Metaphor and the Social World - Volume 13, Issue 2, 2023

Abstract

Metaphors and proverbs are an indispensable sociocultural aspect of language. In this paper, we look at the sociocultural linguistic heterogeneity codified through metaphors and proverbs among three Arabic dialects, namely the Qatari, the Palestinian, and the Tunisian ones. The corpora of metaphors and proverbs have been elicited through interviews with relatives and friends, who live in Qatar, Palestine, and Tunisia respectively. The data are analyzed in the context of cognitive metaphor theory with a focus on comparative and interactionist perspectives. With a focus on two emerging themes, namely physical appearance, and sexual orientation, we argue that the Qatari dialect seems to be more inventive in the sexual orientation theme, while the Palestinian dialect foregrounds appearance due to the importance of marriage in Palestinian society, and the Tunisian dialect shows no emphasis on a specific theme. The differences we have found in metaphors and proverbs offer a glimpse of the various social orders, symbolic meanings, and lifestyles found in the three respective cultures, which are a vital aspect of cultural literacy in the Arab world. In this sense, the study is a suggestion on how to analyze qualitatively sociocultural linguistic heterogeneity at the level of figurative language and its symbolic meanings.

Abstract

Incels, or involuntary celibates, are a community of typically heterosexual young men who wish to, but do not, have sexual and romantic relationships with women. As a community, they have previously been characterised by their hatred for women and violent acts against members of society who they believe prevent them from having relations with women. In this paper, we highlight the pervasiveness of metaphor in incel communication, so far unaddressed in the budding studies of incel language. Specifically, using a sample of circa 22,500 words from the banned incel Reddit forum r/Braincels, we focus on how members of this community use metaphoric expressions to dehumanise gendered social actors, both as individuals and as groups. We discuss our findings against the backdrop of metaphor approaches to language, gender, and sexuality, and the relevance of dehumanising metaphorical rhetoric for online misogynist groups.

Abstract

When metaphors appear in a text in clusters within the same source domain, they are usually referred to as an extended metaphor (Gibbs, 2015; Naciscione, 2016; Semino, 2008; Shutova, 2015; Thibodeau, 2016; Werth, 1994). This creates a coherent narrative or a scenario (Musolff, 2016) encoding the evaluation of a particular socially-contested issue. The present study analyses how the evaluation of higher education reform in Lithuanian media is manifested through extended metaphor and whether negative evaluations prevail. For this investigation, a corpus of Lithuanian media texts on higher education reform was examined within the frameworks of Critical Metaphor Analysis (Charteris-Black, 2014) and scenarios (Musolff, 2016). The findings show that, when extended metaphors are ascribed positive, negative or mixed values and categorised into mini-narratives, leitmotif narratives and long narratives, they usually (24 out of 28) follow negatively and often death-related and ironically encoded narratives with differently twisted scenarios. This study, therefore, shows a persistent attempt by the media to evaluate the ongoing reform negatively.

Abstract

Reliable identification of metaphors from multimodal discourse has attracted scholarly attention in recent years. However, the role of individual differences in identifying creative metaphors from video ads is underexplored from an empirical perspective. This includes the extent to which individual differences influence metaphor identification in multimodal discourse and how the individual differences result in divergent identification. Our study contributes to addressing these issues by investigating how the background of researching metaphors influences identifying creative metaphors from video ads. We compared results of creative metaphor identification from three metaphor analysts and three external annotators who were novice to metaphor research and probed into the underlying reasons for divergent identification through discussions among six annotators. Both groups of annotators applied Creative Metaphor Identification Procedure for Video Advertisements (C-MIPVA) (Pan & Tay, 2021) into the same 20 Chinese video ads through a systematic process of inter-rater reliability examinations. Results from Fleiss’ Kappa and Percentage Agreement provided substantial support for reliable identification, regardless of the metaphor research background. Discussions among annotators revealed that the interplay between the individual differences in life experience and the influences of temporal and dynamic discourse lead to extra identification, different content, and missing cases of metaphors.

Abstract

Science communication is highly important in present-day society. But mere factual information transfer does not suffice for enhancing public understanding of scientific results, theories, and concepts. In this paper we compare science communication among experts with communication from experts to laypeople, to better understand the role of metaphors in constructing understanding of abstract scientific concepts. As a case study, we analyze specialist and non-specialist scientific articles on epigenetics, the study of heritable changes in gene expression not altering DNA sequence. The results of our analysis show that there is no substantial difference between the two types of articles in frequency of metaphors and in their content. However, the function of the metaphors is different: the figurative aspect of metaphors is employed for public understanding but plays no role in specialist scientific articles. We outline the implications of these results for current philosophical debates on scientific understanding and public understanding of science: (1) metaphors are tools for rendering theoretical concepts intelligible, for both expert and lay audiences; (2) expert and public understanding differ in degree rather than in kind; (3) conveying understanding crucially involves skills: metaphors in this context do not so much add knowledge as enhance relevant conceptual reasoning abilities.

Abstract

The framing impact of political discourses has long been attested for. Metaphors in particular are known to ease the understanding of complex concepts and processes. Yet, the question remains to what extent metaphors do work the same on different recipients? Based on an experimental design, we test a potentially key moderating variable in the study of political metaphors: political knowledge. Our experiment aims at determining the extent to which the confrontation of individuals to arguments and metaphors impacts their preferences regarding the implementation of a basic income in Belgium. In particular, we hypothesize that the marginal effect of metaphors as cognitive shortcuts decreases when political knowledge increases. Our findings suggest that some metaphorical frames are more successful than others, hereby supporting the idea that the aptness of the metaphorical frame is a key factor when conducting experiments. We conclude that political knowledge is an important variable when analyzing the framing effect of metaphors, especially when it goes about very low or very high levels of political knowledge. The insertion of metaphors in political discourses may easily succeed in rallying individuals behind a given cause, but this would only work if participants have a lower knowledge of politics.

Abstract

Metaphors and metonymies are considered complex phenomena dependent on various factors. This paper looks at genre (as one of the many factors) to verify to what extent the subjective descriptions of a highly controversial and complex social topic such as whaling can be driven by discourse type. The whaling discourse was chosen because antiwhaling activist NGOs’ have had great success with their extensive social campaigns worldwide, while it is a highly controversial and politically charged topic. These unique features resulted in the emergence of advertising and political cartoons. By examining the similarities and differences between metaphors, metonymies, and other meaning-making tropes such as irony and hyperbole, the observed difference concerns both the intention behind the selection of source domains and a preference for favoring certain evaluative metaphorical expressions in one genre as opposed to another to have a distinct impact on its intended audience.

This article reviews Figuring out Figuration: A Cognitive Linguistic Account97890272110579789027257796

This article reviews Poetic Metaphors: Creativity and Interpretation97890272111189789027257734

This article reviews Metaphor in Legal Discourse1-5275-7849-6978-1-5275-7849-4