Metaphor Scenarios Research Articles

Pride as a Metaphorical Treasure: The Conceptualization of Pride and Self-Respect in English and Serbian via ‘The Possession of a Precious Object’ Scenario

This paper explores the conceptualization of a subset of emotion concepts related to positive self-evaluation – pride, self-respect, self-esteem and dignity in English and ponos, samopostovanje and dostojanstvo in Serbian – via a metaphorical scenario referred to in the paper as “the possession of a precious object scenario”. The analysis was performed within the theoretical framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and is based on the data obtained from general corpora. The results indicate a high level of productivity of the metaphorical scenario in the structure of pride and self-respect in both languages, as well as the salience of the elements of ‘destruction’, ‘theft/loss’ and ‘defence/preservation’ within the scenario. The analysis also sheds light on some of the potentially manipulative aspects of the structuring of collective pride, dignity and honour via this scenario in Serbian public discourse, pointing to a need for further research in that direction.

China is a hare: The articulation of national identity in Year Hare Affair

National identity is dynamic and dialogic, and its maintenance and reproduction have become increasingly fragmented and fractured. Although recent studies have discerned different modes of articulating national identity, very few studies have focused on youth culture and the maintenance and reproduction of national identity in China. Therefore, this study analyses metaphors, discursive practices and ideologies in the Chinese animation Na nian na tu na xie shi er (Year Hare Affair) using a coherent theoretical framework of multimodal metaphor and critical discourse analysis. First, four genres of multimodal metaphors are identified in animation. Next, this study analyses the ideologies and discursive practices of metaphors and argues that elements of what is called ‘ACG subculture’ – due to its focus on animation, comics and games – articulate elements of dominant culture by raising semantic conflicts in metaphor scenarios. The practice of articulation-produced national identity is informed by the conceptual metaphor CHINA IS A HARE. This metaphor, suggesting historic endurance and the lineage of the Chinese spirit, is an ideologically vested euphemism for national identity that embraces a dual notion of identity that is both national and individual. Finally, the novel reproduction of an endogenous and heterogeneous national identity in animation provides us with space to re-imagine the interplay between national identity, dominant ideology and Chinese youth.

What Can the Prophet Muhammad’s Metaphors Do?

The current article approaches the issue of the persuasiveness of metaphors in The Prophet Muhammad’s Tradition. The main concern of the article is to show that the Prophetic metaphors are discursively practiced by the Prophet for the function of persuading his audience to accept Islamic laws, and introduce rites and rituals, and to prohibit the unlawful. Through a survey of instances of metaphoric scenarios and images, and in reference to the contemporary cognitive theory of metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980), the article demonstrates that the persuasiveness of the prophetic metaphors is primarily evoked by disambiguation, arousing the emotions, and implicit threat.

The end of a long and fraught marriage

Abstract Set against the backdrop of a separation process between Britain and the EU, popularly referred to as Brexit, our paper explores how the married partners metaphor scenario structures the Brexit discourse via vivid metaphorical images of political reality describing complicated relations between Britain and the EU. We use a critical approach to metaphor (Charteris-Black, 2004, 2005) and especially apply Musolff’s (2006) concept of ‘metaphor scenario’ to the data collection gathered from various media sources published in English during the period closely preceding and following the Brexit vote. As “the married partners scenario is applicable to any bilateral […] relationship” (Musolff, 2006, p. 34), by exemplifying the Britain-EU relationship via numerous lexical instantiations (e.g., rocky marriage, messy divorce very hard on the children, shotgun divorce), we attest to a great generative potential of the married partners scenario as well as its argumentative use. Our main aim is to point out how the married partners metaphor scenario is used in political discourse both to simplify and enable the understanding of the tangled relationship between Britain and the EU at a crucial point in their history.

Cultural embedding in designating maritime metaphors

An interesting and fruitful area of research in maritime language is represented by metaphors and metaphorical expressions which abound in the language of seafarers. This paper sets to highlight that several maritime terms are the result of understanding and naming based on the metaphorical scenarios. Also, the aesthetic value of several maritime terms increases motivation and helps maritime language users to deal with them. The idea should be pointed out that the cognitive theories of metaphor have put forward the thesis according to which metaphors are not only a cultural symbol or ornamentation within a given discourse, but also a phenomenon that takes place to categorize and understand the experience.

The influence of context on the metaphoric framing of the European Union in Ukrainian mass media

This paper aims to explore how conceptual metaphors that underlie metaphoric expressions used by Ukrainian newspapers frame the image of the European Union in Ukraine. The study is informed by conceptual metaphor theory [Lakoff & Johnson 1980, 1999], discourse metaphor theory [Musolff 2004; Cameron & Deignan 2006; Semino 2008; Musolff & Zinken 2009] and interactional narratology [Bruner 2002, 2004]. In the focus of attention are metaphoric expressions that refer to the European Union. It is argued that the metaphors under study have a powerful framing potential realized in discourse. In particular, it is maintained that in their discourse use the metaphors suggest specific metaphoric scenarios [Musolff 2006, 2016a, 2017] and in such a way articulate narratives with a certain stance. Accordingly, framing the European Union through metaphoric scenarios depends on the stance that media product creator (Ukrainian print media) takes towards the European Union, imposing it on the readership. Framing through "domesticated" metaphors provides for their better fit with the narratives circulating in the Ukrainian society in January-June 2016.

“The game is rigged”: framing real life metaphorically in the TV epicThe Wire

AbstractThe aim of the paper is to show the extent to which thegamemetaphor shapes the Home Box Office (HBO) show (2002–2008)The Wire, which sets out the interconnection of the systems of drug dealing/trafficking, police department, court, organized labor, media, public school, and local policy, as well as the similar structure which all those systems are built upon. As our theoretical-methodological framework we will adopt cognitive and cultural linguistics as a starting point for a contextually embedded sequence analysis. We will focus on the multimodal ubiquity ofgameas a cultural model, as well as the contextual frames in which this metaphor is embedded with regard to the everyday life of the protagonists on the TV show and the institutions they are part of. Therefore, we will first analyze a specific metaphorical scenario where the conventionalized source and target domainschessanddrug businessare inverted, which has cultural-contextual implications, before we come to a second scene where the same domains are again accessed, this time in reverse.

Figuring the Shame of Corruption in Jordanian Sociopolitical Discourse through a Range of Creative Metaphorical Scenarios

Using the tenets of the Cognitive Metaphor Theory (CMT) and the pragmatic approach of the Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA), this paper investigates a variety of novel metaphoric scenarios targeting the conceptualization of the abstract concept of corruption in Jordanian sociopolitical discourse. My central argument is that by employing a range of conceptual domains to elicit a strong visceral reaction in his readership, the columnist Ahmad Hasan Al-Zu’bi connects the conceptual domain of CORRUPTION back to the equally abstract (but also deeply felt) conceptual domain of SHAME as the embedded running theme in the data under investigation. Unlike the corresponding model, which is primarily concerned with mapping elements from the source domain onto the target counterpart, these scenarios provide us with mini-narratives or storylines, shedding more light on the concept of SHAME which is crystallized through the diverse source domains utilized in the columnist’s writings. The study is based on the analysis of 19 extracts taken from the writings of a popular Jordanian columnist Ahmad Hasan Al-Zu’bi in his well-known website Sawalief.com. Two main research questions are raised in this paper: 1. What types of creative metaphoric scenarios are used to frame the abstract target concept of corruption? 2. Why are these particular creative metaphors exploited in the conceptualization of the problem of corruption? Findings of the study reveal that the creative power of these metaphoric scenarios does highlight and connect back to a powerful and emotionally resonant emotion that is important in traditional Jordanian society: SHAME.

Beyond Predator and Prey: Figuring Corruption through Animal Metaphoric Scenarios in the Jordanian Context

Combining a cognitive approach based on Lakoff’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory and a pragmatic approach based on Critical Metaphor Analysis, this study investigates the use of ANIMAL metaphoric scenarios to figure corruption as a relationship between predators and prey and the cultural implications in the Jordanian context. It also seeks to identify the diverse functions performed by the use of ANIMAL metaphors. Data for the study consist of 10 excerpts taken from a satire-genre discourse “sawalief.com”. My argument is that all animal metaphors in the corpus promote the contrast between the ACTIVITY of corrupters and the PASSIVITY of the citizenry and that the goal of this rhetoric is to move the PASSIVE citizenry into ACTION by shaming them into fighting corruption. This is clearly illustrated through the use of two types of ANIMAL metaphoric scenarios: ACTIVE ANIMALS representing corrupters and politicians, and PASSIVE ANIMALS representing the citizens. In addition, the use of these metaphors performs diverse functions: ideological, cognitive, and rhetorical.

Truths, lies and figurative scenarios

Abstract This article studies one of the key-metaphors that has dominated British EU-debates for the past 25 years, i.e. the slogan, Britain at the heart of Europe. The discourse career of this metaphor up to the Brexit referendum shows a decline in its affirmative, optimistic use, and a converse increase of deriding uses to the point of declaring the heart of Europe irredeemably diseased, dead, non-existent or rotten. We argue that these changes in the metaphor scenario of the heart of Europe concept helped to entice the British public to integrate the information supplied by pro-Brexit campaigners into a narrative of a dying EU, which motivated their voting preferences. Even statements that were exposed as factually wrong or implausible before the Brexit referendum were still accepted as fitting the narrative and thus considered as more reliable than unframed pieces of counter-information supplied by the Brexit critics.

IDEOLOGIA A DYSKURS PRAWNY W KOMUNISTYCZNEJ ALBANII

This paper aims to explore the traces of ideology in court decisions from the Communism period in Albania. A court judgment on a certain case, except from playing a role in setting the punishment, it also reinforces the ideological stance of dictatorship. As recent studies of Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis highlight, ideology is linguistically mediated. The CDA methodological tools are used to analyze the linguistic categories that are marked by ideological traces. The paper also examines conceptual metaphors and the metaphoric scenarios employed in the above legal discourse fragments, which help communism construct its own legal and political reality. All the findings of this research prove that ideology outreaches the political realities, and it may also affect the legal discourse, especially during the lead of a communist dictatorship.

MULTIMODALITY AND THE CONSTRUAL OF REALITY IN POLITICAL CARTOONS – THE CASE OF SERBIA-EU RELATIONSHIP

Complementing the broad framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson 1980; Johnson 1987; Benczes, Barcelona, & Ruiz de Mendoza Ibanez 2011; etc.) and Critical Metaphor Analysis (Charteris-Black 2004; Musolff 2006) with research on multimodality from a cognitive viewpoint (Forceville 1996, 2008; Forceville & Urios-Aparisi 2009; Bounegru & Forceville 2011; etc.), in this paper we address the topic of Serbia-EU relations unfolded in pictorial and multimodal discourse in news media in order to explore how this topic is communicated via metaphors and other cognitive instruments in newspaper cartoons. The data collection for our analysis consists of 15 cartoons published in the Serbian daily newspaper Politika in the period 2009-2015, which depict the concept of the EU in relation to Serbia and the varied political and social issues associated with it. Modelling our method of analysis on Bounegru and Forceville (2011), we try to show not only how pictorial and multimodal metaphors reveal the underlying metaphor scenarios, those of journey, school, sport and liquid, but also how multimodal discourse becomes a powerful tool of conveying different evaluative content and rhetorical impact when set within a specific socio-political context.

An Integrated Approach to Metaphor and Framing in Cognition, Discourse, and Practice, with an Application to Metaphors for Cancer

In this article, we examine the notion of ‘framing’ as a function of metaphor from three interrelated perspectives—cognitive, discourse-based, and practice-based—with the aim of providing an adaptable blueprint of good practice in framing analysis. We bring together cognitive and discourse-based approaches in an integrated multi-level framework, and demonstrate its value to both theory and practice by applying it to a corpus-based study of violence-related metaphors for cancer. Through the application of this framework, we show that there are merits in applying the notion of framing at different levels of generality in metaphor analysis (conceptual metaphors, metaphor scenarios, and linguistic metaphors), depending on one’s research aims. We warn that researchers and practitioners need to remain aware of what conclusions can and cannot be drawn at each level, and we show the theoretical and practical advantages of taking all three levels into account when considering the use of metaphor for communicating about sensitive topics such as cancer. We emphasize the need for a ‘rich’ definition of framing, including aspects such as agency, evaluation, and emotion.

Cultural aspects of metaphor scenarios

The functions of metaphors are not solely stylistic; they are also cognitive. It is argued thatmetaphor scenarios in particular play an important role in the constitution and transfer of cultural constructs like, for instance, in the narrative of transcendent justice. Three examples of this narrative in three different cultures and ages are discussed, outlining the differences but also the similarities of the constituting metaphor scenarios. To conclude, the thesis of a cultural influence between the three narratives is discussed.

CROSS-CULTURAL ASPECTS OF METAPHORICAL FRAMING IN POLITICAL DISCOURSE

The article examines cross-cultural aspects of metaphorical framing in political discourse. The author notes the importance of conceptual metaphor in framing the conceptual domain of politics, political discourse as a whole, its perception as well as political reality itself. The author shares an opinion that the metaphorical structure of basic concepts of a nation always correlates with its fundamental cultural values. However, the examination of political discourse from the cross-cultural perspective reveals the cases of metaphor uses that don't meet the requirements of cultural coherence and may lead to negative cognitive and communicative consequences. Along with admitting a wide discrepancy between metaphorical models in western and oriental political discourse, the author gives some examples of metaphorical coherence as well as its violation in a number of basic metaphors in American, British and Russian political discourse. To illustrate how cross-cultural factors determine the specific character of metaphorical framing, the article analyses the dynamic character of metaphorical models that can realize diverse scenarios in different national varieties of political discourse. An observation is made about the dependence of metaphoric scenarios in different national varieties of political discourse on the cultural, historical, social and political components of the national cultural cognitive map. The latter is heterogeneous as it is structured by the objectified individual, group, and national verbal and nonverbal experience. This explains, for instance, why there are examples of similarity as well as discrepancy between metaphorical framing in ideologically different party varieties of political discourse within the national political discourse as well as in the rhetoric of politicians belonging to different generations. The observations are illustrated by cross-linguistic data proving the dynamic character of metaphorical models, their variability and potential for conveying new meaning nuances that reflect culture-specific characteristics of the political situation in discourse.

Metaphorical blends and their function in discourse on society

This article examines two corpora composed of four discourse genres — oral interviews, written interviews, newspaper articles, and non-fiction books — to explore the ways in which ‘society’ is discussed metaphorically in current German and Brazilian discourse. It discusses culture-specific ‘mixed metaphors’ (Lakoff & Johnson 1980) which can be seen as ‘metaphorical scenarios’ (Musolff 2004) or ‘integration networks’ (Fauconnier & Turner 2002, 2008). The results reveal that the Brazilian metaphors tend to incorporate the idea that SOCIETY AS A PERSON has didactic and poetic functions to a high degree. By contrast, the German metaphors have a stronger relation to motion dynamics, frequently argumentatively analyzed from an observer’s point of view. Finally, this article demonstrates that Blending Theory must be extended by a semiotic-contextual view to integrate elements like ‘relevance space’ (Brandt & Brandt 2005), and to account for culture-dependent variation and the involved speech functions displayed by real speakers/writers and hearers/readers in specific communication situations.

IQ Influences on the Outcome of Experiential Psychotherapy for ADHD Children

The paper presents the results of a research study that aimed to investigate if intelligence influences the behavioural progress of children with ADHD attending a complex experiential psychotherapy plan that combined metaphorical scenarios with special groups of professional optimisation organised for the teachers of these children. The research sample included 40 children diagnosed with ADHD, combined type. Psychological assessment test battery used for selection included: anamnesis, Semi-structured Clinical Interview for Children and Adolescents, ADHD Rating Scale, completed before treatment and after treatment, Behavioural Coding Sheet completed before treatment and after treatment, and Raven's Colour Progressive Matrices CPM. We have conducted the MANOVA for five dependent variables (off task, fidget, vocal, play, out seat) and three independent variables (optimization groups for teachers, child experiential psychotherapy and IQ). Noticing that the IQ has an influence on vocal, play and out seat, we have conducted One-Way ANOVA procedure to test where the difference comes from.

Processing Conventional Conceptual Metaphors in Persian: A Corpus-Based Psycholinguistic Study

Research on the psycholinguistic processing of conceptual metaphors has produced contrasting results in recent years. There have also been criticisms that in experimental studies of metaphor processing, linguistic stimuli are mostly intuition-based and not designed objectively based on the original language use data. To address these issues, we studied the processing of conventional metaphoric expressions in Persian language using corpus data. A reading time experiment was designed to test whether conventional metaphoric expressions activated conceptual metaphors. A corpus of 50 million word tokens was used to study the conventional patterns of metaphoric expressions usages and construct experimental items. Fifty five Persian speakers read a set of scenarios containing non-conventional metaphor, conventional metaphor and non-metaphor expressions on computer and the reading times of the following novel target sentence in each condition were recorded by DMDX stimulus presenter program. Comparing mean reading times using one-way ANOVA revealed that reading target sentence after conventional metaphor scenarios had been significantly faster than non-metaphor scenarios, but slower than non-conventional scenarios. The results show that conventionality has a weakening effect on the strength of metaphoric expressions to activate conceptual metaphors.

Metaphors we (De)Legitimize by: Patterns of Metaphor Use in The Economist

The present research is a follow-up to another study (Rasti & Sahragard, 2012) with an exclusive focus on political metaphor in general and specifically its (de)legitimatory role in the British paper The Economist . The Western paper takes an explicit sanctions-supportive stance on Iran’s nuclear issue. With an eye to spotting instances of political metaphor in the said paper, the researchers, in the process of analyzing the data, which included 30 argumentative and expository articles taken from the British paper within two time frames – the first spanning 2005-2006 and the second encompassing data from 2012 and the beginning of 2013, came up with a superordinate metaphorical pattern i.e., IRAN AS A HUMAN and its concomitant submetaphors i.e., IRAN AS A RACER/PLAYER, IRAN AS A BUSINESSMAN, IRAN AS A SUFFERER, and IRAN AS A SUSPECT/CULPRIT (for the first phase) and IRAN AS A WRONGDOER , IRAN AS A PATIENT and IRAN AS AN UNWANTED GUEST / A TRESPASSOR (as far as the second phase was concerned). The study concludes with the insight that the Western newspaper, among other things, stylistically and rhetorically employs and manipulates the metaphorical scenarios to justify and highlight the force and effectiveness of the West-backed sanctions against Iran and to render the country’s nuclear plans as illicit and unwarranted.

Cognitive Models of Future in Political Texts

The present paper briefly recalls theoretical preconditions for investigating cognitive-discursive models of future in political discourse. The author reviews theories and methods used for strengthening a future focus in this discourse and works out two main tools – a model of future and a metaphorical scenario. The paper examines the implications of metaphorical analogies for modeling future in mass media. It argues that metaphor is not merely a rhetorical ornament in the political discourse of media regulation but a conceptual model that legislates and regulates our understanding of future. The metaphorical scenario includes several frames, namely, “Actors, “Space and Time”, “Reason and Consequence” that answer certain metaphorical questions that determine the image of future.