungryu: transcendent ways of seeing landscape

This study investigates the Korean practice of pungryu, a unique way of appreciating landscapes intertwining aesthetic enjoyment with spiritual and philosophical pursuits. Pungryu, deeply rooted in the quest for divine immortality and harmony with nature, is explored as a lens through which Koreans have traditionally interacted with their landscapes. The study employs a historical and cultural analysis, drawing upon various sources to trace the evolution and influence of pungryu on Korean landscape culture. Pungryu is revealed as not just a practice but a sophisticated cultural expression that has shaped the Korean understanding of nature and beauty. This expression is rich in symbolic and metaphorical content, serving as a conduit for artistic inspiration, empirical knowledge and national identity. The paper underscores the importance of pungryu in comprehending the broader concept of cultural landscapes, highlighting its role in the ongoing discourse on authenticity and cultural diversity within the heritage landscape context.

Applying Knowledge Mapping Techniques to Enhance Contextual Understanding and Accurate Correspondence in Translating Metaphorical Information in Japanese Literature

Abstract Metaphorical information is prevalent in literary texts, and understanding the cultural and historical contexts of Japanese literature can significantly enhance the translation of its metaphors. This paper introduces a knowledge graph specifically designed for translating metaphorical content in Japanese literary works. This graph facilitates the categorization, extraction, and storage of symbolic information. To refine the knowledge graph further, the RAEA model is employed, coupled with a distinct attention mechanism assigned to each node of symbolic information. This approach significantly improves the entity alignment in translations, thereby enhancing translational accuracy. In constructing a dataset that includes background symbolic information, the knowledge graph demonstrated a precision of 0.9256 and a recall of 0.9136. Additionally, the graph achieved an average Mean Reciprocal Rank (MRR) index of 0.810, markedly surpassing traditional translation models. This paper’s knowledge graph thus offers an effective methodology for the precise translation and interpretation of symbolic information in Japanese literature, aiding in the deeper comprehension and accurate representation of such content.

The Corpus-based Methodology of Close Emotion Concepts Differentiation: A Case Study of ENVY and JEALOUSY

The article is devoted to the identification of relevant parameters of differentiation for the close emotion concepts ENVY and JEALOUSY based on the analysis of their names profiles in the iWeb web corpus. The corpus-based research methodology included comparison of (1) the definitions of the lexemes jealousy and envy, (2) the semantic content of conceptual metaphors representing ENVY and JEALOUSY, and (3) these concepts according to intensity and evaluation parameters. The study of corpus data allowed us to obtain objective results, and also to claim that this method may be an alternative to another corpus-based one, MPA, as its analytical tools are simpler but no less reliable than those of MPA.

Grounding of abstract concepts related to power

AbstractGrounded cognition assumes that language and concepts are understood using simulations in different modalities. Evidence for this assumption mainly stems from studies using concrete concepts. Less evidence for grounding exists for abstract concepts, which are assumed to be grounded via metaphors associated with them or via experiences with them in specific situations. In the present study, we developed a new paradigm and investigated grounding of abstract concepts related to power or the exercise of power. As stimulus material, we chose pairs of concepts, for example, democracy and dictatorship. Participants were presented each concept separately and were asked to create a visual image in their mind. Then they were asked to rate images on several aspects. Afterwards they were asked to draw a sketch of the image. Results showed that drawings of high-power concepts had a larger vertical extension than low-power concepts. Results of the questions depended on the specific concepts. For instance, wealth (high-power) was rated as more colorful than poverty (low-power), but democracy (low-power) was rated as more colorful than dictatorship (high-power). These results may partly be explained by the valence of the concepts. Drawings often contained persons, objects, and situations, but were rarely abstract. Sometimes drawings contained metaphorical content and sometimes the content of drawings related to specific experiences. In conclusion, abstract concepts related to power can be depicted visually via grounding in different ways, such as using metaphors, experiences, and actions.

Emotions and Religions: Media Representations and Visual Metaphors of Emotions on the World Wide Web

The article analyses two research problems related to media representations (digital lexicons of emotions) and visual metaphors of emotions in the Internet materials concerning religions during the pandemic.
 For the analyses two research techniques were used: analysis of the content and analysis of visual metaphors. Using the key words ‘religion’ and ‘coronavirus’ yielded 100 natural search engine results from Google Search (organic search), coming from all over the world, e.g. UK, USA, Poland, Canada, India, Israel, Iran, Qatar, North Korea, subject to content analysis. The research material employed in the study of metaphors are selected illustrations listed in an international catalogue of photographs and illustrations involving religious motifs, available during the COVID-19 pandemic. The metaphor analysis covered the illustrations selected from the study data, with the richest visual semantics and meeting at least one of the definition requirements for a visual metaphor.
 On the basis of the analyses of virtual lexicons of the emotions of fear (and accompanying distrust), anger/wrath, happiness/joy (and accompanying: hope, trust, satisfaction, mental balance, peace of mind, closeness, solidarity, compassion, care, solace), and sadness/uncertainty, a general conclusion was formulated about the enrichment of the emotional media culture with new contexts of language use. The described examples of visual metaphors of emotions allowed for the reading of compositional techniques, symbolism, colours, contrast and elements taken from the original metaphors.
 The results contribute to the studies of the social concept of emotions presented in the digital media and of new contexts of their media representations. They point to the adjustment forms of the organization of social life on the Internet initiated by religious practices that are, by their nature, emotional. The media representations and visual metaphors of emotions contribute to the creation of universal lexicons of emotions.

Грамматические структуры и метафорическое содержание в китайских идиомах

The aim of this research is to clarify the typology and relationship of grammatical structures and metaphorical expressions within Chinese idioms. In this study, a corpus of 30,000 Chinese idioms was compiled from various idiom dictionaries, and 1,000 idioms were randomly selected, annotated, and categorized based on their internal syntactic structures, grammatical functions in sentences, metaphor types, and metaphorical content for statistical analysis. The innovation of the research lies in employing a corpus to conduct a quantitative analysis of the prevalent syntactic structures and the most common types of metaphorical usage found in Chinese idioms, as well as to explore the quantified relationships between them. The findings reveal that Parallel Structure, Attributive Structure, and Subject-Predicate Structure are the most prevalent internal syntactic structures of Chinese idioms, while the structural metaphor is the most widely used conceptual metaphor. However, no significant correlation was observed between the internal syntactic structure of Chinese idioms and metaphorical content, grammatical function in sentences.

Early Birds Can Fly: Awakening the Literal Meaning of Conventional Metaphors Further Downstream

ABSTRACT Conventional metaphors such as early bird are interpreted rather fast and efficiently. This is so because they might be stored as lexicalized, non-compositional expressions. In a previous study, employing a maze task, we showed that, after reading metaphors (John is an early bird so he can …), participants took longer and were less accurate in selecting the appropriate word (attend) when it was paired with a literally-related distractor (fly) rather than an unrelated one (cry). This suggests that the literal meaning of conventional metaphors is awakened or made available immediately after their metaphorical interpretation. But does the literal meaning remain available further downstream during sentence comprehension? In two experiments also employing a maze task, we examined whether the awakening effect can be obtained when there is a medium (6 to 8 words) and a large (11 to 13 words) distance between the metaphor and lexical choice. Results indicated that the metaphor awakening effect persists but decreases as word distance increases. An analysis of our data based on a GPT model showed that our maze effects could not be attributed to target predictability. Overall, our results suggest that the literal meaning of a metaphor is accessed and remains available for about three seconds, fading as the sentence unfolds over time. The results support a model of metaphor comprehension that postulates the availability of both literal and metaphoric content in the course of sentence processing.

Cognitive-Assessment Content of Zoomorphic Metaphors in Contemporary Ukrainian and English Language Culture a Comparative Aspect

The academic paper highlights the results of studying zoomorphic metaphors of modern Ukrainian linguoculture. Poetic texts of the ХХ - ХХІ centuries were primarily the source base because the language of poetry is the natural medium of metaphor. In poetry, the potential of metaphor is fully implemented. It conveys numerous shades of meaning, and semantic nuances, as well as the purpose of influencing the reader, stimulating his creative imagination, giving aesthetic pleasure, expanding the worldview, involving in co-creation, etc. Publicistic texts containing zoomorphic metaphors were also included in the analysis. The purpose of the research was to identify the principal types of zoomorphic metaphors and to find out the features of their semantics and functions in the language of modern Ukrainian poetry and journalism. It has been established that in the Ukrainian linguoculture, the basic donor zones of zoomorphic metaphors are the concepts of animals, birds, domestic animals, reptiles, and insects. A separate donor zone in Ukrainian linguoculture is the wing concept. Based on these donor zones, the types of zoomorphic metaphors were determined. Most zoomorphic metaphors recorded in Ukrainian poetry and journalism are traditional in their form using and implemented content. They have a distinct ethnocultural color and are connected with mythology. The rest of the metaphors are individually and authorial, arising based on the similarity of the compared concepts. All zoomorphic metaphors are divided into three groups according to the presence of an additional evaluative value: metaphors with a positive emotional and evaluative value, metaphors with a negative emotional and evaluative value, and metaphors with a neutral value. Metaphors of positive evaluation are noticeably predominant in Ukrainian poetry. They create specific sensory images of nature and objects and characterize a person and his mental state. The research proved that zoomorphic metaphors are frequently employed in the English language to convey figurative meanings by likening human characteristics or actions to those of animals. These metaphors utilize the traits, behaviors, or physical attributes of diverse animals to enrich the description or comprehension of a specific subject. It was acknowledged that the prevalence and characteristics of zoomorphic metaphors in the English language may diverge from those observed in Ukrainian linguoculture. The particular attributes, cultural associations, and symbolic interpretations assigned to various animals can vary across different languages and cultures.

A Corpus-Based Study of the Chinese Translation of Color Metaphors in Shakespeare’s Plays

Metaphor is a fundamental cognitive concept and this study utilizes a corpus-based approach to explore the vibrant color metaphors used in Shakespeare’s plays, as well as the Chinese translations of these metaphors by Liang Shiqiu, Zhu Shenghao, and Fang Ping. The primary focus of this analysis is on the translation methods and strategies employed by these three translators, with an emphasis on how they transfer the form, content (i.e., function), and meaning of the color metaphors into Chinese. Both rhetoric and conceptual metaphors are examined to provide insight into the translation practice of these three individuals. It found that there exists a significant similarity among the three translators in literally translating a majority of the color metaphors in Shakespeare’s plays; however, distinct differences emerge in their adoption of de-metaphorization while translating nonconforming color metaphors. Three major factors are discussed to account for the similarities and differences in translating color metaphors: (1) the shared cultural experiential sources for the color metaphors in English and Chinese cultures; (2) the universality of metaphorical thinking among people from different cultural backgrounds; (3) the skopos (purpose) of the three translators in translating Shakespeare’s plays during various historical periods. This study has significant implications for global corpus-based drama studies and metaphor studies, as well as corpus translation studies.

Effectiveness of Neuropsychoeducation, Intrinsic Motivation, and Metaphoric Content Integrated with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in the Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Pilot Study.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is considered frequent, unnecessary thoughts that lead to repetitive actions to lessen the apprehension provoked by thoughts; this repetitive sequence may further influence trouble in one's daily activities. The remedial procedure for OCD includes medication (such as SSRIs, anxiolytics, and antidepressants) with psychotherapy [such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and exposure response prevention (ERP)]. Previous investigations indicated that regardless of the trend of adopting CBT and ERP to treat OCD, only around half of the patients experienced a full reduction in symptoms. The ERP component in CBT has been termed as a challenging treatment as it contains threatening anxiety-provoking indications, and it has been reflected that between 25-30% of OCD patients reject the ERP treatment, and the refusal and dropout rates for ERP in OCD are higher than other interventions. Thus, in the present investigation, researchers developed a proposed therapy that includes neuropsychoeducation, intrinsic motivation, and metaphoric content integrated with CBT in addition to regular pharmacological management to treat OCD patients and validated the efficacy of the proposed therapy through psychometric ratings (Y-BOCS). In this pilot study, 10 cases of OCD received a 12-week proposed therapy program. The primary outcome was the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), which was assessed at baseline and post-treatment. The present study's results revealed a significant decrease in scores on the obsessions and compulsions domains and overall total scores on Y-BOCS among OCD patients. The findings show that this proposed therapy, which includes neuropsychoeducation, intrinsic motivation, and metaphors contents integrated with CBT in combination with pharmacological management, is effective in the treatment of OCD. Therefore, the proposed therapy may be beneficial in the treatment of OCD. It has far-reaching implications in the areas of clinical, psychiatry, and mental health.

Ungkapan Visual Perempuan dalam Karya Seni Lukis dari Sudut Pandang Jenny Saville

Jenny Saville is a female artist known for highlighting certain body parts in large sizes. The problem is how the visual expression of Jenny Saville s works attracts the attention of many observers of world art, even though her works are presented out of the box. The aim is to reveal the visualization of women from Jenny Saville s point of view using descriptive qualitative methods. His findings include a painting of a woman with a large figure and drawn using pencil, pastel, oil or charcoal with expressive brush strokes (expressive brush strokes with brilliant and contrasting colors). In conclusion, Janne Seville s work has a metaphorical content in conveying a message to appreciators, that her work seems to present a human body that is different from the standards of female beauty in general.

Facemasks, material and metaphors: An analysis of socio-material dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic

In 2020, not only did the Sars-Cov-2 virus become a global pandemic, but public life also changed in the wake of various infection control measures. Increased use of masks was one of the first clearly visible changes. With the masks came stories about masks. Who wore them, where people should wear them, and why? It quickly became clear, however, that stories about ‘the facemask’ also have a metaphorical content, negotiating not only problems of the pandemic as a social crisis, but also other social issues amalgamated through the use of masks and the surrounding narratives. Thus, masks not only prevented infection, but also fed and materialised the public imaginary of the pandemic and its challenges. From this perspective, we explore three exemplary cases from Germany and Finland in 2020 in which the mask played different roles as a socio-material phenomenon, linking theoretical perspectives on materiality and metaphors. Additionally, the analysis presents illustrations done by a visual artist. These illustrations capture the key content of the analysis in the form of drawings.

Metaphorical representation of coronavirus in Spanish and Brazilian cartoons

The worldwide outbreak of Covid-19 epidemic has been profusely covered by the mass media in 2020. This research focuses on the metaphorical content of cartoons from prominent Spanish and Brazilian newspapers published online in March and April 2020. In these satirical drawings the virus is portrayed through two main modes of representation: pictorial and verbal. The conceptual metaphors conveyed in each cartoon were identified, analysed and classified into four source domain scenarios: arts and literature, conflicts, sports and games, and other. Mainly, two theories coming from Cognitive Linguistics, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and Multimodal Metaphor Theory, have been used to approach this contrastive study in which the metaphorical representation of Covid-19 serves to offer a humorous and persuasive point of view about the impact of the pandemic in the Spanish and Brazilian society and the way the most important politicians of each country dealt with the sanitary crisis.
 
 Keywords: Spanish and Brazilian newspapers; cartoons; Covid-19; metaphorical representation; pictorial and multimodal metaphors.

The image of a boat as iconographic and metaphoric object in the painting of the middle and the second part of the 19th century

The article focuses on images of a boat in Russian and Western painting, especially Realism and Impressionism art. These trends were used by many painters whose creative activities are ready for academic research now. Exploring works by these masters one can compose a kind of visual series in order to demonstrate Realists’ and Impressionists’ enthusiasm for boat imagery. Among the former there are mentioned A. Bogoliubov, I. Aivazovskii, I. Levitan, K. Korovin, and others. Among French painters there are Charles-François Daubigny, Édouard Manet, and others. The author’s aim is both to describe boat as a motif in the painting, and to define connections of technical, pictorial, and culturally anthropological aspects of a piece of art exemplifying an image of boat full of iconological and metaphorical contents, and showing difference of forms and narratives it has.

The Translation of Metaphors of Emotions of Anger from EkeGusii to English Using the Extended Conceptual Metaphor Theory

The aim of this paper was to discuss common words used in reference to anger in Ekegusii, a Bantu speaking community in Kisii and Nyamira counties in Kenya. Using the Extended Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Kövecses 2020), linguistic expressions of anger that were recorded in a pilot study have been analyzed for metaphorical content, thereafter a translation was made from Ekegusii to English to check for the translation challenges. The findings reveal that Ekegusii displays differences in the conceptualization of anger as compared to English. One notable difference is realized about where anger comes from in Ekegusii. Anger as an emotion is conceptualized as coming from an external source and therefore it ‘catches’ persons. In the same regard, a person ‘hears’ anger thereby showing that anger is an external emotion that is personified

Certain specifics of the metaphorical representation of the concept "success" in American linguistic culture

The objective of the article is to analyze the metaphorical representation of the concept «success» in American linguistic culture. The material for the analysis is aphorisms, quotes, books on success in English. The study is based on the analysis of statements, in which the lexical unit «success», as well as its synonymic variants are considered as part of the metaphorical expression.
 For American society «success» is one of the most important components of culture, so it is interesting to observe what place in the everyday consciousness of the American takes the advancement to success and how success is conceptualized by means of language. Consideration of the metaphorical content of the concept of «success» in different languages allows us to take a deeper look at its content and to describe the national and cultural peculiarities.
 The methodology for studying cultural dominants is in the form of sampling lexical, paremic, phraseological units, sayings and quotations from success literature, blogs, and the electronic Corpus of Contemporary American English.
 The results of the study showed that the concept «success» metaphorically acts as an object, is likened to a living being, has a moving intentionality, is verbalized by a variety of metaphors, including ontological. The basic projections of the concept «success» were revealed. The frequency of projecting success through failure is several times higher than the number of other projections. This indicates that for the ordinary consciousness of the American, failure is one of the essential markers of success.