Use Of Animal Metaphors Research Articles

Unpacking colonialist and racist ideologies in historical German lexicons: A critical analysis of the Afrika Hand-Lexikon (1885) and similar reference books

Abstract This article This article has been adapted from the author’s master’s thesis as part of completion of the European Master in Lexicography (EMLex). delves into the impact of colonialist and racist ideologies as manifested in lexicons, with a special focus on the Afrika Hand-Lexikon (1885) and other lexicons from the German colonialist period (1884–1914). By examining the front matter and selected entries from these lexicons, the article uncovers the origins of racial hierarchies and scrutinizes dehumanization tactics, including the use of animal metaphors. Moreover, the article provides historical context to understand the language and rhetorical devices employed by lexicographers such as Paul Heichen in the Afrika Hand-Lexikon. Additionally, it emphasizes the pivotal role that colonialist ideologies played in influencing the ideologies embraced by the Nazi regime in its war of extermination. Through this analysis, the article sheds light on the historical significance of lexicons in perpetuating and legitimizing derogatory language, while also underscoring their relevance in comprehending the broader socio-political impact of colonialism and racism.

Exploring the Structural Metaphors in the Daily Conversations of Persian Speakers in Afghanistan

This research paper explores the use of structural metaphors in the daily conversations of Persian speakers and examines how these metaphors reveal deeper human experiences. In this kind of metaphor, a notion from one area is frequently utilized to create another (debate and controversy, which is a subjective idea but has a cultural element), such as war as a physical or cultural phenomena. Persian daily speech is known for using imagery and symbols, and animal metaphors are a significant aspect of this tradition. This paper analyses war metaphors used in the daily conversation of people in Afghanistan and delves into the meaning and symbolism behind each metaphor. The study was conducted using both field research and library research techniques. Each metaphor was analysed in detail, with a focus on the conflict and debate themes, their characteristics, and how they are used to convey deeper meanings. Through this analysis, this paper aims to uncover the use of animal metaphors as a means of revealing a deeper understanding of the metaphors in the Persian context.

Metaphors We Love By: The Shift from Animal to Fruit Metaphors in Classical Arabic Ghazal

ABSTRACT Classical Arabic poetry is replete with animal and fruit metaphors commonly used for endearment purposes. The comparative analysis of love metaphors in classical ghazal shows, however, a shift in the poetics of love from the use of animal metaphors in Badi poetry to the occurrence of fruit imagery in Bedouin ghazal. Based on a selection of classical Arabic love poetry, the paper traces the journey of love and sexuality to illustrate the conceptual change from the prevalence of the gazelle metaphor in Bedouin ghazal of pre- and early Islam times to the emergence of fruit metaphors in Badi poetry of the Abbasid era. Evidenced in poetry, the metaphorical shit mirrors a change in the portrayal of women, who cease to be conceived as wild preys, fearing and fleeing male hunters to become exotic ripe fruits, waiting for the male to pick. Seemingly fortuitous, the shift in love imagery is reminiscent of sociocultural changes that help redefine the poetics of love in classical Arabic literature and inform gender dynamics in medieval Arabia.

TIGER, LOUSE, COW, AND SO ON: ABOUT THE ANIMALISATION OF COVID-19

"In spring 2020, the world was engulfed by the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and its aroused disease COVID-19 pandemic, bringing in a variety of changes (including new realities and hitherto unprecedented restrictions) and initially causing a scare in people with how unexpected, wide-spread, unpredictable, and threatening it was. Different languages use a lot of similar metaphors for COVID-19, WAR being the most popular, and war, by definition, also implies an enemy. The conceptual metaphor of an ENEMY is often made more specific through the use of ANIMAL metaphors – in other words, through animalisation. COVID-19 is portrayed as a formidable enemy by comparing it to dry-land, aquatic, aerial predators (predator, tiger, lion, wolf, snake, eagle, shark, and so on), also by accentuating its claws, bite, devouring, or running wild; it is also often described by a pesky, omnipresent enemy that is hard to beat but is not necessarily so dangerous by using metaphors of insects (mosquito, louse, tick, wasp, cockroach, and so on). In turn, the fact that COVID-19 as an enemy has been beaten, subdued is evident in the use of metaphors of various domestic animals (dog, horse, cow, goldfish), as well as rabbit. Many of the conceptual metaphors of ANIMALS reviewed here are similar across most of the languages; however, some of them are ambivalent (in European languages, tiger signifies COVID-19 as an enemy, while in Indian comic books show a tigress as the Superwoman’s sidekick in her fight against the coronavirus; in many languages, the snake stands for COVID-19 as such, while a graphic example from memes to depict COVID-19 in Jordanian social media websites shows a snake (the symbol of medicine; a vaccine) defeating a bat – the symbol of the coronavirus)."

The Language of Cryptocurrencies: Frequent Words, Neologisms, Acronyms, and Metaphors

Cryptocurrencies have been the latest technological revolution in the world of finances. Although this revolution has not been completed yet, and as a payment method is still limited, their popularity has vastly increased since 2020 due to speculation about their value. As in any other field, any revolution in economics, technology, education, or society implies another parallel language revolution. This is how the introduction of cryptocurrencies has led to the emergence of some new forms of language. This quantitative case study aims to analyze the characteristics of that crypto language and identify some of the most usual words, acronyms, metaphors, and other popular expressions within this field. To achieve this purpose, a glossary published by the company Bit2Me was used along with the Google search bar, which provided the number of appearances on the net. Results showed that some neologisms had been created, acronyms prevailed over some words and expressions, and the use of animal metaphors was a usual practice. These results contribute to the field of electronic finances by showing that the community of cryptocurrency users have created their own linguistic rules to communicate among them with the use of specific words, as detailed in this paper.

Analyzing Iago's Speech in Shakespeare's Othello

This paper aims to reveal and analyze Iago's speech in Shakespeare's Othello. Iago's use of animal metaphors in Othello is analyzed through Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). Moreover, Iago's words in the play are connected to race, gender and identity and analyzed through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Finally, Iago's rhetorical discourse is analyzed through Rhetorical Theory to examine his use of rhetorical devices such as rhetorical questions. The findings of this study show that Iago's use of animal metaphors in the play is to dehumanize and degrade other characters. Further, Iago is able to alienate Othello because of his different identity and different color from the Venetian society. What's more, Iago has shown misogynistic attitudes toward women through the course of the play. In addition, Iago shows an exceptional ability in his rhetoric. He manipulates most of the characters in the play and was able to deceive all of them. It can be concluded, then, that Iago's use of animal metaphors is conceptualized and connected to his cognitive mind. Moreover, Iago's racist language in the play reflects the racist attitudes toward 'non-white' people in Shakespeare's time. Finally, Iago uses different rhetorical techniques such as rhetorical questions to manipulate other characters which shows how language can be exploited to achieve negative impact on others.

Species Thinking: Animals, Women, and Literary Tropes in Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

This essay examines how Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman charts women’s vexed relationships to the conceptual categories of the human and the animal in eighteenth-century writing. It argues that Wollstonecraft’s tactical use of animal metaphors should be understood in the context of “species thinking,” a mode of thinking that starkly differentiates humans from other animals in order to champion the soul, reason, and language as quintessentially human faculties. The analysis foregrounds how—as Wollstonecraft draws from the modern species concept in order to make a progressive argument about gender equality—she relegates animals to an inferior moral status.

Rhetoric in Tooth and Claw: Animals, Language, Sensation

Rhetoric in Tooth and Claw: Animals, Language, Sensation

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.

Representations of Xenophobia and Animalisation in Zebra Crossing, Zoo City and Wolf, Wolf

SummaryThis article explores the depiction of xenophobia and animalisation in three recent South African novels to determine whether these narratives offer ways of reimagining relations with others. It is specifically interested in the depiction of encounters with those dehumanised by xenophobic discourse as well as the ways in which animals figure in these texts. The texts under discussion are: Meg Vandermerwe’s Zebra Crossing (2013), Lauren Beukes’s Zoo City (2010) and Eben Venter’s Wolf, Wolf (2013). All three novels, in unusual ways, engage with xenophobia and employ animals, animal metaphors and animalised humans in their narratives. All trouble the boundaries between self and other and centre bodies as the place from which relations with others are conducted. This article will focus on the descriptions of African migrants in these texts, and the manner in which they are animalised. It will also question the extent to which writing embodied others – be they animal or foreigner – remains a way of writing about the embodied self. Finally, this article will consider whether the use of animal metaphors disrupts humanist exhortations against xenophobia.

Illogic and polemic: Thecoq-à-l’âneduring the Wars of Religion*

This article seeks to show how the genre of the coq-a-l’âne created by Clement Marot regained popularity at the end of the sixteenth century in the midst of the Wars of Religion. These poems are usually anonymous, composed by members of one or another of the three warring groups (Catholics, Protestants, and ‘Politiques’). They create an impression of absurdity that is nonetheless militant. Characterized by a loose structure and the use of animal metaphors, they employ a form of partisan rhetoric that is both aggressive and comic. The vogue for coq-a-l’âne, which were frequently set to music and sung, can also be seen as proof that the religious and political arguments were by now exhausted: all that remained was the desire to ridicule one's enemy, to destroy him with word games. This strategy was typical of French writing in the late Renaissance: when used in militant and comic texts the vernacular could reach out to the entire nation.

Dehumanization of the “Other”: Animal Metaphors of Defeated Enemies in the New Kingdom Military Texts

From the earliest periods, the Egyptians represented foreigners in submissive positions, a propagandist motif reflecting either true Egyptian domination or magic thinking meant to cast its spell on reality. The dominance over foreign enemies was portrayed in a variety of contexts: reliefs on temple walls, statuary, various artifacts, texts, etc., using brutal, aggressive, hostile, and humiliating imagery. This article proposes that the use of animal metaphors supported the stereotypical idea of Egyptian supremacy over their enemies and also played an important role in psychological warfare during the New Kingdom as the traditional enemies of Egypt are depicted as weak, naive, and easily controlled. Even they are not worthy to live as they represent a threat to MAat. The author follows a three-tiered analysis: zoological identification and literary perception of the animal, the dynamic relation between the specific animal metaphor and its literary adaptation, and finally the application of the (animal) metaphor within its original context, i.e., the recorded texts of specific wars in its historical and strategic context.

Metaphoric Topicality in Femi Osofisan’s Drama

This paper examines the functional and the significant role of metaphors in literary works. It discusses the centrality of metaphors as a dominant literary device consciously deployed by Femi Osofisan to project the theme of oppression, dehumanization, social injustice and poverty in his plays. The paper focuses on the use of animal and predatory metaphors in Osofisan’s plays to launch an offensive literary attack on the rich and the ruling elite in the society who use their privileged positions to brazenly oppress and brutalize the poor and the downtrodden. The paper, on the other hand, examines the appropriate use of animal metaphors to enlighten and educate the poor on their precarious condition as preys in the hands of the carnivorous ruling class. Finally, the paper discusses the settings and the titles of Osofisan’s plays, the quest motif and the traditional modes as metaphors for oppression.

Animal Pedagogy: The Origin of ‘Man’ in Rousseau and Herder

Animal metaphors and examples in texts of Rousseau and Herder appear as either ideal or abject ancestors and are thereby assimilated into the history of man. In spite of their differences, for both Rousseau and Herder, men become civilised by eating animals. And, their use of animal metaphors and illustrations belie the very distinction between man and animal that their invocation seeks to establish.

Of Rats and Men: The Homosexual's Becoming-Animal in Antonio Roig's Autobiographical Writing

The name of Antonio Roig is by now inextricably linked in Spain to the controversy which, during the years of the Transition, followed the publication of his three autobiographical works, in which the author came out as a gay priest: Todos los parques no son un paraíso (memoriasde un sacerdote) (1977); Variaciones sobre un tema de Orestes (diario, 1975–1977) (1978), and Vidente en rebeldía: un proceso en la Iglesia (1979). An ostracized Carmelite living in London in the early 1970s, Roig writes at the margins of a number of reified or 'molar' subjective positions: those of nationality, of masculinity and sexuality. This paper aims to show that behind the essentialist ('confessional') mode which permeates the author's autobiographical trilogy, there is in it a truly transgressive potential towards the deterritorialization of identity which queercritics so far have not paid enough attention to and which is in the current 'post-political' climate (Slavoj Zizek) particularly relevant. The article proposes an anti-humanist, anti-essentialistand anti-homophobic reading of Roig. Drawing on a comparison between Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's idea of 'becoming-animal' (as expounded in, among other sources, Kafka and A Thousand Plateaus) and Roig's recurrent use of animal metaphors to refer to his experience asa gay man, it aims to demonstrate that Roig's uses of subjectivity cannot be understood unless we take into consideration the overall undermining of ontology and of the traditional categories of identity which Deleuze and Guattari's 'schizo-analysis' puts forward.

The Continuum encyclopedia of animal symbolism in art

The famous animal tale of the six blind men and the elephant, in which each of the blind men describes the elephant differently, depending on the part of the creature touched, has been interpreted in ways nearly as varied as the blind men's descriptions. In each of these various interpretations, the story demonstrates the use of animal metaphors to express important issues. As Claude Ltvy-Strauss famously said: are good to think. The focus of the encyclopedia is on animals and their symbolism in diverse world cultures and in different eras of human history. Most entries on particular animals begin with brief zoological information, which includes the animal's scientific name and classification as well as its range, habitat, and behavior. Main, general entries on cultural, chronological and geographical areas include cross-references to specific cultures discussed in greater detail. Other broader entries address the significance of animals in their own environments (e.g., architecture of animals, tools used by animals), and still others deal with animals in the human sphere (e.g., pet animals, zoo). The ways that people think about animals and what people do to and with animals as a result are discussed in more theoretical entries, such as anomalous animal and complimentary duality. Some entries deal with the ways in which animals are depicted (composition, X-ray images). The work concludes with a Bibliography, and Index of Names, and an Appendix of Animal Taxonomy.

FJER OM MULEN VED MORGENGRY: Om brugen af dyremetaforer i det danske politi

Lars Holmberg: The Use of Animal Metaphors
 in the Danish Police
 From within the framework of international
 research on the police, especially the notion
 of “real policework” and the categorisation
 of citizens, this article discusses the views on
 society held by the Danish police. The population
 of Denmark is percieved by the police
 to be divided between “customers” (i.e. criminals)
 and “good Danish citizens”. The
 border between these categories is maintained
 partly by applying animal metaphors
 to the customers, thereby strengthening the
 notion of criminality as being of animal nature.
 The article discusses the use of metaphors
 and the hierarchy that is revealed in police
 notions not only of society but of the
 police organisation as well. The last part of
 the article deals with the tasks of the
 “community police”, their marginalized position
 in the police organization, and the special
 relationship they share with their clients.
 It is argued that the practice of the community
 policemen has a significant impact on
 their views on crime-related issues, and that
 a change of practice might have considerable
 effect on both the views and the work of the
 police as a whole.