This book explores the cognitively-oriented approach tometaphor studies, comparing it critically to other contemporary paradigms ofmetaphor in meaning. It incorporates cutting edge empirical data.In ...both semantics and cognitive linguistics, metaphor has gained central statusover the past decades, chiefly on account of Lakoff and Johnson's 1980 book Metaphors We Live By, which has become astandard point of reference.Rather than advocating a 'pick and mix' combination of cognitive attitudes withtheory and data from other paradigms, the book argues for the methodologicallyreflective comparison of theory traditions and acknowledgement of theirstrengths and weaknesses. This criticalreflection on metaphor is an essential read for students of metaphor at anadvanced undergraduate or postgraduate level. Each chapter outlines areas for further reading and research, and thebook is built around data drawn from a multilingual research corpus ofmetaphors compiled from existing research, other corpora and internet data.
People often think, feel, and behave metaphorically according to conceptual metaphor theory. There are normative sources of support for this theory, but individual differences have received scant ...attention. This is surprising because people are likely to differ in the frequency with which they use metaphors and, therefore, the frequency with which they experience the costs and benefits of metaphoric thinking. To investigate these ideas, a 5-study program of research (total N = 532) was conducted. Study 1 developed and validated a Metaphor Usage Measure (MUM), finding that people were fairly consistent in their tendencies toward literal thought and language on the one hand versus metaphoric thought and language on the other. These differences were, in turn, consequential. Although metaphor usage predicted susceptibility to metaphor transfer effects (Studies 2 and 3), it was also linked to higher levels of emotional understanding (Studies 4 and 5). The findings provide support for several key premises of conceptual metaphor theory in the context of a new measure that can be used to track the consequences of metaphoric thinking.
The article examines the metaphor power related to the impact of public political speeches on the audience. The purpose of the study is to identify the potentially hidden speech impact of public ...discourse in order to understand the intentions of the speech messages authors. To that end, the aspects of metaphors under analysis include their density in the text, their intensity, functions and positions in the compositional structure of the text. The study tests the method of comprehensive analysis of metaphor power, which is based on the calculation of the corresponding indices MDI (Metaphor density index), MII (Metaphor intensity index), MfTI (Metaphor functional typology index) and MStI (Metaphor structural index). Each index is based on a mathematical formula: MDI reflects the average number of metaphors per a hundred words of the text; MII demonstrates the medium intensity of metaphors (new or conventional metaphors dominating the text); MfTI shows which functions are mainly performed by metaphors in the text; MStI represents the compositional parts of the text where the metaphors are concentrated. The hypothesis about the possibility of using such quantitative methods is tested on the material of three texts of public speeches by the political leaders of Russia, USA and China. The analysis shows that the greatest speech impact is achieved by the speech of the President of China distinguished by the highest metaphor density (4.07), and, the values of MfTI (2.23) MStI (2.51) indicate the intention to restructure the socio-political concepts, as well as to introduce a new content into his countrys domestic and foreign policy. This method for identifying the metaphor power can be used to investigate the potential impact of political speeches and can become an important tool for analyzing various aspects of the metaphor use in discourse.
Flower Worlds Mathiowetz, Michael; Turner, Andrew
05/2021
eBook
The recognition of Flower Worlds is one of the most significant
breakthroughs in the study of Indigenous spirituality in the
Americas. These worlds are solar and floral spiritual domains that
are ...widely shared among both pre-Hispanic and contemporary Native
cultures in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. Flower Worldsis
the first volume to bring together a diverse range of scholars to
create a truly multidisciplinary understanding of Flower Worlds.
During the last thirty years, archaeologists, art historians,
ethnologists, Indigenous scholars, and linguists have emphasized
the antiquity and geographical extent of similar Flower World
beliefs among ethnic and linguistic groups in the New World. Flower
Worlds are not simply ethereal, otherworldly domains, but rather
they are embodied in lived experience, activated, invoked, and
materialized through ritual practices, expressed in verbal and
visual metaphors, and embedded in the use of material objects and
ritual spaces. This comprehensive book illuminates the origins of
Flower Worlds as a key aspect of religions and histories among
societies in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. It also
explores the role of Flower Worlds in shaping ritual economies,
politics, and cross-cultural interaction among Indigenous peoples.
Flower Worlds reaches into multisensory realms that extend
back at least 2,500 years, offering many different disciplines,
perspectives, and collaborations to understand these domains.
Today, Flower Worlds are expressed in everyday work and lived
experiences, embedded in sacred geographies, and ritually practiced
both individually and in communities. This volume stresses the
importance of contemporary perspectives and experiences by opening
with living traditions before delving into the historical
trajectories of Flower Worlds, creating a book that melds
scientific and humanistic research and emphasizes Indigenous
voices. Contributors: Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos, James M.
Córdova, Davide Domenici, Ángel González López, Kelley Hays-Gilpin,
Michael D. Mathiowetz, Cameron L. McNeil, Felipe S. Molina,
Johannes Neurath, John M. D. Pohl, Alan R. Sandstrom, David Delgado
Shorter, Karl A. Taube, Andrew D. Turner, Lorena Vázquez Vallín,
Dorothy Washburn
Aristotle is the first philosopher in the Western tradition to engage philosophically with the phenomenon of metaphor. Despite his pioneering role I will argue here that his account of metaphor has ...been widely misrepresented or simply misunderstood. This thesis reconstructs his theory of metaphor against the background of contemporary philosophy of metaphor. I proceed in three steps. Firstly, I develop an interpretation of Aristotle’s remarks about proper and deviant words which lays the foundation for Aristotelian metaphors. In a second step I apply these findings to the account of metaphor he develops in Poetics 21. I argue that Aristotle provides a consistent classification of metaphor against a majority of scholars who think he does not, that his account is not dependent on the notion of substitution, and that he does not defend a semantic theory of metaphor. Finally, in my third chapter I make a fresh start at a theory of metaphor in Aristotle, building primarily on his account of similarity as well as his discussion of ways of seeing a portrait in the Poetics and De memoria. I conclude that Aristotle unites Gricean and noncognitivist strands in his thinking about metaphor, accounting both for the communicative as well as the associative and creative side of metaphor.
Abstract This paper examines the conceptualizations of endometriosis-related pain by combining Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) with a corpus-based approach. Endometriosis is a complex and ...multi-faceted condition, affecting one in ten people assigned female at birth and bearing serious consequences on one’s physical, social and psychological wellbeing. Especially in cases when the pain is invisible, communication resorts to violent metaphors implying harm, physical damage, or fight. These metaphors are thought to increase the likelihood of eliciting an empathetic response in the interlocutor. However, such narratives may be detrimental at the individual level (e.g., increasing pain catastrophizing) and at the community level (e.g., overshadowing the capacity of communities to construct and use metaphors in alternative ways). Therefore, this study presents an initial exploratory analysis of metaphorical source domains in descriptions of endometriosis-related pain written in online, freely accessible blogs. Metaphorical expressions were manually annotated in a sample of KWICs basing on the MIPVU procedure and thematically categorized. The adoption of a bottom-up and top-down approach within a qualitative framework allowed an empirically grounded analysis of candidate source domains, which calls for further quantitative testing.
Metaphor has recently been reconceptualised as a fundamental part of the human conceptual system. It can hence be expressed in language but also in other modalities and media of communication, ...including gesture and body language, sound and music, and film and visuals. In spite of this theoretical landslide, however, the wide range of nonverbal metaphor and its processing has neither been empirically investigated on the same scale nor with the same rigour as metaphor in language. The overarching goal of this book is to report on the findings of a research program aimed at exploiting the vast cognitive linguistic and psycholinguistic expertise on metaphor in language for a new, behaviourally founded approach to the structure and processes of metaphor in one of these nonverbal manifestations, namely static visuals.
PDF
