“The journey (the [filmic] narrative) is made by the traveler (the viewer) step by step, pebble by pebble, cue by cue.”Flashbacks in Film: A Cognitive and Multimodal Analysis is devoted to explaini...

This article examines the metaphors that are used to represent dementia in British tabloid newspapers over a ten-year period (2010–2019). The analysis takes a corpus-based approach to metaphor identification and analysis, utilizing in particular the corpus linguistic technique of collocation analysis. Metaphors are considered in terms of the ‘targets’ they frame, which include the following aspects of dementia: (i.) prevalence; (ii.) causes; (iii.) symptoms and prognosis; (iv.) lived experience; and (v.) responses. A range of metaphors are identified, with the tabloids (...) exhibiting a particular preference for metaphors which construct dementia as an agentive and violent entity and people with dementia as passive victims, and which foreground preventative responses to dementia such as pharmacological intervention and individual behavior change. It is argued that such metaphors have the potential to contribute to dementia stigma and place focus on preventing or eliminating dementia while backgrounding responses which may help people to “live well” with the syndrome in the here-and-now. Metaphors which frame dementia as a companion or which the experience of dementia as a journey are put forward as potentially less stigmatizing alternatives which might better reflect the particularities of this complex public health issue. (shrink)

Satirical news is often characterized as a hybrid genre that consists of three important communicative functions: it is (1) humoristic, (2) informative, and (3) evaluative. The Humoristic Metaphors in Satirical News (HMSN) typology demonstrates that metaphors can be utilized by satirists to express this hybridity by consisting of a combination of one or more of satire’s core communicative functions. Nevertheless, the underlying principles through which metaphors are capable of humorously explaining and/or criticizing current affairs are less clear. To broaden our (...) understanding of how metaphorical humor is used in satirical news to fulfill these functions, we integrate the HMSN typology with the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH). The GTVH assumes that all verbal humor must draw from six interdependent Knowledge Resources (KRs). Through a content analysis of metaphorical humor used across various American satirical news shows, we investigated how these KRs are used to fulfill satire’s core communicative functions across the various metaphorical sub-types of the HSMN typology. We found that: (1) some KRs can help fulfill the communicative function(s) of metaphorical jokes, while (2) some KRs constrain the options available for the expression of certain communicative function(s) or other KRs. (shrink)

Concern for global warming, climate change and pollution has grown in recent years, with countries across the world facing natural disasters on unprecedented scales. The communication of environmental protection is therefore a necessary area of enquiry, especially from a Conceptual Metaphor Theory perspective. The present article explores (1) how the themes of global warming, climate change, pollution and activism are conceptualized in a corpus of 51 noncommercial advertisements, (2) the interaction of metonymy with metaphor, (3) the distribution across verbal and (...) visual modes of metaphoric source and target domains, and (4) how value is evoked. Findings show that half of the corpus frames environmental themes through source domains such as weapons, predators and natural disasters. The other half triggers incongruous mappings, such as between concrete entities, and relies on metonymic processes of inference to access the main rhetorical message. Among the most frequent metonymies, CAUSE-EFFECT and CATEGORY FOR SALIENT PROPERTY highlight the negative effects of the represented phenomena. Multimodality usually occurs within source and/or target domains rather than across the metaphoric mapping. Most of the campaigns project mixed value, where a negative evaluation of a theme is accompanied by a positive message, inviting the audience to take action. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This study proposes an operational approach to a metaphorical framing analysis using large-scale data. We conducted a case analysis of how war metaphors are framed to address various societal issues in a corpus of public speeches by Hong Kong government officials. By investigating patterns of lexical choices under the source domain of WAR and the underlying reasons for the source-target domain mappings (i.e. Mapping Principles), we found that the target domain of social issues in Hong Kong is primarily conceptualized (...) in terms of a combat frame, and governmental issues are primarily talked about in terms of a protection frame, both of which are positively evaluated. Additionally, economic issues are primarily addressed in terms of a strategy frame, which is both positively and negatively evaluated. We show that analyzing the Mapping Principles of these conceptual metaphors captures the “selection” process of framing at the dimensions of frame frequency and frame sentiment, allowing for a principled way to propose a metaphorical framing analysis in corpora-based studies. The proposed approach enriches Critical Discourse Analysis studies of metaphorical framing and bridges the link between metaphor analysis at a conceptual level and framing analysis at a communication level. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

I consider poetry composition from both the “inside” view of a poet and the “outside” view of a cognitive psychologist. From the perspective of a psychologist, I review behavioral and neural studies of the reception and generation of poetry, with emphasis on metaphor and symbolism. Taking the perspective of a poet, I discuss how the seeds for a poem may arise. Finally, I consider the prospects for future developments in a field of computational neurocognitive poetics.

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerfulRita Dove(David Streitfeld, Washington Post, “Laureate for a New Age,” March 19, 1993).The genesis for this special issue arose in a rethin...

This paper aims to uncover the underlying metaphorical expressions regarding the importance of love to human life in English and Vietnamese poetry based on Conceptual Metaphor Theory, which suggests that metaphor is based on human thought as well as on language. For metaphor identification, the authors use a five-step procedure based on Pragglejaz Group’s method for metaphorical expressions and a self-proposed three-step procedure for conceptual metaphors. The findings reveal that love is metaphorically expressed to have a considerable influence on both (...) the physical and mental aspects of human life. This paper is also a comparative investigation showing both similarities and differences in the love-life metaphorical expressions between the two languages. The similarities are explained by the same grounding of metaphor-embodiment and the universality of conceptual metaphors. The differences are attributed to cultural distinction. (shrink)

In this paper we examine the effect of two cognitive variables, Semantic Neighborhood Density and Interpretive Diversity, in first, distinguishing between literary (poetic) and nonliterary metaphor, and second, in determining what makes for a good metaphor. Analyses of items taken from a widely used set ofmetaphor norms indicated that while literary and nonliterary metaphor did not differ in many ways, the poetic items tended to 1) contain concepts that came from a more dense semantic space, 2) contain topic and vehicles (...) that came from equally dense semantic space, 3) suggest a greater number of possible interpretations as the topic and vehicle became more semantically dissimilar, and 4) evoke more emergent interpretations (i.e., less likely to be a characteristic of the topic or vehicle when considered separately). In addition, we found one way that the two variables were related to metaphor goodness: better metaphors were those with vehicles that came from increasingly less dense semantic space. This correlation was only reliable for literary, poetic items, presumably because these items were taken from a richer semantic environment suggesting many more alternative possibilities. (shrink)

Using poetic metaphors in the Serbian language, we identified systematic variations in the impact of fluid and crystalized intelligence on comprehension of metaphors that varied in rated aptness and familiarity. Overall, comprehension scores were higher for metaphors that were high rather than low in aptness, and high rather than low in familiarity. A measure of crystalized intelligence was a robust predictor of comprehension across the full range of metaphors, but especially for those that were either relatively unfamiliar or more apt. (...) In contrast, individual differences associated with fluid intelligence were clearly found only for metaphors that were low in aptness. Superior verbal knowledge appears to be particularly important when trying to find meaning in novel metaphorical expressions, and also when exploring the rich interpretive potential of apt metaphors. The broad role of crystalized intelligence in metaphor comprehension is consistent with the view that metaphors are largely understood using semantic integration processes continuous with those that operate in understanding literal language. (shrink)

Zeugma (“The storm sank my boat and my dreams”) is a well-recognized figure of speech whose mechanism of operation is less well understood. We suggest treating zeugma as a breach of syntactic iconicity: the syntactic form of the coordinative construction statement implies an equivalence or semantic proximity between the two objects of the verb (boat and dreams), while the objects supplied are semantically very distant. Unlike nominal metaphors and similes, in zeugmas two metaphorically-related, nonsymmetrical objects are put in syntactically symmetrical (...) positions. This feature, the breach of iconicity, registers as a surprise, an effect wholly different from that of metaphors and similes. Seeing zeugma in these terms makes it possible not just to explain its functioning beyond broad pronouncements about yoking together different items, but to tease apart syntactic and semantic factors that contribute to the level of the breach of iconicity and subsequently to the zeugma’s strength. Moreover, understanding zeugmas as a surprising breach of iconicity leads to the question of how this breach may be accommodated or made sense of. In the second part of the essay, we introduce three types of accommodation strategies, each with a distinct focus: the language, the objects, and the speaker. (shrink)

Poetry is a process. While people typically refer to poems as textual objects, our experience of poetry is inherently embodied and enacted, meaning that we experience poems as events that we contextualize as gestalt representations. We experience metaphors, too, as processes, which arise from experiential gestalts, that extend gestalt structures and lay the conceptual foundation for our experience of the world. This article argues that, like metaphors, poetic gestalts can be mapped onto other experiences to help people navigate their worlds. (...) While this kind of poetic thought has largely been considered by scholars to have existed only since the emergence of the modern human mind sometime in the last 60,000 years, the author suggests that poetic thought likely arose prior to modern cognition, and may have in fact given rise to it. A crucial aspect of the embodied and enactive approach to poetry outlined in the article is that people’s experience of poetry is fundamentally contextual and emotional. Furthermore, because emotions are a primary source of meaning, our emotional responses to poetry make it a useful tool for extending our own conceptual apparatuses, enhancing emotional intelligence, and for generating shared values. (shrink)

This article tackles the tricky problem of identifying metaphors in language that includes prepositions. We demonstrate how the Procedure for Identifying Metaphorical Scenes (PIMS) reflected and evoked by linguistic expressions in discourse, Johansson Falck & Okonski, accepted) can be used to identify metaphorical relations reflected in language. The scenes evoked correspond to conceptualizations that are directly attested by the specific linguistic constructions in the sentences under analysis. We present two studies that test the reliability of the procedure and the sensitivity (...) of the tool for prepositions. Results show that PIMS provides a simple procedure that increases both reliability and sensitivity for prepositional constructions. By focusing on the scenes evoked by linguistic constructions, the procedure highlights the contextual meanings of the constructions and the specific experiences that they code. (shrink)

We carried out a systematic review of psycholinguistic, empirical, quantitative studies on verbal irony use and individual differences (i.e. psychological, not demographic, traits that significantly differentiate individuals). Out of 5,967 publications screened, 29, comprising 35 studies in total, were included. Following a qualitative content analysis, six thematic clusters were identified, representing areas of research in individual differences in irony use: (a) psychological well-being, (b) personality traits, (c) humor-related traits, (d) cultural factors, (e) social skills, and (f) cognitive factors. The results (...) of the studies in each cluster are summarized and conclusions for further research are presented. In particular, the systematic review suggests that irony and sarcasm should be clearly delineated as separate, yet related phenomena due to differing patterns of correlations with specific individual differences. Additionally, significant methodological heterogeneity between the studies suggests the need for greater standardization of irony use measures. (shrink)

This study examined the performances of three groups of participants in interpreting metaphors in three different conditions: congruent gesture-prime conditions, opposite gesture-prime conditions, and no-prime conditions. In congruent gesture-prime conditions, each metaphor was preceded by the congruent gestural representation of metaphor schema. In opposite gesture-prime conditions, each metaphor was preceded by the opposite gestural representation of metaphor schema. The results showed that participants of congruent gesture-prime conditions had the best performance in interpreting metaphors, while participants of opposite gesture-prime conditions had (...) the worst performance. It is suggested that metaphor schema is an important part of metaphorical meaning of a metaphor. Therefore, when this part of meaning is activated by a gestural prime, metaphor comprehension is facilitated. Furthermore, when a schema is used to metaphorically describe a concept or an event, that schema and the neural network that represents it become one part of a larger interconnected neural network that represents the meaning of the metaphor. It could mean that the activation of one part of it could facilitate the activation of the whole of the network. Finally, it is emphasized that a gesture that depicts the schema of a metaphor is in fact the embodied realization of that metaphor. (shrink)

This study investigates metaphor in its role to mediate concepts in academic textbooks and promote content understanding in the English-medium instruction (EMI) context. Of particular interest is how the language of the discourse affected and possibly hindered metaphor comprehension. Drawing on the theoretical insights found in sociocultural theory and cognitive linguistics, a stance was assumed in which language is treated as embodied and contextual, and verbalizing thoughts (languaging) assists understanding. Three pairs of Japanese students with varying English proficiency levels were (...) invited to participate in online group-based think-aloud protocols where they read and discussed selected paragraphs taken from two social and two natural science textbooks written in English. After accessing the participants’ general knowledge about the main topic of each paragraph, content understanding was accounted for in form of prompts during the think-aloud sessions and a 3-week delayed posttest. In total, over 8 hours of video data were collected, transcribed, and treated with the metaphor identification procedure MIPVU. Qualitative inspections of charged moments in discourse pinpoint metaphor as an important tool for compressing abstract entities or processes into meaningful, dense bundles of information. Participants also created their own analogies and expanded on found metaphoric expressions in textbooks when attempting to make sense of abstract phenomena in science. Further, this study confirms that the lack of English proficiency or schematic knowledge can result in non-understanding, misunderstanding, or partial understanding of metaphoric expressions which has implications for the EMI context. (shrink)

A scoping review was conducted to explore the metaphors and related expressions older adults use to describe extremely stressful events that may lead to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Complex PTSD (CPTSD), Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD), or Adjustment Disorder (AjD). Relevant databases from psychology, gerontology, and related fields were searched. In addition, relevant references found in included papers were considered. Inclusion criteria were: qualitative study, sample of older adults (age 65+), and focus on maladaptive rather than adaptive psychological aspects. Eleven studies (...) focusing on PTSD, 5 on CPTSD, 13 on PGD, and 10 on AjD were included. Metaphors and other expressions related to extremely stressful events were then extracted and analyzed. Multiple linguistic expressions to describe extremely stressful events and stress-related symptoms were identified. Metaphors and related expressions often referred to the body and the theme of moving on with one’s life. (shrink)