Metaphor Research Articles

ՉԱՐԵՆՑԻ ՀՈՒՇԱՍՐԱՀԸ ՉԱՐԵՆՑԱՎԱՆՈՒՄ. ԳԱՂԱՓԱՐԱԽՈՍՈՒԹՅՈՒՆԸ ԵՎ ՈՒՐԲԱՆԻԶՄԸ ԽՈՐՀՐԴԱՅԻՆ ՔԱՂԱՔՈՒՄ / CHARENTS MEMORIAL HALL IN CHARENTSAVAN: IDEOLOGY AND URBANISM IN A SOVIET CITY

The cultural landscape is a metaphorical language through which power, hopes and expectations are expressed. Especially in ideological and non-democratic environments, these environments are associated with ideas of power and the visualization of messages in the language of power. The Charents Memorial Hall, opened in 1978 in Charentsavan, the industrial city of Soviet Armenia, reflected the close connection of the cultural landscape of the Soviet city with urbanism and ideology. This was expressed both in the choice of the place of the memorial hall, the external and internal design, and in the content. Today, the memorial hall functions as a medium for forgetting the "glory" of the past. When represented, these places have great potential to represent the narratives of the Soviet cultural landscape and politics.

HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND WAR IN UKRAINE: RESILIENCE IN EXPLORING STUDENT RESPONSE

This paper meets challenges in exploring the problems of human trafficking awareness among Ukrainian youth under war conditions. The mission of this social and pedagogical linguistic initiative has been reconsidered in the framework of the CEFRES fellowship, given the general and specific pre-conditions of vulnerability to human trafficking among Ukrainian youth. The paper highlights physical, psychological, technical, and pedagogical difficulties and offers solutions for resilient research. Attention is drawn to adjusting the methods under limitations such as a reduced sample of volunteering respondents and measuring the war impact. The solutions include accumulating empirical data for significant measurements for two academic years and upcoming surveying possibilities regarding the “war vs. no war” factors. Other outcomes of tackling impediments imply the possibility of retaining students’ attention to human trafficking under war conditions through immersive experiences and reflexive activities with simultaneous collecting empirical data, introducing the awareness activities into the e-course (Moodle), and encouraging students to explore cases and evaluate the message. These solutions can help filter the significant results under four parameters of the CEFRES-supported project such as metaphor, storytelling, schemata, and sensory language for registering effective ways of immersive learning experiences.

Образ собаки в мировоззрении селькупов

The aim of the study was to consider the image of a dog in the worldview of the Selkups. This problem is still poorly understood, which emphasizes its relevance and significance. As a result of the study, the following conclusions were drawn. The mythological dog of the Selkups in its image reflected all the concepts of the animal that stand out in the Selkup worldview, namely: animistic, according to which the animal is a spirit, a creature of the other world; totemic, whose postulate is that all Selkup clans are descended from animals; worldforming, which determines that the animal-ancestor creates the elements of the universe and postulates the laws of the life of society; the concept of combining anthropomorphic and zoomorphic appearance in the animal-spirit; the concept of duality, according to which animal spirits are characterized by actions of a polar orientation; the idea of the embodiment of the universe in a giant animal ancestor with the mechanism of crossing the border between the earthly and other worlds combined with it and the principle of circulation between the worlds of the human soul, in the area of otherness acquiring the features of an animal ancestor. The dog was not a wild, but a domestic animal, therefore, in mythology, the language of metaphors emphasizes its special features: a dog lives with a person, is equal to a person in mental abilities, but at the same time is forced to serve him hard and disinterestedly. A special quality of the dog is also indicated by its ability to smell spirits and enemies and report their approach to a person. The mythological representations of the Selkups reflected the role that the dog played in their economic activities.

Incidence of Metaphorical Language in Learning Irrational Numbers: A Case Study

Incidence of Metaphorical Language in Learning Irrational Numbers: A Case Study

POJMOVNE METAFORE U ITALIJANSKOM I SRPSKOM JEZIKU EKONOMIJE NA PRIMERU CILJNOG DOMENA INFLACIJA

Acknowledging the conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff, Johnson 1980, Lakoff 1992) and the fact that throughout history metaphors have been omnipresent in explaining and under- standing economic concepts (Kövecses 2002, Sosnowski 2006), this paper reveals, analyses, and compares Serbian and Italian linguistic metaphors used in journalistic economic jargon for creating conceptual metaphors whose target domain is the lexeme INFLATION. The cor- pus of texts was taken from the Italian daily la Repubblica and the Serbian newspaper Politika in the period between March and June 2022. This period coincided with the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, which caused the global economic crisis. In this way, we justify the choice and the supposition that the target domain lexeme will be highly frequent in texts about the economies of the two countries. The paper aims to find similarities and differences between the Italian and Serbian language metaphors, as well as to reveal similarities or differences in conceptual, collective, and empiri- cal thinking, as well as the comprehension of the inflation phenomenon by these two nations, while using the methods of qualitative and contrastive analysis. The results confirm the presence of metaphorical expressions in both languages within all conceptual metaphors emphasised by many authors in their papers to date, mainly in English, as well as a high level of coincidence in the selection of lexemes and the source domain expressions. The findings of this research lead to the conclusion that Serbian and Italian speakers share similar, or identical, empirical and con- ceptual understanding, but also the collective feeling about the concept of inflation.

METAPHORICAL LANGUAGE IN SPECIALIZED AND POPULAR SCIENTIFIC TEXTS

This study positions itself within the domain of analysing metaphor in naturally-occurring data. The use of metaphor often varies depending on many factors such as the context in which it is used, topic, audience, mode of communication and so on. This study specifically aims at investigating the differences and similarities in the use of metaphorical expressions between specialized and popular scientific texts. The research is based on the analysis of eight articles coming from four scientific disciplines: exact, life, social sciences, and humanities. A pair of texts comes from each discipline, one being a popular science article written by journalists for the general public, and the other being a research article written by scientists for their peers. All metaphorical language in the articles was identified using MIPVU, a systematic and transparent procedure for identifying linguistic metaphor. The findings indicate a pronounced difference in linguistic metaphor use between the two related text-types. These differences concern the frequencies, types, and functions of metaphorical language use. The variations in the use of metaphor proved to be largely explainable in terms of the differences in the components of genre and register.

Pragmatics of Phatic Utterances and Pleasantries in Nigerian Students Unionism

The apex body of students in any tertiary institution in Nigeria is student union which is led by students and for the students. Over the years, a unique pattern of greeting has evolved in Students Unionism. Student leaders tend to exhibit various phatic communions to develop and maintain social relationship. Extant studies on student union in the Nigerian context have largely addressed the phenomenon from the sociological and political perspectives with little attention paid to it from a linguistic perspective. This study, therefore, investigates the pragmatic functions of phatic utterances and pleasantries among student leaders in selected Nigerian tertiary institutions. Data was gathered from six tertiary institutions in the south-western part of Nigeria through observation and interview methods. Using Mey’s Pragmatic Act theory as the analytical tool, it was revealed that seven major functions are achieved with the phatic communion in Students Unionism. These include disclosure of political position, prayer invocation, placement by hierarchical status, assertion of loyalty and support, incitation of special recognition, issuance of warning and unveiling personality traits of student leaders. These are achieved through the deployment of pragmatic tools such as used are speech acts, physical acts and prosody in the activity part and in the textual part, reference (REF), inference (INF), metaphor (MPH) and Shared Social/Situation Knowledge (SSK) are deployed. These phatic communions are intentionally and uniquely used in the domain of Students Unionism to communicate a lot of messages in the achievement of their desired goal

전쟁 은유, 오명(stigma), 언어의 유아화 : 중국 코로나19 관련 담론 속의 언어적 문제

This paper discusses the language problems of the discourses related to COVID-19 in China, focusing on the WAR metaphor, Stigma, and Infantilization of language from the perspectives of their use, adverse effects, and solutions. Official reports have used a lot of war-related words like '降伏', '阻击战', '歼灭战', '决战', '酣战', making the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 like a war. The abuse of WAR metaphors violated individual privacy, caused social panic, and made us lack reflection on COVID-19. To address this, we can follow the #ReframeCovid initiative by using other metaphors to replace the WAR metaphors in COVID-related discourses. Stigmatization has become more severe. People use '鄂人', '湖北人', '武汉人' and '羊', '小阳人', '🐑', '投毒', '毒王', '跑毒' to stigmatize Wuhan, Hubei and patients of COVID-19. Stigma intensified regional conflicts, encouraged cyberbullying, and made confirmed patients reluctant to receive medical treatment, increasing the risk of spreading infection. In terms of solutions, it is necessary to calm the social panic through scientific dissemination of COVID-19, reporting the disease in neutral language, and creating a more friendly social atmosphere. Furthermore, the infantilization of language is shown most obviously on the internet. During the pandemic, netizens use various childlike expressions like '大白', '毕业', '中队长'. As a result, people were de-personified and did not receive sufficient attention and consideration. Moreover, by using these childish expressions, people will forget that they are the first responsible person for their health, making the whole society a big baby. In light of these, mainstream media should not cater to this trend, education institutions should strengthen Chinese language education, and we should chase intelligence and maturity, fighting against Anti-intellectualism.

Linguopragmatic Potential of the Use of Polycode Metaphor in PR Discourse

This study is a continuation of the author’s research of various approaches to the use of metaphor and other expressive language means in texts of English PR discourse (public relations discourse). The aim of the work to reveal the use of the linguistic and pragmatic potential of expressive linguistic units inherent in the texts of the sphere of directed communication, based on the material of the English-language PR discourse, taking into account the PR ends of informing the society and building a certain understanding of the described phenomena. Regarding the stance of attributing metaphor to complex mental mechanisms, public relations councilors resort to their usage to represent new phenomena through the sensory and social experience of a person. The novelty of the study is the conclusion that by using certain polycode language units, PR copywriters get the opportunity to transfer conceptual representations to a process or phenomenon that is difficult to understand, since complex professional texts can be adapted for understanding through similarity and analogy presented in language. The conducted research contributes to discursive studies, as well as to understanding of metaphorical thinking in theory and practice, which can be used in teaching courses in lexicology, phraseology of the English language, as well as for training specialists in the field of communication studies.

ASPECTS OF TRANSLATIONAL CREATIVITY

Translational creativity is still fertilize area of research due to the big focus of translation theories on equivalence and recently on cultural turn. This paper sheds light on the main aspects of translational creativity along with exploring the strategies involved under such aspects. Visualization is one of the most prominent aspect that can be applicable with higher level of effectiveness specially when translating metaphorical language and idioms.

More than Cool Reason: Why Should We Study Idioms in Intercultural Communication?

Studying abroad equips learners with the necessary skills that help them get more prestigious and well-paid jobs and serves as a supplier of competent personnel for nations. However, learners abroad encounter many obstacles ranging from general living adaptation, emotional, cultural, social, academic challenges to intercultural communication issues. Amongst the causes of intercultural communication difficulties is the ubiquitous use of figurative entities in natives’ ordinary conversations. Despite the possibility that Algerian students might have a good command of English, they still face such challenges in the use of metaphorical language, especially idioms; a situation which might result in misunderstanding in conversations between native speakers and the Algerian learners. This paper sought to contribute to a deeper understanding and identification of the miscommunication and the cultural misunderstanding associated with the pervasiveness of idiomatic expressions in natives’ everyday language. The research took up a qualitative research method that involved an online questionnaire created through Google Form and shared on social media platforms and emails with 39 Algerian students learning in different English and Scottish universities. The paper evinces that incompetence in the use of idioms lead to breakdowns in communication with native speakers. Drawing on the established findings, it is advisable to adopt constructive attitudes and practices towards the teaching/learning of idioms in language classes.

中国外交话语的隐喻类别及其韩译方法研究

정치 언어의 하위 부류인 외교 언어는 은유와 긴밀한 관계가 있으며 완곡하고 함축적이며 모호하다는 특징이 있다. 따라서 중국 외교 언어 은유에 대한 한국어 번역의 정확성을 높이고 한중 양국 간의 상호 이해를 증진시키기 위해서 개념적 은유 분류와 관련 세밀한 분석과 정확 한 파악은 필수적이다. 그러나 선행논의를 검토한 결과 언어 자료의 부족, 분석 도구의 제한, 연구 인력의 한계로 인하여 중국 외교 언어 은유의 한국어 번역 연구와 관련된 학술적 담론은 찾아보기 어렵다. 본 연구는 개념적 은유 이론을 바탕으로 한중 병렬 코퍼스를 구축함으로써 중국 외교 언어 은유의 분류 및 번역 방법을 연구하는 데 목적을 둔다. 구체적으로 먼저 2022 년 중국 외교부 공식적으로 발표한 외교부 정례 브리핑 기록 텍스트 자료 176편과 인민망 한 국어판에 탑재된 한국어 번역문 자료를 수집 및 정제하여 한중 병렬 코퍼스를 구축하였다. 그 후, 은유 식별 프로그램인 MIPVU로 은유 키워드를 추출하여 코퍼스 분석 도구인 AntConc를 활용하여 계량화 한 후 1급 개념 은유 카테고리를 바탕으로 20개의 하위 카테고 리를 도출하였다. 은유 분류를 세분화한 후 외교 언어 은유 한국어 번역 방법을 ‘매핑 이미지 유지’, ‘매핑 이미지 전환’, ‘매핑 이미지 해석’ 등 세 가지로 도출하였다. 본 연구는 중국 외교 언어 은유의 한국어 번역 방법을 논의하였다는 점에서 실용적인 가치가 있다.

“Sabda Bayu” Rajas Tamas Octopus Methapor in Contemporary Painting Work

Gurita in English is called Octopus which often refers only to animals of the genus Octopus. This creation is based on the results of research on the octopus which is used as a symbolic brand icon to reveal the existence of the current social, cultural, economic and political realities. In interpreting the characteristics of the shape and nature of the Octopus, it is expressed through a metaphorical visual language to represent the value of rajas and tamas that permeates the human soul. This study aims to present visual aesthetic values and symbolic meanings through the processing of forms of abstraction, distortion and deformation, as an expression of the growing influence of global capitalism in people's lives which are dominated by the energy of guna rajas and guna tamas. The research method is carried out by observation, interviews, documentation and media reset as well as the stages of creation through exploration, improvisation and formation. The visualization of the work presents the complexity of lines, colors, shapes and textures by carrying out technical and coloring hybridization, in order to present meaningful forms which are symbolic representations of the rajas and tamas that dominate people's lives today. The concept of creation offered is a form of concern for the emergence of moral and moral degradation in society which has implications for the fading of ethical values, and a sense of humanity as contained in animal values which promote love and tolerance among others, which in Hinduism is known as term; mutual sharpening, compassion and care, sagilik, saguluk, salunglung sabayantaka, paras paros sarpanaya.It is not enough for this kind of concept to be offered only through works of art, but it really needs to be communicated in the wider social field, so that interactive and communicative dialogue occurs, while at the same time providing education and enlightenment, so as to create new awareness, so that we have the ability and strength to facing or overcoming current global issues.

Cross-domain semantic alignment: concrete concepts are more abstract than you think.

We can easily evaluate similarities between concepts within semantic domains, e.g. doctor and nurse, or violin and piano. Here, we show that people are also able to evaluate similarities across domains, e.g. aligning doctors with pianos and nurses with violins. We argue that understanding how people do this is important for understanding conceptual organization and the ubiquity of metaphorical language. We asked people to answer questions of the form 'If a nurse were an animal, they would be a(n) …' (Experiments 1 and 2) and asked them to explain the basis for their response (Experiment 1). People converged to a surprising degree (e.g. 20% answered 'cat'). In Experiment 3, we presented people with cross-domain mappings of the form 'If a nurse were an animal, they would be a cat' and asked them to indicate how good each mapping was. The results showed that the targets people chose and their goodness ratings of a given response were predicted by similarity along abstract semantic dimensions such as valence, speed and genderedness. Reliance on such dimensions was also the most common explanation for their responses. Altogether, we show that people can evaluate similarity between very different domains in predictable ways, suggesting either that seemingly concrete concepts are represented along relatively abstract dimensions (e.g. weak-strong) or that they can be readily projected onto these dimensions. This article is part of the theme issue 'Concepts in interaction: social engagement and inner experiences'.

Can visual language convey tactile experience? A study of the tactile compensation effect of visual language for online products.

There is a common phenomenon of tactile missing in online retail. How to realize consumer tactile compensation is a consensus problem in the field of e-commerce. More and more marketeers and scholars convey their ideas via visual display, but few researches have focused on the tactile compensatory effect of visual language. Study 1 collected data from nearly 13,000 online purchases to analyze the impact of haptic cues on sales in real online shopping platforms; Study 2 used a experimental research method to design three experimental groups: hand haptic cue group vs. Object haptic cue group vs. control group (N = 165) to investigate whether the main effect of haptic cues and the dual mediating effect of mental simulation held. Study 3 also adopted a simulated experimental research approach to design a two-factor group: 2 (haptic cue: hand vs. object) × 2 (product type: tactile functional product vs. tactile experiential product) (N = 198). To further explore whether the moderating effect of product type holds based on Study 2. Therefore, based on the visualization theory and mental simulation theory, and through a second-hand data experiment and two simulated experiments, this study confirmed that visual language did have a compensation effect on tactile missing specifically. Haptic cues in metaphorical visual language can actively compensate for consumers' tactile loss, thus affecting the purchase intention. Mental simulation plays a mediating role in the tactile compensation effect. Product type has a moderating effect, and the use of hand (object) haptic cues in metaphorical visual language in tactile functional products (tactile experiential products) can lead to a more active purchase intention. This study not only enriches the theoretical research on the tactile compensation effect of visual language, but also provides valuable management enlightenment for e-commerce enterprises to improve the effectiveness of online product display and online sensory marketing strategies.

Einbildungskraft (Imagination)

Einbildungskraft (imagination) is a multifaceted mental faculty in Goethe’s theoretical writings and poetic works that is non-systematic and rich in aporias. At work in both cognitive processes and artistic production, it becomes a defining concept in Goethe’s creative understanding of natural and aesthetic processes. Einbildungskraft serves as a faculty that presides over nature, the human mind, and the arts as a source of interdisciplinary knowledge. As a pre-noetic power, moreover, it also manifests the poietic force of language. By creatively expanding the Kantian distinction between the productive and reproductive imagination, Goethe theorizes a third kind of Einbildungskraft at work in poetic language with an internal law (Gesetzlichkeit) that “circumspectively surveys” the inner and outer worlds. As a kind of analogical thinking, this “umsichtige Einbildungskraft” (surveying imagination) participates in cognitive processes by actively elaborating thought, affect, vision, and memory. And as an artistic power, it mirrors in metaphorical language the organic forces of nature, which share the same principles of human life: synthesis, expansion, and transformation. According to Goethe, Einbildungskraft is the faculty responsible for shaping perceptual inputs, affects, memories, and mental images into artistic and verbal forms, thereby reconfiguring all the fragmented pieces of existence into an organic system that represents reality in its ontological essence.

Metaphorical language change is Self-Organized Criticality

Abstract One way to resolve the actuation problem of metaphorical language change is to provide a statistical profile of metaphorical constructions and generative rules with antecedent conditions. Based on arguments from the view of language as complex systems and the dynamic view of metaphor, this paper argues that metaphorical language change qualifies as a Self-Organized Criticality state and the linguistic expressions of a metaphor can be profiled as a fractal with spatio-temporal correlations. Synchronously, these metaphorical expressions self-organize into a self-similar, scale-invariant fractal that follows a power-law distribution; temporally, long range interdependence constrains the self-organization process by the way of transformation rules that are intrinsic of a language system. This argument is verified in the paper with statistical analyses of twelve randomly selected Chinese verb metaphors in a large-scale diachronic corpus.

Animal Metaphors in Indonesian and English

This paper is a contrastive semantic analysis exploring the concept of animal metaphors in Indonesian and English by means of three contrastive elements, i.e., the universality of form and meaning, the universality of meaning albeit different forms, and the element of distinctiveness or idiosyncrasy of each language. All data were obtained from Indonesian Idioms and Expressions, Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, Indonesian Proverbs Dictionary, and Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia. The data were classified and analysed based on the three contrastive elements. Subsequently, each element was scrutinised in terms of the rationality embedded therein. The results of careful analysis show that the universality of the form and meaning of animal metaphors in both languages (i.e., Indonesian and English) reflects the common thread of harmonisation of language expressions—although in some other points, the perception is completely of difference between Indonesian speakers and English ones and hence creates contrasting forms of linguistic expression. The distinctive element of metaphors in each language illustrates that other extra-linguistic elements, e.g., history, values, norms, customs, and to name a few, contribute greatly to the process of constructing language expressions.

Demystifying Bilingualism. How Metaphor Guides Research towards Mythification

Opinions on bilingualism have been as diverse as opposed among themselves throughout decades – while ideological notions have affected or defined certain approaches, it has become fundamental to acknowledge the process of transition: from old prejudices about the repercussions on a natural cognitive development to favoring the benefits gained by individuals involved in multilingual contexts. Demystifying Bilingualism illustrates several issues regarding the myths that have surrounded studies about the impact of bilingualism on cognition, from its ontological foundations, theory-building advances, and the role of metaphorical language into shaping these very myths.

Comprehending scientific metaphors in the bilingual brain: Evidence from event-related potentials.

While the processing mechanisms of novel and conventional metaphors were widely investigated in previous monolingual studies, little attention has been devoted to how metaphoric utterances are processed by the bilingual brain as well as how scientific context might modulate such processes. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), this paper investigates the way in which scientific metaphors are electrophysiologically processed in Chinese (L1) and English (L2), with the aim of investigating the different mechanisms for understanding metaphorical language in first (L1) and second (L2) languages. By time-locking the N400 and later LPC time windows, the research show how meaning integration differs between L1 and L2 at different stages when comprehending figurative language. We found that compared with Chinese scientific metaphors, English scientific metaphors elicited greater N400, smaller late positive component (LPC), and greater late negativity, and English literals elicited greater late negativity. Our findings suggest that the dynamics of processing figurative meaning in bilingual brains over time show a complex pattern, with language, context, inference and salience jointly modulating temporal dynamics and possible cerebral asymmetries, supporting the revised hierarchical model.