Review of Cognitive Linguistics. Published under the auspices of the Spanish Cognitive Linguistics Association - Volume 23, Issue 1, 2025

Abstract

The paper explores the creative combination of metaphors, both complex and mixed. The data for the study are drawn from political discourse concerning the target concept of crisis. Building on the argument that constructional parameters facilitate metaphor clustering, the paper also focuses on adjectival constructions. The general claim that constructional parameters and figurative meaning are interdependent is thus supported. It is shown that as complex and mixed metaphors are created, they both reveal and emphasize the speakers’ political ideologies.

Abstract

How metaphors are comprehended and their pragmatic effects have long been of interest (Colston, 2019; Gibbs, 2017; Gibbs & Colston, 2012). Attending to the varied constructions where metaphors appear has also advanced our understanding (Athanasiadou, 2017). How metaphors in extra-linguistic mediums has been of particular interest of late, as have the import of embodied simulations (Bergen, 2012; Cienki & Muller, 2008; Forceville & Urios-Aparisi, 2009). But these explorations outside of language and inside the body have left some bits relatively unattended. Metaphors and their host constructions can be embedded into an array of language genres. These also bring their own idiosyncratic influences on metaphor cognition. Moreover, the target domain content that metaphors invoke adds to this complex mixture. And metaphors can be layered within metaphors. This paper presents a tour of just some of the immense fractalesque complexity invoked when we look at the full richness of metaphorical meaning.

Abstract

This article provides a detailed analysis of multimodal metaphor by means of a case study which focuses on the contemporary art project, ‘Laboratory of Dilemmas’ (Venice Biennale 2017), by George Drivas. The analysis focuses on multimodal metaphors which instantiate the source concept of labyrinth, utilizing constructs from Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Critical Metaphor Analysis and Multimodal Metaphor Analysis within a more encompassing framework of Contemporary Art Criticism. The present study aims to define properties of multimodal metaphors, i.e. their forms, concepts and usage, reveal conceptualizations of both the creator and the spectators-analysts of a system of multimodal metaphors, and clarify key contexts, such as embodied, cultural, and ideological, which influence their production, comprehension, impact and analysis. According to the analysis proposed, the multimodal metaphors affect the spectators very deeply, engaging their mental, emotional, multisensory and bodily responses to ideological dilemmas that are prompted by the current refugee migration.

Abstract

This is a corpus-based study with data from football fans’ comments on Facebook, which seeks to explore the contribution of metaphor to the construction of collective identity. The main question it addresses is the following: in as much as collectivity is constructed by typical means, e.g., the use of the first person plural and analogous expressions, what is it that a metaphor attributes to an already constructed collectivity? Furthermore, as the shared love of the team is considered to be the basis of a football fans’ group formation, this study also explores the role of emotion in the emergence of metaphor.

Abstract

According to the Temporal Focus Hypothesis, people’s orientations of sagittal spatiotemporal mappings are conditioned by their characteristic patterns of attention to the past and/or future. While a growing body of research has investigated how a variety of psychological, social, and environmental factors associated with temporal focus shape implicit space-time mappings, little is known about whether the degree of entropy in the visual context influences spatial conceptions of time. Based on the findings that high-entropy images invoke a past-focused mindset and low-entropy images invoke a future-focused mindset, the current work explores how entropy impacts people’s temporal focus and mental representations of time. In Study 1 involving a self-report measure of temporal focus, we found that while high-entropy images increased Chinese students’ attention to the past and led to more past-in-front responses, low-entropy images increased Chinese students’ attention to the future and led to more future-in-front responses. Using both self-reported measures and other-report ratings of temporal focus, Study 2 conceptually replicated the findings of Study 1 in a more diverse population. Considered together, these results bolster support for the Temporal Focus Hypothesis that entropy triggers corresponding changes in temporal focus and in mental sagittal space-time mappings.

Abstract

This study examines the interpretation of evidential propositions using insights from the Lexical Constructional Model (LCM), including its recent classification of situational scenarios (cognitive models) into three sub-types: descriptive, attitudinal and regulatory. The aim is to show that processing the meaning of an evidential proposition can require profiling parts of all three types of situational scenarios– a process that is activated (at the lexical-constructional, discourse and implicational levels) by such cognitive operations as echoing, contrast and metonymy. This is consistent with the principles of Relevance according to which the contextual information required for interpreting the speaker’s explicit/implicit meaning (i.e., explicating/implicating it) is not limited to a particular knowledge type or source (encyclopaedic, socio-cultural, religious and so on). The study, thus, complements work on evidentiality by going beyond its features, markers and behaviour in discourse to focus on the interpretation of evidential propositions in connection with cognitive models and operations.

Abstract

Metaphors can express ideological and evaluative positions. However, comparative studies on the framing implications of sports/game metaphors in Western and Chinese contexts remain underexplored. This study examines how journalists in China, the UK, and the US use sports/game metaphors to frame trade disputes in comparable English-language economic news based on a context-sensitive and hierarchical analytical framework. Results reveal the prevalence of sports/game metaphors in both Chinese and Western texts. Additionally, the results demonstrate that the UK and US texts exhibit socio-cultural preferences for associating specific sports/game scenarios that are salient in Western cultures, e.g., rugby, with trade disputes, and favor a competition narrative. However, the Chinese texts favor a coopetition narrative, suggesting both competition and win-win cooperation. This study adds new insights into cultural variations in the use and framing implications of sports/game metaphors in Western and Chinese economic discourse to express ideological standpoints towards similar economic issues.

Abstract

In recent years, personal development has driven increasing interest, and the study of metaphor has expanded to various discourse types. This study aims to explore the metaphors in personal development discourse and determine their schematicity hierarchies, using Carol Dweck’s (2016) book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success as a case study. Metaphor Identification Procedure VU (Steen et al., 2010) is used to identify metaphors in the book and Zoltan Kövecses’s (2020) Extended Conceptual Metaphor Theory is used to establish the relationship between the metaphors identified and primary metaphors. The findings show that topics such as mindset, growth mindset, fixed mindset, success, and failure instantiate correlation and resemblance metaphors. In addition, all the correlation-based metaphors identified in the corpus possess full schematic hierarchies. It entails that they all consist of image schema, domain, frame and mental space levels. Moreover, the findings reveal that in different metaphorical expressions, the same image schema-level metaphor is likely to activate different domain, frame and mental space-level metaphors. Finally, some image schema-level metaphors share the same domain-level metaphor in different schematicity hierarchies, whereas others activate different domain-level metaphors in different schematicity hierarchies.

Abstract

The word for grey has been studied in different languages as part of the definition of basic colour terms, and in historical linguistics some studies have addressed grey as their main focus. The Finnish basic colour term harmaa (‘grey’) has been addressed before in data from early to mid-twentieth century and as a basic colour term, but in contemporary language harmaa has not been analysed with corpus methods before. This study presents the semantics of harmaa in written communicational use of language, internet conversation, in the framework of Cognitive Grammar and access semantics, using qualitative corpus analysis. The study results show that the shade or set of shades that harmaa profiles in different contexts vary, and surface textures, mood, or evaluative aspects can also be profiled. However, more studies are needed to reveal the semantics of harmaa in different interactional situations.

Abstract

In this article, we examine the semantics of RA in Persian, focusing on the aspectual notion of delimitation. Delimitation is a term commonly used in the study of aspect and information structure. We distinguish between two functions of RA: as a semantic operator that measures delimited events involving mereological theme and incremental path verbs, and as an information-structural marker where RA serves as frame-setting accusative adjuncts. We also explore the aspectuality of RA in correlation with a motion construction involving a TA-headed goal phrase within the scope of RA. The motion event with TA, representing the vector, is rendered bounded through the influence of RA, indicating the endpoint of the path. Using Croft’s (2012) two-phase dimensional model of aspect, we demonstrate that TA and RA are both associated with delimitation, but operate on different axes of boundedness – TA on the qualitative axis and RA on the temporal axis.

Abstract

In the present article, I study the language used in three English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) digital marketing seminars, in which the tutor and other participants gave feedback about the ‘pitches’, (i.e., short marketing speeches), presented by students in the same session. As this activity involved making reference to what students said in their ‘pitches’, the seminars provide ample evidence for the metaphorical construction of speech activity by the participants in the seminars. The analysis shows that these ELF speakers mostly adopted pre-existing and conventionalised metaphorical models used in English and that they do not attempt to incorporate other source domains, except for one, which I have labelled storytelling, as it associates pitch delivery with telling a story. However, at the level of linguistic metaphors used, greater use of unconventional metaphors can be found, although mostly adapted to and consistent with the conceptual models identified. In general terms, metaphor innovation in this English as a Lingua Franca context seems to be ‘norm following’ rather than ‘norm transcending’.

This article reviews Constructions in contact 2: Language change, multilingual practices, and additional language acquisition

This article reviews Unpacking metaphor-related prepositions in political discourse