Metaphorical Idioms Research Articles

Metaphorical Idioms in Extended Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Abstract In Extended Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Kövecses, 2020), I offered a comprehensive overhaul of “standard” conceptual metaphor theory. The present paper attempts to demonstrate how the new view of CMT can handle metaphorical idioms. To this end, I analyze four metaphorical idioms from the thematic area of money (throw money about, money slips through someone’s fingers, be a cash cow, money keeps someone/something afloat). The analysis assumes and starts out from the observation that money-related metaphors are based on two generic-level conceptual metaphors: money is a moving entity and money is a force. Extended CMT adds to CMT the notion of “mental space-level metaphors” that were largely ignored in “standard” CMT, but are given an important role in extended CMT. These are the metaphors that represent actual, contextual meanings in a metaphorical usage event. Traditional CMT-type analysis cannot account for the emergence of such idiomatic meanings because the mappings, or correspondences, of standard CMT work on a single, generic level (frame-, domain-, or even image schema level). However, the contextual meanings of naturally used metaphors (including those of metaphorical idioms) are much more information-rich and specific. The conceptual metaphors on the image schema, domain, and frame levels are offline structures in long-term memory, whereas the conceptual metaphors on the mental space level occur only online in working memory. In online communication, speakers mobilize the static image schema-, domain-, and frame-level metaphors at the mental space level, where they create highly specific mental space-level metaphors. Given this framework, it becomes possible to explain how and why the four metaphorical idioms have different contextual meanings (as represented by different mental space-level metaphors), but, at the same time, why they also share certain conceptual metaphors on the frame-, domain-, or image schema-level. Additionally, we gain new insight into how the emergence of novel metaphorical idioms occurs with the help of and constrained by a previously existing large system of hierarchically arranged conceptual metaphors.

Raising the bar

Abstract Empirical testing is a challenging aspect of L2 classroom-based research, especially when exploring the multifaceted nature of figurative language, such as metaphorical idioms. Typically, studies in applied linguistics involve language learners from convenience samples of intact classes. This approach can pose problems as these classes represent non-random, often small, samples of participants. Despite these challenges, appropriate precautions and considerations, such as addressing overlooked idiom-inherent variables, contemplating counterbalancing, managing time-on-task, and making well-informed treatment and data collection design choices can minimize confounding variables and enhance a study’s design and resultant validity. The author of this article offers a reflective commentary based on a previous study (Ramonda, 2022) to expound on these considerations and provide modest proposals for improving future study quality in this domain.

Sniffing the Jar: Metaphor and Body in the Story of the Encounter between Shmuel and Rav

Abstract: This article analyzes the talmudic story of the first encounter between Rav and Shmuel (b. Shabbat 108a). It focuses on the structural difficulties of the plot, particularly the relationship between Rav’s interview at the beginning of the story and the aggressive medical treatment he undergoes at the end. A new interpretation of Shmuel’s request of his student Karna to “sniff Rav’s jar” can solve these problems. The request is here understood as a play on words, which concretizes the metaphorical idiom. This interpretation enables a new reading of the entire story, as one that centers on the relationship between metaphor and reality and, by extension, between the Torah and the body of the immigrant sage.

Universality vs. cultural specificity of anger metaphors and metonymies in English and Vietnamese idioms

As a human basic emotion, anger has been extensively investigated to gain insights into human cognition and psychology. From the cognitive linguistic perspective, research into metaphor and metonymy of anger across languages can shed light on the cultural models of respective speech communities. This paper looks into metaphors and metonymies of anger in Vietnamese and English idioms to find out how this emotion is conceptualized in each language, what features are universal and what characteristics are culturally specific. The Conceptual Metaphor Theory framework proposed by Lakoff Johnson (1980) was used for data analysis, which involves 68 English and 52 Vietnamese idioms. It was found that both languages conceptualize anger based on embodied experiences as well as cultural models. Six major conceptual metaphors of anger are identified with more diverse elaborations in Vietnamese idioms. Cultural differences are that Vietnamese makes frequent use of body parts and internal organs metonymies while English tends to utilize the whole body to describe emotional states. Vietnamese feudalist values and folk culture are also evident in the metaphorical and metonymic idioms of anger. These findings have both linguistic significance and pedagogical implications. It is suggested that awareness of conceptual motivation should be promoted when teaching idioms as figurative, metaphorically based expressions.

THE RELEVANCE OF CONTEXT IN UNFAMILIAR L2 IDIOM COMPREHENSION

The present study investigates to what extent the effect of context is responsible in facilitating L2 idiom comprehension. Forty students of Italian as a foreign language (L1 Croatian) completed comprehension tests consisting of unfamiliar L2 Italian metaphorical idioms, first presented with only general context and then with a specific context. To date, a large number of studies have described and analysed factors that influence the recognition and comprehension of idioms in one’s native language, and in the last twenty years the same topic has also been investigated for L2 idiom comprehension. However, many of these studies differ in terms of methodology (eye-tracking, control L1 groups, comprehension tests), the aim of the study, and ultimately, the corpus of the study (processing literal vs. metaphorical recognition, unfamiliar vs. familiar idioms, typology of idioms). Through a carefully designed questionnaire, in this study we exclude all possible factors that could influence idiom comprehension and isolate the context factor in the results. Given that in our previous research (2018) we collected highly unfamiliar Italian L2 opaque idioms and idioms without absolute and partial formal equivalents in Croatian, such as essere al verde, essere in gamba, and essere nato con la camicia, we can now psycholinguisticaly analyse to what extent the appropriate context can infer the correct comprehension of Italian L2 idioms.

Metaphodioms: connecting metaphor and idioms

This paper aims to formulate the notion of metaphodiom and establish operational criteria for its definition by combining key insights emanating from quantitative corpus linguistics, the cognitive theory of metaphor, and a cognitive linguistic approach to idioms. To this end, the author selects boxing idioms for analysis, extracts their occurrences in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), and determines their structural, semantic, distributional, and discourse-functional properties. The paper makes a significant contribution to a growing body of literature on metaphorical idioms by systematically integrating all definitory parameters for their identification, description, and extraction from a large corpus of naturally-occurring data.

CONCEPTUALISATIONS OF ANGER IN ENGLISH IDIOMS. AN ANALYSIS BASED ON THE EXTENDED CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR THEORY

The article combines the approach to idiom classification according to Langlotz (2006) and the recently suggested analytical framework for figurative language analysis known under the name of the Extended Conceptual Metaphorical Theory (Kovecses 2020). The aim of the article is to identify some of the conceptual pathways of ANGER idioms in English. The analysis of 37 idioms for expressing ANGER revealed that both metaphorical (e.g. go through/hit the root) and metonymic (e.g. make someone's hackles rise) motivations play a crucial role in the transparency of the idiomatic meaning. It was also concluded that three image schemas in particular play a crucial role in metaphorical idioms for expressing the concept of ANGER in English: ACTIVITY IS MOTIO N, INTENSITY OF ACTIVITY IS HEAT and ANGER IS HEAT. However, contrary to the HEAT element, which is particularly salient in linguistic metaphors for expressing ANGER (e.g. kindle the wrath), it is the MOTION element which plays the crucial role in the conceptualizations of ANGER in idioms in English (e.g. go through/hit the roof, flip the lid, fly off the handle).

Hyperbole and emotionalisation: Escalation of pragmatic effects of proverb and metaphor in the “Brexit” debate

(How) Can the use of hyperbole in metaphorical idioms and scenarios contribute to an increase in emotionalisation of public debates? Using a research corpus of quotations from British politicians speeches and interviews and of press texts 2016-2020, this paper investigates hyperbolic formulations in Brexit-related applications of the proverb You cannot have your cake and eat it and related scenarios of national liberation, which appear to have strongly boosted emotionalised public debates. For instance, Brexit proponents reversal of the cake proverb into the assertion, We can have our cake and eat it, and their figurative interpretation of Brexit as a war of liberation (against the EU) triggered highly emotional reactions: triumphant affirmation among followers, fear and resentment among opponents. The paper argues that the combination of figurative speech (proverb, metaphor) with hyperbole heightened the emotional and polemical impact of the pro-Brexit argument. Whilst this effect may be deemed to have been rhetorically successful in the short term (e.g. in referendum and election campaigns), its long-term effect on political discourse is more ambivalent, for it leads to a polarisation and radicalisation of political discourse in Britain (as evidenced, for instance, in the massive use of hyperbole in COVID-19 debates). The study of hyperbole as a means of emotionalisation thus seems most promising as part of a discourse-historical investigation of socio-pragmatic effects of figurative (mainly, metaphorical) language use, rather than as an isolated, one-off rhetorical phenomenon.

Translation of metaphorical idioms

AbstractIdioms are one of the most problematic areas of translation. The difficulties in translating them largely come from their semantic opacity due to “the metaphorical use of the words they encompass” (Saeed 2017, 489). This study investigates the strategies used in the translation of metaphorical idioms, specifically idioms with stock metaphors, which have greater metaphorical force and more salient images than dead metaphors. The translation strategies were surveyed in the two English translations of the classic Chinese novel,Hongloumeng(Dream of the red chamber). The results show that the choice of strategies is influenced by the relationship between the source language and the target language, the source text’s status, and the translators’ specific approaches. The images in translated metaphorical idioms received special attention in terms of their removal, retention, and replacement. An analysis of the functions of strategies is also presented. The varied combinations of these strategies further attest to the difficulty in translating metaphorical idioms. Moreover, they also have a role in translators’ style and the effect of the target text.

Metaphors For Trauma: A Cross-Cultural Qualitative Comparison in Brazil, India, Poland, and Switzerland.

The concept of psychological trauma implies that people experiencing traumatic stress are wounded, thus relating to the metaphor of a physical injury. Although this notion is widely accepted by clinicians and researchers in mental health, there is evidence of a broad range of metaphorical idioms for extremely aversive experiences or catastrophic events across different cultures. In this ethnopsychological study, we aimed to investigate and contrast culturally shared metaphors for trauma among four distinct cultural groups: two indigenous communities (Pitaguary from Brazil, Adivasis from India) and two rural communities (mountain villagers of Gondo, Switzerland; the Lemko ethnic minority in Poland). The communities in Brazil and in Poland were marked by historical trauma, and the communities in India and Switzerland each suffered from a natural disaster. Semistructured interviews that focused on metaphors shared within each community were conducted with key informants and laypersons (Brazil: N = 14, India: N = 28, Poland, N = 13, Switzerland: N = 9). We conducted separate metaphor analyses, then cross-culturally contrasted the findings from the four samples. Across the four cultural groups, we found similar metaphorical concepts of trauma related to bodily processes, such as shock, burden, and wound.

Conceptual Metaphors and Image Schemas: A Corpus Analysis of the Development of theOn Track/Off TrackIdiom Pair

Using the theoretical constructs of “image schema” and “conceptual metaphor,” this study examines the use and historical development of on track and off track as a pair of metaphorical idioms in American English. Specifically, this article is concerned with usage patterns and semantic changes of the expressions over the past two centuries in three American English corpora. We study the semantic features of the subject nouns as the “trajectors” and the diverse verbs used with the on/ off track metaphors in order to uncover the main cognitive mechanisms underlying the use of the two idioms. The results of the study delineate how the development of the metaphorical idiom pair was largely motivated by PATH/FORCE conceptual metaphors based on image schemas and licensed by the Event-Structure Complex Metaphor; this demonstrates the important role of image schemas and conceptual metaphor in language use and development. The results also reveal that, in using metaphors based on image schemas, speakers/writers may activate very specific embodied images, and that context influences the use of the metaphorical idiom pair. Our results also support findings from previous corpus-linguistic theory-guided corpus studies of lexical/syntactical constructions, confirming again the vitality of this research.

THE LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF METAPHORIC PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS IN THE UZBEK LANGUAGE

The article deals with phraseological units which are based on some stylistic devices including metaphors. The article discusses the main characteristic features of metaphorical expressions in the Uzbek language. Different groups of metaphorical phraseological units’ classifications in the Uzbek language are made according to their grammatical forms, lexical and semantic features. The differences between metaphorical and simile- based idioms are also discussed. Metaphor is widely discussed theme in modern linguistics at present time, it has wide functions as a stylistic device in the speeches of people. Transference is a key pushing mechanism in forming metaphorical idioms. Transference can be conducted due to the similarity in action or feature of the object. Metaphorical expressions are formed due to complete re-forming or part re-forming as well. These essential issues are discussed in the article and some samples of discussed matters are also presented in the work.

Analysis of semantic and metaphorical idioms with the word “Tiger” in chinese and english

Analysis of semantic and metaphorical idioms with the word “Tiger” in chinese and english

Peculiar features of metaphorical phraseological units

In this article, we have decided to focus on the term “phraseological pun” as well. In this case, the last component of a phraseological unit can have a “free meaning”, that is to say it may lose its primary usage and may change the meaning to mean a different object, item or sense. This technique enables users of the metaphorical idioms to pay attention to more distinctive features of lexemes, to get into the meanings of ordinary words, to feel the expressiveness of a phraseological unit. In the English language, postpositional component of a metaphorical expression is usually used in a different meaning.

Peculiar features of metaphorical phraseological units

In this article, we have decided to focus on the term “phraseological pun” as well. In this case, the last component of a phraseological unit can have a “free meaning”, that is to say it may lose its primary usage and may change the meaning to mean a different object, item or sense. This technique enables users of the metaphorical idioms to pay attention to more distinctive features of lexemes, to get into the meanings of ordinary words, to feel the expressiveness of a phraseological unit. In the English language, postpositional component of a metaphorical expression is usually used in a different meaning.

Re-envisioning Tangintebu Theological College in the context of climate change: An emerging model of coconut theological education and ministerial formation

This article engages through an interdisciplinary approach to re-envision Tangintebu Theological College’s (TTC) model of theological education in the context of climate change in Kiribati. It utilises the anthropological theory of symbolic interactionism within missiological, cultural and, theological studies of climate change. It argues for the coconut tree as an appropriate cultural conceptual metaphorical idiom for translating and understanding Christian faith and shaping a theological pedagogy within the Kiribati context of climate change. The coconut image is an indigenous, holistic way of knowing and learning informed by Kiribati cosmology embedded within people’s experiences and understanding of the coconut tree. Its life-centeredness has the potential to contextualise the theological curriculum and teaching methodology to assist in equipping theological students with climate change-sensitive approaches. The qualitative method was utilised to allow participants to reflect on their experiences of climate change in relation to the mission of the church. The data that informs this article was generated through unstructured interviews and focus group discussions with members of the Kiribati Uniting Church (KUC). The data was analysed using symbolic interactionism. The results suggest that the Kiribati people symbolically interact with God through their understanding of the coconut tree, which is conceived as the embodiment of God’s presence. It became clear that while this world view informs the faith of members of the KUC, the TTC curriculum has sidelined it, resulting in miseducation of pastors because this omission means they are not equipped to engage with the challenge of climate change. The participants argued that there is an urgent need to understand theological education and ministerial formation within the indigenous framework of Kiribati coconut imagination that is embedded in the promotion of justice and equitable society not only for human beings but for all of God’s creation through symbolic interaction with the presence of God in the coconut.

An analysis of metaphorical idioms in South African Indian English

This study looks at a selected number of expressions used in the variety of English known as “South African Indian English” (SAIE). Mesthrie (1992, 2010a) compiled a dictionary of expressions used within this language variety, which is the primary source of data for this study. Mesthrie has also published numerous scholarly works documenting various aspects of SAIE (cf. Mesthrie 1991, 1992a). A selection of five metaphorical idioms have been chosen for analysis, and the meanings as put forth by Mesthrie (1992, 2010a) have been cross-checked with 10 native speakers of SAIE, as well as the author’s native-speaker intuitions. The informants were all middle-class, professional, educated persons of Indian origin, who speak English as a first language; they were all between 30 and 60 years of age, and reside either in Johannesburg as internal economic migrants from Durban, or currently reside in Durban. As this analysis is undertaken through the lens of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the various metaphorical idioms are analysed as expressions of underlying conceptual metaphors, which confirms the idea that many entrenched idiomatic expressions are surface manifestations of underlying conceptual metaphors, and therefore part and parcel of the same human conceptual system. The analysis follows an adapted format used by Kovecses (2010), whereby the metaphorical idiom is stated, followed by the meaning, then the underlying conceptual metaphor. A table illustrating how the idiom is typically mapped in context, followed by a brief discussion of the import, is also in line with Kovecses (2010). One of the key findings is that this is indeed a viable approach to the study of idioms in general, and a more comprehensive study should be made of more expressions like these to see whether or not all entrenched expressions can be viewed as emanating from underlying conceptual metaphors.

An Analysis of Northern Sotho Idioms with Reference to Conceptual Metaphor Theory

A selection of idiomatic expressions is analysed here using Conceptual Metaphor Theory as an analytical framework. This theory is critiqued with reference to the “invariance principle,” which aims to explain the mechanisms behind the mapping of metaphors, including the factors which restrict these mappings. Following cognitive linguists like Gibbs, idioms are seen as analogous to any other linguistic metaphors, and are presented as conventional manifestations of underlying conceptual metaphors. The idioms were selected from two texts, and were attested by six native speakers of Northern Sotho, who checked both the accuracy of the translation and the import of the metaphorical idioms. The standard version of the invariance principle, as presented by George Lakoff in his initial works, needs to be updated, as it fails to account for how idioms are interpreted. The findings here concur with the critiques of this principle as found in works by scholars like Wallington and Stockwell.

The Interplay of Cross-Linguistic Differences and Context in L2 Idiom Comprehension

The present study investigates to what extent the effect of cross-linguistic differences on L2 idiom comprehension is modulated by the presence of a context. Sixty students of German as a foreign language (L1 French) completed a comprehension test consisting of metaphorical idioms in the L2 that differed from their L1 equivalents conceptually and formally and were presented with or without context. The results show that an increasing degree of conceptual and formal distance as well as the absence of context are generally associated with lower performance in the idiom comprehension test. However, the analysis of interactions shows that the presence of the context was especially supportive for conceptually different items, whereas the facilitative effect of formal similarity considerably diminished with increasing conceptual distance.

Culturally shared metaphors expand contemporary concepts of resilience and post-traumatic growth: contrasting an indigenous Brazilian community and a Swiss rural community

The metaphorical concepts resilience and post-traumatic growth (PTG) reflect the contemporary Western understanding of overcoming highly challenging life events. However, it is known that across different cultures, a broad range...